Experience Seamless Full Ebook Downloads for Every Genre at textbookfull.

com

Leo Tolstoy Critical Lives Andrei Zorin

https://textbookfull.com/product/leo-tolstoy-critical-lives-
andrei-zorin-2/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWNLOAD NOW

Explore and download more ebook at https://textbookfull.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Leo Tolstoy Critical Lives Andrei Zorin

https://textbookfull.com/product/leo-tolstoy-critical-lives-andrei-
zorin-2/

textboxfull.com

Leo Tolstoy Daniel Moulin

https://textbookfull.com/product/leo-tolstoy-daniel-moulin/

textboxfull.com

Leo Tolstoy and the Canadian Doukhobors A Study in

Historic Relationships Expanded and Revised Edition Andrew
Donskov
https://textbookfull.com/product/leo-tolstoy-and-the-canadian-
doukhobors-a-study-in-historic-relationships-expanded-and-revised-
edition-andrew-donskov/
textboxfull.com

Receptive Bodies Leo Bersani

https://textbookfull.com/product/receptive-bodies-leo-bersani/

textboxfull.com
Rethinking Punishment Leo Zaibert

https://textbookfull.com/product/rethinking-punishment-leo-zaibert/

textboxfull.com

The Cuckoo Carew Leo

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-cuckoo-carew-leo/

textboxfull.com

African Entrepreneurship Leo-Paul Dana

https://textbookfull.com/product/african-entrepreneurship-leo-paul-
dana/

textboxfull.com

Complex Analysis 1st Edition Andrei Bourchtein

https://textbookfull.com/product/complex-analysis-1st-edition-andrei-
bourchtein/

textboxfull.com

Classification and Regression Trees Leo Breiman

https://textbookfull.com/product/classification-and-regression-trees-
leo-breiman/

textboxfull.com
Leo Tolstoy
Titles in the series Critical Lives present the work of leading cultural figures of the
modern period. Each book explores the life of the artist, writer, philosopher or
architect in question and relates it to their major works.

In the same series

Antonin Artaud David A. Shafer

Roland Barthes Andy Stafford
Georges Bataille Stuart Kendall
Charles Baudelaire Rosemary Lloyd
Simone de Beauvoir Ursula Tidd
Samuel Beckett Andrew Gibson
Walter Benjamin Esther Leslie
John Berger Andy Merrifield
Leonard Bernstein Paul R. Laird
Joseph Beuys Claudia Mesch
Jorge Luis Borges Jason Wilson
Constantin Brancusi Sanda Miller
Bertolt Brecht Philip Glahn
Charles Bukowski David Stephen Calonne
Mikhail Bulgakov J.A.E. Curtis
William S. Burroughs Phil Baker
John Cage Rob Haskins
Albert Camus Edward J. Hughes
Fidel Castro Nick Caistor
Paul Cézanne Jon Kear
Coco Chanel Linda Simon
Noam Chomsky Wolfgang B. Sperlich
Jean Cocteau James S. Williams
Salvador Dalí Mary Ann Caws
Guy Debord Andy Merrifield
Claude Debussy David J. Code
Gilles Deleuze Frida Beckman
Fyodor Dostoevsky Robert Bird
Marcel Duchamp Caroline Cros
Sergei Eisenstein Mike O’Mahony
William Faulkner Kirk Curnutt
Gustave Flaubert Anne Green
Michel Foucault David Macey
Mahatma Gandhi Douglas Allen
Jean Genet Stephen Barber
Allen Ginsberg Steve Finbow
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Jeremy Adler
Günter Grass Julian Preece
Ernest Hemingway Verna Kale
Langston Hughes W. Jason Miller
Victor Hugo Bradley Stephens
Derek Jarman Michael Charlesworth
Alfred Jarry Jill Fell
James Joyce Andrew Gibson
Carl Jung Paul Bishop
Franz Kafka Sander L. Gilman
Frida Kahlo Gannit Ankori
Søren Kierkegaard Alastair Hannay
Yves Klein Nuit Banai
Arthur Koestler Edward Saunders
Akira Kurosawa Peter Wild
Lenin Lars T. Lih
Pierre Loti Richard M. Berrong
Jean-François Lyotard Kiff Bamford
René Magritte Patricia Allmer
Stéphane Mallarmé Roger Pearson
Thomas Mann Herbert Lehnert and Eva Wessell
Gabriel García Márquez Stephen M. Hart
Karl Marx Paul Thomas
Guy de Maupassant Christopher Lloyd
Herman Melville Kevin J. Hayes
Henry Miller David Stephen Calonne
Yukio Mishima Damian Flanagan
Eadweard Muybridge Marta Braun
Vladimir Nabokov Barbara Wyllie
Pablo Neruda Dominic Moran
Georgia O’Keeffe Nancy J. Scott
Octavio Paz Nick Caistor
Pablo Picasso Mary Ann Caws
Edgar Allan Poe Kevin J. Hayes
Ezra Pound Alec Marsh
Marcel Proust Adam Watt
Arthur Rimbaud Seth Whidden
John Ruskin Andrew Ballantyne
Jean-Paul Sartre Andrew Leak
Erik Satie Mary E. Davis
Arnold Schoenberg Mark Berry
Arthur Schopenhauer Peter B. Lewis
Dmitry Shostakovich Pauline Fairclough
Adam Smith Jonathan Conlin
Susan Sontag Jerome Boyd Maunsell
Gertrude Stein Lucy Daniel
Stendhal Francesco Manzini
Igor Stravinsky Jonathan Cross
Rabindranath Tagore Bashabi Fraser
Pyotr Tchaikovsky Philip Ross Bullock
Leo Tolstoy Andrei Zorin
Leon Trotsky Paul Le Blanc
Mark Twain Kevin J. Hayes
Richard Wagner Raymond Furness
Alfred Russel Wallace Patrick Armstrong
Simone Weil Palle Yourgrau
Tennessee Williams Paul Ibell
Ludwig Wittgenstein Edward Kanterian
Virginia Woolf Ira Nadel
Frank Lloyd Wright Robert McCarter
Leo Tolstoy

Andrei Zorin

REAKTION BOOKS
In memory of Boris (Barukh) Berman

Published by Reaktion Books Ltd

Unit 32, Waterside
44–48 Wharf Road
London N1 7UX, UK

www.reaktionbooks.co.uk

First published 2020

Copyright © Andrei Zorin 2020

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or

transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

Page References in the Photo Acknowledgements Match the Printed Edition of this
Book.

Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eISBN: 978 1 78914 256 3

 Contents

Abbreviations
1 An Ambitious Orphan
2 A Married Genius
3 A Lonely Leader
4 A Fugitive Celebrity

References
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
 Abbreviations

AK Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. George Gibian

(London and New York, 1995)
AT Alexandra Tolstoy, Otets. Zhizn’ L’va Tolstogo, 2 vols
(New York, 1953)
Ch-Ls Anton Chekhov, A. P. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i
pisem: Pis’ma v dvenadtsati tomah, 12 vols (Moscow,
1974–83)
CW Leo Tolstoy, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 90 vols
(Moscow, 1928–64)
Ds Tolstoy’s Diaries, trans. R. F. Christian (London, 1994)
Kuz Tatiana Kuzminskaya, Moia zhizn’ doma i v Yasnoi
Polyane (Tula, 1973)
LNT & L. N. Tolstoy i A. A. Tolstaya: Perepiska, 1857–1903
AAT (Moscow, 2011)
Ls Tolstoy’s Letters, ed. and trans. R. F. Christian, 2 vols
(New York, 1978)
Mak Dushan Makovitsky, ‘U Tolstogo, 1904–1910:
Yasnopolianskie zapiski’, Literaturnoe nasledstvo,
xc/1–4 (1979)
SAT-Ds Sofia Tolstaya, Dnevniki, 2 vols (Moscow, 1978)
SAT-ML Sofia Tolstaya, Moia zhizn’, 2 vols (Moscow, 2011)
TP Leo Tolstoy, Perepiska s russkimi pisateliami, ed. S.
Rozanova, 2 vols (Moscow, 1978)
TSF Tolstoy’s Short Fiction, trans. Michael Kats (London
and New York, 2008)
WP Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, trans. George Gibian
(London and New York, 1996).
 1
An Ambitious Orphan

