It was not yet noon when the door opened and a supple, laughing creature burst in like a whirlwind and ran up the stairs, filling the house with music. Soon afterwards the servant summoned us to luncheon. When we went up-stairs the laughing singer with the voice like a silver bell met us at the door of the dining-room. It was the Countess Alexandra Lvovna, or, as she is known in the house, Sasha, a blooming, beautiful blonde, with her father\'s brows above great, wide-open, blue eyes. The Countess Sasha does not speak German. She did the honors of the luncheon in the absence of her father, who did not appear, since it is his custom not to interrupt his work at this time. Therefore another inmate of the house was present, a Circassian, a talented artist who had nursed the count in the Crimea and since then has remained in the family. She makes herself useful now by filing the count\'s correspondence. She speaks only Russian, however, so that she could take no part in the conversation.

Naturally, we spoke only of the countess\'s father.[Pg 296] His health the preceding year had been very weak from attacks of malaria and typhus, and even now the family were constantly anxious about him. For he does not spare himself in the least, and will not take his advanced years into consideration at all. For twenty years he has not eaten a morsel of meat. What appeared to be cutlets, which I saw him eat later, were made of baked rice. I cautiously led the conversation to a former inmate of the house, who, in an indiscreet book upon the family of the count, made the assertion that the count was only nominally a vegetarian, but occasionally made up for his abstinence by secretly eating tender beefsteaks. It would mean nothing in and of itself if a habitual meat-eater, after going over to vegetarianism in a general way, should now and then indulge the craving for meat. The secrecy of the indulgence, however, would be a piece of that hypocrisy of which the count is accused by his most obstinate enemies. We received from the countess, however, an explanation of the circumstances in regard to the German woman\'s book. Since the Tolsto? family, however, have long since pardoned the repentant authoress, it would be indelicate of me to publish the ancient history. Leo Tolsto? is no hypocrite. He does not even consider it a duty to be a vegetarian. All the rest of his family, including the Countess Sasha, eat meat. Tolsto? finds, however, that a vegetable diet agrees with him, and he therefore adheres to it without[Pg 297] wishing to convert anybody else to the same belief, as vegetarians are accustomed to do. The count, in general, does not try to make any converts, brings no pressure to bear on any one. Everybody may live exactly as he chooses, even in the bosom of the count\'s family. The Countess Sasha said, touchingly, "The only thing we can learn from him is whether a thing pleases him or not. That is enough, however, at least for me."

Nothing could be more touching than the relations between this last child remaining at home and her father. She hangs on his words. Every wish of his, spoken half aloud, is quickly and silently fulfilled by her. Since the marriage of the Countess Tatyana she has been his secretary, and her white hands operate the typewriter like those of the oldest amanuensis. She trills a little French song at the same time, and blushes to the neck when any one catches her at it and speaks of her sweet voice and accurate ear. Work for her father is a higher satisfaction to her. She subordinates herself completely to his thoughts. She used to be, like every one else, a lover of Shakespeare, but since she copied the latest work of her father upon, or rather against, Shakespeare, she has been convinced and converted by his arguments. She said this without any affectation, with the sincerity of a child. It is to be seen that the deep tenderness of her love for her father springs from her care of him. She trembles for him. Perhaps she exerts herself, too, to replace all the[Pg 298] brothers and sisters who have gone out from the home. Of nine living children—there were originally thirteen—she is the last. It is easy to see, too, how much the careful precautions of this daughter please the count. When his eyes rest on her face, beautiful with the distinction of race and maidenhood, it is as if a ray of light passed over his face. He does this, however, as if by stealth. His love is shy, as is hers.

