. S. A. T. here leaves out some curious details. According to her own account, Leo Nikolaevich followed the Bers family, first to Ivitsa, Tula Province, fifty versts from Yasnaya Polyana, and then to Moscow. Leo Nikolaevich’s proposal to S. A. T., which was like Levin’s to Kitty in Anna Karenina, took place at Ivitsa. See “The Marriage of L. N. Tolstoy,” from the reminiscences of S. A. T. under the title “My Life,” in Russkoye Slovo, 1912. Also P. Biryukov, Biography of L. N. Tolstoy, Vol. I, pages 464-473, and L. N. Tolstoy’s Letters to his Wife, pages 1-3.
. The Bers family were convinced that L. N. T. was in love with Liza, the elder sister of S. A. T., and expected him to propose to her. This misunderstanding worried L. N. T. as he said in his letter to S. A. T. See L. N. Tolstoy’s Letters to his Wife, pages 1-3.
. Orekov, a serf of Yasnaya Polyana, L. N. T.’s inseparable companion during the war in Sevastopol, and later steward at Yasnaya Polyana. See I. Tolstoy, My Reminiscences, Moscow, 1914, pages 18, 22-23.
. T. A. Ergolskii, born 1795, died 20 June 1874, a remote relation brought up in the Tolstoy family, taught Marie, Leo and his brothers, who lost their mother at an early age. In Tolstoy’s house she was called aunt. See Reminiscences of Childhood and L. N. T.’s Letters to T. A. Ergolskii; also L. N. Tolstoy’s Letters, 1848-1910, collected and edited by P. A. Sergeenko, L. N. Tolstoy’s Diary, Vol. I, 1847-1852, edited by V. G. Chertkov, Moscow, 1917.
. The beginning of Chapter II, ending with the words “and in copying out his writings,” is incorporated literally by S. A. T. from the first MS. There is also written in pencil by her “This is new.” The statement is not quite accurate. In the remainder of Chapter III, which is new, a small part of the original Chapter III, slightly altered, is incorporated. We shall quote this part in full:
“The first thing which I copied in my clumsy, but legible handwriting was Polikushka. For many, many years afterwards that work delighted me. I used to long for the evening when Leo N. would give me something newly written or corrected for me to copy.
“I was carried away by the newly created scenes and descriptions, and I tried to understand and watch the artistic development and growth of ideas and creative activity in my husband’s works….”
. The beginning was published in two numbers of Russkii Vyestnik, 1865 and 1866, and under the title of The Year 1805 was later published in book form, Moscow, 1866. Tolstoy returned to the Decembrists when he had finished Anna Karenina, but was again disappointed. “My Decembrists are again God knows where; I don’t even think of them,” he wrote to Fet in April, 1879, (Fet, My Reminiscences, Vol. II, page 364). The first three chapters of the Decembrists were published in a miscellaneous volume called Twenty-five Years, 1859-1884, Petersburg, 1884. But towards the end of his life Tolstoy again became interested in the Decembrists and began to study the period, see A. B. Goldenweiser, Diary, Russkie Propilei. Vol. II, pages 271-272, Moscow, 1916.
. A. M. Zhemchuznikov and I. S. Aksakov visited Leo Nikolaevich in the middle of December, 1864, in Moscow at his father-in-law’s house where he came to have his arm medically treated. It was then that he read to them some chapters from War and Peace. See L. N. Tolstoy’s Letters to his Wife, page 41.
. There were a number of musical works which always made a deep impression upon Tolstoy. See list of musical works loved by L. N. Tolstoy, given by A. B. Goldenweiser, Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik, pages 158-160; also musical works loved by L. N. Tolstoy, in S. L. Tolstoy’s Reminiscences.
. Countess A. A. Tolstoy reproached Leo Nikolaevich for his long silence in a letter of 1 May 1863. Leo Nikolaevich wrote a four page letter in reply, but did not send it; later in the autumn of 1863 he wrote another letter, which he sent. The quotation referred to is, evidently, from the letter which was not sent, and which, as far as we know, has not appeared in print.
. This quotation from L. N. T.’s Diary is also given in Biryukov’s Biography, but in somewhat different form. He also gives a detailed sketch of the work, which Tolstoy wrote in his diary; see Biryukov, Vol. II, pages 27-28.
. N. A. Lyubimov, 1830-1897, well-known professor of physics at the University of Moscow, a collaborator with Katkov and K. Leontev in editing the Russkii Vyestnik and Moskovskaya Vedomesti.
. Strakhov’s articles on War and Peace were published in Zarya, 1869 and 1870, and in book form in 1871. His articles on Tolstoy and Turgenev appeared in book form under the title, Critical Articles on I. S. Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy, second edition, 1887.
