THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF TOLSTOY.*
IN nine cases out of ten the publication of posthumous writings is a dangerous experiment, adding little to the repu- tation of the author and bringing little credit to the publisher. W hen it is not a purely commercial sp eculation,it too often results in the indiscriminate emptying of private drawers which ought never to have been emptied, or it is prompted by blind hero- worship and relic-hunting. A priori there is indeed a strong presumption against the quality of " posthumous " writings. They are only "posthumous" in the sense that the author himself in his wiser judgment has rejected them whilst he lived. And it is a bare truism to say that where purely literary productions are concerned the author would not have withheld his work from an appreciative public if he had thought them worthy of publication.
But the case of Tolstoy must be judged on its own merits, for the circumstances are truly without a parallel. After his "• conversion," Tolstoy, the artist, was deliberately sacrificed to the teacher. Henceforth, to use the expression of Nietzsche, Tolstoy transvalued all his moral values. He looked upon his former life as futile. He condemned his masterpieces as mischievous. He ceased to write fiction, or, as the Russians call it, "poetry," except on rare occasions, and only in order to raise money for some great cause in need of support, or in order to drive home more vividly and more forcibly those truths which he had at heart. More and more, as time went on and as his religious conscience --became more sensitive, he abstained from pure and dis- interested literature. He saw in a purely literary activity a dangerous snare which lured him into vanity and drew him away from the more important tasks of his life. At intervals snore and more distant the " demon" of poetry might still seize him and he might still in a moment of weakness indulge an irresistible artistic impulse, but after having sinned he would almost immediately repent, and hide away his produc- tion in some hidden drawers of his study at Yasnaya Polyana. This tragedy of self-effacement and self-renunciation, this voluntary mutilation of a great creative artist, is almost unique in the history of literature. And when we feel inclined to accuse the Russian prophet of the glaring contradictions between his theories and his practice, when we accuse him of never having learned to the full those lessons of sacrifice and self-surrender which be was always preaching, we must not forget those extraordinary and repeated acts of artistic suicide, that deliberate suppression of his masterpieces, which, after all, to a born "man of letters," like Tolstoy, must have been the supreme sacrifice.
As Tolstoy eventually came only to publish those few stories which had a direct moral object, and systematically withheld those which had a purely artistic purpose, the chances obviously are that it is not the most imperfect, but rather the most perfect, works which must have been sacrificed, and we may safely assert, a priori, that we are more likely than not to find amongst his posthumous writings some of the finest masterpieces of his later period.
This is pre-eminently true of at least three of the composi- tions contained in the volumes before us—The Devil, The Forged Coupon, and The Man who was Dead. It is true of the Devil (1889), which, it should be noted, however, appears only
in the French edition. We may plausibly surmise that Tolstoy rejected it partly because its artistic qualities were independent of any ulterior didactic purpose and partly because he was not sufficiently sure of the moral effect it might produce. It
• The Forged Coupon and other Stories. Fy Count Tolstoy. [In Nelson's Two Shilling Novels.]—Le Faux Coupon. Par le Comte Tolstoy. [Collection Nelson. ls. net.] is, perhaps, a similar reason which explains the exclusion of this masterpiece from the English edition, an exclusion deeply to be regretted. For the Devil is one of the boldest and one of the most realistic tales which he has ever written. It is a puritanic drama of sexual obsession. As he grew older, the problem of sex increasingly haunted the stern moralist, and his ideas moved more and more in the direction of absolute and almost Oriental asceticism. The Devil may be taken as a sequel to the Sreutzsr Sonata. Like Poznijew, Irtenieff is possessed of the Evil One (whence the title) ; and as in the Sonata, so in the present story we have the tragedy of a noble and useful life wrecked by indulgence in passion. And like the " hero " of the Sonata, Irtenieff is more sinned: against than sinning. He is the victim of the laxity and immorality of his surroundings.