In May 1878, finishing Anna Karenina and in the early stages of the
deepest spiritual crisis he had ever experienced, Tolstoy started
drafting his memoirs, which he provisionally called My Life. In one
day he wrote several disjointed fragments describing his impressions
of certain events from his childhood. He did not complete his
memoirs and never returned to these fragments, the first of which
was as follows:

Here are my first recollections. I am bound up, I want to free my

hands and I cannot do it. I shout and weep and my cries are
unpleasant to me, but I cannot stop. There were people bent over
me, I do not remember who they were, and it all happened in
semi-darkness, but I do remember that there were two of them,
they are worried by my cries, but do not unbind me, which I want
them to do, and therefore I cry even louder. It seems that for
them it is necessary [that I must be bound up], while I know that
it is not necessary, and I want to prove it to them and I indulge in
crying that repels me, but which is uncontainable. I feel the
injustice and cruelty not of people, because they pity me, but of
fate and pity for myself. I do not know and shall never know what
this was about . . . but it is certain that this was the first and the
most powerful impression of my life. And what is memorable is
not my cries, or my suffering, but the complex, contradictory
 nature of the impression. I want freedom, it won’t harm anyone
and yet they keep torturing me. They pity me and they tie me up,
and I, who needs everything, am weak and they are strong. (CW,
XXIII, pp. 469–70)

This episode does not provide material for psychoanalytic

speculation. Tolstoy’s ‘first and most powerful impression’ was not
extracted from the depths of his subconscious on an analyst’s couch.
It is a conscious (re)construction carried out by a fifty-year-old
writer. Tolstoy describes himself as a baby, but ‘remembers’ the
subtlety and complexity of his lived experience, and the most
powerful part of this experience is the feeling of being bound up and
unfree. Tolstoy pays special attention to the love and pity shown by
the adults towards him, describing their attitude as a kind of cruelty
born of care. The infant Tolstoy strives to free himself from this well-
intentioned despotism, but is too weak to overcome the power of
those who show their concern by not allowing him to move. This
struggle was to permeate the author’s entire life right up until his
final moments.

A conventional biography usually starts with the family origins of its

subject. In the case of Leo (Lev Nikolaevich) Tolstoy, this is both
essential and redundant. It is redundant because one of Tolstoy’s
greatest novels, War and Peace, provides such a powerful and
memorable description of the writer’s ancestors that any reality is
bound to pale in comparison. It is essential because Tolstoy’s family
history informs the novel and in many ways defines his biography. In
what is a hallmark of his writing, Tolstoy blurs the line between
fiction and ‘real life’ by marginally changing the names of the
characters. Thus the Volkonskys, the real family name of Tolstoy’s
mother, transform into the Bolkonskys. The Volkonskys were one of
the most aristocratic families of the land, stemming from the ninth-
century Varangian prince Rurik, semi-legendary founder of Russian
statehood. The wordplay on Tolstoy’s paternal family name is a bit
more complex. In an early draft of War and Peace it appears as
Tolstov and in later drafts changed into Prostov (‘The Simple one’ in
Russian), but this name smacked too much of an eighteenth-century
moralistic comedy. By omitting the first letter, Tolstoy arrived at
Rostov, a surname sounding like the ancient Russian town, thus
underlining the national roots of the family. This change
notwithstanding, simplicity remains a fundamental feature of the
Rostovs’ way of life in the novel.

Tolstoy in 1878–9.
 To a modern reader, the title of count sits oddly with simple habits
and democratic origin. However, this title had been awarded to
Russian nobles only since the beginning of the eighteenth century
and thus pointed to a relatively short family history. In fact, the
marriage between Tolstoy’s parents – and the novel’s principal
characters – was a misalliance: Princess Maria Volkonsky was a rich
heiress; her husband, Count Nikolai Tolstoy, was on the brink of ruin,
thanks to his father’s profligate lifestyle. She married at the age of
32, in 1822, a year after the death of her father. By the standards of
her time she was already a spinster and, according to Tolstoy, ‘not
good looking’. Her husband was four years her junior. In the novel
Tolstoy does not conceal the practical reasons behind the marriage
but these do not obscure the mutual love in a marriage made in
Heaven. We don’t know whether the family life of Tolstoy’s parents
resembled the blissful union portrayed in the Epilogue to War and
Peace. Even if Tolstoy’s father’s reputation as a womanizer is unfair,
we know that he spent most of the time away from home settling
endless legal disputes in court or hunting in nearby forests. His wife,
meanwhile, had built a special gazebo in the park where she would
wait for her missing husband.
For Tolstoy, writing in his unfinished memoirs, his mother was a
perfect wife who did not actually love her husband. Her heart fully
belonged to her children, especially the eldest, Nikolai, and Leo, her
fourth and youngest son. Born on 28 August 1828, Leo was barely
two years old when his mother died a few months after the birth of
her only daughter Maria.
This early loss had a profound impact on Tolstoy. He worshipped
the memory of his mother and made a point of spending time in her
favourite corner of the family garden. He would later insist that his
wife deliver their children on the same sofa on which he was born
and, most importantly, forever longed for the maternal love of which
he had been deprived. Tolstoy could not remember his mother and
was glad that no portraits of her were preserved by the family,
except for a miniature silhouette cut from black paper. His ideal
spiritual image of the person he loved most would thus remain
untainted by material artefacts. Fighting temptations ‘in the middle
period of his life’, Tolstoy recalled that he prayed to the soul of his
mother and the prayers always helped.
In 1906, aged 77, Tolstoy wrote in his diary:

Was in the dull miserable state all day. By evening, this state
changed to one of emotion – the desire for affection – for love. I
felt as in childhood like clinging to a loving pitying creature, and
weeping emotionally and being comforted. But who is the
creature I could cling to like that. I ran through all the people I
love – nobody would do. Who could I cling to? I wanted to be
young again and cling to my mother as I imagine her to have
been. Yes, yes, my dear mother whom I never called by this name
since I could not talk. Yes, she is my highest conception of pure
love – not the cold and divine, but a warm, earthly, maternal love.
This is what attracts my better, weary soul. Mother dear, caress
me. All this is stupid, but it is true. (Ds, pp. 395–6)

An acute awareness of his status as an orphan haunted Tolstoy

throughout his life. This was aggravated by the early death of his
father in June 1837 when Leo was approaching his ninth birthday.
The count died suddenly of a stroke during a trip to Tula. There was
a suspicion that he had been poisoned by servants. Later Tolstoy
said that he never believed these rumours, but was aware of them
and must have been deeply affected by the talk of such a crime.
These losses most likely contributed to the extreme shyness and
sensitivity of Tolstoy, who was known to his relatives as a crybaby.
Young Leo was also lagging behind his brothers in studies and was
deeply traumatized by his physical unattractiveness. This self-
deprecation persisted through his youth: at least until his marriage
Tolstoy did not believe that any woman could ever fall in love with
such an ugly person as himself – so much for the image of Tolstoy’s
blissful happiness as a boy. Yet, while the image may have not been
grounded in reality, it was grounded in his literary imagination.
Silhouette of Tolstoy’s mother, 1800s.

The idyllic picture of his early years is most vividly recreated in

Childhood, the 1852 novel that brought Tolstoy national literary
fame. This exquisite and touching description of the life of an
aristocratic boy abounds with autobiographical details and until the
present day informs our perception of Tolstoy’s environment,
thoughts and feelings in Yasnaya Polyana (‘The Clear Glade’), the
family estate near the city of Tula where he spent his formative
years. The idyll he describes in Childhood ends with the sudden
death of the narrator’s mother. Adolescence and Youth, the next
parts of Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy, tell a very different story
of psychological difficulties, doubts and hardships.
 In Childhood Tolstoy transforms the first and most tragic loss of
his life from the early, crushing yet unremembered trauma of a two-
year-old into the formative experience of an eleven-year-old boy.
This chronological move enables him to portray the joys of childhood
that precede the death of the boy’s mother as pure and unmixed
with the feelings of deprivation and loneliness that the real Leo
experienced from the dawn of his remembered days. The idyllic
world of Childhood is as much of a myth as the ideal family
described in the Epilogue to War and Peace.
Yasnaya Polyana also remained for Tolstoy mysteriously connected
with the vision of universal happiness. Speaking about Tolstoy’s
childhood, no biographer ever fails to mention the story of the green
stick. During their games, Leo’s elder brother Nikolai would tell his
younger siblings that a magic green stick hidden somewhere nearby
would make the person lucky enough to find it able to make all
humans happy. Little Leo was deeply impressed. He never
abandoned his belief in the green stick and the search for it. Several
years before his death, he wrote in his memoirs:

as I knew then, that there is the green stick with the inscription
that tells us how to destroy all evil in humans and give them the
greatest good, I believe now that this is the truth and it will be
opened to humans and give them all that it promises. (CW, XXXIV,
p. 386)

