Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

by Leo Tolstoy

  ‘If he hasn’t gone clean out of his wits!… De-evil take him!…’

  Dmitry and I had been driving very gently and very carefully along some boulevard or other, keeping to the thin covering of ice on the right-hand side of the carriageway, when some ‘wood demon’ (as Dmitry afterwards referred to him) with a carriage and pair had run into us. We extricated ourselves, and when we were already a dozen or so paces safely distant from them Dmitry said: ‘See there, the wood demon doesn’t know his right from his left!’

  Do not assume that Dmitry was a timid fellow or slow to respond. No, quite the reverse: although short in stature and beardless (but still with a moustache) he was deeply conscious of his own worth, and scrupulous in carrying out his duties. The cause of his apparent weakness in this instance was twofold. First, Dmitry was accustomed to driving carriages which inspired respect, whereas now we were travelling in an insignificant little sledge behind a small horse in extremely long shafts, so that even with the length of the whip it was quite hard to reach the animal, and the horse in question was pathetically unsteady in the hind legs and liable to call forth ridicule from passers-by who saw it: so that this incident was particularly awkward for Dmitry, sufficiently so to cancel out his customary feeling of dignity. Second, my question ‘Is it freezing?’ probably reminded him of the same sort of question I would ask when going out with him on hunting trips in the autumn. He is a sportsman, and a sportsman has plenty of material for daydreaming – which may even make him forget to curse appropriately a driver who does not keep to the right. Among coachmen as with everyone else, that man is in the right who shouts at the other driver first and with the greater conviction. There are exceptions: for example, a poor droshky-driver cannot possibly shout at a carriage, and a man on his own, even if he is a bit of a dandy, is hard put to it to shout at a team of four horses; in fact everything turns on the nature of the particular circumstances, and chiefly on the personality of the coachman and the direction he is travelling in. In Tula I once witnessed a striking example of the effect one man can produce on others by sheer audacity.

  It was a Shrove Tuesday and everyone was out driving: sledges and pairs, four-in-hands, carriages, trotters, ladies in silk coats – all parading in a row along Kiev Street – hordes of pedestrians too. Suddenly there was a shout from a street which crossed the main one at right-angles: ‘Hey, hold him there, hold that horse back! Hey, give way there!’ in a thoroughly self-confident tone. Involuntarily the pedestrians stood aside and the fours all reined in. What do you think? A ragged cabman standing upright on a ramshackle sledge drawn by a wretched jade and brandishing the reins above his head, was forcing his way through by dint of shouting, to the opposite side of the street, while nobody realized what was going on. Even the policemen on duty were bursting out laughing when they saw it.

  Although Dmitry is a man ready to take a chance and one who enjoys a bit of cursing, he has a good heart and is kind to animals. He uses the whip not as a means of compulsion, but of correction, that is to say, he does not urge the horse on with the whip: for him this would be quite incompatible with the dignity of a city coachman; but if a trotter should refuse to stand at a house entrance, he will ‘give him a touch or two’. I had occasion to see this presently: turning out of one street into another, our little horse was having difficulty in pulling us round, and from the agitated movements of Dmitry’s back and arms and the smacking noises he was making with his lips, it was clear to me that he was in a difficult position. Would he resort to the whip? It was against his habit to do so. But what if the horse should just stop still? He could not tolerate that, even though here there was no cause to worry about some joker who might say ‘Suppose you tried giving him something to eat?’ This seems to me a demonstration of the fact that Dmitry acts more from an awareness of principle than from vanity.

  I reflected further on the great variety of relations between coachmen themselves, their mentality, their resourcefulness and their pride. No doubt when many coachmen are gathered together in one place they recognize one another, including those drivers they have been in collisions with, and they progress from hostile to peaceable relations. All human beings in this world are of interest, and particularly fascinating are the attitudes and relationships of those classes to which we do not ourselves belong.

  When the two carriages involved in an incident are travelling in the same direction, any disagreement is usually more protracted: the man who has given offence tries to drive off or to drop back, and the other driver may manage to show that the first driver was in the wrong, and to gain the upper hand; however, when both parties are travelling the same way the advantage is on the side of the driver whose horses are swifter. All these attitudes are readily applicable to the relations one encounters in everyday life as a whole. I am equally intrigued by the attitudes of gentlemen to one another and to coachmen, in encounters of this sort.—‘Where d’you think you’re rushing off to, you load of rubbish?’ When this condemnation is addressed to the whole carriage, the passenger cannot help trying to appear serious, or merry, or carefree – in a word, to appear different from what he was the moment before: he would plainly be only too pleased if the whole thing had happened the other way round. I have observed that gentlemen with moustaches are particularly sensitive to insults hurled at their own carriages.—

  —‘Who goes there?’

