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The use of philosophic introspection in representative selections of Russian prose fiction
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The use of philosophic introspection in representative selections of Russian prose fiction
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Content
THE VUSE101^ .PHILOSPHlJ^ - INTR0Sf| eCTION IN
OF RUSSIAN PROSE FICTION
TME ujcCES oV ' . DOS iGfCS
Representative selections
A Thesis
Presented to
the Faculty of the Department of Comparative Literature
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of.Arts
Isaac Albert Hicks, Jr
February, 194#
UMI Number: EP43065
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CONTENTS
PREFACE........................................... i
INTRODUCTION.................................... vii
NIKOLAI GOGOL..................................... 1
LEO TOLSTOY. . ................................ 10
FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY................................ 68
CHEKHOV, ANDREYEV, GORKY................... .97
CONCLUSION. ...............'..................125
BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................... 130
i
PREFACE
In Feodor Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, two of the brothers
from whom the book gets its name, Ivan and Alyosha, are talking in a
tavern. Ivan says, "'And what have Russian boys been doing up till now,
some of them, I mean? In this stinking tavern, for instance, here, they
meet and sit down in a corner. They've never met in their lives before and,
when they go out of the tavern, they won't meet again for forty years.
And what do they talk about in that mementary halt in the tavern? Of
the eternal questions of the existence of God and immortality. And those
who do not believe in God talk of socialism or anarchism, or the trans
formation of all humanity on a new pattern, so that it all comes to the
same, they're the same questions turned inside out. And masses, masses
of the most original Russian boys do nothing but talk of the eternal
questions] Isn't it so?"'
"'Yes, for real Russians the questions of God's existence and of
immortality, or as you say, the same questions turned inside out, come
first and foremost, of course, and so they should,' said Alyosha." ^
Thus does Dostoevsky deftly state the case of this paper for me.
If philosophic introspection is so prevalent among Russian people as
Dostoevsky has indicated in this passage, then the burden of the proof
of its use in Russian prose fiction will be a light burden with six lead
ing Russian realists, who, faithful to the Russian realistic tradition,
must portray them as such, to reinforce ray point of viqw.
1 Op. Cit., pp. 245-46
Philosophic introspection is a rather broad and perhaps vague
term. For the purpose of this study it will be used to refer to the
tendency common to many of the characters in the selections examined
in this paper to probe the abstract. Countless pages in the voluminous
Russian novels are filled with this exploration of the transcendental
realm. The Russian people as portrayed in Russian fiction are possessed
of an insatiable intellectual curiosity. The blase1 noble with all his
worldly cynicism often thrusts himself into recondite depths. The simple
peasant with his multiple superstitions theorizes with amazing insight
in the metaphysical realm.
This intense preoccupation with the metaphysical world, this
tendency to philophise about incorporeal things seems to be a trait of
the Russians we meet in the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the short
stories of Chekhov, the drama of Andreyev and Gorky. Perhaps the tradi
tional aura of gloom, the spiritual and intellectual iron curtain of the
old Tsarist regime is responsible for this pensive speculation.
Russian literature according to most critics has never been divorced
from political and sociological implications. They are often a dominant
thane, frequently conspicuously interspersed, sometimes subtly intertwined,
but always mingled in the multifarious coverage of Russian prose fiction.
The oppression of the Tsarist regime, the rigid censorship, the
complete denial of the right of freedom of expression almost tended to
produce a nation of introverts. The people were driven inward. They sought
the answers for the wretched sociological conditions within themselves.
The peasant was forced to accept his miserable lot with a philosophical
submission. But still he wondered why. The nobles, that is the most
conscientious ones, perhaps felt a sense of guilt. They were accessories
after the fact in this crime against humanity. They might seek a way
out to ease their own conscience if for no other reason. So noblemen
and peasants, landowners and serfs pondered the’why of .things. But' they
dared not think aloud.
There was only one outlet to this pent-up probing of the abstract.
This was literature. Under several of the more beneficent despots of
the Tsarist regime literature was patronized. This literature became
the pipeline for all the tortuous mental speculation of man's place in
a miserable scheme of things. Into it such conscientious deep thinkers
like Leo Tolstoy, Feodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Leonid Andreyev, who
had long wrestled with problems of the abstract, mysteries of the infinite
poured all the latent longing of a starving soul. They made articulate
the compressed yearning of 177,000,000 people, a people who almost as
one voice interrogated an intellectual "why." Their works depict a nation
al trait of philosophic introspection. They are constantly seeking to
solve metaphysical mysteries through the medium of their characters.
In many cases they find no genuine solution to eternal enigmas.
Pierre in Tolstoy's War and Peace turns to freemasonry, but finds no
completely satisfactory answers. Levin in Anna Karenina reads discourses
by learned philosophers, indulges in lengthy discussions with sophisti
cated intellectuals, but comes closest to finding solace of soul in
conversation with a simple peasant. Ivan in Brothers Karamazov in reply
to his intellectual quest to the meaning of life gets brain fever.
Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment deliberates in
depressive delirium and only begins to find a way out of a manical
maze through the guidance of a simple but saint-like prostitute. He,
"who gets slapped," in Andreyev's play of the same name, finds sui
cide as the only way out.
Maxim Gorky intimates that philosophical introspection would
probably not be prevalent among that class of people who knew the
pangs of physical hunger, at least not at the moment they were experi
encing those pangs. This would account for the philosophically
heavily laden works of Tolstoy, who dealt primarily with the landed
gentry in his earlier, and what are generally conceded by most critics
to be his best works, as compared to the sparse or at least sporadic
outbursts of philosophic introspection in the works of Gorky and
even in the works of Dostoevsky, who deals often with a class of
people in physical want in his novels. Thus a people whose physical
needs are satisfied would be more inclined to be spiritually hungry,
and thus would be more apt to probe the abstract in an effort to
alleviate the pangs of spiritual and intellectual hunger.
Maxim Gorky had felt the pangs of spiritual hunger in his
youth. He speaks from first hand knowledge when he says in his
piece of short fiction, One Autumn Might, "In pur present state of
culture hunger of the mind is more quickly satisfied than hunger of
the body. You wander about the streets, you are surrounded by build
ings not bad-looking from the outside, and the sight of them may
excite within you stimulating ideas about architecture, hygiene,
V
and many other high-flying subjects. You may meet -warmly and neatly
dressed folks— all very polite, and turning away from you tactfully, not
wishing offensively to notice the lamentable fact of your existence.
Well, well, the mind of the hungry man is always better nourished and
healthier than the mind of the well-fed man; and there you have a situ
ation from which you may draw a very ingenious conclusion in favor of
the ill-fed."2
In Tolstoy's lifer and Peace, Pierre, possessing one of the largest
fortunes in the Russia of his day, becomes almost entirely preoccupied
with various phases of philosophy at times, but when he is taken prisoner
by the French and is ill-fed, he learns to appreciate the basic needs of
life in a new light. When he is delivered from the French, he finds a
new joy in partaking of the simple needs of life, which for a time furnish
him with more enjoyment than all the time he has spent pondering over the
mysteries of the metaphysical. In fact after this experience, coupled
with a new enlightenment he has received at the hand of a fellow-prisoner-
of-war, a simple peasant, his entire philosophical approach is changed
from a complicated system of metaphysics to a simple appreciation of life,
perhaps a forerunner of the primitive Christianity which Tolstoy embraced
in his latter years.
Yet even Gorky’s physically hungry manifest a spiritual and
intellectual craving, that exhibits its desire for philosophical suste
nance alongside the physical pangs of hunger. And as we shall se in the
^ Ojo. Cit. in Cournos, Treasury of Russian Life and Humor, p. 246
following study, philosophic introspection seems almost an inate quality
in all classes of the people we meet in Russian fiction and plays a
dominant part in their everyday thinking.
INTRODUCTION
This study is limited to representative works of Russian authors,
who best exhibit the tendency to use philosophic introspection in their
works. I chose six authors from the era when Russian literature was at
its peak, a period that produced some of the world’s greatest fiction.
Three of the authors, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy stand out in a
strong literary field of a literarily prolific period under the unusually
benevolent despotism of the latter part of the 19th century in Tsaristic
Russia. The other three, Chekhov, Andreyev, and Gorky, took the mantle
passed on by the 19th century triumvirate of literary aristocracy at
the turn of the century and carried on during the period of political
and intellectual unrest that proceeded the overthrow of the Tsaristic
system and the advent of communism. One of them, Gorky, lived to earry
on under the Red banner of the Soviet Union.
These authors and representative selections from each will be
studied individually for their use of philosophic introspection. Com
parisons of the uses of philosophic introspection by the authors will
be made from time to time, but in the main this paper will be developed
by individual studies of authors.
Long passages from the works of the authors will be quoted from
time to time without interruption on my part. This will be done to show
the amount of space devoted to the use of philosophic introspection, in
some instances. Often, quoting these long passages intact will be neces
sary to show the development of certain phases of a character’s introspection,
and there will be no comment interspersed, as the author can certainly
viii
develop this phase without the help of my comments.
Much of the quoted matter will be actual philosophic introspection
on the part of a character, that is, instances where the author reveals
what is actually taking place in the thought processes of a character—
questions, many unanswered, or possible solutions discarded, a few
retained. With the master psychological touch of these great Russian
artists one can see characters wrestling with metaphysical enigmas in.a
somethimes tortuous arena. This is what is meant by true philosophic
introspection.