Around the same time he chose to call an article on his religious

opinions ‘The Green Stick’. In his will, Tolstoy also asked to be buried
near the place where as a boy he had searched for this treasure.
Numerous female relatives took care of the orphaned siblings.
One of them, Tatiana Ergolskaya, usually called Toinette, became for
Leo the spirit of Yasnaya Polyana. Brought up as a poor relative in
the family of Tolstoy’s grandparents, Toinette was in love with
Tolstoy’s father, her second cousin. In an act of self-sacrifice, she
had renounced her feelings to allow her beloved Nikolai to marry an
heiress. In 1836, a year before his death, hoping to give his children
a stepmother who would never leave them, the widowed count
proposed to Ergolskaya. She declined, but nonetheless eagerly
shouldered the burden of caring for the Tolstoy children. Leo was
her clear favourite. Her dubious status in the family is reflected in an
unflattering portrait of Sonya’s role in the Rostov household after
Nikolai’s marriage in War and Peace. Ergolskaya lived long enough to
read the novel, but her reaction to it remains unknown.
Having declined the opportunity to become the children’s
stepmother, Ergolskaya also lost the right to be their legal guardian.
The sisters of Tolstoy’s father were both considered closer to their
nephews. When one aunt, Alexandra Osten-Saken, died in 1841 the
children were entrusted to another, Pelageya (Polina) Yushkova, who
lived in Kazan. This town on the Volga river, home to one of the six
universities in the Russian Empire, seemed a suitable place for the
growing children. Kazan was a natural centre for Oriental studies,
given that the town and its surrounding region was home to the
Volga Tatars, the empire’s largest Muslim minority. After failing to
gain admission on his first attempt, Leo was admitted to the Faculty
of Oriental Languages when he applied again in 1844.
The main challenges of Tolstoy’s teenage life coincided with the
five and a half years he lived in Kazan. First and foremost, he had to
handle the conflict between his powerful sexuality and a no less
powerful desire for chastity. He knew very well that it was Eros that
had ruined the primordial innocence of humanity. In Childhood,
Tolstoy describes with the lofty tenderness of an experienced man
the emerging erotic feelings of a ten-year-old boy suddenly kissing a
girl’s naked shoulder. Expelled from the paradise of early childhood,
he must now deal with less touching and delicate emotions.
In Kazan Tolstoy was relatively free from the control of his
relatives. Although not rich, he still had money to spend. At the
same time, he was extremely shy and unsure of himself, especially in
the company of women of his own social standing. Inevitably this
combination of factors made him a regular visitor to brothels.
Introduced to paid sex by his elder brother at the age of fifteen, Leo
would later recall standing weeping by the bed after losing his
virginity. This tension between irresistible lust and revulsion, chiefly
for his own bestiality, became a recurrent emotional theme, first in
his diaries and then in his prose.
Tellingly, it was while being treated for gonorrhoea at the
university clinic in 1847 that Tolstoy began the diary he would
continue to keep, on and off, for the next sixty years. The most
significant interruption coincided with the period he was working on
his two main novels. The diary exposes to harsh scrutiny not only
the author’s deeds, but his secret thoughts and desires. The level of
maniacal self-absorption and self-flagellation to which Tolstoy
subjects himself can be shocking to a modern reader. Seeking to live
by the highest moral criteria, he sets himself impossible tasks and,
time and again, chastises himself for failing to meet them. Reading
the diary, one is reminded of Philippe Lejeune’s observation that ‘a
diary is rarely a self-portrait, or if it is taken as one, it sometimes
seems like a caricature.’1
Tolstoy’s diary does not represent the person we come to know
from many of his letters and the memoirs of his friends and family
members: charmingly or caustically witty, tenderly, if sometimes
awkwardly, caring about the people he loved, actively generous and
kind. The most difficult and sometimes unappealing traits of Tolstoy’s
personality most strongly reveal themselves in the intimate spheres
of his life: the diary and in his relations with his wife. Often these
two spheres overlap.
In his first diary entry we can already observe the outline of
Tolstoy’s future struggles with his own persona:

I’ve come to see clearly that the disorderly life that the majority of
fashionable people take to be a consequence of youth is nothing
other than a consequence of the early corruption of the soul . . .
Let a man withdraw from society, let him retreat into himself, and
his reason will soon cast aside the spectacles which showed him
everything in distorted form and his view of things will become so
clear that he will be unable to understand how he had not seen it
before. Let reason do its work and it will indicate to you your
destiny, and will give you rules with which you can confidently
 enter society . . . Form your reason so that it would be coherent
with the whole, the source of everything, and not with the part,
i.e. the society of people, then the society as a part won’t have an
influence on you. It is easier to write ten volumes of philosophy
than to put one single principle into practice. (Ds, p. 4; CW, XLVI,
p. 3)

These early and somewhat amusing deliberations already show

Tolstoy in miniature – from any occasion, however trivial it may
seem, he is ready to derive major conclusions about humankind. He
is certain that proper introspection can serve as a clue to the whole
of humanity as any individual person is a part of the whole, and that
reason alone is sufficient to perform this work. He believes that the
truth is self-evident for a person who is independent from the
corrupting influence of society. At the same time, he wants both to
enter society and to mend it according to his ideas. He is also
confident that philosophy is useful only if it serves practical needs
and shapes the moral life of a person.
Further entries are written along the same lines. In one of them,
the nineteen-year-old Tolstoy sets himself the task of mastering
most of the existing sciences and arts, namely law, medicine,
agriculture (both theoretical and practical), history, geography,
statistics, mathematics, natural sciences, music and painting. In
addition to that, he wants to study six languages and to write a
dissertation and essays ‘on all the subjects he was going to study’.
To give these ambitions an air of relative realism, Tolstoy explains
that he wants to explore these fields with different degrees of depth:
in music and painting, for example, he aspires to attain only ‘an
average degree of perfection’. One of the most important tasks
Tolstoy sets himself is ‘to write down rules’. Within several months
he drafted rules for developing the physical will, emotional will,
rational will, memory, activity and intellectual faculties. The first rule
he prescribed to himself was ‘independence from all extraneous
circumstances’ and avoidance of ‘the society of women’ (Ds, pp. 6–
7). Predictably, he did not succeed in either.
 In his studies Tolstoy always excelled at languages; a quarter of a
century later the speed with which he learned ancient Greek seemed
unbelievable to classical scholars. He did well in Tatar-Turkish (as the
language was listed in the curriculum) and in Arabic, both of which
he soon forgot, but failed other subjects including Russian history.
Reluctant to resit the exams, Tolstoy applied for a transfer to the law
faculty, but did not succeed there either. In 1847, when he came of
age and entered his inheritance, he resigned from the university
without receiving a degree. Fortunately the partition of the family
property among his siblings left him with Yasnaya Polyana.
Immediately he rushed back to join his aunt Toinette.
All these sporadic impulses, hopes and disappointments clearly
reveal the influence of Rousseau. Tolstoy, as he later confessed,
worshipped the Genevan thinker and even dreamt of wearing a
medallion with Rousseau’s face. He shared Rousseau’s passionate
cult of nature and a belief that the original purity of the human
being had been spoilt by the artificial demands of society and
civilization. Even more important for Tolstoy was Rousseau’s ideal of
absolute transparency of the soul and the ensuing practice of
incessant self-scrutiny, as well as his restlessness and constant
readiness to run away from everything he owned or had achieved.
Unlike Rousseau, however, Tolstoy was never a homeless wanderer.
Yasnaya Polyana, through the vastness and beauty of its landscapes,
through familial lore and strong ties with people of the land,
connected him with the history and essence of Russia. Prodigal sons
are doomed to leave their paradise behind, but Tolstoy, though he
left it many times, always returned to Yasnaya Polyana. After his
very last escape and subsequent death, his body was brought back
to be buried in his native soil.
For several years Tolstoy oscillated between Yasnaya Polyana, Tula
(where, surprisingly for such a born anarchist, he procured a
sinecure in the civil service), Moscow and St Petersburg. In the
capitals he aspired to learn manners and behaviour that would make
him respectable in high society, but as was often the case with
Tolstoy, his diary records both a fascination for the aristocratic world
and a countervailing revulsion. Much later, describing the corrupt
received opinions of his social milieu, Tolstoy wrote that ‘the kind
aunt with whom I lived [Ergolskaya], herself the purest of beings,
always told me that there was nothing she so desired for me as that
I should have relations with a married woman: “Rien ne forme un
jeune homme, comme une liaison avec une femme comme il faut”’
(CW, XXIII, p. 4).