. Edmond About, 1828-1885, the French writer to whom Turgenev sent a copy of War and Peace, translated by Princess Paskevich, and a letter from which the above quotation is taken. M. About published the letter in Le XIX e Siècle, 23 January, 1880, under the title “Une Lettre de Tourguéneff.”
. Vasilii Yakoblevich Mirovich, 1740-1764, a lieutenant in the Smolenskii infantry regiment, executed for his attempt to rescue Ivan Antonovich from prison. His story formed the plot of G. P. Danilevskii’s novel Mirovich (Petersburg, 1886).
. From the sketch of the year 1831-2: “The guests were arriving at the country-house.” See Pushkin, edited by S. A. Vengerov, Petersburg, 1910, Vol. IV, pages 255-258.
. In P. Biryukov’s Biography, Vol. II, page 205, the words are given thus: “That is how one should begin. The reader is at once made to feel the interest of the plot. Another writer would begin to describe the guests, the rooms, but Pushkin goes straight to the point.”
. This quotation is a combination of two passages from L. N. T.’s letter to Countess A. A. Tolstoy of December, 1874. In the beginning of this letter he says that he has written a letter to her, but has torn it up and is writing another. It is possible that S. A. T. is quoting from the original letter.
. Peter, eighteen months old, 18 November, 1873; Nikolai, two months old, February, 1875; and the daughter born prematurely, November, 1875.
. T. A. Ergolskii (see note 19), and Pelageya Ilinishna Yushkov, the sister of L. N. T.’s father, died 22, December, 1875. This death particularly affected Tolstoy. He wrote to Countess A. A. Tolstoy: “It is strange, but the death of this old woman of eighty affected me more than any other death…. Not an hour passes without my thinking of her.” Tolstovskii Musei, Vol. I, pages 262-3.
. From Fet’s poem: “I repeated: ‘When I will….’” Later Fet evidently re-wrote the poem; his last four lines are:
In my hand — what a marvel —
Is your hand.
And on the grass — two emeralds.
Two glow-worms.
See A. A. Fet, Complete Works, Vol. I, page 427, Petersburg, 1912.
. Five poems are known to have been dedicated by Fet to S. A. Tolstoy, see Complete Works, Vol. I, pages 413, 414, and 449.
. A few months after his visit to Yasnaya Polyana Turgenev wrote to Fet: “I was very glad to make it up again with Tolstoy, and I spent three pleasant days with him; his whole family is very sympathetic and his wife is a darling.” See Fet, My Reminiscences, Vol. II, page 355, Moscow, 1890.
. Wilkie Collins, 1824-1889; his novel The Woman in White, was translated into Russian under the same title, Petersburg, 1884.
. The house was bought in 1882 in the Khamovnicheskii Pereulok.
. An allusion to V. G. Chertkov who became acquainted with Tolstoy in 1883. See P. A. Boulanger, Tolstoy and Chertkov, Moscow, 1911; A. M. Khiryakov, “Who is Chertkov?” in Kievskava Starina, 1910; P. Biryukov, Biography, Vol. II, pages 471-3, 479-480; V. Mikulich, Shadows of the Past, Petersburg, 1914; Ilya Tolstoy, My Reminiscences, pages 234-5, 247, 265, 269-275; Countess A. A. Tolstoy, “Reminiscences” in Tolstovskii Musei, Vol. I, pages 36-38.
. S. A. T. for a long time did not believe in the seriousness of Leo Nikolaevich’s searchings, considering them a weakness, a disease due to over-work and the playing of a part. See Biryukov, Biography, pages 474-478; L. N. Tolstoy’s Letters to his Wife, pages 196-8.
. A. P. Bobrinskii, Minister of Transport 1871-1874, and a disciple of Radstock; Tolstoy was struck by “the sincerity and warmth of his belief.” See Tolstovskii Musei, Vol. I, pages 245, 265, 268, and 275.
. An English preacher who in the middle of the ‘seventies lived in Petersburg and preached with success in aristocratic houses. A short, but good, description of Radstock is given by Countess A. A. Tolstoy, who knew him personally, in her letter to L. N. T. of 28 March, 1876, Tolstovskii Musei, Vol. I, pages 267-8.
. S. S. Urusov, 1827-1897, an intimate friend of Tolstoy ever since the Crimean War, a land-owner and a deeply religious man. Tolstoy corresponded with him and often stayed with him in his country-house at Spassko. Urusov translated into French Tolstoy’s In What do I Believe?
. But Tolstoy did not recognize the Gospel which serves as the foundation of the orthodox faith, and he interpreted the Gospel in his own way. It is strange that S. A. T. did not realize this. In this respect Countess A.
