Leo Tolstoy: His Life and Work. Paul Birukoff
supper from the master's table. Here he waited for my grandmother, who might with impunity perform her night toilet in the presence of a blind man. On the day when it was my turn to sleep in my grandmother's bedroom, Lev Stepanovich, with his white eyes, clad in a long blue coat with puffs on the shoulders, was already sitting on the window ledge having his supper. I don't remember where my grandmother undressed, whether in this room or another, or how I was put to bed, I remember only the moment when the candle was put out and there remained only a little light in front of the gilded icons, and my grandmother, that same wonderful grandmother who produced the extraordinary soap-bubbles, all white, clothed in white, lying on white, and covered with white, in her white nightcap, lay high on the cushions, and from the window was heard the even quiet voice of Lev Stepanovich. `Will it please you for me to continue?' `Yes, continue,' `"Dearest sister," she said,' recommenced Lev Stepanovich, with his quiet, even, aged voice, `"tell us one of those most interesting stories which you know so well how to narrate." "Willingly," answered Shaheresada, "would I relate the remarkable history of Prince Kamaralzaman, if our lord will express his consent." Having received the consent of the Sultan, Shaheresada began thus: A certain powerful king had an only son"' … and, evidently word for word, according to the book, Lev Stepanovich began the history of Kamaralzaman. I did not listen, I did not understand what he said, so absorbed was I by the mysterious appearance of the white grandmother, by her swaying shadow on the wall, and the appearance of the old man with white eyes whom I could not now see, but whom I realized as sitting immovably on the window ledge, and who was saying with a slow voice some strange words, which seemed to me very solemn as they alone resounded through the darkness of the little room lighted by the trembling of the image-lamp. I probably immediately fell asleep, for I remember nothing further, and in the morning I was again astonished and enraptured by the soap-bubbles which my grandmother when washing produced on her hands.
"According to Marie's recollections, the blind Lev Stepanovich's sense of hearing was so perfect that he could distinctly hear mice running about and could tell in which direction they were going. In grandmother's room one of the special attractions for the mice was the oil used for the image-lamp, which they drank up. At night while telling stories he would say, without changing his tone of voice: `There, your excellency, a little mouse has just run to the image-lamp to get at the oil.' After that he would go on again with his story-telling in the same monotone."
The following genealogoical table gives the reader a view of the nearest ancestors and relations of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy:
The Counts Tolstoy
Number of Generations from Indris
15 Peter Andreyevich Tolstoy, the first Count (died 1729) 16 Ivan Petrovich (died 1728) 17 Andrey Ivaonvich (died 1803) 18 Ilya Andreyevich, Governor of Kazan (died 1820) 19 Aleksandra, married to Count Osten-Saken. Nikolay (died 1837) 19 Pelageya, married V.P. Yushkov. Ilya (died childless) 20 Nikolay (born 1823). Sergey (born 1826). Dmitriy (born 1827). Lev (born 1828). Marie (born 1830).[4]
The Counts Tolstoy are known in many branches of social activity. It would probably interest the reader to know the degree of relationship which some of these bear to Tolstoy. For example, let us take Feodor Petrovich Tolstoy, the well-known artist, medallist, and vice-president of the Imperial Academy of Arts, his nephew the poet, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, and the ex-minister Dmitriy Andreyevich Tolstoy, well known for his reactionary measures. These three members of the Tolstoy family were distantly related to our Tolstoy, their common ancestor being Ivan Petrovich Tolstoy, son of the first Count Tolstoy, Peter Andreyevich, who died with his father in exile at the Solovetsky Convent.[5]
I ought her to mention Theodore Tolstoy, and original man, called the American. He was known for his very unusual adventures, and the following words in Griboyedov's comedy, called "Come to Grief through being too Clever," refer to him: "Exiled to Kamchatka, he returned an Aleoute." Tolstoy speaks of him in his reminiscences of his childhood, and it was his individuality which partly suggested the character of Dolokhov in War and Peace. He was Tolstoy's first cousin once removed.
Footnotes
1 ↑ Rumyantsev. Letter to D.T. Titov. The Polar Star, IV. Herzen's publication. London, 1857.
2 ↑ Note added by Tolstoy when revising the MS of this work.
3 ↑ Agafiya Mikhaylovna died an old woman a few years ago in Yasnaya Polyana, where she had been living in retirement for many years.
4 ↑ "Count L.N. Tolstoy and His University Life." N.P. Zagoskin Istoricheskiy Vestnik, Jan., 1894, p. 81.
5 ↑ Information given by Lev Tolstoy. See also Brockhaus and Effron's Encyclopedia, vol. xxxiii, p. 462.
The Ancestors of Leo Tolstoy on His Mother's Side
The Princes Volkonsky trace their descent from Rurik. Since the days of Prince Volkonsky (Tolstoy's grandfather) the genealogical tree of the princes Volkonsky, painted in oil colors, has been preserved[1] at Yasnaya Polyana. In this the founder of the line, St. Michael, Prince of Chernigov, is represented as holding in his hand a tree whose branches exhibit an enumeration of his descendants.
At the beginning of the fourteenth century Prince Ivan Turyevich, in the thirteenth generation from Rurik, had received the Volkonsky property, situated on the Volkona; this river flows through the present province of Kaluga and to some extent through Tula. Hence the family was known as that of the Princes Volkonsky.[2]
His son, Feodor Ivanovich, was killed in the battle of Mamai in 1380.
Among other ancestors of Tolstoy we may mention his great-grandfather, Prince Sergey Feodorovich Volkonsky, who is the hero of the following legend:
"The prince took part in the Seven Years' War as Major-General. During the campaign his wife dreamed that a voice commanded her to have a small icon painted, showing on one side the source of life and on the other Nikolay the Thaumaturgist, and to send it to her husband. She selected a wooden plate, on which she ordered that the icon should be painted, and this she sent to Prince Sergey by the hands of Field-Marshal Apraksin. The same day Sergey received by the courier an order to go out in search of the enemy; and having appealed for God's help, he put on the sacred image. In a cavalry attack a bullet struck him on the breast, but it knocked against the icon and did not hurt him, and in this way the icon saved his life. It was treasured in later years by his younger son, Nikolay Sergeyevich. Prince Sergey Feodorovich died March 10, 1784."[3]
Tolstoy was no doubt acquainted with this legend, and made use of it in War and Peace to illustrate the character of the devout princess Marie Volkonskaya, as it is made to appear in an incident represented as occurring before Prince Andrey's departure for the war. The reader will remember that the princess persuaded her brother to wear the image, handing it to Prince Andrey with the words: "You may think what you like, but do this for my sake. Please do it! The father of my father, our grandfather, wore it during all his wars. … "[4]
We see here artistic truth interwoven with historical, and if the latter gives the former an air of truthfulness, so it receives from it in return that touch of human nature which makes all the characters of War and Peace so lifelike and so irresistibly soul-stirring.
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