In many instances I shall record excerpts from the conversations
among characters in the fiction observed in this study. These may not
be examples of true philosophic introspection. However, the opinions
expressed by the characters are opinions reached by the process of
philosophic introspection. I consider this type of quotation as merely
a variation in the author's presentation of introspection on the part
of his characters.
In one portion of this study I quote from an article written by
a character in a novel. The article is obviously the direct result of
philosophic introspection on the part of its author. Discussions by the
characters often are a means of bringing out finer points in the inward
reflections of the characters, and they in turn stimulate further intro
spection among the members of the discussion group.
The article mentioned in the preceding paragraph is from Dostoevsky's
Brothers Karamazov, and it brings about a philosophical discussion. The
author of the article, Raskolnikov, is forced to defend his position thorough-
ly. This is a clever device by the novel's author for showing by what
means of introspection Raskolnikov arrived at the opinions manifested in
the article.
In most cases the introspection of the characters, the opinions
expressed by them, the stumbling, groning quest for truth are actually
those of the author. "Why," the author asks through his characters,
"are things as they are?" What are the answers to the bewildering array
of questions about the scheme of the universe? The bewilderment of the
characters is the bewilderment of their creator. I shall furnish biographical
data from the lives of the authors that parallel situations in the
fictional selections to demonstrate this.
Certain authors, notably Dostoevsky, exhibit dual personalities
through the medium of their fictions. They may be identified with two
totally different types of characterizations, two totally different
philosophical approaches to life. One of the challenges presented in
this study is to ferret out which type of character, which philosophical
approach can be truly identified with that of the author. Perhaps the
duality of nature really exists in the author, and one cannot successfully
isolate one component from the other and say, "This is the real author."
Possibly this is the secret of the greatness of Russian fiction. These
opposing forces warring within the Russian literary elite may be the source
of stimulation which has produced the greatest fiction in the world.
Briefly restated the plan of this paper is to examine each author
first (l), to establish the fact that he uses philosophic introspection
either directly or indirectly in his work and to what extent he does so;
(2) to determine by comparison of biographical data with fictional
data if the introspection of the character is that of the author, and,
if so, to determine what the philosophy of the author, if any, really
is; and (3) to determine if this tendency to philosophize exists among
all types of Russian fictional characters.
NIKOLAY GOGOL
Nikolay Gogol is conceded by most critics to be the father of
Russian prose fiction, at least the fiction that will be used for the
purpose of this study. It is only logical that his works should be the
first to be examined in this study for traces of philosophic introspection.
Gogol himself was deeply introspective. In fact Janko Lavrin in
his Gogol,.a biographical study, says, "Gogol was, in essence, a diseased
and too introspective genius."-*- Another critic labels him "a brooding,
p
weak-willed negativist, a perturbed spirit. The last few years of
Gogol’s life could best be defined as a ceaseless inner crisis. His
mind retreated within itself. His nervous illness grew on him, and
deepest melancholy marked his every mood.
Yet little of this morbid tone reached his major works, for his
three greatest works, The Inspector General, a play, The Cloak, a short
story, and Dead Souls, a novel, are the best comedy that Russian lit
erature has to offer. It is true that his comedy is often underlined
with a tone of pathos. Gogol showed his manuscript of Dead Souls to
Alexander Pushkin, acknowledged leading literary figure of his day.
"When Gogol read aloud from his manuscript, Puskin, who had listened with
growing seriousness, cried, "Lord, what a sad country our Russia is,«5
1 Op. Cit., p. 15
2 Clifton Fadiman in his Foreward to Guerney’s Translation of
Gogol's, Chichikov's Journeys, p. v.
3 Lavrin, Gogol, p. 163
2
and later he added, "Gogol invents nothing; it is the simple truth, the
the terrible truth.
Gogol's works are bitterly satirical at times, but predominantly
they are the works of a great humorist. Thus it can be seen that the
works of Gogol become a paradox when it is attemped to reconcile their
nature with that of the morbid, introspective, nature of their author.
But actually according to his biographer, Lavrin, this very introspective
nature was responsible for the nature of his work. Lavrin says, "His
misanthropy had its root in his moral introspection." He cites a
question from Gogol that he thinks gives a clue to how we can reconcile
Gogol's nature with that of his works.
"None of my readers knows that in laughing at my characters
they laughed at myself,"5 Gogol confessed in 1&47. "In me there was
a collection of all possible defects and in a greater quantity than in
any other man. If they had suddenly and all together appeared before
my eyes I would have hanged myself. I began to depict in my heroes my
own nastiness. This is how I did it. Having taken some bad feature of
mine or other, I persecuted it under a different name and in a different
role, endearing to make it appear before my eyes as my deadly enemy—
an enemy who had inflicted a terrible injury upon me; I persecuted it
with malice, with irony, with anything I could get hold of. Had anyone
seen those monsters which came from under the pen at the beginning, he
4 Phelps, Essays on Russian Novelists, p. 55
5 Lavrin, Gogol, pp. 192-193
3
would have shivered with fear." Here we see a Gogol who in his intro
spective moments became dissatisfied with the world because he was
dissatisfied with himself. In his fight for a higher realization of
life he was always morbidly conscious of his own faults, which he
magnified and then pursued with ruthless cruelty.
Gogol became especially preoccupied with religion during his
latter years. Lavrin, does not think, however, that Gogol was possessed
of a spontaneous religiosity but of only a "religious" intellect. He
apparently felt the need of a deeper religious feeling. He sought to
pacify the spiritual turmoil within himself through several approaches
to Christian religion, including a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but
never seemed to acquire that spiritual depth he longed for.
This lack of inate religious depth in Gogol perhaps accounts for
the lack of the type of philosophic introspection we find in Tolstoy and
Dostoevsky in Gogol’s works.' Gogol apparently entertained little doubt
at any time about the existence of a God. He seemed to have accepted
God’s place in the scheme of things in an orthodox Christian manner all
of his life. Thus we find very little questioning of characters in
Gogol of the exitence of God or His ways to man such as we see in Tolstoy
and Dostoevsky. Gogol was not capable of the depth of spiritual feeling,
of the passion of Dostoevsky in his work because of this lack of spon
taneous religiosity. Gogol’s characters are introspective at times but
their Indulgence in philosophical phases of introspection is very much
at a minimum in comparison with this tendency in the characters of
Gogol's successors, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
4
Most critics of Russian literature recognize the great significance
of Gogol's short story, The Cloak, in the history of Russian fiction
and that all Russian novelists have been more or less influenced by it.
Since it is such a great influence, especially on the authors that are
included in this study, it will be examined first for traces of intro
spection.
The Cloak is a short story, perhaps more aptly characterized as
a concentrated character study. It's leading character, Akaky Akakiyevich,
is a pathetically insignificant soul. His mind is seldom occupied with
anything but his work, which consists solely of copying official documents,
and his basic needs, those of food, clothing, and shelter. His thoughts
never penetrate the abstract realm and are probably not capable of
soaring into the metaphysical strata of thought. Consequently he will
never probe the abstract like Tolstoy's Pierre and Prince Andrey in
Bar and Peace or Levin in Anna Karenina. The limited capacity of his
finite mind could not fashion even a warped superman philosophy such
as that of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. However,
since Akaky is a Russian, he will have frequent lapses of introspection
in his own prosaic, petty way. He would often become so preoccupied
with his little thoughts that he would stray out into the street as he
was walking home and "only when a horse thrust his nose, from some un
known quarter, over his shoulder, and sent a whole gust of wind down his
neck from his nostrils, did he observe that he was— in the middle of the
street.
6 Gogol, The Cloak, Cournos, Treasury of Russian Life and Humor.
p. 198. ~
5
Akaky’s cloak has become so worn that the chill of an approaching
winter is biting through it. He decides that he must go to his tailor
and have it patched. The tailor refuses to patch it because it is so
threadbare it will not support a patch. He tells Akaky that he must buy
a new cloak. Akaky is stunned. He cannot afford a new cloak.
’ ’ Akaky Akakiyevich went out into the street as if in a dream.
’lhat a messj’ he added to himself. 'I did not think it had come to— ’
and then after a pause he added, 'Well, so it is.' ' Then followed a
long silence, after which he exclaimed, 'Well, so it is.’ See what already—
nothing unexpected that— it would be nothing— what a strange circumstance!'
Saying which, instead of going home, he went in exactly the opposite
direction without suspecting it. On the way, a chimney-sweep bumped up
against him and blackened his shoulder, and a whole hatful of rubbish
landed on him from the top of a house which ms building. He did not
notice it‘ , and only when he ran against a watchman,— did he recover him
self."?
Of such trivia was Akaky's introspection. Akaky expressed him
self for the most part by prepositions, adverbs, and scraps of phrases
which had no meaning whatsoever. If the matter was a very difficult
one he had a habit of never finishing his sentences. His introspection
took the same form. Nothing of the philosophical is in it. At one
instance in The Cloak Gogol does inject' a philosophical note. It is,
however, not at the hands of Akaky. The clerks at the office are making
7 Ibid., p. 203
6
sport of Akaky as is their custom. Most often Akaky did not respond to
this treatment. Occasionally he would exclaim, "Leave me alonej Why
do you insult me?"