If it is easy to understand why the Devil should have been withheld and why it should only see the light twenty-two years after it was written, it is more difficult to account for the suppression of the Forged Coupon. If ever there was a tale written with a moral purpose, and teaching a vital moral truth, the Forged Coupon is pre-eminently such a tale. There is an elemental law in the physical world which has become the foundation of modern science ; the law of the conserva- tion of energy : nothing is lost in nature, neither an atom of matter nor a moment of energy. The Forged Coupon is the application to the moral world of that law of conservation of energy. It teaches that our moat trivial and insignificant acts continue to produce their effects and to develop for good and evil until infinity their fatal consequences. In the novel a schoolboy of fifteen, Mitia Smokovnikoff, the son of a high official, in order to repay a few roubles, the price of a theatre ticket wbich he has borrowed, is induced to forge a coupon by putting a 1 before the 2 of a 2.50-rouble note. He passes the coupon on to a retail shopkeeper, who himself passes it on to a poor peasant, Ivan Mironoff. When charged by the peasant the shopkeeper denies any knowledge of the fact, and he gets his servant, Wassili, to bear false witness, with the result that the servant is morally ruined by his perjury and that the peasant is himself accused of the forgery. Ivan is dishonoured and takes to evil courses. And so the process of moral contamination goes on to the end of the story, and the apparently insignificant act of a thoughtless schoolboy produces a dire crop of moral disaster, shaking society to its foundations. The evil works and spreads in concentric circles, resulting in deeds of burglary and murder. In thus showing the awful logic and concatenation of sin, the author brings before us one aspect after another of Russian life and one type after another of Russian society. Peasants and merchants, landowners and priests, politicians and high officials, pass in kaleidoscopic succession. Yet they are stamped on our imagination in indelible touches.
As the story has never been completed, and stands only before us as an imposing "torso," in the mere qualities of form, in unity and arrangement, it is undoubtedly inferior to the finished compositions of Tolstoy. But in the wealth of material, in the subtle working out of the details, it will deservedly rank amongst the great achievements of the poet. It reveals once more that extraordinary dissociation of the artist and of the preacher which is one of the most striking characteristics of Tolstoy after his conversion. The one never obtrudes him- self on the other. The artist, unrivalled anatomist of the soul, seems only careful of describing human life and searching human motives with relentless sincerity.
From a merely literary point of view the most important part of the new volume is the realistic drama The Man who was Dead (1900). It will be put on a level with the Powers of
Darkness, and it goes far to show that, if he had chosen, Tolstoy might have achieved supreme greatness as a dramatist.
The Man who was Dead, unlike the Powers of Darkness, is not written with any definite moral end, and that again probably explains why, in later years, Tolstoy lost all interest in its
production. The subject is a dual one. It may be called both the tragedy of divorce and the tragedy of Bohemianism. The " hero," Fedia, has deserted his wife and child and has squandered his substance with gipsy girls. Characteristically enough, here again Tolstoy in his drama is working out auto- biographical material, for the story of Fedia is largely the story
of Tolstoy's own brother. Lisa, the wife of Fedia, continues to love him, and entreats him to return to her, but he refuses, and in order to give a father and a protector to her baby she is
prevailed upon to accept the love and devotion of her life- long friend Victor Karenine, a noble-hearted, high-principled, conservative and orthodox Russian of the old school. Fedia, conscious of his own guilt and being at heart an honest man, accepts the situation. He gives his wife back her liberty. But he refuses to comply with the vexatious and hypocritical procedure of the divorce laws of the Greek Church, and he prefers to put an end to a distracting position by disappearing. He pretends to commit suicide, and his clothes are found near a pond where he is supposed to have drowned himself. Lisa and Victor Karenine are now free to contract a legal marriage. Unfortunately, through the indiscretion of a blackmailer, the secret leaks out. The wife and the second husband are accused of bigamy and of conniving in the disgraceful comedy played by Fedia in order to escape from the necessity of divorce. The two husbands and the wife are traduced before a criminal court. Fedia, who has sunk to the last stage of degradation, wishes to atone for his guilt. He shoots himself, and thus finally liberates Lisa and Karenine.
Altogether, this first volume of the posthumous works of Tolstoy is a memorable contribution to literature, and its publication will be a source of pleasure and interest to all students of Russian letters. If any further evidence had been needed of the stupendous vitality of the Russian novelist, this volume would have given it.
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