Tolstoy

There was no way the liberal-minded Nikolay Grot could publish Tolstoy’s article in his journal now. Conversations at court revolved around whether Tolstoy should be locked up in the Suzdal Monastery prison (the traditional place of incarceration for heretics in Russia), sent into exile abroad, or committed to a lunatic asylum (the link between holy fools and madness was well established in Russia).¹⁵⁶ In faraway Smolensk there was even a rumour that Tolstoy had already been exiled to the Solovetsky Monastery prison (the place of his ancestor Pyotr Andreyevich’s incarceration), and before the writer and journalist Jonas Stadling left his native Sweden to volunteer, he heard reports that Tolstoy was a ‘prisoner on his estate, and that he was to be banished from the country’.¹⁵⁷ But once again Alexander III opted for clemency – not for the first time was Alexandrine forced to answer for her wayward relative at court, but her very proximity to the Tsar was a guarantee of his safety.¹⁵⁸ Tolstoy was longing for martyrdom, so was infuriated that he could continue unhindered. But as Suvorin pointed out in a letter he wrote at the time, Tolstoy was the only person who managed to do anything, while everybody else had to clothe their ideas ‘in velvet’ in order for any action to be taken: ‘they are persecuting him, but to no avail; he can’t be touched, and even if he is, he will just be pleased, for how many times has he said to me: “Why aren’t they arresting me, why aren’t they putting me in jail?” It’s an enviable lot.’¹⁵⁹

Sonya was concerned that their whole family was on the brink of ruin, and she wondered what had happened to Tolstoy’s doctrine of love and pacifism.¹⁶⁰ Her commitment to the cause had brought them together, however, which made him very happy, and she also came out to Begichevka for a ten-day visit at the end of January 1892.¹⁶¹ She had been collecting donations and publishing reports, and now she saw for herself emaciated, shivering peasants dressed in rags, their sad expressions speaking of the humiliation they felt to receive charity.¹⁶² She also saw what difficult and exhausting work it was for her husband and daughters (Tolstoy sometimes sat up until three in the morning in an attempt to continue with his writing). Apart from the physical challenges of working during the freezing winter months in villages where people had no means of feeding themselves or heating their homes, the sheer scale of the disaster was sometimes demoralising – it was impossible to help everyone. When she returned to Moscow in February, Sonya found herself having to nurse Vanechka (just about to turn four), who was seriously unwell again, and conduct a damage-control operation. The repercussions of Dillon’s translation of Tolstoy’s article in the Daily Telegraph amongst ministers and court officials were such that she was obliged to send mollifying letters, and make repeated visits to Governor General Grand Duke Sergey Alexandrovich and his wife Elizaveta Fyodorovna.¹⁶³

The Tolstoys’ famine-relief work proved to be infectious; soon they were joined by friends and relatives who wanted to help, and then by foreign volunteers like Jonas Stadling, who arrived in February 1892. In the book he later published about his experiences, Stadling described accompanying Tolstoy’s daughter Masha on her visits on his first day, including one to a school:

We stopped at one of the izbas, in which the Count had opened a school and eating-room. For some time after our entrance we could see nothing distinctly, but our feet told us that the naked soil served as floor. When our eyes grew accustomed to the gloom we saw a number of benches, and standing between them about thirty children, silently looking at us … In one corner were a couple of elderly people. From the neighbourhood of the [stove] came heavy breathing, and lying on top of it, we saw three children, covered with black small-pox. I suggested that these ought to be removed at once, and the Countess replied that it would be done as soon as possible, but as there were no hospitals, and almost every house was infected, it was not easy to isolate the sick. These poor children had been brought to the school ‘because it was warm there’.¹⁶⁴