"There was something strange in the words and the voice in which ,
they were uttered. There was in it something which moved to pity; so
much so that one young man, a newcomer, who was following-the example
of the others, had permitted himself to make sport of Akaky, suddenly
stopped short, as if all about him had undergone a transformation, and
presented itself in a new aspect. Some unseen force repelled him from
the comrades whose acquaintance he had made, on the supposition that they
were decent, well-bred men. Long afterwards, in his gayest moments,
there would come to his mind the little clerk with the bald forehead,
with his heart-rending words, 'Leave me alone.' Why do you insult me?'
These moving words seemed to echo other words— 'I am thy brother.' And
the young man covered his face with his hands; and many a time afterwards,
in the course of his life, shuddered at seeing how much inhumanity there
is in man, how much savage coarseness is concealed beneath cultered,
worldly refinement, and even, 0 God] in that man whom the world acknowledges
as honorable and upright."®
In Dead Souls, Gogol's hero, Chichikov is not given to philosophical
speculation. He is often introspective, but his introspection is concerned
with his desire to get ahead in the world. Occasionally Gogol may intro
duce a character in this novel, who showrs signs of a preoecu* pation with
8 Ibid., p. 197
7
with philosophy, especially among the landed gentry, which is inclined
in some instances to idle away hours toying with philosophical ideas
while allowing its estates to depreciate. However, often Gogol will
interrupt his narrative with a personal note of introspection. Here
is an example of his introspective technique of this nature:
"Russia! Russia! I behold thee— from my alien, beautiful far-
off place do I behold thee. Everything about thee is poor, scattered,
bleak; thou wilt not gladden, wilt not affright my eyes with arrogant
wonders of nature, crowned by arrogant wonders of art, cities with many-
windowed, towering palaces that have become parts of the crags they
are perched on, picturesque trees and ivies that have become part of
the houses, situated amid the roar and eternal spray of waterfalls; I
will not have to crane my head to gaze at rocky masses, piled up, without
end, on the height above; there will be no flash of sunlight coming
through dark arches thrown up on one another, covered with grapevines,
ivies, and wild roses without number— there will be no flash through
them of the eternal line of gleaming mountains in the distance, soaring
up into argent, radiant heavens. All is exposed, desolate, and flat
about thee; like specks, like dots are thy low-lying towns scattered
imperceptibly over thy plains; there is nothing to entice, nothing to
enchant the eye. But just what is the incomprehensible, mysterious
power that draws one to thee? Miy does one hear, resounding incessantly
in one's ears, thy plaintive song, floating over all thy length and
breadth, from sea to sea? What is there in it, in this song of thine?
Wiat is it about that song which calls one, and sobs, and clutches at
8
one's very heart? ttiat sounds are these that poignantly caress my soul
and strive to win their way within it, and twine about my heart, Russia!
What wouldst thou of me, then: lhat incomprehensible bond is there
between us? Wherefore dost thou gaze at me thus, and wherefore has all
that is in thee and of thee turned its eyes, filled with such expectancy,
upon me?— Yet still, filled with perplexity, I continue standing motion
lessly, though an ominous cloud, heavy with coming rains, has cast its
shadow over my head, and thought has grown benumbed before thy vast
expanse. W^iat does that unencompassable expanse portend? It is not
here, within thee and of thee, that there is to be born a boundless
idea, when thou thyself art without mete or end? What else if not here
is a titan to arise, when there is space for him to open as a flower
opens, and to stretch his legs? And thy mighty expanse awesomely
envelopes me, with fearful might finding reflection in my very heart of
hearts; through thy preternatural sway have my eyes come to see the
light— Ah, what a refulgent, wondrous horizon that the world knows
naught of! Russia.' — "9
Further on in the novel Gogol interrupts the progress of Chichikov's
fast flying troika with an introspective analogy: "And art not thou, my
Russia, soaring along even like a spirited, never-to-be-outdistanced
troika? The road actually smokes under thee! The witness of thy passing
comes to a dead stop, dumbfounded by this God's wonder! Is it not a
streak of lightning cast down from heaven? What signifies this onrush
9 Gogol, Chichikov1s Journeys, Guerney's Tr. of Dead 5ouls, pp. 206,7
that inspires terror? And what unkown power is contained in these
steeds, whose like is not known in this world?— Ye have caught the
familiar song coming down to you from above, and all as one, and all
at the same instant, ye have strained your brazen chests and, almost
without touching earth with your hoofs, ye have become all transformed
into straight lines cleaving the air, and the troika tears along, all
inspired by God! Whither art thou soaring away to, then Russia? Give
me thy answer! But Russia gives none—
To sum up the results of a study of the use of philosophical
introspection in the works of Gogol, it can be concluded that Gogol does
not permit his characters to soar into the realm of the abstract to any
such degree as the characters of Tolstoy exhibit in subsequent study in
this paper. Gogol's characters in the main are petty. They have petty
thoughts. Their minds are too cluttered up with worldly matters to
allow room for other-worldliness. They are not much concerned with
man's place in the scheme of things but rather their own individual
places in the schemes of man. Their introspection reflects this. Much
of any philosophic introspection in Gogol is his own, which he does not
attempt to present second-hand through the medium of his characters, but
simply interjects as a sort of author's soliloquy. In general in the
selections of Gogol studied the characters are introspective but not
often philosophically so.
10 Ibid.. pp. 233-34
LEO TOIS TOY
William Lyon Phelps says in a discussion of Leo Tolstoy's
Youth, "Throughout this book, as in all Tolstoy's work, is the eternal
question Why? For what purpose is life, and to xdiat end am I living?
What is the real meaning of human ambition and human effort? "H This
is true philosophic introspection. Although Youth will not be included
as a selection for study in the portion of this paper on Tolstoy, t&is
is also true of the selections that will be discussed in this section
on the works of Tolstoy.
Count Leo Tolstoy's youth was one, if not of debauchery, certain
ly not inhibited by a strict moral code. He admitted in a letter to
his aunt, written in French, the language of most of their letters,
t
that three passions, gambling, sensuality, and vanity, obstructed the
m o r a l - w a y . yet in spite of the shallow preoccupation of much of his
youth, his letters, his journal, and his earliest works show that he
was much concerned even during these years of moral laxity and devotion
to worldly pleasures with a nebulous philosophy of life, which was
shaping into the positive religiosity of his latter years. Most of his
novels, even those that seem the most objective, are really part of his
autobiography. Through the medium of different characters he is always
talking about himself, always introspective.
Uphelps, Essays on Russian Wovelists, p. 190
l2Ibid., p. 173
11
An early entry in his journal reads, "The man who has no other
goal than his own happiness is a bad man. He whose goal is the good
opinion of others is a weak man. He whose goal is the happiness of
others is a virtuous man. He whose goal is God is a great manI"13
In one of Tolsoy's earlier works, Sevastopol in May, we read:
"Who is the villain, who is the hero? All are good and all are evil.".
"The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the strength of my
soul, whom I have tried to set forth in all his beauty, and who has
always been, is, and always will be most beautiful, is— the truth.
Thus we see the strong philosophical trent in Tolstoy the man.and author
early in his long years of literary productivety. This trend grew until
the works of his latter years are almost entirely preoccupied with the
theory of a primitive Christianity, his own philosophy of life. In
fact in What is Art, a work of Tolstoy devoted to literary criticism,
he maintains that true art cannot be divorced from a moral or spiritual
purpose.
I have selected for study the two works which are best known to
the English speaking world and which were written during what most critics
agree is the peak of Tolstoy's literary career. These two novels, one
of historical fiction, the other a psychological study of an unhappy
marriage and a happy one, both highly autobiographical, abound in phil
osophic introspection. They are War and Peace and Anna Karenina. War
and Peace will be examined first.
13Ibid., p. 173
14lbid., p. 193
12
In War and Peace Tolstoy concentrates much of the type of phil
osophic introspection, for which Russian literature is noted, in the
character, Pierre, an illegitimate son of Count Bezuhov, who is a prom=
inent member of the Russian nobility. Pierre has been educated abroad.
He is perhaps typical of the dissolute younger generation of the period's
Russian gentry. He has no purpose in life, admires Wapoleon, and his
favorite pastime is heavy drinking and gambling.
The old Count Bezuhov dies, and Pierre inherits his title and the
bulk of his fortune. Shortly after he joins the ranks of nobles, Pierre
is wed to Ellen, daughter of Prince Vassily, another Russian noble in
the circle Pierre frequents. Ellen is shallow, pretty, and vain. She
is much attracted and very attractive to the opposite sex. Soon after
her marriage to Pierre she indulges in a flirtation with Dolohov, a
handsome and unprincipled friend of Pierre. Possibly the affair goes
somewhat further than a mild flirtation. At least Pierre becomes convinced
that it has exceeded this stage. A bit too much brooding by Pierre coupled
with a smattering of contempt, with which Dolohov treats him, ignites a
spark which flares into a duel. Pierre seriously wounds Dolohov in the
affray. After the duel he parts from his wife.
Remorse sets in as Pierre painfully reminisces about the outcome
of the duel, in which he seriously wounded Dolohov. The series of events
initiates a philosophic trend in Pierre, which is very well sustained
until the end of the book.
Pierre has left Moscow and his wife for St. Petersburg. Introspection
suddenly possesses him.
13
“He had been deep in thought since he left the last station, and
still he went on thinking of the sme thing— of something so important
that he did not notice what was passing around him— Of whatever he began
thinking he came back to the same questions, which he could not answer,
and from which he could not escape. It was as though the chief screw in
his brain upon which his whole life rested were loose. The screw moved
*
no forwarder, no backwarder, but still it turned catching on nothing,
always in the same groove, and there was no making it stop turning.”
