leo-tolstoy

"The chief personage in the house was my Mother. She settled everything. She interviewed Nikolái, the cook, and ordered dinner; she sent us out for walks, made our shirts, was always nursing some baby at the breast; all day long she was bustling about the house with hurried steps. One could be naughty with her, though she was sometimes angry and punished us. She knew more about everything than anybody else. She knew that one must wash every day, that one must eat soup at dinner, that one must talk French, learn not to crawl about on all fours, not to put one's elbows on the table; and if she said that one was not to go out walking because it was just going to rain, she was sure to be right, and one must do as she said. When I coughed she gave me liquorice or King of Denmark drops; so I was very fond of coughing. When my Mother put me to bed and went upstairs to play duets with Father, I found it very hard to go to sleep, and I was annoyed at being left alone; so I started coughing and went on until Nurse went and fetched Mamma, and I was angry with her for coming so slowly. I entirely refused to go to sleep until she had come to my rescue and measured out exactly ten drops in a wineglass and given them to me."

"The fifth, Masha (Mary) two years old, the one whose birth nearly cost Sónya her life. A weak and sickly child. Body white as milk, curly white hair; big, queer blue eyes, queer by reason of their deep, serious expression. Very intelligent and ugly. She will be one of the riddles; she will suffer, she will seek and find nothing; will always be seeking what is least attainable."

"Masha was on bad terms with her mother; wholeheartedly devoted to her father, she suffered more than anyone else on his account. … Following in her father's footsteps, aflame with renunciation and self-sacrifice, Masha mortified her flesh, slept on hard boards covered with a thin layer of felt; she lived on a vegetarian diet, worked from morning to night in the fields, teaching children, helping the sick, the unfortunates, or visiting peasant families."

"Masha died quietly, conscious to the last. Father and Kolya were sitting by her bed. They raised her on her pillow. An hour before she died she opened her eyes wide, saw Father and laid his hand on her breast. Father leaned over her and raised her thin, transparent hand to his lips. "I am dying," she whispered almost inaudibly."

"The first member of the family who allied herself with my Father at that time was my sister Masha… In 1885 she was fifteen years old. She was a thin, fair girl, lissom and rather tall, resembling my Mother in figure, but taking more after my Father in features, with the same strongly marked cheekbones and with bright blue eyes. Quiet and retiring in disposition, she always had a certain air of being, as it were, rather "put upon." She felt for my Father's solitude, and was the first of the whole family to draw away from the society of those of her own age, and unobtrusively, but firmly and definitely, to go over to my Father's side. Always a champion of the downtrodden and unfortunate, Masha threw herself whole-heartedly into the interests of the poor of the village and, whenever she could, helped them with such little physical strength as she had, and, above all, with her great responsive heart."

"Although my Father had long since renounced the copyright in all his works written after 1883, and although, after having made all his real estate over to his children he had as a matter of fact no property left, still he could not but be aware that his life was far from corresponding with his principles, and this consciousness perpetually preyed upon his mind. One has but to read some of his posthumous works attentively to see that the idea of leaving home and radically altering his whole way of life had presented itself to him long since and was a continual temptation to him."

"When he got home my Father at once told us of Alexander II's assassination, and the papers which arrived the next day confirmed the news. I remember the overwhelming impression which this senseless murder produced on my Father. Besides his horror at the cruel death of the Tsar, "who has done so much good to people and always wished them so much good, this good old man," he could not help thinking of the murderers, of the approaching executions, and "not so much about them as about those who were preparing to take part in their murder, and especially about Alexander III.""

"My Father hardly ever made us do anything; but it always somehow came about that of our own initiative we did exactly what he wanted us to. My Mother often scolded us and punished us; but when my Father wanted to make us do anything he merely looked us hard in the eyes, and we understood: that look was far more effective than any command. … My Father's great power as an educator lay in this, that it was as impossible to conceal anything from him as it was from one's own conscience. He knew everything, and to deceive him was just like deceiving oneself: it was nearly impossible, and quite useless."

