Part 43

When my turn came, immediately afterwards, the professor turned on me in truly savage demeanour. "That is not it; that is not it at all," exclaimed he. "This is not the way to prepare for higher education. You only want to wear the uniform and to boast of being first."

The demeanour of this professor so affected me that my confusion was complete. I only received two marks, and the injustice so depressed me that I lost all ambition and allowed the remaining examinations to proceed without making any effort. I made up my mind that it was unwise to aim at being first, and I resolved to adhere to this sentiment in the university.

My father married again. He was forty-eight when he took Avdotya Epifanova as his second wife. She was a beautiful woman, whom Mamma used to call Dunitchka. But I had suspected nothing until Papa actually announced to us that he was going to marry her. The wedding was to take place in a fortnight. I and Volodya returned to Moscow at the beginning of September, and on the following day I went to the university for my first lecture.

It was a magnificent, sunny day, and as I entered the auditorium I felt lost in the throng of gay youths flitting about through the doors and among the corridors. Belonging to no particular group I felt isolated, and then even angry, and I remember in my heart that this first day was a dismal occasion for me. I looked at the professor with an ironical feeling, for he commenced his lecture with an introduction which, to my mind, was without sense. I decided at this first lecture that there was no need to write down everything that each professor said, and to this principle I adhered.

Though during my course I made many pleasant acquaintances, and so felt less isolated than at first, I indulged in little real comradeship. But during the winter my attention was much engrossed with affairs of the heart, for I was in love three times. Yet I was overwhelmed with shyness, fearing that my love should be discovered by its object. With two of the young ladies, indeed, I had already been in love previously. Of one of them I was now enamoured for the third time. But I knew that Volodya also regarded her with passionate ecstasy. I felt that it would certainly not be agreeable to him to learn that two brothers were in love with the same young woman.

Therefore I said nothing to him of my love. But great satisfaction was afforded to my mind by the fact that our love was so pure, and that each would be ready, if needful, to make a sacrifice for the sake of the other. But that self-abnegation did not, after all, extend to Volodya, for when he heard that a certain diplomat was to marry the girl, he was disposed to slap his face and to challenge him to a duel. It happened that I had only spoken once to the young lady, and my love passed away in a week, as I made no effort to perpetuate it.

During that winter I was quite disenchanted with the social pleasures to which I had looked forward when I entered the university, in imitation of my brother Volodya. He danced a great deal, and Papa also went with his young wife to balls. But at the first one which I attended I was so shy that I declined the invitation of the Princess Kornakova to dance, declaring that I did not dance, though I had come to her evening party with the express intention of dancing a great deal. I remained silently in one place the whole evening.

Avdotya's passionate love for Papa was evident in every word, look, and action. We were always hypocritically polite to her, called her chère maman, and noted that at first she was fond of calling herself stepmother, and that she plainly felt the unpleasantness of her position. Her disposition was very amiable and she was in no way exacting.

My first examination at length arrived. It was on differential and integral calculus. I was indifferent and abstracted, but a feeling of some dread passed over me when the same young professor who had questioned me at the entrance examination looked me in the face. I answered so badly that he looked at me compassionately, and said quietly but firmly that as I should not pass in the second class I had better not present myself for examination. I went home and remained weeping in my room for three days over my failure. I even looked out my pistols, in order that they might be at hand if I should feel a wish to shoot myself. Finally, I saw my father and begged him to permit me to enter the hussars, or to go to the Caucasus.

Though he was not pleased, yet, when he saw how deep was my grief he sought to comfort me by saying that it was not so very bad, and that arrangements might be made for a different course of study. After a few days I became composed, but did not leave the house till we departed for the country. I may some day relate the sequel in the happier half of my youth.

* * * * *

My Confession

Count Lyof N. Tolstoy in writing this work expressed himself in such independent terms that it could not be published in Russia, but was issued in Geneva in 1888, by the firm of Elpidine, who had printed in 1886 his "What is my Life," and in 1892 brought out his "Walk in the Light." The books thus issued in the original Russian version outside of the famous author's native land are all purely spiritual, and are written in the most elevated tone. But Tolstoy's mode of interpreting the Scriptures is not approved by the Holy Synod of the Eastern Orthodox Church, or Russo-Greek Communion, and thus most of his treatises which come within the strictly religious category are classed amongst the "Forbidden Books" of modern Russian literature. In this "Confession" Tolstoy emphatically strikes the keynote which is the motif of all his didactic writings. It is an affirmation of the principle that the pure spirit of religion, apart from external dogma, is the really precious factor of life. He follows the same strain in his "What I Believe," and his "Christianity of Christ." The following synopsis is translated and summarised from the original Russian.

I.--Evil Early Years

Though reared in the faith of the Orthodox Eastern, or Russo-Greek Church, I had by the time when, at the age of eighteen, I left the university ceased to believe what I had been taught. My faith could never have been well grounded in conviction. I not only ceased to pray, but also to attend the services and to fast. Without denying the existence of God, yet I cherished no ideas either as to the nature of God or the teaching of Christ.