"The overseer came in and began humbly begging his excellency to
wait only a couple of hours, after which he would (come what might of it)
let his excellency have the special mail service horses. The overseer
was unmistakably lying with the sole aim of getting an extra tip from
the traveller. 'USAs-that good or bad?' Pierre wondered. 'For me good,
for the next traveler bad, and for himself inevitable because he had
nothing to eat; he said that an officer had thrashed him for it. And the
officer thrashed him because he had to travel in haste. And I shot
Dolohov because I considered myself injured. Louis XVI was executed
because they considered him to be a criminal, and a year later his judges
were killed too for something. What is wrong? What is right? Shat must
one love, what must one hate? What is life for, and what am I? What is
life? Shat is death? What force controls it all?1 he asked himself.
And there was no answer to one of these questions, except on illogical
one really that was in no way an answer to any of them. That reply was:
'One dies and it's all over. One dies and finds it all or ceases asking.1
But dying too was terrible.”
14
"The Torzhok pedlar woman in a whining voice proffered her wares,
especially some goatskin slippers. ’I have hundreds of roubles I don't
know what to do with and she's standing in her torn cloak looking
timidly at me,' thought Pierre. 'And what does she want the money for?
As though that money could give her one hairsbreadth of happiness or
peace of soul. Is there anything in the world that can make her and me
less enslaved to evil and to death? Death which ends all, and must come
today or tomorrow— which beside eternity is the same as in an instant's
time.' And again he turned the screw that did not bite anything, and
the screw still went on turning in the same place."
"His servant handed him a half-cut volume of a novel in the form
of letters by Madame Suza. He began reading of the sufferings of the
virtuous struggles of a certain 'Amelie de Mansfeld.' 'And what did she
struggle against her seducer for?' he thought. 'When she loved him, God
could not have put in her heart an impulse that was against His will.
My wife— as she was once, didn't struggle, and perhaps she was right,
nothing has been discovered.1 Pierre said to himself again, 'Nothing
has been invented. We can only know that we know nothing. And that's
the highest degree of human wisdom.'"
"Everything within himself and around him struck him as confused,
meaningless, and lowthsome. But in this very loathing of everything
surrounding him Pierre found sort of tantalizing satisfaction."15
In this bewildered state Pierre encounters Osop Aleyevitch Vazdyev,
a well-known freemason, who has made it a point to encounter the count.
15folstoy, War and Peace, pp. 378-379
15
Vazdyev engages Pierre in conversation and ferrets out some of the
reasoning to which Pierre's introspection has lead him. Pierre has
just found out that Vazdyev is a freemason.
"'I am afraid,' said Pierre, smiling and hesitating between the
confidence inspired in him by the personality of the freemason and the
habit of ridiculing the articles of the Mason' creed; 'I am afraid
that I am very far from a comprehension— How shall I say— I am afraid
that my way of thinking in regard to the whole theory of the universe
is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another.'"
"'I am aware of your way of thinking,' said the freemason, 'and
that way of thinking of which you speak, which seems to you the result
of your own thought is the way of thinking of the majority of men, and
is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Excuse my
saying, sir, that if I had not been aware of it I should not have addressed
you. Your way of thinking is a melancholy error.'"
’ "Just as I may take for granted that you are in error,' said
Pierre, faintly smiling."
'"I should never be so bold as to say I know the truth,' said the
mason, the-definitenes and decision of whose manner of speaking impressed
Pierre more and more. 'No one alone can attain truth; only stone upon
stone with the cooperation of all by the millions of generations from
our first father Adam down to our day is that temple being reared that
should be a fitting dwelling-piace of the Great God,' said the freemason
and he shut his eyes."
"'I ought to tell you that I don't believe, don't— believe in
16
God,' said Pierre regretfully and with effort, feeling it essential to
speak the whole truth."
"The freemason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich
man, holding millions in his hands might smile to a poor wretch, who
should say to him that he, the poor man, has not five roubles that would
secure his happiness."
"'Yes, you do not know Him sir,1 said the freemason. You cannot
know Him, that is why you are unhappy.1 n
"'Yes, yes I am unhappy! Pierre assented; 'but what am I to do?'"
’ "You know not Him, sir, and that's why you are very unhappy.
You know not Him but He is here. He is within me. He is in my words.
He is in thee and even in these scoffing words that thou hast just uttered,'
said the mason— "
"'If He were not,' he said softly 'we should not be speaking of
Him, sir; Of what, of whom were we speaking? Whom dost thou deny? Who
invented Him if He is not? How came there within thee the conception that
there is such an incomprehensible Being? How comes it that thou and all
the world have assumed the existence of such an inconceivable Being.
Being all powerful, eternal, and infinite in all His qualities?— I He
stopped and made a long pause."
"Pierre could not and would not interrupt this silence."
"'He exists, but to comprehend Him is hard.' the mason began again,
not looking into Pierre's face, but straight before him, while his old
hands, which could not keep still for inward emotion, turned the leaves
of the book. 'If it had been a man of whose existence thou hadst doubts,
I could have brought the man, taken him by the hand and shown him thee.
But how am I, an insignificant mortal to show all the power, all the
eternity, all the blessedness of Him to one who is blind, or to one who
shuts his eyes that he may not see, may not understand Him, and may not
see, and may not understand all his own vileness and viciousness— Who art
thou? What art thou? Thou dreamest that thou art wise because thou
eouldst utter those scoffing words,' he said, with a gloomy and scornful
irony, 'while thou art more foolish and artless than a little babe, who,
playing with the parts of a cunningly fashioned watch, Should rashly say
that because he understands not the use of that watch, he does not believe
in the maker who fashioned it. To know Him is a hard matter. For ages,
from our first father Adam to our day have we been striving for this
knowledge, and are infinitely far from attainment of our aim; but in our
lack of understanding was only our own weakness and His greatness— '*•
"Pierre gazed with shining eyes into the freemason's face, listen
ing with a thrilled heart to his words; he did not interrupt him, nor
ask questions but xcith all his soul he believed what this strange man
was telling him. Whether he believed on the rational grounds put before
him by the freemason, or believed as children do through the intonations
the convictions and the earnestness of the masan's word, the quiver in
his voice that sometimes almost broke his utterance, or the gleaming old
eyes that had grown old in that conviction or the calm, the resolution,
and the certainty of his destination, which were conspicuous in the whole
personality of the old man, and struck Pierre with the particular force,
besides his own objectness, and hopelessness, any wr ay, with his whole soul
18
he longed to believe, and believed and felt a joyful sense of soothing
of renewal, and of return to life."
"'It is not attained by the reason, but by life,' said the Mason.1 1
M,I don't understand,1 said Pierre feeling with dismay that doubt
was stirring within him. He dreaded obscurity and feebleness in the
freemason's arguments, he dreaded being unable to believe in him. 'I
don't understand,' he said, 'in what way human reason connot attain that
knowledge of which you speak. '1 1
"'The highest wisdom and truth is like the purest dew, which we
try to hold within us,' said he. 'Gan I hold in an impure vessel that
pure dew and judge of its purity? Only by the impurification of myself
can I bring that dew contained within me to some degree of purity.'"
"'Yes, yes; that's so,' said Pierre joyfully."
"'The highest wisdom is founded not on reason only, not on those
worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, etc., into which
knowledge of the intellect is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The
highest wisdom knows but one science— the science of the whole, the science
that explains the whole creation and the place of man in it. To instill
this science into one's soul, it is needful to purify and renew one's
inner man, and so before one can know, one must believe and be made perfect.
And for the attainment of these aims there has been put into our souls
the light of God, called the c o n s c i e n c e . ' " ^
The old freemason continues to point out the fallacies in Pierre's
life and Pierre listens with enrapt attention. This is the transition
l6Ibid.. pp. 3 8 1 - 3 8 3
19
point in his life. His recent unfortunate experiences with Dolohov and
his wife has broken through the thin veneer that had covered over life
as he had known it. What he saw underneath was not pretty. There was
no meaning to it. Existence was a painful obligation to what? But here
was some purpose in life, a meaning, something that was an opiate, that
dulled the pain life had become. He joins the ranks of freemasons and
throws his whole life into their cause.
Although this conversation between Pierre and the freemason is of
a philosophical nature, it is not directly introspective. Possibly it
is the result of introspection on the part of the men who devised this
philosophy of the freemasons. However, I felt it necessary to include
it in this study because of the stimulation it serves in Pierre's intro
spection which we will observe in him further on in this study. It marks
a direct transition in Pierre's introspection, gives purpose to a hitherto
aimless groping in the abstract. And for a time it shapes the entire course
of Pierre's introspection in a positive direction.
Philosophic introspection may occur in such a sanguinary setting
as a battlefield in War and Peace. Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, another
principal character in the book, is an egocentric, perhaps overly-ambitious
product of the landed gentry. He is bored with Russian society. Phil
osophising is a waste of time, only for shallow women in the circles of
Moscow and St. Petersburg society. He lives only for the fame and glory
he may attain in military service. He does achieve great success in
military ranks but is seriously wounded at Austerlitz. He falls in the
heat of the battle.
" 1 Ihat1 s this: am I falling? My legs are giving way under me,'
he thought and fell on his back. He opened his eyes hoping to see how
the struggle of the French soldiers with the artilleryman was ending and
eager to know whether the red-haired artilleryman was killed or not,
whether the cannons had been taken or saved. But he saw nothing of all
that. Above his there was nothing but the sky— the lofty sky, not clear,
but still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds creeping quietly over it.
