Read Ebook: George Borrow and His Circle Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters of Borrow and His Friends by Shorter Clement King

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PREFACE Towards the end of 1880, when he was fifty-two, Tolstoy one day approached the young tutor who lived in his house at Yasnaya Polyana, and in great agitation asked him to do him a service. The tutor, seeing Tolstoy so moved, asked what he could possibly do for him. In an unready voice Tolstoy replied: "Save me, I am falling!" The tutor, in alarm, inquired what was the matter, to which Tolstoy replied: "I am overcome by sexual desire and feel a complete lack of power to retrain myself. I am in danger of yielding to the temptation. Help me!"

"I am a weak man myself," replied the tutor. "How can I help you?"

"You can, if only you won't refuse!"

"But what must I do to help you?"

"This! Come with me on my daily walks. We will go out together and talk, and the temptation will not occur to me."

They set out together, and Tolstoy told the tutor how during his daily walks he had encountered Domna, a young woman of twenty-two who had recently been engaged as the servants' cook. This Domna was a tall, healthy, attractive young woman with a fine figure and beautiful complexion, though not otherwise particularly handsome. At first for some days he had found it pleasant to watch her. Then he had followed her and whittled to her. After that he had walked and talked with her, and at last had arranged a rendezvous with her. The spot was in a distant alley on the estate; to reach it from the house one had to pass the windows of the children's schoolroom. When setting out past those windows next day to keep the appointment, he had gone through a terrible struggle between the temptation and his conscience. Just then his second son had called to him through the window, reminding him of a Greek lesson that had been fixed for that day, and this had detained Tolstoy. He woke as it were, and was glad to have been saved from keeping the appointment. But the temptation dill tormented him. He tried the effect of prayer, but it did not free him. He suffered but felt powerless and as if he might yield at any moment. So as a last resource he resolved to try the effect of making a full confession to someone--giving all particulars of the strength of the temptation that oppressed him and of his own weakness. He wished to feel as thoroughly ashamed of himself as possible, and he had decided to ask the tutor to accompany him on his daily walk, which usually he took alone. He also arranged that Domna should be removed to another place.

After the danger was over Tolstoy seldom referred to the incident unless to those who spoke to him of their own sexual difficulties, but on one occasion he wrote a full account of it to a friend.

I do not think there is any other important story of Tolstoy's that has not yet been translated. He left several trunks full of manuscripts, chiefly early drafts of works that had been published during his lifetime or commencements of stories he abandoned; but before his death he expressed the opinion that, except some passages in his Diaries, there was little or nothing worth publishing among those remains. He was indeed a great artist, and his mastery showed itself in knowing what to strike out, omit, and withhold. His published writings are voluminous, but among them there is little that we could willingly spare. But if the mass of documents which while he lived he had the good sense to suppress are now to be published, together with a large amount of didactic correspondence, it is likely to injure rather than to enhance his literary reputation. There is a disquieting rumour that this is to take place, in the form of an edition of his works extending to one hundred volumes. Not even that calamity will depose him from the place he securely holds as the greatest and most influential of Russian writers, but it will be an obstacle rather than a help to those who want to become acquainted with the works on which he wished his reputation to rest. The present story is an exception. It is so characteristic of him, and so closely connected with an event that influenced him, that it would be a pity for it not to be known, especially as it is one of the few posthumous works he left in a completed state; even in this case we do not know which of the two endings he wrote he would have adopted had he published it himself.

The foot-notes are by the translator.

AYLMER MAUDE

GREAT BADDOW, CHELMSFORD

THE DEVIL

A brilliant career lay before Eugene Irtenev. He had all that was necessary for this: an admirable education at home, high honours when he graduated in law at Petersburg University, connections in the highest society through his recently deceased father, and he had himself already begun service in one of the Ministries under the protection of the Minister. He also had a fortune; even a large one, though insecure. His father had lived abroad and in Petersburg, allowing his sons, Eugene, and Andrew, the elder who was in the Horse Guards, 6,000 rubles a year each, while he himself and his wife spent a great deal. He only used to visit his estate for a couple of months in summer and did not concern himself with its direction, entrusting it all to an unscrupulous manager who also failed to attend to it, but in whom he had complete confidence.

