extreme, spent half his time on his knees, and could only be persuaded to go to a ball when the biblical example of King David, dancing before the Ark, was urged upon him. As for Lev Tolstoi himself, religion had so little weight with him at this time that when a casual companion lightly remarked that praying was both unnecessary and ridiculous, he cast aside the habit with as little concern as if he were simply “brushing a piece of fluff off his coat-sleeve.” Under these circumstances it is scarcely surprising to learn that he learnt but little of value at Kazan. History he already despised as “a tissue of legends and trifles generally unnecessary and often immoral.” The juridical Faculty he despised because all its professors were Germans. Finally, he attached himself to the Faculty of Oriental Tongues, one of the special features of the University of Kazan, but despite the extra aid of private instruction, was duly plucked at his examination. Finally, in 1847, he quitted Kazan and returned to the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana, where he resided for the next four years.
Even now young Tolstoi was painfully impressed by the wretched condition of the Russian muzhik, and anxious to ameliorate his lot. “Was it not my sacred and obvious duty,” he cries,[1] “to have a care for these 700 men, for whom I was responsible to God?” His earlier efforts in this direction, however, were defeated by the invincible laziness of the peasants and his own inexperience. It was about this time, moreover, that
- ↑ Speaking through the mouth of Prince Nekhlyudov, in “Utr Pomyeshchika,” who is Tolstoi himself.
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