Biography
slightest sign of penitence was requited by instant forgiveness. The children were always with their parents except at meal times, or when they retired to rest, and the servants to whose charge they were then entrusted, were strictly cautioned to respect their innocence both by word and deed. We have it on the authority of one of Tolstoi's housekeepers that he was a first-rate manager. He saw to everything personally, negligence and slovenliness were impossible under such a master, The smallest detail was not beneath his notice. His pig-stys, his cowsheds, and stable were models of cleanliness. In his pigs he took particular pride. There were three hundred of them in all, and they lived in couples in separate stys. As for the dwelling-house, not a speck of dirt was allowed to settle there, the walls and floors had to be washed down every day. He would storm and rage if the least thing were neglected, and when his doctor remonstrated with him on the violence of his temper as likely to prove injurious to his health, Tolstoi, like Peter the Great before him, would declare that it was his nature. "I want to control myself but cannot," he would always say. His industry and economy were promptly rewarded by prosperity. Count Tolstoi's estate was one of the comparatively few in Russia of the same size which more than paid its expenses. Yasnaya Polyana was especially famous for its excellent cream, which sold in the Moscow market at 60 kopecks (Is. d.) per pound. No description, we are told, can give any idea of the cheerful and attractive life at Yasnaya Polyana during the first sixteen years of Tolstoi's
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