After the father's death, when the brothers began to divide the property, there were found to be so many debts that their lawyer even advised them to refuse the inheritance and retain only an estate left them by their grand-mother, which was valued at 100,000 rubles. But a neighbouring landed-proprietor who had done business with old Irtenev, that is to say, who had promissory notes from him and had come to Petersburg on that account, said that in spite of the debts they could straighten out affairs so as to retain a large fortune--it would only be necessary to sell the forest and some outlying land, retaining the rich Sem?nov estate with 4,000 desyatinas of black-earth, the sugar-factory, and 200 desyatinas of water-meadows--if one devoted oneself to the management and, settling on the estate, farmed it wisely and economically.

And so, having visited the estate in spring , Eugene looked into everything, resolved to retire from the Civil Service, settle in the country with his mother, and undertake the management, with the object of preserving the main estate. He arranged with his brother, with whom he was very friendly, that he would pay him 4,000 rubles a year, or alternatively would pay him 80,000 in a lump sum, while Andrew, on his part, handed over to him his share of the inheritance.

So he arranged matters and, having settled down with his mother in the big house, ardently and yet cautiously began managing the estate.

It is generally supposed that Conservatives are usually old people, and those in favour of change are the young. That is not quite correct. The most usual Conservatives are young people: those who want to live but who do not think, and have not time to think, about how to live and who therefore take as a model for themselves a way of life that they have seen.

Thus it was with Eugene. Having settled in the village, his aim and ideal was to restore the form of life that had existed, not in his father's time--his father had been a bad manager--but in his grandfather's. And now in the house, the garden, in the estate-management--of course with changes suited to the times--he tried to resurrect the general spirit of his grandfather's life--everything on a large scale--good order, method, and everybody satisfied; but so to arrange things entailed much work. It was necessary to meet the demands of the creditors and the banks, and for that purpose to sell some land and arrange renewals of credit. It was also necessary to get money to carry on the immense operations on the Sem?nov estate, with its 400 desyatinas of ploughland and its sugar-factory, and to deal with the garden so that it should not seem to be neglected or in decay.

There was much work to do, but Eugene had plenty of strength--physical and mental. He was twenty-six, of medium height, strongly built, with muscles developed by gymnastics. He was full-blooded and very red over his whole neck, with bright teeth and lips and hair soft and curly, though not thick. His only physical defect was shortsightedness, which he had himself developed by using spectacles, so that he could not now do without a pince-nez, which had already formed a line at the top of his nose-ridge.

Such he was physically. For his spiritual portrait it might be said that the better anyone knew him the better they liked him. His mother had always loved him more than she loved anyone else; and now, after her husband's death, she concentrated on him not only her whole affection but her whole life. Nor was it only his mother who so loved him. All his comrades at the high-school and the university not merely liked him very much, but respected him. He had this effect on all who met him. It was impossible not to believe what he said, impossible to suspect any deception or falseness in one who had such an open, honest face and, in particular, such eyes.

In general his personality helped him much in his affairs. A creditor who would have refused another, trusted him. The clerk, the village Elder, or a peasant, who would have played a dirty trick and cheated someone else, forgot to deceive under the pleasant impression of intercourse with this kindly, agreeable, and above all candid man.

It was the end of May. Eugene had somehow managed, in town, to get the vacant land freed from the mortgage, so as to sell it to a merchant, and had borrowed money from that same merchant to replenish his stock, that is to say, to procure horses, bulls, carts and, chiefly, to begin to build a necessary farm-house. The matter had been arranged. The timber was being carted, the carpenters were already at work, and manure for the estate was being brought on eighty carts. But everything still hung by a thread.

Amid these cares something came about which, though unimportant, tormented Eugene at the time. As a young man he had lived as all healthy young men live, that is, he had had relations with women of various kinds. He was not a libertine but, as he himself said, neither was he a monk. He only turned to this, however, in so far as was necessary for physical health and to have his mind free, as he used to say. This had begun when he was sixteen and had gone on satisfactorily. Satisfactorily in the sense that he did not give himself up to debauchery, was not once infatuated, and had never contracted a disease. At first he had a seamstress in Petersburg, then she got spoilt and he made other arrangements, and that side of his affairs was so well secured that it did not trouble him.

But now he was living in the country for the second month and did not at all know what he was to do. Compulsory self-restraint was beginning to have a bad effect on him.

Must he really go to town for that purpose? And where to? How? That was the only thing that disturbed Eugene Ivanich, but as he was convinced that the thing was necessary and that he needed it, it really became necessary, and he felt that he was not free and that involuntarily his eyes followed every young woman.