Tolstoy as a teenager, 1840s – the earliest-known drawing of Tolstoy.

Entrance to Yasnaya Polyana, 1892.

Tolstoy confessed that in ‘yielding to the passions’ he felt that the

society approved of him. However, most of the dubious habits he
acquired, like drinking, feasting and gambling, were more the marks
of a hussar than of polished patrician venality. ‘Improving’ liaisons
with high-status women evaded Leo. For more than a decade he
sought sexual gratification mostly with prostitutes, servants,
peasants, Gypsy and Cossack girls. In Youth, the last part of his
autobiographical trilogy, we see that ‘les hommes comme il faut’
interested him more than ‘les femmes comme il faut’.
‘I have never been in love with women,’ he wrote in his diary in
November 1851:

I have been very often in love with men . . . I fell in love with
men before I had any idea of the possibility of pederasty; but
even when I knew about it, the possibility of coitus never
occurred to me . . . My love for Islavin spoilt the whole of eight
months of my life in Petersburg for me . . . I always loved the sort
of people who were cool towards me and only took me for what I
was worth . . . Beauty always had a lot of influence on my choice;
however, there is the case with Dyakov; but I’ll never forget the
 night we were travelling from Pirogovo, and wrapped up
underneath a travelling rug, I wanted to kiss him and cry. There
was sensuality in that feeling, but why it took this course it is
impossible to decide, because, as I said, my imagination never
painted a lubricious picture; on the contrary I have a terrible
aversion to all that. (Ds, p. 32)

As in most cases, one can get more insight into Tolstoy’s personality
by listening to what he actually says than by attempting to
psychoanalyse him. An ideal male, so different socially from the
women that aroused his desire, represents a vision of the person the
diarist himself painfully and hopelessly aspired to become. Both
Tolstoy’s great novels have the same pairing of lead male characters
projecting two halves of the authorial alter ego: the good-hearted,
passionate but awkward and slightly boorish Pierre and Levin are
juxtaposed with the brilliant and polished noblemen Prince Andrei
and Vronsky. The latter, typically of their peers, were army officers.
Tolstoy’s brother and mentor Nikolai was also doing military service.
It was all but inevitable that, at some point, Leo would try to take
the same path.

The general view of Yasnaya Polyana, 1897.

 Tolstoy’s life in the army falls into two distinct phases: the
Caucasus and the Crimea. In April 1851, having lost more at the
gambling table than he could afford to repay, Tolstoy followed Nikolai
to the Caucasus. For more than two years he was based in the
Cossack settlement at Starogladkovskaya, initially as a sort of intern
attached to the regiment and then as an artillery officer. During
these years he took part in many raids against the Chechens and
deeply immersed himself in the exotic Cossack way of life. By the
time Tolstoy arrived at the frontier, the war in the Caucasus between
the Russian Empire and parts of the indigenous population had been
going on for more than thirty years. At the beginning of the
nineteenth century Russia had finally managed to prevail over the
Ottoman and Persian empires and establish control of the mostly
Christian principalities south of the Caucasus Mountains. However,
communications with the newly acquired territories were constantly
disrupted by rebellious, mostly Islamic, tribes from the mountains.
Russian troops were quartered in the region to keep the local
population under control, but the long, porous border forced the
authorities to rely upon the military assistance of the Cossacks, the
settlers who for generations had combined military service with
farming and agricultural activity on communally owned land. For
centuries criminals, runaway serfs and those from the margins of
society found refuge in the Cossacks’ settlements on the borders of
the empire. Fiercely independent, Cossacks were also significantly
richer than the peasants in mainland Russia. Many of them,
including the inhabitants of Starogladkovskaya, adhered to the Old
Belief, an Orthodox confession that had been much persecuted by
the official Church since the mid-seventeenth century. Cossack men
lived to fight and hunt, leaving many traditionally male
preoccupations, including ploughing, planting, herding and reaping,
to their women, who were physically strong, morally independent
and enjoyed sexual freedom unheard of among Russian lower
classes of the time. Many Russian Romantic writers of the early
nineteenth century wrote admiringly about the primitive, natural and
warrior lifestyle shared by the Cossacks and Caucasian mountain
people. Tolstoy, with his escapist temperament and penchant for all
that was natural and rebellious, was fascinated by the world he
discovered, describing it often in his works. With his new life came
an experience that was arguably to affect his writing even more:
regular proximity to death.
Death for Tolstoy was an obsession no less powerful than sex.
Having first met death so early in his life, Leo could never avoid
thinking about it, waiting for it, fearing and desiring it at the same
time. For the soldiers, tribesmen and Cossacks he encountered in
the Caucasus, death was a routine experience. Now Tolstoy had
plenty of opportunity to watch people dying and, perhaps more
importantly, to observe how they lived so close to death: braving it,
ignoring it as an everyday preoccupation, coping with the loss of
those who had spoken to them only a day, an hour, a few minutes
before.
Nearly a decade after his experience in the Caucasus, Tolstoy
wrote ‘Three Deaths’, a story that compares the death of a noble
lady full of resentment, envy and condemnation for those remaining
alive, with the death of a peasant fully reconciled with his own
mortality, and that of a tree that readily frees its place for new
vegetation. The ability of living creatures to accept death is, Tolstoy
suggests, inversely related to how strongly they perceive their own
uniqueness in the world. Tolstoy passionately wished to develop a
peasant-like, if not tree-like, attitude to death and dissolve himself
into a universal life that does not differentiate between individual
beings, but his habit of painful soul-searching, need for self-assertion
and quest for personal greatness were equally strong.
On 29 March 1852, while at Starogladkovskaya, he wrote in his
diary:

I am tormented by the pettiness of my life. – I feel that it is

because I am petty myself – but I still have the strength to
despise myself, and my life. There is something in me that makes
me believe that I wasn’t born to be the same as other people . . .
I am still tormented by thirst . . . not for fame – I don’t want fame
and I despise it – but to have a big influence on people’s
happiness and usefulness. Shall I simply die with this hopeless
wish? (Ds, p. 40)