"The first member of the family who allied herself with my Father at that time was my sister Masha… In 1885 she was fifteen years old. She was a thin, fair girl, lissom and rather tall, resembling my Mother in figure, but taking more after my Father in features, with the same strongly marked cheekbones and with bright blue eyes. Quiet and retiring in disposition, she always had a certain air of being, as it were, rather "put upon." She felt for my Father's solitude, and was the first of the whole family to draw away from the society of those of her own age, and unobtrusively, but firmly and definitely, to go over to my Father's side. Always a champion of the downtrodden and unfortunate, Masha threw herself whole-heartedly into the interests of the poor of the village and, whenever she could, helped them with such little physical strength as she had, and, above all, with her great responsive heart."

"Masha is worth a lot; serious, clever and kind. People reproach her for not having any exclusive attachments. But it's this that shows her true love. She loves everyone and makes everyone love her – not just as much as, but even more than people who love their own family exclusively."

"Anna Karenina was the name of the novel on which my Father and Mother were both at work. My Mother's work seemed much harder than my Father's, because we actually saw her at it, and she worked much longer hours than he did. … Leaning over the manuscript and trying to decipher my Father's scrawl with her short-sighted eyes, she used to spend whole evenings at work, and often sat up late at night after everybody else had gone to bed. Sometimes, when anything was written quite illegibly, she would go to my Father's study and ask him what it meant. … When it happened, my Father used to take the manuscript in his hand, and ask with some annoyance: "What on earth is the difficulty?" and would begin to read it out aloud. When he came to the difficult place he would mumble and hesitate, and sometimes had the greatest difficulty in making out, or rather in guessing, what he had written."

"During this summer [of 1906] the strain between Father and Mother grew deeper. … A young Tolstoyan by the name of Lebrun, whom Father loved very much, lived with us at this time and helped Father."

"“Leo Nicolayevich, what is madness?” I asked him … The reply followed. “It is selfishness,” he explained, “the narrowing of one's attention to oneself and afterward to any single idea.”"

"Persistent and undiscerning almost to the point of criminality as far as resources were concerned, this woman [Sophia Tolstaya] was of immeasurable hindrance to her husband, her children and humankind as a whole."

"A genius, an eighty-two year-old thinker and author, loved and respected by the whole world, having to flee like a criminal from his own home! To flee from the bottomless abyss created between persons having dissimilar guiding instincts! Through the cold impenetrable autumn night, Tolstoy ran alone to the nearest stable through the large apple orchard. And behind him, the terrifying specter of being caught and again made to drown in the insufferable surroundings in which he had been suffocated for all of thirty years! Before him, finally, lay moral freedom, so long and so earnestly awaited! Finally, the possibility, though not for long, though only until death, of relief from the pressures on his mind! The possibility of carrying out his much revered duty before his conscience and before toiling humankind! He had been hindered in life. Now he can at last succeed in dying with dignity."

"The fate of all founders of moral and religious schools did not escape Tolstoy. He had three types of disciples: those of one type looked after their own internal improvement and had, so to say, a poor opinion of all practical actions. They are the followers of the letter of the law. Very rarely does one encounter persons like this among Tolstoyans. Those of another type left their studies or privileged situations and went to live among the people, maintaining themselves by farming or the trades. They are the men of goodwill on humankind's labor front. Those of the third and final type do not reject their special skills, through which they serve the people and true progress. They are the friends of the people."

"In the spiritual world, just as in the physical world, nothing is lost. Where an ember quietly glows, even a breeze can fan a blaze. Just as he instructed me, Tolstoy's powerful call touched millions of hearts and intellects."

"Nature is like a woman worthy of being placed on a pedestal. In order fully to understand and appreciate her, it is necessary to live with her a long time in intimate proximity."

"My mother was the source of Tolstoi's greatest happiness, and the real author of his greatness. If there is sometimes ground for thinking, while reading the works of Tolstoi, "Do what I do, and not what I say!" such things can never be said in reading the book of my mother's life, for she was not only a model and devoted wife, a tender and affectionate mother to her children, a born housekeeper, a woman of society and an author's wife, but she was also the celebrated Russian writer's greatest moral support, without which he would never have attained the position he holds in the eyes of the world today."

"Tanya strove to reconcile her parents. She was very fond of her mother, but she sympathized with her father's views and she pleaded with her mother to make some concessions."