  This was the shout of a policeman, a man I had happened to see only that morning being insulted by another coachman. Near the house entrance just opposite this very policeman’s box there had been a carriage standing. The splendid red-bearded coachman had tucked the reins under him, and propping his elbows on his knees, was warming his back in the sun, evidently with great enjoyment, for his eyes were almost closed. Across the road from him the policeman was pacing up and down the area in front of his sentry-box and with the end of his halberd was straightening a plank which bridged a puddle in front of his platform. Suddenly he looked displeased, perhaps because there was a carriage standing there, or because he felt envious of the coachman sunning himself so happily, or just because he wanted a bit of a chat: he walked along his little platform, glanced up the side-street, and then with a thump of his halberd on the plank, began: ‘Hey, you, what are you waiting there for? You’re blocking up the road.’ The coachman opened his left eye a crack, looked at the policeman, and shut it again.—‘Move along, do you hear?’ No sign of any attention whatever.—‘So you can’t hear me, eh? Get off the road, I tell you!’ The policeman, seeing that he was not getting any response, walked along his platform and took another look up the side-street, clearly getting ready to say something that would really strike home. At that moment the coachman sat up, adjusted the reins, and turning with sleepy eyes towards the policeman, said: ‘What are you gawping at? They didn’t stick a rifle in your hands, you old fool, but you bellow just the same!’

  —‘Get moving!’

  The coachman roused himself and got moving.

  I glanced at the policeman: he was muttering something and gave me an angry look. He evidently did not like my listening to him and looking at him. I know that there is no more effective way of offending a man than by making it obvious that you have noticed him but that you have no intention of speaking to him; and so I was embarrassed, and feeling sorry for the policeman went on my way.

  Another thing I like about Dmitry is his ability to give someone the right name straight off: I find this most amusing. ‘Give way, fur hat,—Let’s have some service there, beardy, Give way, you toboggan, Give way, laundress, Give way, horse-doctor,—Give way, you fine figure, Give way, Monsieur’. It is amazing how a Russian manages to find the right abusive term for another man whom he is seeing for the very first time, and not just for the person, but for his social status: the petty bourgeois is ‘cat-dealer’, as if the lower middle classes go about purloining cats; a footman is ‘flunkey, dish-licker’; a peasant is, why I do not know, ‘Ryurik’; a coachman is ‘cart-driver’, and so forth – ther
e are too many of these terms to count. If a Russian gets into a squabble with someone he has just seen for the first time, he immediately bestows on him a nickname which will cut him to the quick: crooknose, cross-eyed devil, rubber-lipped rogue, snubnose. One needs to experience it to know how truly and accurately these names always hit the right tender spot. I shall never forget an insult which I received in my absence. A certain Russian man said of me: ‘Oh, he’s an old gap-tooth!’ It must be admitted that my teeth are indeed exceptionally bad, decayed, and widely-spaced.—

  At home

  I arrived home. Dmitry jumped down to open the main gates, and so did I, to try to get through the wicket gate before he could get through the others. This is how it always happens: I hurry to get in because that is my custom, and he hurries to bring me right up to the house steps, because that is his custom.—For some time I could get no reply to my ringing of the door-bell; inside, the tallow candle was in serious need of snuffing and Prov, my little old manservant, was asleep. While I was ringing this is what I was thinking: Why do I dislike coming home, wherever and in whatever circumstances I happen to be living? Why do I dislike seeing the same old Prov in the same place, the same candle, the same stains on the wallpaper, the same pictures, so that I even begin to feel quite depressed?—

  I am particularly tired of the wallpaper and the pictures, because they purport to give you variety, yet you only need to look at them for two days for them to be worse than a blank wall. This disagreeable feeling on getting home must be due to the fact that I was not designed to be living as a bachelor at the age of twenty-two. How much better it would be if I could ask Prov (who has jumped up, and with a great clatter of his boots, no doubt to show that he has been alert and listening for me for ages, is opening the door): ‘Is the mistress asleep?’ ‘Not at all, sir, she is reading a book.’ How much better it would be: I should clasp her dear head in my hands and hold it for a moment, and look at her and kiss her, and look at her again and kiss her again; and I should not feel at all gloomy about returning home. But as things are, the one question I can ask Prov, to show him I have noticed that he never goes to sleep while I am out, is: ‘Did anyone call?’ ‘No one.’ Whenever this sort of question is put to him Prov invariably answers in a pathetic tone, and every time I feel like saying to him: ‘Oh why do you speak in that pathetic tone of voice? I am delighted that no one has called.’ But I restrain myself: Prov might take offence, and he is a man worthy of some consideration.—

  In the evening I usually write my diary, and a journal after the style of Benjamin Franklin, and do my daily accounts. On this particular day I had not spent anything, because there was not even a single half-copeck in my purse, thus there was nothing to write in my account book.—

  The diary and the journal are another matter: I really ought to write in them, but it is late, so I put it off until the morrow.—

  I have often chanced to hear the remark: ‘He is an empty fellow, he leads an aimless life’; and I too have often used these words and still do, not to echo someone else’s opinion but because I feel in my soul that this is a bad thing, and that one ought to have an aim in life.