'How quietly, peacefully, and triumphantly, and not like us running,
shouting, and fighting, not like the Frenchmen and artillerymen dragging
the mop from one another with frightened and frantic faces, how differently
those clouds creeping over that lofty, limitless sky. How was it I did
not see that lofty sky before: And how happy I am to have found it at
last. Yes.' all is vanity, all is a cheat except that infinite sky. There
is nothing, nothing but that. But even that is not, there is nothing but
peace and stillness. And thank GodJ*"
After this he loses consciousness for some time. His first thought
after his consciousness returns is: "'Inhere is it, that lofty sky that I
knew not till now and saw today— and this agony I did not know either.
Yes, I knew nothing, nothing till now. But where am i?««17
Andrey has been an ardent admirer of Napoleon, his ideal of military
genius. After the battle has passed on Napoleon is inspecting the
battlefield, paying tribute to the Russian dead. Andrey, whom he takes
for dead, is one of the main objects of the tribute. But philosophic
introspection has possessed Andrey. He has made a sudden transition as
iVlbid., pp. 312-314
21
death hovers near. Napoleon's tributes are "as the buzzing of flies. It
was not merely that he took no interest in them, but he did not attend to
them and at once forgot them— He knew it was Napoleon— his hero— but at
that moment Sapoleon seemed to him such a small insignificant creature
in comparison with what was passing now between his soul and that lofty,
limitless sky with the clouds flying over it. It meant nothing to him at
that moment who was standing over him, what was being said of him. He
was only glad that people were standing over him, and his only desire was
that these people should help him and bring him back to life, which seemed
to him so good, because he saw it all quite differently now. "18
After it is discovered that andrey is alive he is taken in with a
group of prisoners, whom Napoleon later interviews. He asks Andrey how
he is feeling.
"Although five minutes previously Prince Andrey had been able to
say a few words to the soldiers who were carrying him, he was silent now,
with his eyes fastened directly upon Napoleon, so petty seemed to him his
hero, with his paltry vanity and glee of victory, in comparison with that
lofty, righteous, and kindly sky, which he had seen and comprehended, that
he could not answer him. And all indeed seemed to him so trifling and un
profitable beside the stern and solemn train of thought aroused in him
by weakness from loss of blood, by suffering and the nearness of death.
Gazing into Napoleon's eyes, Prince Andrey mused on the nothingness of
^ I b i d . , pp. 3 1 2 - 3 1 3
greatness, on the nothingness of life, of which no one could comprehend
the significance, and on the nothingness— still more— of death, the
meaning of which could be understood and explained by none of the living—
'How good it would be,' thought Prince Andrey, as he glanced at the holy
image which his sister had hung around his neck with such emotion and
reverence, 'how good it would be if all wr ere as clear and simple as it
seems to Marie. How good to know where to seek aid in this life and what
to expect after it, there beyond the grave. "'19 (Marie is his sister.
She is very religious and leans heavily on orthodox Christian faith. She
had given him the holy image when he went into active service.)
"'How happy and at peace I should be, if I could say now, 'Lord,
have mercy on me.' ' But to whom am I to say that? Either a Power infinite,
inconceivable, to which I cannot appeal, which I cannot even put into
words, the great whole, or nothing,’ he said to himself,' or that God, who
has been sewn up here in this locket by Marie. There is nothing, nothing
certain, but the nothingness of all that is comprehensible to us, and the
grandeur of something incomprehensible, but more importantJ'"20
This marks a definite change in Andrey's life and turns his thoughts
henceforth to a definite introspective channel. It is interesting to
compare the approach manifested by Prince Andrey to philosophic introspection
with that of Pierre. Prince Andrey is unemotional. He approaches every
thing with cold logic. His approach to philosophy is marked by the exper
ience noted in the preceding paragraphs, which clears his reasoning
19lbid., p p 314-315
^Ibid., p. 315
processes of every preconceived notion. This experience leaves a vast
void, and Prince Andrey is acutely conscious of the necessity of filling
it. But he does not grasp at straws, nor is he swayed by the first
emotional reaction to persuasive argument that he hears concerning the
purpose in life such as Pierre does in coming under the spell of the
freemason. He must fill this void inductively, weighing eash theory
carefully before he accepts any part of it. Pierre is highly emotional.
He is swayed by oratory and most of all by the overpowering desire to
escape from the misery that his first line of philosophic introspection
has brought him. He attemps to reason, to apply logic, but succumbs
rather easily to the persuasive and sincere tone of the freemason.
Emotion wins him over primarily not logic.
This is easily recognized in the trend of the conversation at the
first meeting of the two after each's respective experiences, which have
sent them down the path of philosophic introspection.
The conversation is of Pierre's duel. Pierre has just expressed
how thankful he is that he did not kill Dolohov.
"'!hy so?1 said Prince Andrey. 1 To kill a vicious dog is a very
good thing to do really.'"
"'No, to kill a man is bad, wrong—
n|Tihy is it wrong?' repeated Prince Andrey; '1/hat's right and wrong
is a question it has. not been- given to man to decide. Men are forever in
error, and always will be in error, and in nothing more than in what they
regard as right and wrong.*"
"'lhat does harm to another man is wrong,' said Pierre, feeling with
24
pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrey was
roused and was beginning to speak and eager to give expression to what
had made him what he now was."
”'And who has told you what is harm to another man?' he asked.”
"'Harm, harm?1 said Pierrej 'we all know what harms ourselves.'n
'"Yes, we know that, but it is not the same harm we know about for •
ourselves that we do to another man,' said Prince Andrey, growing more and
more eager and evidently anxious to express to Pierre his new view of things.
He spoke in French. 'I only know two very real ills in life, remorse and
sickness. There is no good except the absence of those ills. To live
for myself so as to avoid these two evils: that's the sum of my wisdom now.'*'
"'And love for your neighbor and self-sacrifice?' began Pierre.
'Mo, I can't agree with youi To live with the sole object of avoiding
doing evil, so as not to be remorseful, that's very little. I used to live
so. I used to live for myself, and I spoilt my life. And only now when
I'm living, at least trying to live for others, only now I have learnt to
know all the happiness of life. No, I don't agree with you, and indeed
you don't believe what you're saying yourself.'"
"Prince Andrey looked at Pierre without speaking, and smiled
ironically. 'Well, you'll see my sister Marie. You will get on with her,'
said he. 'Perhaps you are right for yourself, but every one lives in his
own way; you used to live for-yourself, and you say that by doing so you
almost spoiled your life, and have only known happiness since you began
to live for others. And try experience has been the reverse. I used to
live for glory. And what is glory: The same love for others, the desire
25
to do something for them, the desire of their praise. In that way I lived
for others, and not almost, but quite spoilt my life. And I have become
more peaceful since I leve only for myself.'"
'"But how are you living only for yourself?1 Pierre asked, getting
hot. 'IShat of your son, your sister, your father?1"
"'Yes, but that's all the same as myself, they are not others,1
said Prince Andrey; 'but others, one's neighbors, as you and Marie call
them, they are the great source of error and evil. One's neighbors are
those— your Kiev peasants— whom one wants to do good to.'"
Pierre continues to harp on his service to others theme and sums
up his case by saying, "'And the great thing is that I know this— and know
it for certainty— that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only real
happiness in life."'
"'Oh, if you put the question like that, it's a different matter,'
said Prince Andrey. 'I'm building a house and laying a garden, while you
are building hospitals. Either occupation may serve to pass the time.
But as to what's right and what's good— leave that to one who knows all to
judge; it's not for us to decide. Well, you want an argument,' he added;
'all right, let us have one.' They got up from the table and sat out on
the steps in default of a balcony, 'Come let us argue the matter,' said
Prince Andrey. 'You talk of schools, instruction, and so forth, that is
you want .to draw him (he pointed to a peasant who passed by them taking
off his cap) out of his animal condition and to give him spiritual needs,
but it seems to me that the only possible happiness is animal happiness,
and you want to deprive him of it. I envy him, while you are trying to
make him into me, without giving him my circumstances. Another thing
you speak of is lightening his toil. But to ray notion, physical labor
is as much a necessity for him, as much a condition of existence, as
intellectual work is for me and for you. You can't help thinking. I
go to bed at three o'clock, thoughts come into my mind, and I can't sleep
till morning, because I'm thinking, and I can't help thinking, just as
he can't help plowing and mowing. If he didn't, he would go to the
tavern or become ill. Just as I could go to the tavern, or become ill.
Just as I could not stand his terrible physical labor, but should die of
it in a week, so he could not stand my physical inactivity, he would
grow fat and die. The third thing— what was it you talked about?— Oh,
yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit and dies, but you have him bled
and cure him. He will drag about an invalid for ten years, a burden to
every one. It would be ever so much simpler and more comfortable for
him to die. • Others are born, and there are always plenty. If you grudge
losing a laborer— that's how I look at him— but you want to cure him
from love for him. But he has no need of that. And besides what a
notion that medicine has ever cured any onel Killed them— yesj' he said,
scowling and turning away from Pierre."
"Prince Andrey gave such clear and precise utterance to his ideas
that it wax evident he had thought more than once of this already, and he
talked rapidly and eagerly, as a man does who has long been.silent. His
eyes grew keener the more pessimistic were the views he expressed."
f "0h, this is awful, awful I' said Pierre, 'I don't understand how
one can live with such ideas. I have had moments of thinking like that:
27
it was not long ago at Moscow and on a journey, but then I become so abject
that I don't live at all, everything's hateful to me— myself, most of all.