"In France it is often said that Tolstoi was the first and great cause of the Russian Revolution, and there is a good deal of truth in this. Nobody has done more destructive work in any country than Tolstoi. The peasant, the soldier, the public official, the nobleman, the priest, and the workman were all reached by the arrows of his accusing mind. There was nobody in the whole nation, in fact, who did not feel himself guilty, from the point of view of the severe condemnation of the great writer."

"I was fortunate enough to grow up surrounded by people who loved one another and who loved me. I assumed then that such loving relationships were only natural, an inherent characteristic of human nature. And despite a long existence during which I have since encountered cruelty and hatred between men, that is still my belief. I am truly convinced to this day that such behaviour is no more normal than illness is. And that, like illness, it is produced by transgressing the fundamental laws of life."

"One of my friends, Vasilii Maklakov, a learned and sharp-witted person, used to talk of Tolstoy's followers: "The one who understands Tolstoy does not become his follower. Whereas the one who becomes a follower does not understand him." I was often convinced of the truth of these words. There were many so called "Tolstoyans" amongst the numerous visitors who came from all over the world to meet father. More often than not they strove to resemble their teacher in their outward appearance without comprehending the real essence of his ideas. Those who understood Tolstoy could not follow in his footsteps. After all, Tolstoy felt that each person was free to live according to his own beliefs. And so, for those who understood Tolstoy the external appearances did not mean much. I once noticed an unknown young man amongst father's visitors. He was dressed in a Russian shirt, his trousers tucked into enormous boots. "Who is it?" I asked my father. Papa bent towards me and shielding his mouth with his hand whispered into my ear: "This young man belongs to an alien and totally beyond my understanding, sect—the Tolstoyan sect.""

"We also loved a certain story papa used to tell us. It was called 'the Seven Cucumbers' … 'A little boy went into a garden. He saw a cucumber. A cucumber as big as this (holding up his two forefingers to demonstrate the length). He picked it, hup!, and ate it. (The voice quite matter of fact so far, and pitched fairly high.) The little boy continued on his way and saw a second cucumber, a cucumber as big as this. Hup! He ate it. (The voice now slightly louder and deeper.) He went on, he saw a third cucumber, a cucumber as big as this (the forefingers indicating a length of about eighteen inches), and hup ! He ate it. … And so it went on until the seventh cucumber, with papa's voice getting louder and louder, deeper and deeper … When papa showed how the little boy ate the seventh cucumber his mouth with its missing teeth opened so wide it was frightening to see."

"Do you know why my father is buried under a little mound in the shade of some old oak trees, there in wood? It is because that spot conjured up for him a childhood memory particularly dear to his heart. The oldest of the Tolstoy children, Nicolai, who had a great influence on all his brothers, and particularly on my father, had told him that just there, in that particular part of the wood, he had secretly buried a little green stick on which he had carved a magic spell. Whoever found that wand would become its master, and would have the power to make everyone in the world happy. Hatred, war, disease, grief, and misfortunes would disappear from the face of the earth, all men would know happiness and become 'Muravei Brothers', or in other words 'Ant Brothers.' 'That phrase appealed to me particularly,' my father remarked later, 'because it made me think of all the members of an anthill living together in perfect harmony.'"

"Those who have read this book [War and Peace] will remember how the great heart of the author sought, even in the past of his people, the eternal secret of love. In Anna Karenina we find, already distinctly set forth in the personality of Levine, the aspirations of Tolstoi himself, which become more and more conscious and defined. The criticism of modern society, and all its institutions, its science and its literature; the tendency towards the simple and natural life of the people, original and novel ideas in regard to religion—all this is beginning, in the book in question, to take in the heart and brain of the writer a more or less precise form."

"My father was accustomed to say that disorders of the mind are simply a heightened form of egoism. And it was certainly in this form that my mother's psychological anomalies presented themselves. She who had once been always ready to give of herself totally, without any thought of self, now fell prey to a single morbid preoccupation: what other people were saying about her. What would they say about her in the future? Might they one day, after her death, treat her as a Xantippe? And she had some grounds for such fears, since she was surrounded by people who pitied her husband for all she made him endure."

