Tolstoy

Father Nikon was deputed to show Tolstoy round the monastery’s cathedrals, and also the sacristy, where some of the chains worn by ascetic monks in the past were on display. Tolstoy was not impressed to learn that the tradition had not been maintained by the monastery’s monks. After attending a meeting of the Moscow Spiritual Academy, which was based there, one of its eminent faculty innocently asked him when his next novel was coming out. Quoting a verse from the second book of Peter, Tolstoy spat back that he did not want to be like a dog returning to his own vomit. Those present were probably too shocked to be impressed by his close familiarity with the Gospels, but they were certainly left in no doubt as to how he now related to his artistic works. Tolstoy submitted the monastery’s archimandrite to the same volley of questions he had posed to the representatives of the Church in Moscow. He was not satisfied by any of the answers he received. The archimandrite was rather shocked to encounter such pride, and produced the verdict: ‘I fear it will end badly.’⁷⁴

After returning home to Yasnaya Polyana in early October, Tolstoy made a note in his diary: ‘The Church, from the present day all the way back to the third century, is one long series of lies, cruelty and deception.’ By its very nature, he went on to observe, religious faith cannot submit to political power.⁷⁵ The tide had turned. In December Tolstoy went to talk to the Bishop of Tula about the faith of the common people, about pilgrimage and asceticism, and evidently scared the living daylights out of him by pinning him to the wall with his ‘burning questions’ and allowing no compromises.⁷⁶ The bishop advised the count to talk to Father Alexander, another priest in Tula, and Tolstoy typically acted on his suggestion immediately. It was Father Alexander who recommended that he study Metropolitan Makary’s Dogmatic Theology. Metropolitan Makary was a high-ranking church figure, but also a prolific scholar renowned for his thirty-volume History of the Russian Church. His authoritative Orthodox Dogmatic Theology was an award-winning five-volume work which went into many editions. Tolstoy wasted no time in obtaining a copy, and then sat down to study it very carefully.⁷⁷ He now had a project: he would put Orthodox theology to the test. He also began to write down the story of his spiritual journey, and embark on his own translation of the Gospels.

While Tolstoy’s soul was in ferment, family life went on around him at Yasnaya Polyana. Lessons, birthday parties, weddings, musical evenings, picnics, housework, and visits from family and friends all continued as usual. Sonya was always busy. When she was not teaching the children she was running the household, and she had very little time to herself. She had also been pregnant for most of 1879, and on 18 December, just after Tolstoy started getting to grips with Orthodox dogma, she gave birth to their seventh son, Mikhail (Misha). Another small baby meant postponing again any time for herself. That spring she had enjoyed doing some gardening, with the help of Jules Montels (who was also very deft at producing omelettes and cups of hot chocolate for their summer picnics). The window boxes and flower-beds she had sown with stocks, asters, verbena and phlox brought wonderful colour and heavenly scent. Sewing clothes, which also occupied her that spring, was not nearly as enjoyable as sowing seeds. She had to sew summer clothes for all her six children and it became very arduous. ‘I’ve been sewing away and I’m now sick to death of it and totally desperate,’ she wrote to her sister Tanya in March 1879. ‘I’ve got throat spasms, my head hurts… but I’ve still got to keep sewing. Sometimes I want to break down these walls and escape to freedom.’⁷⁸ Tolstoy had been to Moscow twice that autumn, but Sonya had not even gone beyond the gates of Yasnaya Polyana. In January 1880 she wrote a particularly plaintive letter to her sister Tanya:

My captive life is sometimes so hard! Just think, Tanya, I haven’t been out of the house since September. The same prison, even if it’s quite bright in the moral and material sense. But sometimes there is still the feeling that someone has locked me up, keeping me here, and I want to push everything away, break everything around me and break out no matter where – as soon as I can!⁷⁹