



Produced by Judith Boss





REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY

BY HIS SON,

Count Ilya Tolstoy


Translated By George Calderon




REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY (Part I.)

IN one of his letters to his great-aunt, Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstoy,
my father gives the following description of his children:

The eldest [Sergei] is fair-haired and good-looking; there is something
weak and patient in his expression, and very gentle. His laugh is not
infectious; but when he cries, I can hardly refrain from crying, too.
Every one says he is like my eldest brother.

I am afraid to believe it. It is too good to be true. My brother's chief
characteristic was neither egotism nor self-renunciation, but a strict
mean between the two. He never sacrificed himself for any one else; but
not only always avoided injuring others, but also interfering with them.
He kept his happiness and his sufferings entirely to himself.

Ilya, the third, has never been ill in his life; broad-boned, white and
pink, radiant, bad at lessons. Is always thinking about what he is told
not to think about. Invents his own games. Hot-tempered and violent,
wants to fight at once; but is also tender-hearted and very sensitive.
Sensuous; fond of eating and lying still doing nothing.

Tanya [Tatyana] is eight years old. Every one says that she is like
Sonya, and I believe them, although I am pleased about that, too; I
believe it only because it is obvious. If she had been Adam's eldest
daughter and he had had no other children afterward, she would have
passed a wretched childhood. The greatest pleasure that she has is to
look after children.

The fourth is Lyoff. Handsome, dexterous, good memory, graceful. Any
clothes fit him as if they had been made for him. Everything that others
do, he does very skilfully and well. Does not understand much yet.

The fifth, Masha [Mary] is two years old, the one whose birth nearly
cost Sonya her life. A weak and sickly child. Body white as milk, curly
white hair; big, queer blue eyes, queer by reason of their deep, serious
expression. Very intelligent and ugly. She will be one of the riddles;
she will suffer, she will seek and find nothing, will always be seeking
what is least attainable.

The sixth, Peter, is a giant, a huge, delightful baby in a mob-cap,
turns out his elbows, strives eagerly after something. My wife falls
into an ecstasy of agitation and emotion when she holds him in her arms;
but I am completely at a loss to understand. I know that he has a great
store of physical energy, but whether there is any purpose for which the
store is wanted I do not know. That is why I do not care for children
under two or three; I don't understand.


This letter was written in 1872, when I was six years old. My
recollections date from about that time. I can remember a few things
before.




FAMILY LIFE IN THE COUNTRY

FROM my earliest childhood until the family moved into Moscow--that
was in 1881--all my life was spent, almost without a break, at Yasnaya
Polyana.

This is how we live. The chief personage in the house is my mother. She
settles everything. She interviews Nikolai, the cook, and orders dinner;
she sends us out for walks, makes our shirts, is always nursing some
baby at the breast; all day long she is bustling about the house with
hurried steps. One can be naughty with her, though she is sometimes
angry and punishes us.

She knows more about everything than anybody else. She knows that one
must wash every day, that one must eat soup at dinner, that one must
talk French, learn not to crawl about on all fours, not to put one's
elbows on the table; and if she says that one is not to go out walking
because it is just going to rain, she is sure to be right, and one must
do as she says.

Papa is the cleverest man in the world. He always knows everything.
There is no being naughty with HIM. When he is up in his study
"working," one is not allowed to make a noise, and nobody may go into
his room. What he does when he is at "work," none of us know. Later on,
when I had learned to read, I was told that papa was a "writer."

This was how I learned. I was very pleased with some lines of poetry one
day, and asked my mother who wrote them. She told me they were written
by Pushkin, and Pushkin was a great writer. I was vexed at my father not
being one, too. Then my mother said that my father was also a well-known
writer, and I was very glad indeed.

At the dinner-table papa sits opposite mama and has his own round silver
spoon. When old Natalia Petrovna, who lives on the floor below