Then I don't eat. I don’t wash— how can you go on?'"
"'Why not wash, that's not clean?'said Prince Andrey;' on the
contrary, one has to try and make one's life more agreeable as far as one can.
I'm alive, and it's not my fault that I am, and so I have to try'without
hurting others to get on as well as I can till death.1"
"'But what impulse have you to live with such ideas? You would sit
still without stirring, taking no part in anything— »"
"Prince Andrey grew more and more earger. His eyes glittered fever
ishly as he tried to prove to Pierre that there was never the slightest
desire to do good to his neighbor in his actions— " He sums up his point
of view with: "'So that's what I grieve for— for human dignity, for peace
of conscience, for purity, and not for their backs or heads, which always
remain just the same backs and heads, however you thrash or shave them."
Pierre expounds freemasonry as he understands it to Prince Andrey
than asks him what he thinks about it. Andrey answers, "'What do I think?
I have heard what you say. That's all right. But you say enter into our
brotherhood, and we will show you the object of life and the destination
of man and the laws that govern the universe. But #10 are we?— men? How
do you know it all? Ihy is it I alone don't see what you see? You see on
earth the dominion of good and truth, but I don't see it.’"
"Pierre interrupted him, 'Do you believe in a future life?' he
asked."
"'In a future life:' repeated Prince Andrey.
28
"But Pierre did not give him time to answer, and took this repitition
as a negative reply, the more readily as he knew Prince Andrey's atheistic
views in the past. 'You say that you can't see the dominion of good and
truth on the earth. I have not seen it either, and it cannot be seen if
one looks upon our life as the end of everything. On earth, this earth
here' (Pierre pointed to the open country), 'there is no truth— al is
deception and wickedness. But in the world, the whole world, there is a
dominion of truth, and we are now the children of the whole universe.
Don't I feel in rry soul that I am a part of that vast hormonious whole:
Don't I feel that in that vast, innumerable multitude of beings, in which
is made manifest the Godhead, the higher power— what you choose to call
it— I constitute one grain, one step upward from the lower beings to the
higher ones? If I see, see clearly that ladder that rises up from the
vegetable to man, why should I suppose that ladder breaks off with me and
does not go on further and further? I feel that I cannot disappear as
nothing does disappear in the universe, that indeed I always shall be and
always have been. I feel that beside me, above me, there are spirits,
and that in their world there is thruth.'"
"'Yes, that's Herder's theory,' said Prince Andrey. 'But it's
not that, my dear boy, convinces me; but life and death are what have
convinced me. lhat convinces me is seeing a creature dear to me, and
bound up with me, to whom one has done wrong, and hoped to make it right'
(prince Andrey's voice shook and he turned away), 'and all at once that
creature suffers, is in agony, and ceases to be— what for? It cannot be
there is no answerJ And I believe there is— That's what convinces, that's
29
what has convinced me,' said Prince Andrey.n
"'Just so, just so,' said Pierre: 'isn't that the very thing I'm
saying?'n
"'No. I only say that one is convinced of the necessity of a
future life, not by argument, but when one goes hand-in-hand with some
one, and all at once that some one slips away yonder into nowhere, and
you are left facing that abyss and looking down into it. And I have
looked into it— 1,1
'"Well, that's it then! You know there is a yonder and there is
someone. Yonder is the future life: Some One is God.1"
"'If there is a God and there is a future life, then there is
truth, and there is goodness; and the highest happiness of man consists
in striving for their attainment. We must live, we must love, we must
believe,' said Pierre, 'that we are not only living today on this clod
of earth, but have lived and will live forever there in everything' (he
pointed to the sky.)"
"— 'Yes, if only it were so!'— and as he got out of the ferry he
looked up at the sky, to which Pierre had pointed him, and for the first
time since Austerlitz he saw the lofty, eternal sky, as he had seen it
lying in the field of Austerlitz, and something that had long been slumbering,
something better that had been in him, suddenly awoke with a joyful,
youthful feeling in his soul. That feeling vanished as soon as Prince
Andrey returned again to the habitual conditions of life, but he knew
that that feeling— though he knew not how to develop it— was still within
him. Pierre's visit was for PrinceAndrey an epoch, from which there
30
began, though outwardly unchanged, a new life in his inner world.
At one point in the novel an old oak tree seems to be indulging
in philosophic introspection. It is early spring. All the trees have
started to put out except the old oak tree. Prince Andrey is looking at
it.
"'Spring and love and happiness]' that oak seemed to say. 'Are
you not sick of that ever-same, stupid, and meaningless cheat? Always
the same, and always a cheat! There is no spring, nor sunshine, nor
happiness. See yonder stand the cramped, dead fir-trees, ever the same,
and here I have flung my torn and broken fingers wherever they have
grown out of my back or my sides. As they have grown, so I stand, and
I put no faith in you hopes and deceptions.'"
'"Yes, he's right, a thousand times right, the old Oak,'...thought
Prince Andrey. 'Others, young creatures, may be caught .anew by that
deception, but we know life— our life is over]' A whole fresh train of
ideas, hopeless, but mournfully sweet, stirred up in connection with
with that oak. Buring this journey he thought over his whole life as it
were anew, and came to the same hopeless but calming conclusion, that
it was not for him to begin anything fresh, that he must live his life,
22
content to do no harm, dreading nothing and desiring nothing."
Prince Andrey's mood is something of a bitter sweet most of the
time. He had been bitter at his-wife's death, which had come before he
had had time to change his attitude, and of cold indifference, towards
her. His experience on the field at Austerlitz had warmed and mellowed
21ibid., pp. 415-422
22Ibid., p. 459
31
that feeling of cold indifference. But his wife had died before he could
demonstrate his newly found tenderness. Although her death had left him
morbidly bitter, time began to melloxf his bitterness into a resigned
melancholy. His line of introspection follows this mood.
One day he chances to see a group of young girls, one especially
Dretty and gay.
"Prince Andrey for some reason felt a sudden pang. The day vras so
lovely, the sun so bright, everything around him so gay, and that slim
and pretty girl knew nothing of his existence, and cared to know nothing,
and was content and happy in her own life— foolish doubtless— but gay and
happy and remote from him. What was she so glad about? Hhat was she
thinking of? Not of army regulations; not of the organization of the
Ryazan rent-paying peasants. What is she thinking about, and why is she
so happy?' Prince Andrey could not help wondering with interest."^
Just after this incident Andrey, while visiting his friends, the
Rostovs, glimpes Natasha, their young daughter. She has stolen out into
the moonlight after bed time. She is enthralled with the moon-swept
spell of the warm spring night.
"'And nothing to do with ray existence]' thought Prince Andrey
while he had been listening to her.talk, for-some reason hoping and
dreading she might say something about him. 'And she again] As though
it were a purpose]' he thought. All at once there stirred within his
soul such a wholly unexpected medly of youthful hopes and ideas, running
23Ibid., p. 460
32
counter to the whole tenor of his life* that he made haste to fall asleep,
feeling incapable of seeing clearly into his own state of mind."24
This experience starts a new trend of mood in Prince Andrey. It
rejuvenates his mental processes, as it were. His philosophic introspection
is bursting the hard shell of resigned skepticism.
On the journey back from his stay with the Rostovs he again passes
he oak he had not noticed before.
"'Yes, it was here, in this forest, I saw that oak, this whom I was
in sympathy,1 thought Prince Andrey. 'But where is he?' he thought again
as he gazed at the left side of the road, and, all unaware and unrecognizing,
j , ’ ? '
he was admiring the very oak he ms seeking, The old oak, utterly trans
formed, draped in a tent of sappy, dark green, basked faintly, undulating
in the rays of the evening sun. Of the knotted fingers, the gnarled
excrescences, the aged grief and mistrust— nothing was to be seen. Through
the rough, century-old bark, where there were no twigs, leaves had burst
out so sappy, so young that it was hard to believe that aged creature had
borne them."
'"Yes, that is the same tree,' thought Prince Andrey, and all at once
there came upon him an irrational, spring feeling of joy and of renewal.
All the best moments of his life rose to his memory at once. Austerlitz,
with that lofty sky, and the dead, reproachful face of his wife, and Pierre
on the ferry, and the girl, thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that
night and moon— it all rushed at once into his mind."
"'No, life is not over at thirty-one,' Prince Andrey decided all
2%bid., p. 462
33
at once, finally and absolutely. ’It’s not enough for me to know all
there is in me, every one must know it too; Pierre and that girl, who
wanted to fly away into the sky; every one must know me so that my life
may not be spent only on myself; they must not live so far apart from
my life, it must be reflected on all of them and they must all share my
life with meI”
Ihile Prince Andrey is visiting the Rostovs Natasha sings for him.
As she sings he is inspired to introspection. "He looked at Natasha
singing, and something new and blissful stirred in his soul. He was happy,
and at the same time he.was^sad. He certainly had nothing to weep about,
but he was ready to vreep. For what? For his past love? For the little
princess? For his lost illusions? For his hopes for the future? Yes,
and no. The chief thing which made him ready to weep was a sudden, vivid
sense of the fearful contrast between something linited and material,
which he himself was, and even she was. This contrast made his heart
ache, and rejoiced him while she was singing— n
"It was late in the evening when Prince Andrey left the Rostov^’.