I found that my wish to become a good and virtuous man, whenever the aspiration was in any way expressed, simply exposed me to ridicule; while I instantly gained praise for any vicious behaviour. Even my excellent aunt declared that she wished two things for me. One was that I should form a liaison with some married lady; the other that I should become an adjutant to the Tsar.

I look back with horror on the years of my young manhood, for I was guilty of slaying men in battle, of gambling, of riotous squandering of substance gained by the toil of serfs, of deceit, and of profligacy. That course of life lasted ten years. Then I took to writing, but the motive was grovelling, for I aimed at gaining money and flattery.

My aims were gratified, for, coming to St. Petersburg at the age of 26, I secured the flattering reception I had coveted from the authors most in repute. The war, about which I had written much from the field of conflict, had just closed. I found that a theory prevailed amongst the "Intelligentia" that the function of writers, thinkers, and poets was to teach; they were to teach not because they knew or understood, but unconsciously and intuitively. Acting on this philosophy, I, as a thinker and poet, wrote and taught I knew not what, received large remuneration for my efforts with the pen, and lived loosely, gaily, and extravagantly.

Thus I was one of the hierarchs of the literary faith, and for a considerable time was undisturbed by any doubts as to its soundness; but when three years had been thus spent, serious suspicions entered my mind. I noted that the devotees of this apparently infallible principle were at variance amongst themselves, for they disputed, deceived, abused, and swindled each other. And many were grossly selfish, and most immoral.

Disgust supervened, both with myself and with mankind in general. My error now was that though my eyes were opened to the vanity and delusion of the position, yet I retained it, imagining that I, as thinker, poet, teacher, could teach other men while not at all knowing what to teach. To my other faults an inordinate pride had been added by my intercourse with these litterateurs. That period viewed retrospectively seems to me like one of a kind of madness. Hundreds of us wrote to teach the people, while we all abused and confuted one another. We could teach nothing, yet we sent millions of pages all over Russia, and we were unspeakably vexed that we seemed to gain no attention whatever, for nobody appeared to listen to us.

II.--Groping in Darkness

I travelled in Europe at this period, before my marriage, still cherishing in my mind the idea of general perfectibility, which was so popular at that time with the "Intelligentia." Cultured circles clung to the theory of what we call "progress," vague though are the notions attaching to the term. I was horrified with the spectacle of an execution in Paris, and my eyes were opened to the fallacy underlying the theory of human wisdom. The doctrine of "progress" I now felt to be a mere superstition, and I was further confirmed in my conviction by the sad death of my brother after a painful illness of a whole year.

My brother was kind, amiable, clever, and serious; but he passed away without ever knowing why he had lived or what his death meant for him. All theories were futile in the face of this tragedy. Returning to Russia I settled in my rural home and began to organise schools for the peasants, feeling real enthusiasm for the enterprise. For I still clung to a great extent to the idea of progress by development. I thought that though highly cultured men all thought and taught differently and agreed about nothing, yet in the case of the children of the mujiks the difficulty could easily be surmounted by permitting the children to learn what they liked.

I also tried through my own newspaper to indoctrinate the people, but my mind grew more and more embarrassed. At length I fell sick, rather mentally than physically. I went off to the Steppes to breathe the pure air and to take mare's milk and to live the simple life. I married soon after my return to my estate. As time passed on I became happily absorbed in the interests of wife and children, largely forgetting during a happy interval of fifteen years the old anxiety for individual perfection. For this desire was superseded by that of promoting the welfare of my family.

All this time, however, I was writing busily, and was gaining much money as well as winning great applause. And in everything I wrote I persistently taught what was for me the sole truth--that our chief object in life should be to secure our own happiness and that of our family. Then, five years ago, supervened a mood of mental lethargy. I grew despondent; my perplexity increased, and I was tormented by the constant recurrence of such questions as--"Why?" and "What afterwards?" And by degrees the questions took a more concrete form. "I now possess six thousand 'desyatins' of land in the government of Samara, and three hundred horses--what then?" I could find no answer. Then came the question, "What if I could excel Shakespeare, and Molière, and Gogol, and become the most celebrated the world has ever seen--what then?" Answer, there was none; yet I felt that I must find one in order to go on living.

Life had now lost its meaning, and was no longer real to me. I was a healthy and happy man, and yet so empty did life seem to me that I was afraid of being tempted to commit suicide, even though I had not the slightest intention to perpetrate such a deed. But, fearing lest the temptation might come upon me I hid a rope away out of my sight, and ceased carrying a gun in my walks.

III.--The Spirit of Despair

It was in my 50th year that the question "What is life" had reduced me to utter despair. Various queries clustered round this central interrogation. "Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there any signification in life that can overcome inevitable death?" I found that in human knowledge no real answer was forthcoming to such yearnings. None of the theories of the philosophers gave any satisfaction. In my search for a solution of life's problem I felt like a traveller lost in a forest, out of which he can find no issue.