The Complete Plays of Leo Tolstoy (Annotated). Leo Tolstoy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ which leaves him dependent for sympathy, in his sufferings, on the cheerful, simple-minded peasant who waits upon him. It is through the unconscious influence of this peasant that Ivan Ilitch is at last brought into a state of mind where he no longer fears death, but dies with the calm composure of the muzhik. As is natural, this portion of the narrative outweighs the rest in the reader's interest, but there is some equally fine analytical work in the opening chapter, where Petr Ivanovitch, Ivan Ilitch's old friend, calls upon the widow.

      The most important article in this volume, however, is that devoted to the Census of Moscow. In general character, it is a continuation of My Religion, many of the same subjects being considered in the light of his personal experience as one of the census-takers in one of the poorest quarters of the city, to which he had been appointed at his own request. It was not to be expected that such a social study would be allowed to pass the censor unmutilated. The omissions are numerous and noteworthy. A hint of this state of things is sometimes conveyed by a line of dots, but in other cases no indication whatever is vouchsafed. Copies of the article, printed abroad, and under a different title, supply the suppressed passages, which are generally the most interesting of all. Count Tolstoi's idea of a census is to combine works of mercy with the technical labor: if a starving woman should come under the notice of one of the agents, she should be attended to, even if the census proper should go to destruction in consequence, the succor of the suffering being the most important task of our lives. In short, the census should be simply a means to that end.

      In 1882, Count Tolstoi went to live in Moscow, where he was speedily struck with the numerous beggars, by whom he was cheated, in accordance with methods universally prevalent, when he offered them work, or gave them money for specific objects. He found that old inhabitants of the city spoke with considerable satisfaction and pride of the 50,000 beggars, just as people in London had boasted to him of the poverty of London. Prompted by a desire to inspect this wretchedness in person, he finally went to a certain square, which was a sort of headquarters for an army of beggars, after having made several attempts and beaten a retreat, overcome by his feelings. Thence he followed the crowd to the Lyapinsky free lodging-house for the night. While waiting with the throng for the doors to open, at five p.m., he conversed with various poor people, treated them to hot sbiten (poor man's tea, made of water, honey, and laurel or salvia leaves), and gave them all the money he had about him, amounting to twenty rubles. He was conducted over the house, as soon as it was opened, by some of his new friends, and got his first sight of the double row of bunks and their wretched occupants, as the latter prayed, cursed, and jested. The passage which follows is omitted from the version authorized by the censor. It describes his sensations of personal guilt, on returning to his own house, with its carpeted stairs and anterooms, where, after removing his fur cloak, he sat down to a dinner of five courses, served by two lackeys, in dress-coats, white ties, and white gloves. He also describes and execution which ha had witnessed thirty years before, in Paris, and announces his conviction that he was guilty of murder, because he bestowed his tacit approval on it by being present without offering a remonstrance. He compares his sensations on that occasion to those experienced on the present one, when he might have given, not only the small change in his pocket, but the coat from his back and the entire contents of his house, and declares that he shall always hold himself to be an accomplice in crime so long as he possesses two garments, while there is any one who has none at all. In the evening he discussed the question with a friend, and unconsciously shouted at the latter, as he says, with tears in his voice, "I can't live so; it is impossible to live so, - impossible!" until his wife rushed in from an adjoining room to inquire the cause of his excitement. He was then made to feel ashamed of his heat in argument, was told that he never could talk quietly, that he became unpleasantly excited, and it was proved to him that the existence of such unfortunate wretches could not possibly afford him any excuse for embittering the lives of those about him. "I felt that this was perfectly just," he adds, "and held my tongue; but at the bottom of my heart I knew that I was right, and I could not calm myself."

      The luxury of his city life became intolerable to him, but his friends assured him that it was only because he was very good and tender-hearted, which he gladly believed. He then set about devising a plan of philanthropic activity, which would exhibit all his benevolence, although secretly persuaded that this was not what he wanted. This plan was the one above referred to in connection with the census, after exercising the exhaustive benevolence of which, the rich would be able to enjoy their luxuries without any compunction. All the friends to whom he wrote or spoke about banishing poverty from Moscow treated him with consideration, but appeared sorry to hear him utter nonsense which they could not qualify as such to his face. They allowed him to put down their names for various sums, but not one of them gave him ready money, as they would have done for a box at the theatre to see Sarah Bernhardt. At one elegant house, he found a large circle of ladies engaged in dressing dolls, which were to be raffled for the benefit of the poor, but lack of means prevented their giving him anything. He returned home with a mortified sense of having been engaged in something very shameful, but shame itself forbade the relinquishment of the scheme. He wrote his article on the census, containing an outline of his plan (it is given in this twelfth volume), and then read it to the city council, "blushing almost to tears" with embarrassment as he did so. No official action was taken; they all seemed to regret his folly; so did the students appointed to take the census; so did his wife, his son, and various other persons. He was still conscious that he was not on the right track, but his article was printed, and he entered on the duties connected with the census. He was assigned to a quarter of the city in which was situated a stronghold of the direst poverty, popularly known under the name of the "Rzhanoff house," or the "fortress." On the appointed day, the students who were to assist him made their appearance at that house early in the morning, but, as he did not rise until ten o'clock, and had to drink his coffee and smoke for his digestion, he, the benefactor, did not reach the fortress until twelve o'clock. His description of the sights which he witnessed there is graphic and terrible, as was to be expected; but at the end, he was ashamed to confess that he felt rather disappointed to discover that these people were not in the least peculiar, but exactly like his ordinary associates. He had gone there with the idea that he should find people in need of immediate assistance, and he saw petty artisans of various sorts, all cheerful and busily working. Where help was required, it had already been given by the poor people themselves. What these people needed, like people in the higher ranks, was to have their false views of life corrected. A comparison between the miserable women whom he found in this house and ladies of the higher classes has been suppressed by the censor. Among the children, he was particularly struck with a lad of twelve, named Serozha. He took Serozha to his own house, and installed him in the kitchen, being unwilling to introduce to his own children a boy fresh from the haunts of vice. Having thus, as he expresses it, shifted the feeding of the boy upon the cook, and presented him with some old clothes, he felt himself to be extremely good and benevolent. The child remained there one week, in the course of which Tolstoi addressed a few words to him on two occasions, and spoke to a shoemaker about taking the lad as an apprentice, as the latter had refused an offer to go to the country. At the end of the week, the boy ran away, and hired out for thirty kopeks a day, as one of a band of savages in costume, who led an elephant in a procession, and he appeared utterly ungrateful for Tolstoi's kindness. Thereupon the latter blames himself for having brought the boy into demoralizing contact with his own children, thereby imbuing him with the notion that enjoyment without labor was permissible to him also, since he saw the little Tolstois soiling and spoiling everything about them, breaking the dishes, eating dainties, and flinging to their dogs food which would have seemed a delicacy to this beggar lad. His criticism of his own course is very frank. His experience of giving assistance with money was a bitter disappointment; genteel beggars were voracious in their demands, and the really poor lied and deceived him, until his faith in his scheme was destroyed. Not one of the people who had offered their help or had promised money (he had reckoned their subscriptions at 3000 rubles) ever gave him a single kopek; but the students who were under his charge contributed what they received for their work on the census, - about twelve rubles. To this was added twenty-five rubles, sent to him by the city authorities, in compensation for his own work. "And I positively did not know," he adds, "to whom to give them." Before he went to the country for the summer, he made a special trip to the Rzhanoff fortress, for the purpose of "getting rid of those thirty-seven СКАЧАТЬ