He went to bed from the habit of going to bed, but soon saw that he could
not sleep. He lighted a candle and sat up in bed; then lay down again,
not in the least wearied by his sleeplessness; he felt a new joy in his
soul, as though he had come out of a stuffy room into the open daylight.
It never occurred to him that he was in love with this little Rostov girl.
He %vas not thinking about her. He only pictured her to himself, and the
whole of life rose before him in a new light as he did so. r!hy do I
struggle? Ytoy am I troubled in this narrow, cramped routine, when life,
34
all life, with all its joys, lies open before me?' he said to himself.
And for the first time for a very long while, he began to make happy
plans for the future.1 1
jm— . pierre was right in saying that one must believe in the
possiblitity of. happiness, in order to be happy, and now I do believe in
it. Let us leave the dead to bury the dead; but while one is living,
one must live and be happy.' he thought."25
Emotion now enters Prince Andrey's line of introspection. For the
first time in his life apparently, he is in love. Thus an emotion warms
the coldness of his logic, he can see Pierre's piont of view. Probably
he had never felt any deep emotion for his wife. It was perhaps one of
those marriages of convenience not dependent upon love. He is experiencing
a new sensation, and it transforms his outlook on life for some time.
Prince Andrey becomes engages to Matasha, but he is away from her
for a year.. During his absence she attempts to elope with a younger
suitor. It has the following reaction on his introspection: "After his
t
betrothed's betrayal of him, which he felt the more keenly, the more
studiously he strove to conceal its effect on him from others, he found
it hard to bear the conditions of life in which he had been happy, and
felt still more irksome the freedom and independence he had once prized
so highly. He could not now think the thoughts that had come to him for
the first time on the field of Austerlitz, that he had loved to develop
with Pierre, and that had enriched his solitude at Bogutcharovo, and
later on in Switzerland and in Rome. Now he dreaded indeed those ideas
25lbid., p. 512
35
that had then opened to him boundless vistas of light. Now he was
occupied only with the most practical interests lying close at hand, and
in no way associated with those old ideals. He clutched at these new
interests more eagerly the more the olds ideals were hidden from him.
It was as though the infinite, fathomless arch of heaven that had once
V
stood over him had been suddenly transformed into a low, limited vault
weighing upon him, with everything in it clear, but nothing eternal and
mysterious."26
Pierre too has had a relapse into a more moody introspection.
Freemasonry has lost its hold on him. But again emotion steps in and
gives his introspection a lift from its melancholy state. He too falls
in love with Natasha. It is a passive love, and he does nothing but
sit and wait. "Ever since the day when Pierre had looked up at the
comet in the sky, on his way home from the Rostovs1, and recalling
Natasha's grateful look, had felt as though some new vista was opening
before him, the haunting problem of the vanity and senselessness of all
things earthly had ceased to torment him. That terrible question: 'Why?
what for?' which had.till then haunted him in the midst of every
occupation, was not now replaced by any other question, nor by an answer
to the old question; its place was filled by the image of her."27
War has come again. Napoleon is invading Russia. Prince Andrey
is not lured into the conflict by desire for personal glory this time.
That vanity had vanished with the sudden transition in his introspection
at Austerlitz. He is forced into military service to defend his fatherland.
26Ibid., p. 696
27Ibid., p. 736
36
It is the day before the battle of Borodino. Andrey indulges in moody
introspection.
"He knew that the battle next day would be the most awful of all
he had taken part in, and death,.for the first time, presented itself to
him, not in relation to his actual manner of life, or to the effect of
it on others, but simply and awfully with a vividness that made it like
a concrete reality. And from the height of this vision everything that
had once occupied him seemed suddenly illumined by cold, white light,
without shade, without perspective or outline. His whole life seemed
to him like a magic lantern at which he had been looking through the
glass and by artificial light. Now he saw suddenly, without the glass,
in the clear light of day, those badly daubed pictures of the magic
lantern of his life, looking at them now in the cold, white daylight of
a clear view of death. ’These are they, those coarsely sketched figures
which seemed something splendid and mysterious. Glory, the good of
society, love for a woman, the fatherland— what grand pictures they used
to seem to me, with what deep meaning they seemed to be filled] And it
is all so simple, so colorless and coarse in the cold light of the day
that I feel is dawning for me.1 ’ The three chief sorrows of his life
held his attention especially. His love for a woman, his father’s death,
and the invasion of the French— now in possession of half of Russia.
Love]— That little girl, who seemed to me brimming over with mysterious
forces. How I loved herI I made romantic plans of love, of happiness
with heri 0 simple-hearted youth]' he said aloud bitterly. ’Why, I
believed in some ideal love which was to keep her faithful to me for
37
the whole year of my absence.* Like the faithful dove in the fable, she
was to pine away in my absence from her] And it was all so much simpler—
It is all so horribly simple and loathsome]"'
"'My father, too, laid out Bleak Hills, and thought it was his
place, his land, his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came along, and
without even knowing of his existence, swept him away like a chip out
of his path, and his Bleak Hills laid in the dust, and all his life with
it brough to nought. Princess Marie says that it is a trial sent from
above. Miat is the trial for, since he is not and never will be? He
will never come badJk again] He is not] So for whom is it a trial?
Fatherland, the spoiling of Moscow] But tomorrow I shall be killed;
and not by a Frenchman even, maybe, by one of our own men— and new conditions
of life will arise, and I shall know nothing of them— To die then, let them
kill me tomorrow, let me be no more— And those birch trees, with their
light and shade, and the curling clouds and the smoke of fires, everything
around seemed suddenly transformed into something weird and menacing. A
shiver ran down his back."28
Pierre too has been involved in the battle of Borodino. He is not
in military service, but has come to the scene of the battle to observe it.
He has been in the thick of the battle. The battle is over. Pierre is
weary, exhausted, but still introspective. His mind is not on the bloody
conflict he has just witnessed. He is still deeply concerned with phil
osophic introspection.
"'The most difficult thing is the subjection of man's will to the
28Ibid., pp. 858-859
38
law of God— Simplicity is the submission to God; there is no escaping
from Him. And they are simple. They do not talk, but act. A word
uttered is silver, but unuttered is golden. Mo one can be a master of
anything while he fears death. And all things belong to him who fears
it not. If it were not for suffering, a man would not know his limits,
would know not himself. The hardest thing,’ Pierre thought, 'is to know
how to unite in one’s soul the significance of the whole. To unite the
whole,' Pierre said to himself. 'Mo, not to unite. One cannot unite
one's thoughts, but to harness together all those ideas, that's what's
wanted ~r'"
Prince Andrey is wounded in the battle of Borodino. In a semi
conscious state he is still introspective: '"But isn't all the same now?'
he thought. 'Ihat will be there, and what has been here? TOiy was I so
sorry to part with life? There was something in this life that I didn't
understand, and don't understand.'"
IShile his wounds are being treated he notices he is next to Anatole
Kuragin, the young suitor Natasha had sought to elope with during Andrey's
absence. Anatole has lost a leg in the battle.
"Prince Andrey could restrain himself no more and wept tears of love
and tenderness over his fellow-men, over himself, and over their errors
and his own. 'Sympathy, love for our brothers, for those who love us,
love for those who hate us, love for our enimies; yes the love that God
preached upon earth, that Marie sought to teach me, and I did not understand,
that is why I am sorry to part with life, that is what was left me if I
had lived. But now it is too late. I know that.'"'29
29Ibid., p. 908
39
But Prince Andrey does not die at this time. He is carried back
to Moscow, where he is reunited with Natasha. Natasha cares for him for
some time, but death is inevitable. He is in a semi-coma, but still
introspective. "'Yes, a ne^^r happiness was revealed to me, that could
not be taken away from man,1 he thought. 'Happiness beyond the reach of
material forces alone, the happiness of love! To feel it is in every
man's power, but God alone can know it and ordain it. But how*did God
ordain this law? Why the Son?— Yes, love, but not that love that loves
for something, to gain something or because of something, but that love
that I felt for the first time, vdien dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved
him. I knew that feeling of love which is the very essence of the soul,
for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too.
To love one's neighbors; to love one's enemies. To love everything— to
love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved
with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And
that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that.man. What
happened to him? Is he alive?— Loving with human love, one may pass from
love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death,
nothing can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many
people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and
hated more than her.'"30
Pierre stays in Moscow even after the French have taken it. He is
taken prisoner by the French. Just after his capture he witnesses a needless
execution of Russians by his captors. For some time after this his intro-
30Ibid., pp. 1 0 2 2 - 1 0 2 3
40
spection is morbid.