He did not approve of having relations with a married woman or a maid in his own village. He knew by report that both his father and grandfather had been quite different in this matter from other land-owners of that time. At home they had never had any entanglements with peasant-women, and he had decided that he would not do so either; but afterwards, feeling himself ever more and more under compulsion, and imagining with horror what might happen to him in the neighbouring country town, and reflecting on the fact that the days of serfdom were now over, he decided that it might be done on the spot. Only it must be done so that no one should know of it, and not for the sake of debauchery but merely for health's sake--as he said to himself. And when he had decided this he became still more restless. When talking to the village Elder, the peasants, or the carpenters, he involuntarily brought the conversation round to women, and when it turned to women, he kept it on that theme. He noticed the women more and more.

To settle the matter in his own mind was one thing, but to carry it out was another. To approach a woman himself was impossible. Which one? Where? It must be done through someone else, but to whom should he speak about it?

He happened to go into a watchman's hut in the forest to get a drink of water. The watchman had been his father's huntsman. Eugene Ivanich chatted with him, and the watchman began telling some strange tales of hunting sprees. It occurred to Eugene Ivanich that it would be convenient to arrange matters in this hut, or in the wood. Only he did not know how to manage it, and whether old Daniel would undertake the arrangement. "Perhaps he will be horrified at such a proposal; and I shall have disgraced myself, but perhaps he would agree to it quite simply." So he thought while listening to Daniel's stories. Daniel was telling how once when they had been stopping at the hut of the sexton's wife in an outlying field, he had brought a woman for F?dor Zakharich Pryanishnikov.

"It will be all right," thought Eugene.

"Your father, may the kingdom of heaven be his, did not go in for nonsense of that kind."

"It won't do," thought Eugene. But to test the matter he said: "How was it you engaged on such bad things?"

"But what is there bad in it? She was glad of it, and F?dor Zakharich was satisfied, very satisfied. I got a ruble. Why, what was he to do? He too is a lively limb, apparently, and drinks wine."

"Yes, I may speak," thought Eugene, and at once proceeded to do so.

"And, do you know, Daniel, I don't know how to endure it,"--he felt himself going scarlet.

Daniel smiled.

"I am not a monk,--I have been accustomed to it."

He felt that what he was saying was stupid, but was glad to see that Daniel approved.

"Why of course, you should have told me long ago. It can all be arranged," said he: "Only tell me which one you want."

"Oh, it is really all the same to me. Of course not an ugly one, and she must be healthy."

"I understand!" said Daniel briefly. He reflected.

"Ah! There is a tasty morsel," he began. Again Eugene went red. "A tasty morsel. See here, she was married last autumn." Daniel whispered,--"and he hasn't been able to do anything. Think what that is worth to one who wants it!"

Eugene even frowned with shame.

"No, no," he said. "I don't want that at all. I want, on the contrary , on the contrary I only want that she should be healthy and that there should be as little fuss as possible--a woman whose husband is away in the army, or something of that kind."

"I know. It's Stepanida I must bring you. Her husband is away in town, just the same as a soldier. And she is a fine woman, and clean. You will be satisfied. As it is I was saying to her the other day--you should go, but she . . ."

"Well then, when is it to be?"

"To-morrow if you like. I shall be going to get some tobacco and I will call in, and at the dinner-hour come here, or to the bath-house behind the kitchen garden. There will be nobody about. Besides after dinner everybody takes a nap."

"All right, then."

A terrible excitement seized Eugene as he rode home. "What will happen? What is a peasant woman like? Suppose it turns out that she is hideous, horrible. No, she is handsome," he told himself, remembering some he had been noticing. "But what shall I say? What shall I do?"

He was not himself all that day. Next day at noon he went to the forester's hut. Daniel stood at the door and silently and significantly nodded towards the wood. The blood rushed to Eugene's heart, he was conscious of it and went to the kitchen-garden. No one was there. He went to the bath-house--there was no one about, he looked in, came out, and suddenly heard the crackling of a breaking twig. He looked round--and she was standing in the thicket beyond the little ravine. He rushed there across the ravine. There were nettles in it which he had not noticed. They stung him and, losing the pince-nez from his nose, he ran up the slope on the farther side. In a white embroidered apron, in a red-brown skirt and a bright red kerchief, barefoot, fresh, firm, and handsome, she stood shyly smiling.

"There is a path leading round,--you should have gone round," she said. "I came long ago, ever so long."

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