"Calm had come to her during her final years. Her husband's dream for her had in part come true, that transformation for which he would have sacrificed all his fame. My father's ideas had become less alien to her. She had become a vegetarian. She was kind to those around her. But she had retained one weakness: she was still afraid of what people would say and write about her when she had gone, she feared for her reputation. As a result she never let slip the slightest opportunity of justifying her words and actions."

"We had in the Tolstoi family a special dance, which everybody danced with joy when wearisome visitors at last drove off from the house. This was known as the Numidian dance, and it had something African and very wild about it. My father, who was generally the first to lead off, at such times sprang forward, the right hand raised above his head, and began to hop, skip and run around the long table. My mother, in her turn, followed by our tutors, governesses and all the children, launched themselves at the same movement round the table, and when it had been frantically circled several times, everybody stopped, satisfied, and sighed with relief."

"Schopenhauer's ideas on women, on pain, and on freedom of conscience were always completely shared by my father. "When one suffers," said Schopenhauer, "one has the consolation of knowing that the sufferings of others may be greater than one's own." Tolstoi loved to repeat this thought, though I must confess that for me it meant nothing. To my mind, on the contrary, one may suffer still more when one has the knowledge that others are suffering also."

"The youngest daughter, Alexandra, was getting older. Dedicating herself completely to her father, she was an effective moral support and helper in his writing labors. She even learned stenography."

"How difficult it is to recognize spiritual illness in a person close to you, especially if the habit of years has established that person's power and authority. Had I realized that my mother was ill, my whole attitude toward her would have been different. But people far more experienced than I were equally blind. With every day Mother grew more nervous. Everything irritated her, made her weep, have hysterics, outbursts of temper."

"Tanya strove to reconcile her parents. She was very fond of her mother, but she sympathized with her father's views and she pleaded with her mother to make some concessions. Sergei tried to get away from it all. Ilya was absorbed in his own material cares and family. Lev was inclined to his mother's side. Masha was on bad terms with her mother; wholeheartedly devoted to her father, she suffered more than anyone else on his account."

"Seryozha was different from all the other Tolstoys because of his great shyness and reserve. He often concealed his emotions, his outbursts of tenderness or passion, under a cloak of deliberate rudeness, or brusqueness. The most serious-minded and industrious of all the Tolstoy brothers, he had his own separate existence; he did not lean toward either his mother, or his father, and he rarely confided his thoughts to the members of his family. It was only when he sat down to the piano and for hours played his beloved Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Grieg, or attempted to compose something himself, that everyone listened to him."

"From time to time he Tolstoy] posed—a tiring obligation—for painters and sculptors: for Repin, Pasternak who did a study of the family, Aronson, and Paolo Trubetskoy. Trubetskoy, a Russian educated in Italy, did some splendid little statues of Tolstoy—one of him on horseback. Father was very fond of him. A sweet and childlike person in addition to his great gifts, he read practically nothing, spoke little, all his life was wrapped up in sculpture. As a convinced vegetarian he would not eat meat but cried: “Je ne mange pas de cadavre!” if anyone offered him some. In his studio in St. Petersburg there was a whole zoo: a bear, a fox, a horse, and a vegetarian wolf."

"In what did Tolstoi's work actually consist? It is the outcry of the universal conscience. His works voice the consciences of us all, expressed sincerely by the most ardent and the most sensitive of hearts. The popularity of Tolstoi throughout the world is explained solely by the simplicity and the sincerity of his doctrine, which appeals to all, without distinction, calling on mankind to recognise the same great truth, to make the same great moral effort for the realisation of love."

"There was one characteristic which Tolstoy kept until late in life—a childlike, spontaneous gaiety, an unaffected, almost passionate enthusiasm for sports, games, all sorts of pastimes. “A game is a serious matter”—this was a saying of Tatiana A. Behrs-Kuzminskaya which Tolstoy loved to repeat. When he was playing, wrestling, hunting, chasing his children, he did it in earnest, he threw himself into it with all his being and enjoyed it as much as his children. The school children were infected with his gaiety."

