The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (First Volume—1895-1899) - graf Leo Tolstoy

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he says, but mainly because he thought that the arrangement for the transfer of property could be best facilitated and could be more delicately managed if some one member of the Tolstoi family was designated instead of an outsider. Tolstoi, therefore, designated as his legal inheritor his youngest daughter Alexandra, who stood in close sympathy with him in his spiritual ideas, and, in case of her death before his own, his eldest daughter Tatiana. He hoped that his daughters, together with the Countess Tolstoi, would fulfil his requests concerning the disposal of his posthumous documents and the gift of the estate according to his wishes.

      After Tolstoi’s death the estate was given to the peasants by means of the sale of most of the posthumous documents which enabled his daughter Alexandra to buy back the estate from the family and give it to the peasants as directed by Tolstoi, but in the matter of the journals it was more difficult to arrange from the fact that the Countess Tolstoi placed all these journals and notebooks in the Moscow Historical Museum on the ground that they were a gift of Tolstoi to her during his lifetime and that therefore she had a right to dispose of them as she thought best. The matter would have taken only a legal process in the court to disentangle, a thing which the Countess Alexandra Tolstoi did not wish to undertake as being against the spirit of her father to use legal force to come to an agreement.

      Chertkov, therefore, was forced to use only such copies of the original journals and notebooks which he happened to have in his possession. The present volume is made from a copy done by the hands of the Prince and Princess Obolensky, the son-in-law and daughter of Tolstoi, who also stood very near to Tolstoi spiritually, were conscientious in their fulfilment of such tasks for him, and who knew his handwriting very well. The original documents are still in the Moscow Historical Museum, but Chertkov has promised to publish the volumes and journals which he has from the years 1900 to 1910, and has already brought out a second volume of this series, which dates from Tolstoi’s early years in the twenties.

      Whatever value this volume has as a historical and exact transcript of Tolstoi’s original jottings-down as they came to him, it has much more value as a transcript of the thoughts of a great Russian which have so permeated his people that they are now being rewritten on the pages of Russian history. It is because the blood of his brother calls to him from under the ground, that the Russian has undertaken to advance one step nearer to the fulfilment of the great law—to live together in harmony, to serve his brother and to do the one work—which is the one work for all, to love.

      The hundred-years readiness for sacrifice for the common good, the willingness to go to exile and death of four generations of men and women, the red flag now flying over the Winter Palace in Petrograd with the letters of gold, “Proletarians of all Nation Unite,” the insistent call to the peoples of the world to overthrow all oppressors and live together in mutual harmony, the trumpet calls of a democracy whose tones are so strange and new, that we across the borders seem not to hear or understand them, all have their spiritual counterpart in the pages of this book. It is Russia that speaks here.

      I must give my thanks to Mr. Alexander Gourevich who so carefully compared the original text and English translation, and to Mr. Joseph Peroshnikoff who patiently revised the notes and assisted in the compilation of the index.

      Rose Strunsky.

      New York, May, 1917.

       LEO TOLSTOI

       October–December 1895

       Table of Contents

      THE JOURNAL OF

       LEO TOLSTOI

      Have been thinking:

      Have been thinking one thing: that this life which we see around us is a movement of matter according to fixed, well-known laws; but that in us we feel the presence of an altogether different law, having nothing in common with the others and requiring from us the fulfilment of its demands. It can be said that we see and recognise all the other laws only because we have in us this law. If we did not recognise this law, we would not recognise the others.

      This law is different from all the rest, principally in this, that those other laws are outside of us and forces us to obey them; but this law is in us—and more than in us; it is our very selves and therefore it does not force us when we obey it, but on the contrary frees us, because in following it we become ourselves. And for this reason we are drawn to fulfil this law and we sooner or later will inevitably fulfil it. In this then consists the freedom of the will. This freedom consists in this, that we should recognise that which is—namely that this inner law is ourselves.

      This inner law is what we call reason, conscience, love, the good, God. These words have different meanings, but all from different angles mean one and the same thing. In our understanding of this inner law, the son of God, consists indeed the essence of the Christian doctrine.

      The world can be looked upon in this way: a world exists governed by certain, well-known laws, and within this world are beings subject to the same laws, but who at the same time bear in themselves another law not in accord with the former laws of the world, a higher law, and this law must inevitably triumph within these beings and defeat the lower law. And in this struggle and in the gradual victory of the higher law over the lower, in this only is life for man and the whole world.

       Oct. 29. Yasnaya Polyana. If I live. [2]

      Nov. 5. Y. P.

      I have skipped 6 days. It seems to me, I thought little during this time: I wrote a little, chopped wood and was indisposed—but lived through much. I lived through much, because in fulfilling a promise to S.[3], I read through all my journals for the past seven years.

      It seems to me, I am approaching a simple and clear expression of that by which I live. How good that I didn’t finish the Catechism![4] I think I shall write it differently and better, if the Father wishes it. I understand why it is impossible to say it quickly. If it could be said all at once, by what then would we live in the realm of thought? It will never be given me to go farther than this task.

      I just took a walk and understood clearly why I can’t make Resurrection go better: it was begun falsely. I understood this in thinking over again the story: Who is Right?[5] (about children). I understood that one must begin with the life of the peasants, that they are the subject, they are positive, but that the other thing is shadow, the other thing is negative. And I understood the same thing about Resurrection. One must begin with her.[6] I want to begin immediately.

      During this time there were letters: from Kenworthy,[7] a beautiful one from Shkarvan,[8] and from a Dukhobor in Tiflis.[9]

      Have written to no one for a long time. General indisposition and no energy. The stage manager and the decorator[10] were here, students from Kharkov against whom I think I did not sin, Ivan Ivanovich Bochkarev,[11] Kolasha.[12] …

      

      Nov. 6. Y. P. If I live.

      November 7. Y. P.

      I wrote a little these two days on the new Resurrection. My conscience hurts when I remember how trivially I began it. So far, I rejoice when I think of the work as I am beginning it.

      I chopped a little. I went to Ovsiannikovo, had a good talk with Maria Alexandrovna[13] and Ivan Ivanovich.[14] Waltz’s assistant was here and a Frenchman with a poem. …

      November 8, 9. Y. P.

      Have

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