From the beginning Tolstoy’s self-reproach was inseparable from his

burning ambition. In the Caucasus he regularly exposed this
connection in his diary as he began to suspect that he had stumbled
upon the green stick of fable. From late August 1851, before he
even left for the Caucasus, Tolstoy had secretly begun to work on his
first story. A failed student, dissipated landowner and low-ranking
officer was discovering himself as a writer.
It was less exceptional in nineteenth-century Russia for a
professional writer to emerge from the ranks of the nobility than in
the rest of Western Europe. The Westernizing reforms of Peter the
Great at the beginning of the eighteenth century had forced the
nobility to not only change their facial hair, clothes and manners, but
to acquire better education suitable for their new European lifestyles.
A new educated elite that constituted the Russian nobility embraced
and internalized the Petrine reforms, striving to put itself on an equal
footing with its European peers. Europeanized Russian nobles not
only produced the formidable officer corps that triumphed over
Napoleon, but created the unique culture of Russia’s Golden Age.
Still, these remarkable achievements stood on the foundation of
serfdom. Only nobles could own land. They enjoyed nearly unlimited
power over the peasants living on their estates. This extended to
more than just the fruits of their labour. Serfs could be bought, sold,
sent to military service or penal institutions, punished physically or
financially and their families could be broken up at their owner’s
whim. Under Peter the Great and his immediate successors, when
state service was mandatory for the nobles, everyone was subject to
at least some form of servitude. This changed in 1762 when the
nobility was allowed to choose whether to serve or not. This new
freedom unleashed the cultural creativity of the most educated
scions of the Russian nobility just as the Enlightenment took flight.
The new ideas from Europe were starkly opposed to the moral
affront of serfdom. As Russia entered the Golden Age, this contrast
began to gnaw at the consciences of the nobility’s brightest minds.
Young officers returning from the Napoleonic wars saw
themselves as the liberators of Europe. Now more acutely aware of
the lack of freedom at home, they started forming conspiratorial
groups to liberate Russia. At first they aspired to help Emperor
Alexander I overcome the resistance of the conservatives to the
belated reforms. Later a core of conspirators started planning a full-
scale military coup d’état. In December 1825, after the emperor’s
death, rebellious officers brought their regiments to the Palace
Square in St Petersburg and refused to take an oath of allegiance to
the new monarch. After a day of turmoil, the insurrection was
dispersed with cannon. Six months later, with no formal trial, five
plot leaders were sent to the gallows and dozens more to hard
labour and exile in Siberia.
The Decembrists, as the conspirators came to be known,
constituted a tiny minority of the nobility but the most aristocratic
families were particularly prominent in their ranks. This self-sacrifice
by the most privileged members of an emerging society seized the
country’s imagination. In the absence of any political representation
or moral guidance from a Church that had long been subservient to
the state, literature became the single most important channel for
shaping and expressing public opinion. In 1820s and ’30s Russia the
dawn of the Romantic age with its search for a national spirit
strongly reinforced the perception of the writer as a voice speaking
on behalf of the nation before the authorities.
The early 1850s was both a difficult and exciting time to start a
literary career. Emperor Nicholas I, eager to suppress any hint of
dissent after the European revolutions of 1848, had begun a new
round of political repression. Among many others, the young Fedor
Dostoevsky was arrested, sentenced to death, pardoned on the brink
of execution and sent to Siberia. Censorship became exceptionally
severe. ‘Why bother’, said one censor surprised at the temerity of
authors who persisted in writing, ‘when we have already decided not
to allow anything?’2 The reading public, however, shared a feeling
that the end of an epoch was approaching and major changes were
in the air. New works were eagerly awaited from a cohort of young
writers, including the novelists Ivan Turgenev and Ivan Goncharov,
the great satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and the dramatist
Alexander Ostrovsky, whose plays would come to form the backbone
of Russian national theatre.
New writers discussed actual social problems, defying outdated
Romantic conventions. They gathered around Sovremennik (The
Contemporary), a literary magazine started in the 1830s by the poet
Alexander Pushkin and later edited by Nikolai Nekrasov, one of the
most universally popular poets of his age, who wrote mostly about
the hard lives of Russian peasants. The publication in Sovremennik
of Tolstoy’s first novel, Childhood, coincided with the death of Nikolai
Gogol, the leading writer of the previous generation, and the arrest
of Ivan Turgenev, the most prominent voice of a new generation, for
his obituary of Gogol. One can hardly imagine a more powerful
symbol both of continuity and change.
Tolstoy’s choice of subject-matter for his literary debut was a
brilliant move, both artistically and tactically. The vision of childhood
as a lost paradise was one of the most powerful myths of Romantic
culture, overwhelmed by nostalgia for a golden age of innocence
and unity with nature. In the social landscape of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Europe, one could not imagine a better setting
for this world of bliss than a nobleman’s country estate. Rousseau
had located the utopian world of Clarence in such an estate. Karl
Moor, the charismatic hero of Schiller’s The Robbers, is heir to a
family castle to which he longs in vain to return. Yet if Schiller, the
son of a doctor, can be said to have launched this trope into
Romantic literature, it was Tolstoy, as one to the manor born, who
would flesh it out with details from a world he knew so intimately
well.
Russia was preparing to part with its Golden Age and was feeling
nostalgic in advance. Childhood memories could serve as a safe
haven under any censorship regime. At the same time they did not
provoke animosity among a liberal or even a radical audience
because Tolstoy found an innovative approach to this highly
Other documents randomly have
different content
“Hullo! who said that?” asked Eben, in surprise. The negro turned
yellow, and his teeth chattered with fear. He was thoroughly alarmed.
“Golly, Mars’r Eben!” he stammered, staring toward the thicket. “Did
yer hear dat?”
“Of course I heard it! what was it?”
“Oh, golly, mars’r! dis chile’s dead an’ done buried.”
“It was a man’s voice. I will go and see who it is.”
The negro stopped him as he was moving away, grasping him firmly
by the arm.
“Don’t go, mars’r; stay heah! Dat am de Obeah man.”
“Pshaw!”
“Yas, mars’r, I’se done offen heerd um. Obeah man no like ter be
pestered. Mars’r Eben, yer’se done gone dead ef yer goes thar.”
“Let me go! take your hand off! ef ye air afeard I’m not. I’m goin’ ter
see who ’tis.”
He shook the negro off, and, followed by the party, who hearing the
voice had drawn near, plunged into the thicket, save Jeffries, who,
with his superstitions revived, stayed behind. Walter in his frantic
zeal was first. Darting into the thick “bush” he forced his way through
the matted hazel bushes, eying vigilantly every twig. The rest
dispersed themselves through the adjoining thickets and he was left
to himself. Hearing a rustle close by he sprung toward it and
imagined he caught a sudden glimpse of a misshapen form swiftly
retreating.
The form was white as snow and was that, apparently, of a
hunchback. For a moment only was it visible, then it vanished, and a
horrible, low, hollow chuckle rung mockingly out. He darted after in
close pursuit, but was brought to a stand by a matted grape-vine,
which stood an impenetrable barrier directly in his path. Knowing
from experience he could not penetrate it he was forced to retreat
and take a circuitous path around it. He was very much surprised, for
the figure had glided through as easily as if he had been a snake.
He was some minutes in returning to it, and when he got there he
was satisfied that hot pursuit would be in vain; he must fasten on the
trail. Being familiar with this art, he stood perfectly still and peered at
the ground. It was soft, and his own foot-marks were distinctly
visible, but they were the only ones. But he went down on his knees
and crept about, earnestly watching for any indentation which might
lead to the discovery of the trail. But his search was in vain—no
other beside his footsteps marred the earth.
Then he examined the adjacent twigs and bushes to see if they were
disturbed in any manner by his passage. Then he examined the
grape-vine. Neither were barked or bruised in any way and had not
been touched. According to their evidence (at any time or place
reliable) no one had passed by.
Now he was indeed surprised. He had, with his own eyes, seen the
hunchback disappear through the vines. He had heard him chuckle
mockingly, and he remarked the sound was most hideous and
unearthly. Whoever he was, he was most sly and foxy, and had left
no trail. He was, ere this, entirely beyond his reach.
For a moment, a feeling of evil came over him. Here he was in Dead-
Man’s Forest, in its gloomy depths. He had seen, he knew not what;
