Chapter 12 twelve

Around Tolstoy, the spirit of his moral revolution commanded little sympathy, and it caused grief to his family. In fact, Countess Tolstoy had been troubled very early on, because she found that her husband's illness seemed uncontrollable, and all she fought in vain was its development.Beginning in 1874, she was outraged at seeing her husband waste so much time and energy on school. I despise primers, arithmetic, and grammar, so I can't pretend to be interested in them. After the study of pedagogy, it is time to study religion, but the situation has changed again.The wife was so disgusted by Tolstoy's initial confession of the new convert that she had to beg forgiveness when he wrote about God:

When I speak of God, please don't be as angry as you usually are; it's only because I can't avoid him, because he is the basis of my thoughts. (Summer 1878) Perhaps the Countess was moved by him.She tried to hide her irritability as best she could, but she still watched her husband uncomfortably: His eyes are very strange, often in a daze.Sometimes I don't say a word, as if I don't belong to this world. (November 18, 1878) She thinks her husband is sick: According to Lev, Tolstoy was always working.well!He was writing several polemical essays on religion.He read and thought about it until his head hurt so badly that he did it only to show that the teachings of the Church did not agree with what was in the Gospels.In Russia, there are at most a dozen people interested in it.However, there is nothing I can do.I just hope this gets over as soon as possible, if it's really just an illness. (November 1879)

However, the disease did not go away.The relationship between him and his wife has also become increasingly tense.They love each other and respect each other as guests, but it is difficult for them to understand each other.Although the two make concessions for each other as much as possible, this mutual concession can become a kind of pain instead.Tolstoy had to follow his family to Moscow.He wrote in his Diary: This has been the hardest month of my life.Come to live in Moscow.Everyone settled down.But when will they start living?In fact, this is not for living, but because everyone else is doing it!Unhappy people! (October 5, 1881)

At the same time, Countess Tolstoy also wrote: Moscow.By tomorrow, we have been here for a month.For the first two weeks, I cried almost every day, because I found that Lev was not only worried, but also depressed and very decadent.He had trouble sleeping and eating, and sometimes cried; I felt like I was going crazy. (October 14, 1881). In this way, they had to separate for a while.At that time, they apologized to each other for the pain they caused each other, but they still love each other!He wrote to his wife: You say: I love you, but you don't need my love.No, it's not like that, because it's the only thing I need Your love makes me happier than anything in the world. (March 1882)

However, whenever they meet, the atmosphere of incompatibility between each other will spread again.The countess could not approve of Tolstoy's religious inclinations.Under the influence of this habit, he persistently learned Hebrew from a rabbi. Nothing else interested him.He wasted his energies with delight on these follies.And I really couldn't hide my displeasure. (March 1882) In a letter to him his wife said: It makes me weep that you spend so much of your energy chopping wood, boiling water, sewing boots, etc. Later, looking at her somewhat demented child with a motherly tender mocking smile, she added:

The child can play as he likes, as long as he doesn't cry.Every time I think of this Russian proverb, I feel much calmer. (October 23, 1884) But the letter was not sent, for she could imagine her husband's kind and innocent eyes would be saddened by the mocking language if he read this passage.So she tore the letter open again, and re-wrote with fierce love: Suddenly, your clear shadow appeared in front of my eyes, and there was a huge tenderness in my heart!There is something cute, kind, innocent, and persistent in you, all of which are illuminated by your sympathy for everyone and your penetrating eyes, which are unique to you.

Two people who love each other love and suffer for each other, and are later tortured by the pain they have caused each other.This is an unchangeable situation, which has lasted for nearly thirty years, until the dying old King Lear escaped from the vast prairie when he was confused. Perhaps you haven't noticed How Do We Do It? The warm cry to the women at the end of ".In fact, Tolstoy did not have the slightest sympathy for modern feminism.However, for those women whom he calls good wives and mothers, for women who understand the true meaning of life, he shows devout respect.For their pains and joys, for their begetting, for their terrible, miserable lot, for their cycles of life, for their endless toil without reward, for their fulfillment of their task and their release from pain. When I was full of joy, I greatly praised it.

He paints a portrait of a courageous wife and a woman who is her husband's assistant rather than a burden.She knew that the only vocation of human beings is to be willing to sacrifice for other people's secrets regardless of reward. Such a woman will not encourage her husband to do hypocrisy and deceit and embezzle the fruits of other people's labor, and she also feels abhorrent and quite repulsive to those activities that may damage her own children.She asked her partner to find a proper job, to do a real job that requires energy and is not afraid of danger. She knows that children are the future generation, and it is a generation that will show mankind a holier person. Therefore, her To exist is to be able to serve this sacred cause wholeheartedly.She will develop this spirit of sacrifice in the hearts of children and husbands because of such a woman who rules over men and is the star that guides them, you are wives and mothers!In charge of the fate of the entire human race! (This passage is the last lines of "What shall we do?" Written on February 14, 1886.)

Is this a pleading and hopeful voice that no one can hear? Years later, the last hope was also dashed: Maybe you won't believe it, but you can't imagine how lonely I am.The real me is despised by everyone around me to what extent. ("Letter to Friends", 1895) Even those who love him the most are so ignorant of the greatness of his mind-changing, let alone others.Others will not have greater respect and trust for him. Because of a humble Christian spirit rather than a change in Tolstoy's feelings, Tolstoy persisted and took the initiative to resolve conflicts with Turgenev. (The two reconciled in 1878. Tolstoy wrote to Turgenev to apologize. In August of the same year, Turgenev came to Yasnaya to visit Tolstoy. In 1881, Tolstoy visited Turgenev again, and his attitude changed greatly, he was easy-going and humble, just like a different person.) However, Turgenev often mocked him: I am really wronged for Tolstoy, but , as the French say, everyone has his own way of getting rid of fleas.

A few years later, before his death, Turgenev wrote a famous letter to Tolstoy.In it, he begged his friend, the great Russian writer, to return to literature. In fact, artists all over Europe shared the same concerns and prayers with the dying Turgenev.Eugene.Mai Xiol.De.At the end of his Tolstoy Studies, written in 1886, Vauguet euphemistically addressed him with a portrait of Tolstoy in peasant costume holding a boot awl sarcasm: A master at creating masterpieces, these are not your tools!Our tool is the pen, and our garden is the human soul, which also needs care and watering.So allow me to mention one thing: when the first Moscow printer was forced to plow like a Russian peasant, he cried out: I am not here to sow wheat, my job is to Sow the seeds of wisdom all over the world.

As if Tolstoy deliberately gave up his mission of disseminating spiritual food!At the end of "What We Believe" he writes: I think that my life, rationality, and wisdom are all born to enlighten mankind.I consider my knowledge of truth to be an intellect which God has given me for this purpose.This intellect is, so to speak, a fire, but it is only really fire when it burns.I believe that the only meaning of my life is this lamp that shines brightly in my heart and can be held high for all to see. But it is this light, this fire that is only real fire when it burns, that unsettles most artists.The cleverest of them even anticipated that their artwork would be the first to be burned.They pretend to believe that the whole of art is threatened and battered, that Tolstoy, like Prospero, will break the wand of creative fantasy from his hand. [Note] Prospero: A character in Shakespeare's The Tempest. This is really a ridiculous imagination.I want to point out that Tolstoy not only did not destroy art, but also stimulated the static power in art; at the same time, his religious beliefs did not hinder or restrain the development of his artistic talent, but instead allowed his talent to flourish. renew.