Soon after luncheon the count sent me an invitation to join him. He had paused in his work to eat a few mouthfuls. Meanwhile we might chat. We again sat at the same table. The talk turned on the war, against which the count was just writing an article. He made the observation that the right-minded Russian was in a remarkable position. He contradicted all human feelings in wishing a defeat for his own nation. The bitterest misfortune that Russia could meet, however, would be the continuance of the present criminal régime, which demands so many victims, inflicts so much suffering upon Russia, and which, in case of victory, would only be strengthened. Quite recently he had received a letter from a highly gifted writer, a certain Semionov, whom he himself had discovered and taught. Semionov, a peasant, had been a janitor in Moscow, but on Tolsto?\'s advice had returned to his father, and had written a little volume of stories, which Tolsto? rates higher than those of Gorki. Now the gendarmes have confiscated everything he has, and, if[Pg 299] I am not mistaken, have even arrested the writer. The pressure, the count says, is unendurable. I told him of my meeting with the Cossack colonel in Tula and of the hotel servants in Moscow, who one and all wished to go to the scene of war for the sake of plunder. "Certainly," answered the count. "The soldier must rejoice over every war, for war gives him for the first time a kind of title to existence in his own eyes. As to these house-servants and waiters, however, who are so ready to take part in the war, their love of fighting is nothing but common love of stealing. The Europeans have rioted and plundered shamefully in China. The people of the lower classes suffer from these things, and thus all their evil instincts are awakened."

I told the count of the officially arranged patriotic demonstrations in St. Petersburg, of which I had been a witness, and in which alcohol had played its part.

"Yes, intoxication!" said the count; "they need that to make people forget that killing, robbery, and plunder are sins. If people only came to their senses they could no longer do these things; for nineteen hundred years of Christianity, however falsified, leave their trail in the consciousness of man, and make it impossible for him to rage like the heathen. But everything is done to suppress religion. Our upper classes have already completely lost religious consciousness. They either say \'Away with this nonsense!\' and become gross [Pg 300]materialists, or they remain orthodox and do not themselves know what they believe—stupid stuff about the world\'s being created in six days and lasting only six thousand years. This trash, which is taught the people as religion—that is to say, belief in the schools—is just as much a means of hindering religion as a superficial knowledge of science. Yet religion alone can free us from our evils, from war and violence, and bring men together again. Religion is at present in a latent condition in every one, and needs only to be developed. And this religion is the same for all, for the native religious consciousness is quite the same in all men. But the churches prevent this unity, and bury this religious consciousness under forms and dogmas which produce a sort of stupefaction instead of satisfying the religious hunger."

I repeated the amusing remark of the Cossack colonel of Tula, that Tolsto? was a great man, only that it was a pity that he was an atheist.

The poet laughed, with something like pain in the laugh.

"There is always a certain amount of truth in which people believe, only it is misunderstood. To that good Cossack faith and orthodoxy are identical. My own sister, who is in a convent, laments that her brother asserts that the Gospel is the worst book that has ever been written. The truth is that I made this assertion about the legends of the saints, but it is misquoted. The authorities know what I[Pg 301] think of the Gospel. They have even struck out of the Sermon on the Mount two verses which I put into an alphabet for the people."

"Who struck them out?" I asked.

"The censor, to be sure. An orthodox Christian censorship strikes out of the Sermon on the Mount two verses which do not suit it. This is called Christianity."

The authorities give the Tolsto? family the greatest difficulty in its work of educating the people. The village school was suppressed, because reading and writing were taught there and not orthodoxy. The instruction which the Countess Sasha now gives is quite unsystematic. Five children come to her at the old manor, and are taught the black arts of reading, writing, arithmetic, and manual training, in constant danger that some high authority will interfere to ward off this injury to the state.

"It is quite probable that we shall all be officially disciplined when my father is no longer living," the Countess Sasha said to us, with that calmness with which every one in Russia sacrifices himself to his convictions.

There was nothing pastoral, likewise nothing exalted, in Tolsto?\'s manner during this conversation. After finishing his luncheon he rose and walked up and down the long dining-room with me, both hands in his belt, as he is painted by Ryepin. He spoke conversationally, with no [Pg 302]especial emphasis on any word, as to one whom there is no need of convincing. It was the afternoon conversation of an intelligent country gentleman with his guest—the easy, matter-of-course talking in a minute of resting—talk that is not meant to go deep or to philosophize. To me it proved only the lively interest taken by Tolsto?............