he had heard it mock him derisively; he was opposed by a strange,
invisible foe; and he was somewhat alarmed, and greatly astonished,
at its mysterious disappearance. But, he was not one to stand and
wonder at marvelous things; he was a young man of great energy,
and almost distracted with grief, was impatient at delay and in a hot
fever to go on. He raised his voice and called to Cato; he would
surely find a trail.
“Cato! oh, Cato!”
No answer. He could hear at a little distance the rustle of bushes and
the breaking of twigs; like himself, his comrades were ferreting about
in pursuit of the strange intruder. Now and then, one would exclaim
suddenly, then relax into silence; then a low whisper would reach his
ears from an ardent pair close by.
“Cato! where are you?”
An owl close by, awakened from his midday nap by the unusual
clamor, screamed and laughed:
“Hoot, hoo! who, who—who are you?”
“Confound the bird! I can’t hear for his cursed noise. Cato! oh, Cato!”
“Ha! hoo! hum! Polly cook for we all, who cooks for you all?”
screamed the owl.
To one bred in a city the noise would have sounded like a person
speaking the above words with a mouth full of pebbles; but he was
acquainted with the sound and was incensed at the uproar.
“Cato, come here, you are wanted; here is ‘sign.’”
“Who’s that callin’?” asked some one close by.
“Walt Ridgely. I want Cato.”
The man took up the cry, and hallooed:
“Come hyar, ye blasted nigger; ye’r’ dee-sired.”
But no answer came. Walter, incensed, made his way back to the
glade where they were standing when the cry was heard. When he
got there he found it deserted. Thinking the negro was away on a
scout, he hallooed to the searching men to bring him back. They did
so, calling loudly. But no answering halloo was heard.
The frontiersmen, thinking an important discovery had been made,
came back, and soon all were re-assembled, plying Walter with
questions. He related the occurrence, and their faculties aroused,
part of them went away into the woods to recover the missing negro,
leaving the father and lover well-nigh distracted at the delay.
In half an hour (which seemed an age to the latter) they all came
back, vowing vengeance; the negro had deserted. Brought to a
stand-still, they cursed and growled some, then entered into a
council of war.
Cato, on being left to himself, had taken advantage of the moment,
and sped away at full speed toward Shadow Swamp, distant about
three miles. Arriving there, he gave his own peculiar whistle for the
captain, who soon appeared on the edge of the island.
The negro signaled him to cross. The captain disappeared, then
appeared paddling toward him. He drew up by the projecting log on
which the negro was standing, and demanded:
“What is wanted?”
“Dey’s trailin’ yer, Mars’r Cap’n; dey’s all in a fiah ’bout yer; dey’s
gwine ter cotch yer an’ string yer up.”
“Who? What do you mean?”
“De squatters—dey’s a-huntin’ yer.”
“What! do they suspect?”
“Yas, mars’r—an’ dey ain’t fur wrong, hi, yi!” and he laughed
uproariously.
“Hold your tongue, you blockhead! do you want to be discovered?
How far are they away?”
“’Bout t’ree mile.”
“Are they on the trail?”
“No, sar, mars’r, no, sar. Dem fellahs kain’t foller trail—psho!” and he
turned up his flat nose in contempt.
“Don’t be too sure, Cato; there are sharp men, old Indian-fighters,
among them. We must be vigilant—very wary. How came they to
suspect me?”
“Dunno, sar. Foun’ ’em red-hot dis mornin’, all bunched up reddy ter
foller on de trail. Trail! dem fellahs! sho!”
“Did you speak to them?”
“Speak to ’em? Golly, Mars’r Cap’n, I’se de fellah dat is leadin’ ’em;
I’se de fellah dat am gwine ter fotch ’em right hyar ter der Shadder
Swamp!”
The captain whipped out a revolver.
“So you are, are you? Then you live,”—cocking the weapon and
aiming it at the negro’s head—“then you live just one half of a
second longer.”
The negro threw up his hands in alarm, and yellow with fear, gasped
out:
“G-g-golly, Mars’r Cap’n, I’se done—I’se wrong.”
“Wrong? Mind your speech! Ha! don’t you dare to move or I’ll pepper
you! Now, you villain, tell me what you mean.”
He was in a dangerous state of mind, as could be told by the
ferocious smile he wore. Cato, knowing him well, was alarmed.
“Golly, sar—Mars’r Cap’n; I’se done mistaken, I’se—”
“Out with it!”
“I’se yer—yer—de fr’end ob de cappen’s.”
“None of your gasconade, I won’t hear a word of it! Come, out with
your lie!”
“I done mean ter say I’se a-foolin’.”
“Fooling?”
“Yas, sar; I’se de fr’end ob de cap’n.”
“Trifler!”
“Hold on, mars’r; don’t shoot. I’se de enemy ob de fellahs!”
“What fellows?”
“De squatters—de Regumlators! I’se blindin’ ’em.”
“You mean to say you are pulling wool over their eyes?”
“Dat’s it, mars’r—I’se pullin’ hull bales ob wool ober ’em.”
“And that you mean to mislead them? to pretend to trail me, and take
them out of the neighborhood?”
“Dat am a fac’! Hi!
“‘Jawbone walkin’, jawbone—’”
“Be quiet. Did they give you any thing for it?”
As he said this he belted the revolver, and Cato grew easier. His
eyes gleamed at the prospect of double pay, as he knew the captain
would give largely to avoid apprehension.
“Yas, mars’r,” answered the black; “dey done gib me heaps ob
t’ings.”
“What?”
“Debblish peart pony, big gun, beaver-traps, farms, houses, lots ob
cows—”
“You trifle with me, do you?” demanded the captain, with a wicked
smile.
Cato became nervous again.
“No, mars’r, I’se speaks de truf! De young fellah, Waltah, an’ de ole
man, done sed dey’d gib me de hull t’ing—farms, cows, de houses,
de hosses—”
“Oh, they are anxious, then; well, I suppose you will endeavor to
earn your reward?”
“No, sar! I gits hafe ob it anyhow, an’ de other am on de job.”
“Soho! Well, you are a fine sort of fellow, Cato, to be sure. Won’t you
take something?” and he drew a flask from his pocket.
The negro took it eagerly, and put it to his lips, rolling his eyes in
ecstasy as the fiery liquid gurgled down his throat. Now the captain
could do any thing with him.
“Now, Cato,” he continued, “you have always been a faithful fellow,
and have never been sufficiently rewarded. Now if you will mislead
them thoroughly—mind, thoroughly—I will give you, not foolish
weapons, or land which you will never use, but money—yellow
money.”
Cato’s eyes rolled. The captain went on:
“How would you like a hundred dollars, Cato—a hundred yellow
dollars? You will be rich, Cato.”
“Golly, Mars’r Cap’n! whew! one hun’ud dollars! golly, sar, I’se do it
right good fur dat much. Hi! den Cato am gwine back inter ole
Missip’, ‘a berry rich niggah.’”
“I am glad you are satisfied. It is indeed an immense sum—very
large. But, Fink is calling me—I must go. Now, just do your duty by
me and you will get your money and be a rich man. Now off with
you!”
He waved his hand, and Cato, grinning with delight, scudded away
at full speed, very unlike his usual lazy pace. Downing saw him
vanish in a thick “brush,” then embarked in the “dug-out” and
paddled back to the island.
 CHAPTER VII.
A TERRIBLE TREE.
Various and many were the threats of the settlers when Cato was not
to be found, but they were eclipsed by the settled determination of
Walter and Jeffries, who resolved to make him pay dearly for his
fickleness and desertion when they met him. And no wonder they
were incensed at his conduct. Aside from the delay, which might
prove serious, and which was provoking, the thought that this very
moment Katie might be suffering terrible evils, was one of anguish to
the two who loved her so fondly.
Of the two griefs, Walter’s was the greatest and hardest to bear.
While the father was stricken and stupefied by the blow, and was in a
semi-stupor, Walter was kept nervously strung to the highest tension
by a thousand surmises, suspicions and fears. He well knew, from
personal knowledge, Downing’s impulsive and evil character; he well
knew, by his actions the night before, that he was very hot-blooded,
and plethoric with sinful passions; and were Katie, as everybody
strongly suspected, in his power, the worst might happen.
It was also strongly suspected that this gay, handsome Danforth was
in league with a band of bandits. Although the country was new and
sparsely settled, although the squatters were generally poor and
without money of any kind, and so far from genuine civilization, one
would think a band of robbers was an absurdly superfluous thing.
But it was not so. Across Arkansas, and right on the brink of Shadow
Swamp, and bisecting Dead-Man’s Forest, ran what was then known
as the “Arkansas trail,” the great wilderness thoroughfare (?) from
the Mid-Western States to Mexico. It has long since been
abandoned, and is now almost unknown; but along its serpentine
course many murders have been committed, many robberies and
dastardly deeds, of which the world will never know.
Men laden with wealth—the hard-earned savings of many hard and
dangerous weeks’ work—men growing lighter-hearted and merrier at
every step, had left sunny Mexico with enough to enjoy forever, and
were nearing sweet home. Perhaps they had been harassed on the
plains by hostile savages; perchance they had suffered the direful
pangs of hunger and thirst in the wilderness, and had stared death in
the face and had warded him off many times; but of every ten who
entered Dead-Man’s Forest, within the confines of civilization, at
least seven never came out on the other side.
No wonder the existence of a robber band was suspected; no
wonder handsome Charles Danforth, doing nothing else than
roaming in the gloomy forest, was suspected of conspiring with it;
and what wonder that sweet Katie, who had rejected him the night
before, should be in his toils?
And as Walter thought of these dark things, his blood surged and he