  But how do you set about being ‘a whole man, with an aim in living’? To set yourself such an aim is quite impossible.—I have attempted it so many times, and it has never worked out. You must not so much try to invent an aim, as to find one which conforms to your own personal leanings, one which was already in existence, and which you have but to recognize. It seems to me that I have actually found an aim of that kind: the all-round cultivation and development of my abilities. One of the principal and most widely acknowledged means to that end is the keeping of a diary and a Franklin journal.—In the diary I confess every day all the wrong things I have done. In the journal my weaknesses are listed in columns – laziness, lying, gluttony, indecisiveness, showing off, sensuality, insufficient fierté, and other such mean and petty passions: I then transfer all my transgressions from the diary to this journal by putting little crosses in the appropriate columns.

  I began to get undressed and thought: ‘Where is this all-round cultivation and development of your abilities, where are your virtues, and is this route really going to lead you to virtue? Where is this journal getting you? It serves you only as an index of your weaknesses, which are unending, and getting more numerous every day; and even if you did succeed in eliminating them you would not attain to virtue by this means. You are merely deceiving yourself, and amusing yourself with all this like a child with a plaything. Could it ever be sufficient for an artist just to know what things not to do, in order to be an artist? Can it be possible negatively, simply by refraining from harmful actions, to achieve anything worthwhile? It is not enough for the peasant farmer to weed his field, he must also plough it and sow it. Make yourself some rules of virtue and follow them.’—All this was said by that part of my mind which specializes in being critical.

  I fell to thinking. Can it be enough to destroy the cause of evil, that good may then exist? Good is something positive, not negative. From that it follows clearly and demonstrably that good is positive and evil is negative; evil is capable of destroying, but good is not. There is always some good in our souls, and the soul itself is good; but evil is implanted in us. If there is no evil present, the good will develop. The comparison with the peasant farmer will not do; he has to sow and plough his land, but in his own soul the good is already sown. The artist needs to practise, and he will attain the creation of art, provided he does not adopt negative principles, but he must avoid arbitrariness. For practice in virtue, there is no need of exercises: the exercise is life itself.

  Cold is the absence of warmth. Darkness is the absence of light. Evil is the absence of good. Why does man love warmth, light and good? Because they are natural. There is an origin of warmth, light and good – the sun, God; but there is no sun of cold and darkness, no God of evil. We see the light and the rays of light, we seek their cause and we say that the sun exists: our proof is both the light and heat, and the law of gravity. This is in the physical world. In the moral world we see the good, see its rays, and we see that there is the same law of attraction of the good towards something higher which is its source – God.—

  Remove the rough outer crust from a diamond, and inside there will be – brightness; discard the envelope of human weaknesses, and you will have – virtue. But can it be only those trivialities and weaknesses you record in your journal which are preventing you from being good? Are there not also some great passions? And how is it that this host of weaknesses increases with every day that passes?: now self-deception, now cowardice, etc., and that there is never any lasting improvement, and in many instances no way forward? (It is once again the part of me devoted to criticism which has observed all this.) True, all these weaknesses I have noted down can be reduced to three types, but since all of them can be found at many different levels, their combinations may be countless. The three categories are: (1) pride, (2) weakness of will, (3) lack of intelligence. But it is impossible to attribute all these weaknesses individually to one of the three types, for they arise from combinations of them. The first two types have diminished, but the last, as a separate element, can only make progress over time. For example, today I told a lie, quite clearly without any apparent reason: I was called to dinner and I declined to come, then said that I could not because I was due to have a lesson.—What sort of a lesson?—English (whereas in fact it was a gymnastics lesson). The causes were: (1) lack of intelligence, in that I suddenly failed to see how stupid it is to lie; (2) lack of resolution, in that I did not explain why; (3) a silly kind of pride, in supposing that English might be a more suitable excuse than gymnastics.

  Can virtue really consist in freeing yourself from the weaknesses which are harmful to you in life, so that virtue would seem to be identical with selflessness?—Not so. Virtue brings happiness, because happiness brings virtue.—Every time I write something honestly in my diary, I feel no vexation with myself for my w
eaknesses: it seems to me that if I have owned up to having them, then they are no longer there.

  A pleasant thought. I said my prayers and got into bed. I pray better at night than in the morning. I have a better understanding of what I am saying, and even of what I feel; at the end of the day I am not anxious for myself, but in the morning I am – there is so much ahead of me in the coming day. What a wonderful thing is sleep in all its stages: getting ready for it, going to sleep, sleep itself. As soon as I had lain down I thought: What delight to escape into this growing warmth and presently to forget myself entirely; but hardly had I begun to fall asleep than I recollected that it was pleasant to fall asleep, and woke up again. All the pleasures of the body are destroyed by consciousness of them. One must avoid being conscious: but I was conscious that I was conscious, and so it went on and on, and I could not sleep. Oh, the vexation of it! What did God give us consciousness for, when it serves merely as a barrier to living? He did so because our moral pleasures, unlike the physical ones, are felt more deeply when we are conscious of them. Reasoning in this fashion I turned over on to my other side, and the bedclothes fell off. What an unpleasant sensation it is to lose your bedclothes in the dark. One always feels: someone or something may come and grab me, or lay a cold or a hot hand on my uncovered leg. I hastened to cover myself up, tucked the blanket under me on both sides, hid my head in the covers, and began to fall asleep, thinking to myself as follows.