"Masha died quietly, conscious to the last. Father and Kolya were sitting by her bed. They raised her on her pillow. An hour before she died she opened her eyes wide, saw Father and laid his hand on her breast. Father leaned over her and raised her thin, transparent hand to his lips. “I am dying,” she whispered almost inaudibly."

"The chief personage in the house was my Mother. She settled everything. She interviewed Nikolái, the cook, and ordered dinner; she sent us out for walks, made our shirts, was always nursing some baby at the breast; all day long she was bustling about the house with hurried steps. One could be naughty with her, though she was sometimes angry and punished us. She knew more about everything than anybody else. She knew that one must wash every day, that one must eat soup at dinner, that one must talk French, learn not to crawl about on all fours, not to put one's elbows on the table; and if she said that one was not to go out walking because it was just going to rain, she was sure to be right, and one must do as she said. When I coughed she gave me liquorice or King of Denmark drops; so I was very fond of coughing. When my Mother put me to bed and went upstairs to play duets with Father, I found it very hard to go to sleep, and I was annoyed at being left alone; so I started coughing and went on until Nurse went and fetched Mamma, and I was angry with her for coming so slowly. I entirely refused to go to sleep until she had come to my rescue and measured out exactly ten drops in a wineglass and given them to me."

"How difficult it is to recognize spiritual illness in a person close to you, especially if the habit of years has established that person's power and authority. Had I realized that my mother was ill, my whole attitude toward her would have been different. But people far more experienced than I were equally blind. With every day Mother grew more nervous. Everything irritated her, made her weep, have hysterics, outbursts of temper."

"Persistent and undiscerning almost to the point of criminality as far as resources were concerned, this woman was of immeasurable hindrance to her husband, her children and humankind as a whole."

"My father was accustomed to say that disorders of the mind are simply a heightened form of egoism. And it was certainly in this form that my mother's psychological anomalies presented themselves. She who had once been always ready to give of herself totally, without any thought of self, now fell prey to a single morbid preoccupation: what other people were saying about her. What would they say about her in the future? Might they one day, after her death, treat her as a Xantippe? And she had some grounds for such fears, since she was surrounded by people who pitied her husband for all she made him endure."

"My mother was the source of Tolstoi's greatest happiness, and the real author of his greatness. If there is sometimes ground for thinking, while reading the works of Tolstoi, "Do what I do, and not what I say!" such things can never be said in reading the book of my mother's life, for she was not only a model and devoted wife, a tender and affectionate mother to her children, a born housekeeper, a woman of society and an author's wife, but she was also the celebrated Russian writer's greatest moral support, without which he would never have attained the position he holds in the eyes of the world today."

"His coldness is a torture to me, and I have started to seek other things to fill my inner life, and have learnt to love music, to read into it and discern the complicated human emotions contained in it; but not only is music disapproved of in this house, I am bitterly criticised for it, so once again I feel that my life has no purpose, and bowing my back I copy out some boring article on art for the tenth time, trying to find some consolation in doing my duty, but my lively nature resents it and I long for a life of my own, and when there's an icy wind blowing I rush out of the house, run through the forest to the Voronka and throw myself into the freezing water, and there's some pleasure in the physical emotion."

"I am so tired of all this intellectualising – attacking this and denying that, and searching not for truth, for that would be good, but for anything startling, shocking or original, anything that hasn't been said before – and it is so tedious. When people endure heart-ache and suffering in their search for truth, that is fine and honourable, but it's wrong merely to try and shock others. Each person should seek the truth for himself."

"Everyone wants love, but there are so few who can give it. Or else you offer it passionately, selflessly, and it's rejected, your love is not wanted, it's a burden."

"It is always the way, the richer the imagination the poorer the life. One can imagine anything – thousands of different worlds – yet one has to live in one's own little circle."

"My jealousy is a congenital illness, or maybe in loving him I have nothing else to love."

"Calm had come to her during her final years. Her husband's dream for her had in part come true, that transformation for which he would have sacrificed all his fame. My father's ideas had become less alien to her. She had become a vegetarian. She was kind to those around her. But she had retained one weakness: she was still afraid of what people would say and write about her when she had gone, she feared for her reputation. As a result she never let slip the slightest opportunity of justifying her words and actions."

"We live in such isolation, and here I am again with my silent friend, my diary."