felt the terrible pangs of the sickness of strength arising within him.
Fear rolled on fear, and festered and grew sore; and his pangs were
not a whit alleviated by the delay.
But it was of short duration. A hasty council was formed, questions
were made and answered, the elders gave their sage advice, and
they soon started off, with deadly rage hob-nobbing with fear.
Now Sol Jacobs was to be the bloodhound, i. e., the trailer. Once he
had been famous for his skill in the high and subtle art, but he had
not followed a trail for years. He was old, but still strong and spirited,
and in the shooting-matches always carried off the prize. His old
energy still remained staunch and his eyes were as keen as ever.
They started toward—where? They did not know. Then they went to
the border of the forest, and began to look for the trail, the party
dispersing for the purpose. They had not long to search, for they
were singularly fortunate. They had not been scattered above five
minutes when an exclamation was heard from Sol, who was bending
and looking intently at something, being only a few rods from the
cabin of Hans Winkler.
They hurried to the spot. Sol pointed to a set of tracks in some moist
ground. One was that of a small boot, neatly shaped; the other that
of a coarse shoe, large and flat. Both were pointing in the same
direction—toward the forest, and by them he judged the parties must
have been moving rapidly.
“Wal, boys,” said Sol, “ef I ain’t mistaken, hyar’s the trail.”
“How do yer know that?” inquired a suspicious settler. “It mout not be
the one we’re after.”
“Wal, but yer see it air!” returned Sol, a trifle nettled. “Bekase why?
why thar’s only one man in the settlement that wears such a boot,
and he is that Danforth. See, it’s trim and neat—a store boot. All ye
fellers wears coarse ones, or rather moccasins. Every feller hyar
knows that boot-mark, don’t yer? And then t’other; that thar is bigger
and flatter—more like some of yer all’s. I’m cussed ef I know who it
b’longs ter—darn me ef I hain’t. I don’t believe thar’s a man in the
whole settlement that’s got a shoe like that. Wal, it makes nary
difference—Danforth’s the man we’re after, and Danforth’s the man
we’ll find, whether he’s guilty or not guilty. Them yer sentiments,
boys?”
“You bet! Ay, ay! go on!” and many others were the exclamations by
which he was answered.
“Yer all hyar?” he asked, looking over his followers.
“All hyar!”
“How many air ye?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen brave, stout men. Wal, yer all ready? Come on! foller clost,
boys; keep yer eyes open, yer mouths shet, and don’t tramp on the
trail! Hyar we go after little Katie!”
He started off at a round pace with the most gigantic strides, bending
down to see the trail, and keeping his gun at a trail.
The others followed, observing his instructions, and fuming to
recover Katie. Hettie, from her position in the block-house, saw them
emerge from the forest, gather round Sol, and then start away
rapidly and disappear in the wood. She sighed.
“Ah!” she sorrowfully murmured, “my darling, I hope you will come to
no harm.”
Into the forest they plunged, just after midday, swiftly pursuing an
open trail. On they went, stealing under drooping trees, striking out
across a glade, slinking into a dense coppice, out again with a pause
and a listen, then on, following the plain trail. Never deviating, never
halting, always wary and watchful, they went on; and the ghostly
trees nodded, the sun shone redly down, and all was quiet in Dead-
Man’s Forest.
Hallo! who is talking? who is crying aloud when all should be still?
who speaks? Hallo!
A voice, borne by the wind, floated up and into the air, speaking only
a few, very few words; but they were full of strange meaning. The
pursuers did not hear it, neither did any one else—only the trees in
Dead-Man’s Forest. But it spoke, notwithstanding.
Cato was on his way to meet the party, and was running quite
rapidly, when he entered a small glade, one of the many that
embellished the gloomy old wood. He drew back out of sight,
directly, and ensconced himself under a bush.
What had he seen?—nothing. Had he heard any noise to alarm him?
—no. Had he received any warning about this particular spot?—no.
Then why did he fear to emerge into the glade? Why did he hide
under the bush?
He could not tell. The moment he had set his foot into the glade a
large tree in the center of it attracted his attention; a feeling of fear
came over him. Nay, more—a feeling of positive terror. He was
absolutely afraid to enter it.
Now, there was nothing remarkable about that tree—it was a
common oak, rather devoid of foliage. No man could hide in its top—
a coon would have been discovered by a greenhorn if he had trusted
to its shelter. Its trunk was of the size of a man’s body, not large
enough to shelter a large man; no one could hide behind it without
rolling himself into a ball. Neither had the tree that awkward
appendage of a rope hanging pendent from a dead limb—nor the
more awkward habit of staring a man in the face as some trees do,
as if they were saying:
“Avoid me! this is a weird, ghostly spot!”
It was a common tree—nothing more.
He watched it awhile uneasily, then softly arose, and intending to
skulk around the glade, started stealthily on. But before he had half
completed the circuit, a faint voice, seemingly from a great distance,
said:
“Stop!”
He did so, in a cold sweat, and shaking from head to foot. His eyes
were fixed on the tree as if fascinated. What was the matter with the
tree?
His limbs refused to move as he essayed to flee. His eyes rolled in
their sockets and icy sweat poured from him. Was he under a
strange influence?
With a superhuman effort he gathered strength, and wrenching his
eyes from the tree, started off on a dead run.
“Stop!”
He did so, nearly ready to faint with terror. Half fainting, his ignorant,
superstitious mind conjured up myriads of ghastly, grotesque and
fantastic objects, which floated before his eyes. Imps rode fantastic
steeds snorting fire, blue as—as alcohol; blue serpents entwined
their horrible folds before him; pale specters with awful pale-blue
countenances, grimly grinned at him; a conflagration of lurid blue
raged and roared around him; new, strange, and terrible animals,
charged and recharged upon him, never striking, but coming fearfully
near; and above all, there stood the tree, now blue as all the rest;
blue, blue, blue.
A clamor, as if of ten thousand giants harshly wrangling, surged in
his ears, rivaling the throb of his heart. A fever took possession of
him and made his torment, if possible, worse. He strove to flee—he
could not. He strained to shriek, but strove in vain—he was a lost
man.
And now a dog, invisible, drew near. He could hear him come slowly
on, panting. He remembered the day was hot—so undoubtedly was
the dog. Dogs always pant and loll when heated; hear him pant,
pant, pant.
He sunk to the ground in despair and he could see the tree burning,
now, with a blue fire which waved fantastically. By degrees the
flames communicated with other trees; more demons appeared;
terrific giants drew near and scowled down upon him; and still nearer
drew the dog—pant, pant, pant.
“Help! help!” he shrieked in agony. “Help!” But the wind still moaned,
the fire waved and augmented, the tree loomed up, and the dog
drew nearer—pant, pant.
Was it resurrection day? was Dead-Man’s Forest giving up its dead?
were the ghostly victims, long since immortal, crowding around about
him, demanding his blood?
“Help! help!”
The dog drew nearer, and he could feel his hot breath upon his face
and hear the dreadful pant. Oh, God! would no one come?
He started half-way up, all on fire. Was not that an answering halloo?
or was it the voice which spoke so strangely in the forest?
He had not much time to spare—the horrible dog came nearer with
his hot and craving pant—pant, pant. Once more he screamed for
help until his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
“Help! help!”
Ha! that was surely an answer—a halloo. And voices too—voices he
knew. Footsteps hurriedly approached, the fires suddenly ceased,
and he could hear the dog panting far away. Some one’s hand was
laid on his head, a rough voice sounded, confused sounds rung in
his ears, and Cato, the Creeper, was unconscious.
When he awoke he was surrounded by a large party of men, who
were regarding him angrily and curiously. He did not recognize them,
but, remembering his recent peril, partially arose and looked in
search of the tree.
It was nowhere in sight. There was the glade and the towering
sycamores standing guard over it; there was the very bush he had
concealed himself under; but where was the tree?
“How d’ye feel?” asked one of the rough men, kneeling beside him.
“I dunno, mars’r,” he said, sinking down drowsily and closing his
eyes.
“Feel better?”
“Whar’s de dog, mars’r?”
“What dog? thar ain’t no dog with us.”
“Are ye done shore, mars’r?”
“Sartin. Thar ain’t no dog hyar, is thar men?”
Several answered in the negative. Cato feebly raised himself on his
elbow and looked up.
He thought he recognized his questioner; he surely had seen him
somewhere. And the others too, their faces were familiar. Was he
asleep and dreaming? who were they?
“Whar am de fiah—am it all over?”
He heard a low voice remark: “What in thunder is he talkin’ ’bout?
darn me ef I don’t think he’s done gone mad.” Then it was raised
interrogatively.
“Thar ain’t b’en no dog nor no fire—leastways my peepers don’t see
ary sign of any.”
It was a new voice that spoke, and Cato knew it for the voice of Old
Sol. Rising on his knees he gazed around on his companions; they
