the Caucasus”), a later adaptation of which by Tolstoi himself forms No. 2 in the present collection.
At this period of his life Tolstoi was an enthusiastic hunter and full of martial fervour. He was easily persuaded to join the artillery, had several brushes with the enemy, and lived modestly on his pay of five roubles (ten shillings) a month, till he had paid off all his card debts. He passionately desired at this time to win the Cross of St. George for valour (which is said to have been withheld from him, though well merited, by the enmity of his superior officer), and on the outbreak of the Crimean War was attached to the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Count Gorchakov, determined at all hazards to win the laurels denied to him in the Caucasus. Throughout the war he distinguished himself, both as an officer and a soldier, by the most irreproachable valour, realising his own ideal[1] of true courage by doing his duty on every Occasion without vain glory or desperation, and took an active part in the disastrous battle of the Black River. There can be little doubt that the rude but salutary lessons of active warfare, teaching as it does to those who will learn the lesson, the urgent necessity of complete self-restraint and self-surrender, had a purifying, ennobling influence on Tolstoi’s character. His comrades, in general, seem to have adored him. “Tolstoi,” says one of them, “with his tales and couplets, enlivened us all. In the fullest sense of the word he was the soul of our party. When he was with us, time seemed to fly, and our merriment
- ↑ As subsequently presented by Capt. Khlopov in ‘‘Nabyeg,” and by Timokhin in “Voina i Mir.”
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