were the settlers, gazing at him moodily. He started up and grasped
the veteran trailer by his horny hand.
“Golly, Mars’r Jacobs! Cato’s right grad ter see yer heah,” he said,
fervently. “Ye kim in der berry time. Cato war a’most gone, mars’r.”
“What was up?” asked the men, pressing about him. “Tell us! did you
see the gal?”
“No, mars’r, Cato done see’d nothin’ ob her,” he answered,
mournfully. “But de niggah see’d suthin’ berry much worse—he done
see’d Obeah. Oh, Mars’r Jacobs, it was ter’ble—ter’ble.”
“What was it? what was it?” were the impatient demands. Cato
peered round fearfully. He was really frightened, they could see, and
as he was by no means a coward, they knew that something had
happened. Then as if reassured by the presence of so many brave
and strong men he told his story. They listened with great attention,
and when he was through, many declared their opinion, in a few
words.
“Snakes in his shoes—the tree-mens.”
(They all knew he drank immoderately.)
“No, sar, it wasn’t no tree-mens,” he protested, not yet recovered
from his fright. “It was too ter’ble—too hor’ble. Mars’r Jacobs, Cato
won’t be Creeper berry much longah. I done heerd de voice—fo’
shore I heerd um. ‘Stop!’ it said; an’ for de life ob me dis niggah
hadn’t de strength ter move. Dat voice, mars’r, dat voice I heerd; and
dis niggah ain’t gwine ter tech whisky ag’in.”
“How did the voice sound? Was it like the one we heard a little while
ago?” asked Josh Dunbar.
“Jess the same, mars’r—jess percisely the same,” answered Cato.
“Ha!” cried Sol. “Hyar’s business! now, Martin, stay with Cato—he’s
too weak to follow. Stay hyar ontil we kim back. Come, boys, come;
hyar’s ter ketch that voice. It’s suthin’ ter do with leetle Katie, sartin.
Come on and cock the black feather!”
He struck on the trail, which had been abandoned at discovering
Cato insensible on the ground, and rapidly “loped” off, followed
closely by his little army, who were of various opinions regarding
Cato’s fright. Some declared with solemn faces and low tones that
Dead-Man’s Forest, always considered haunted, was surely so, and
by a terrible unknown, and that Cato had been under his influence;
while others as stoutly insisted it was the punishment which
ungrateful liquor always brings upon his subjects—the delirium
tremens. Old Sol, on being interrogated, only shook his head
solemnly, and evaded the answer—he had his opinion, but it was for
himself alone.
If Walter had not been so grief-stricken and anxious, he would have
longed to find the owner of the voice (if there was one) and would
have done so if he had spent weeks in the task, for he had had a
glimpse of him once, but a very brief one; but he was now so
troubled and frantic he desired only to recover his lost treasure.
Away they went on the broad trail, fully satisfied that in reaching its
end not only Downing, but the voice would be found; and they wound
in and out among the trees in the grim old forest. They were within a
mile of the swamp when Eben, always keen as a ferret, suddenly
halted, drew his rifle to his shoulder and fired at some distant object.
“Missed, by thunder!” he angrily cried with a good old-fashioned
oath. “Bungler!”
“What was it, Eb?” inquired the men, peering cautiously around
ready for an attack.
“The durnedest looking chap I ever saw—a hunchback. He was
peeking from behind a tree.”
“Which one?”
“That big cottonwood. Whew; how he did scamper.”
“Come on, boys!” shouted Sol, starting off in the direction indicated.
“Hyar’s suthin’ wrong. We ken easy find the trail ag’in.”
They followed pell-mell toward the cottonwood, but before they had
gone half the distance the same former voice, called out:
“Halloo-o-o!”
They halted short.
“Do-n’t fol-low me. Take the trail to Shadow Swamp. She is there.”
They looked in each other’s faces, uncertain what to do. Suddenly
the voice added:
“You can not catch me if you try. Go on to Shadow Swamp.”
When he heard this Sol slowly turned, and without looking back,
returned to the trail, followed by the bewildered men.
“It’s no use ter foller him, boys,” he said; “he speaks the truth. Le’s
find the trail and go on.”
They did, some grumbling, others alarmed, but all astonished and
bewildered, at Sol’s strange conduct. But the sage old veteran knew
what he was about.
 CHAPTER VIII.
SOMEBODY IS GOING OUT.
The day slowly dragged by as Katie, half-crazed, sat on the low stool
in the cabin, and pondered on her cruel fate. Hope seemed a
mockery—she knew she was in the power of a most unprincipled
villain, one who would halt at no deed, however violent, to gain an
end.
Mere death she did not fear—it was the thought that it would nearly
craze and ruin her lover, and would bow her father to a premature
grave, that gave her anguish.
The most harrowing and painful thoughts harassed her, and she was
almost unconscious when the door softly opened, and Downing
came softly in.
He barred the door behind him, and folding his arms, regarded her
steadily for a moment. He saw she was distressed and bowed by
grief, and that she was very faint from the lack of nourishment, which
she had not taken for nearly twenty-four hours. Though disliking to
see her in this condition (as a man would dislike to see his pet dog
lean and gaunt) he still felt a thrill of savage joy. Cruelty was his
predominating trait.
“Miss Jeffries,” he said, softly.
She looked up in surprise, as she had not heard him enter. Then
seeing who it was she grew pale and looked defiant.
“You will not answer?” he asked, in well assumed mournful reproach.
“Miss Jeffries, I have come to give you another opportunity of ridding
yourself of this hard life. I did say I would never return; but my ardent
love for you has outweighed all feelings of anger or pique. Say, my
dear Miss Jeffries, will you make yourself and me happy?”
She flashed on him a glance of exquisite scorn, then burst into wild
weeping. He approached, and sinking down on his couch began to
pluck a straw to pieces, idly.
“It’s all the same to me,” he said, indifferently, “whether you cry or
laugh—at least in your present mood and state. Were you, however,
my wife, it would grieve me to see you distressed. I love you
ardently, devotedly; but conscious of my small chance of winning
your affection in a fair way, I quell my good and better feelings and
resort to foul ones. I am frank, you see.”
She turned her back upon him, and her pale face wore an
expression of deep loathing.
Whatever hopes he had cherished were dissipated, his air-castles
were demolished and felled to the ground, and chagrined,
disappointed, all the malice of his treacherous nature seemed to leap
into life.
Stepping to the door and opening it he said with his wicked smile:
“As you will, my bird; if you won’t sing by coaxing or threatening, you
will have a dark cover over your cage; you stay here only to starve.
Should you, when frantic with hunger and despair, offer to accept my
conditions, I will not relent; here you are, and here you stay. Good-
by!”
The door closed and was barred, his footsteps grew fainter and died
away, and she was alone—this time to certain fate. Though her heart
sunk and her brain reeled, yet she did not shrink—she would have
died twice over rather than consort with such a fiend.
It was nearly sunset. Creeping to the door, where a wee bright light
showed, she put her face close to it and peered out. It was a small
chink, and by straining her eyes she could perceive objects at a little
distance. In front, at the end of a path cut between a thick growth of
willows lay a small craft lying on the bank. Just beyond she could
see a small bit of black water. The craft was a “dug-out,” and in the
stern was a paddle. Then she guessed where she was. Recollecting
the assertion of the captain, that he was in command of a robber
band, remembering Dutch Joe’s statements, and by putting several
other things together, she made up her mind she was on the island
in Shadow Swamp.
Heavens! if she could escape! There lay the craft, within a few yards.
By reaching it she could paddle to the main land and hide in the
forest!—in the gloomy, grim Dead-Man’s Forest!
She pushed the door gently. It moved. She felt it give to her touch,
and heard the heavy log grate along the ground. Downing had been
careless in fastening it. She drew back with beating heart, and sat on
the stool sick with fear lest some one should come, and entering,
discover the log’s slight resistance.
Footsteps approached, but they were not Downing’s. His were light
end jaunty; these were heavy and slow. She shivered with
apprehension lest the person should discover the change of position
in the log.
The person was Fink. The captain had ordered him to stand guard
over the cabin until relieved, his post to be at the rear of the building
as the wall was weak on that side. So he stalked away toward it, just
as the sun was setting.
She need not have been alarmed, for the second officer merely
tramped around several times, then sat down at the rear.
Slowly the sun sunk below the tree-tops of the haunted forest; slowly
the shades of the damp night stole on; and the watcher in the cabin
waited for night, trembling.
Darkness came at length, black and damp. There had been a little
loud laughter and coarse merriment at the other cabin just at sunset;
now all was still. She heard some one come toward the rear of the
cabin and speak to Fink. It was Bob Griffith, the scout.
“Come ter relieve yer, leftenant. How’s all inside?”
“Hunky. But she won’t last long.”
“Ay? How’s that?”
“She don’t git any thing ter nibble on.”
“So? Capt’in’s playin’ the game fine.”
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

textbookfull.com