"From the moment when Pierre saw that fearful murder committed by
men who did not want to do it, it seemed as though the spring in his
soul, by which everything was held- together and given the semblence of
life, had been wrenched out, and all seemed to have collapsed into a heap
of meaningless refuse. Though he had no clear apprehension of it, it had
annihilated in his soul all faith in the beneficent orderion of the
universe, and in the soul of men, and his own soul, and in God. This
state of mind Pierre had experienced before, but never with such intensity
terr
as now. When such doubts had come upon him in the past, they had arisen
from his own fault. And at the very bottom of his heart Pierre had been
aware then that salvation from that despair and from these doubts lay in
his own hands. But now he felt that it was not his fault that the world
was collapsing before his eyes and that nothing was left but meaningless
ruins. He felt that to get back to faith in life was not in his power."31
Emotion has again powerfully influenced Pierre's introspective
nature. This time it is a bitter, negative reaction to life. He is stunned
into a hopelessness, bordering on skepticism. This morose type of intro
spection continues to hold sway over his inner thoughts until he comes
under the influence of a simple peasant, while he is still a prisoner of
the French. The peasant's naive and simple philosophy of life has a
great influence on Pierre's introspection from now on until the close of
the book. It is a philosophy of unquestioning resignation. It does not
31Ibid., p. 1072
41
rely on logic, but a cheerful acceptance of life as it comes, vicissitudes
and all. "He often thought now of his conversation with Prince Andrey,
and agreed fully with his friend, though he put somewhat different
construction on his meaning. Prince Andrey had said and thought that
happiness is only negative, but he had said this with a shade of bitterness
and irony;"
”It was as though in saying this he had expressed another thought—
that all the strivings towards positive happiness, that are inate in us,
were only given us for our torment. But Pierre recognized the truth of
the main idea with no such undercurrent of feeling. The absence of suffering,
the satisfaction of needs, and the following upon that, freedom in the
choice of occupation, that is, of one's manner of life, seemed to Pierre
the highest and most certain happiness of man. Only here and now for the
first time in his life Pierre fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating
when he was hungry, of drinking when he was thirsty, of sleep when he was
sleepy, of warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow creature when
he wanted to talk and to hear men's voices. The satisfaction of his needs—
good food, cleanliness, freedom— seemed to Pierre now that he was deprived
of them to be perfect happiness; and the choice of his occupation, that
is, of his manner of life now that that choice was so limited, seemed to
him such an easy matter that he forgot that a superfluity of the conveniences
of life destroys all happiness in satisfying the physical needs, while a
great freedom in the choice of occupation, that freedom which education,
wealth, and position in society had given him, makes the choice of occupations
exceedingly difficult , and destroys the very desire and possiblity of
42
occupation."
"All Pierre's dreams now turned to the time when he would be free.
And yet, in all his later life, Pierre thought and spoke with enthusiasm
of that month of imprisonment, of those intense and joyful sensations
that could never be recalled and above all of the full, spiritual peace,
of that perfect inward freedom, of which he had only experienced at that
period."
"On the first day, when, getting up early in the morning, he came
out of the shed into the dawn, and saw the cupolas and the crosses of the
New Monastery of the Virgin, all still in the darkness, saw the hoar
frost on the long grass, saw the slopes of the Sparrow Hills and the wood-
clad banks of the encircling river vanishing into the purple distance,
when he felt the contrast of the fresh air and heard the sounds of the
rooks flying out of Moscow across the fields, and when flashes of light
suddenly gleamed out of the east, and the sun's rim floated triumphantly
up from behind a cloud, and cupolas, and crosses, and hoar frost, and
the horizon, and the river were all sparkling in the glad light, Pierre
felt a new feeling of joy and vigor in life such as he had never experienced
before."
"And that feeling had not left him during the whole period of his
imprisonment, but on the contrary had gone on growing in him as the
hardships.of his position increased."
"That feeling— of being ready for anything, of moral alertness—
was strengthened in Pierre by the high opinion in which he began to be
43
held by his companions.”32
Pierre finds peace after being freed from his captivity. Here
is the trend his introspection took during his convalescence from the
hardships of his bondage.
"lhat had worried him in the old days, what he had always been
seeking to solve, the question of the object of life, did not exist for
him now; and it was not fortuitously or temporarily that it .was over.
He felt that there was no such object, and could not be. And it was just
the absence of an object that gave him that complete and joyful sense
of freedom that at this time made his happiness.”
”He could seek no object in life now, because now he had faith—
not faith in any sort of principles, or words, or ideas, but faith in a
living, ever palpable God. In old days he had sought Him in the aims
he set before himself. That search for an object in life had been only
a seeking after God; and all at once in his captivity he had come to know,
not through words or arguments, but by his own immediate feeling, what
his old nurse had told him long before: that God is here, and everywhere.
In his captivity he had come to see that the God in Karataev was grander,
more infinite, and more unfathomable than the Architect of the Universe
recognized by the masons. He felt like a man who finds what he has sought
at his feet, when he has been straining his eyes to seek .it in the distance.
All his life he had been looking far away over the heads of all around him,
while he need not have strained his eyes, but had only to look in front
of him."
32Ibid., pp. 1122-1124
44
"In the old days he had been unable to see the great, the unfathom
able, and the infinite in anything. He had only felt that it must be
somewhere, and had been seeking it. In everything near, and comprehensible-,
he had seen only what was limited, petty, everyday, and meaningless. He
had armed himself with the telescope of intellect, and gazed far away
into the distance, where that petty, everyday world, hidden in the mists
of distance, had seemed to him great and infinite, simply because it was
not clearly seen. Such had been European life, politics, freemasonry,
philosophy,- and philanthropy in his eyes. But even then, in moments which
he had looked on as times of weakness, his thought had penetrated even
to these remote objects, and then he had seen in them, the same pettiness,
the same ordinariness and meaninglessness,n
"Mow he had learned to see the great, the eternal, and the infinite
in everything; and naturally therefore, in order to see it, to revel in
its contemplation, he flung aside the telescope through which he had hither
to been gazing over men's heads, and looked joyfully at the ever-changing,
ever grand, unfathomable, and infinite life around him. And the closer
he looked at it, the calmer and happier he was. The terrible question,
that had shattered all his intellectual edifices in the old days, the
question: that for? had no existence for him now. To that question,
What for? he had now always ready in his soul the simple answer: Because
there is a God, that God without whom not one hair of a man's head falls."33
This concludes the study of philosophic introspection in the lives
of the two central male characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace. After an
33Ibid., pp. 1 2 2 6 - 1 2 2 7
45
examination of another of Tolstoy's novels, Anna Karenina, I will further
discuss the use of philosophic introspection in War and Peace in a
general discussion of its use in Tolstoy.
Much of the same type of introspection that is found in War and
Peace appears in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Although the central thread
of narrative in the book concerns the illicit love affair of Anna Karenina
and the Count Vronsky, a large portion of the novel is devoted to the
spiritual and intellectual development of Konstantin Levin. This develop
ment is traced in the same manner as that of Pierre and Prince Andrey.
The reason for this similarity is obvious when the highly autobiographal
nature of much of Tolstoy's works is taken into consideration. Experiences
of both Pierre and Prince Andrey at times are taken from the own person
al experiences of their creator. Levin is almost a reproduction of
Tolstoy at times in Anna Karenina. One cannot but help note the striking
similarity when one reads a biography of Tolstoy or compares the thoughts
of Tolstoy in his letters and journal with those of Levin in the novel.
The study of philosophic introspection in Anna Karenina will be
devoted primarily to its manifestation in the character, Konstantin
Levin. The use of it in the novel is manifested in the main in the
thoughts of Levin, and it plays so large a part in the development of
his spiritual and intellectual life that is is an essential ingredient
in the novel as far as the portion of the novel devoted to Levin is
concerned.
Levin does not become so preoccupied with the philosophic phase
of introspection until ’ tLckolay, his brother, visits him on his farm.
46
Nickolay is in the last stages of tuberculosis. "Both of them now had
only one thought— the illness of Nickolay and the nearness of death—
which stifled all else. Death, the inevitable end of all, for the first
time presented itself to him. with irresistable force. And death, which
was here in this loved brother groaning half asleep and from habit calling
without distinction on God and the devil, was not so remote as it had
hitherto seemed to him. It was in himself too he felt that if not today,
tomorrow, if not tomorrow, in thirty years, wasn't it all the same! And
what was this inevitable death— he did not know, had never thought about
it, and what was more had not the power, had not the courage to think
about it."
"'I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all
end; I had forgotten--death.*"
"He sat on his bed in the darkness, crouched up, hugging his knees,
and holding his breath from the strain of thought, he pondered. But the
more intensely he thought, the clearer it became to him that it was indubitably
so, that in reality, looking upon life, he had forgotten one little fact—
that death will come, and all ends; that nothing was even worth beginning
and that there was no helping it anyway. Yes, it was awful, but it was so."
"'But I am alive still. Now what's to be done? what's to be done?' he
said in d e s p a i r ."34
Levin's introspection becomes morbid for some time after the visit
of his brother. "He saw nothing but death or the advance towards death in
everything. Life had to be got through somehow till death did come.
Darkness had fallen upon everything for him; but just because of this
3^-Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, pp. 445-446
47
darkness he felt that the one guiding light in the darkness was his
work, and he clutched and clung to it with all his strength."35
Later Nickolay dies in a dingy hotel room. Levin has been in
attendance to him for several days. Death comes slowly but inevitably.
"The sight of his brother, and the nearness of death, revived in
Levin that sense of horror in face of the insoluble enigma, together
with the nearness and inevitability of death, that had come to him that
autumn evening xvhen his brother had come to him. This feeling was now
even stronger than before; even less than before did he feel capable of
apprehending the meaning of death, and its inevitability rose up before
him, more terrible than ever. Rut now, thanks to his wife's presence,
that feeling did not reduce him to despair. In spite of death, he felt
the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair,
had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still
unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had
arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to live."36
Between the two meetings with his brother, referred to above, Levin
has acquired a wife. It is interesting to note that the reaction to
death has been somewhat cushioned by the emotional effect of romantic
love for his wife. Tolstoy frequently shows a decided change in the
train of introspection in his characters when emotions, especially romantic
love, come into play. This has been noted in the cases of Pierre and
prince Andrey of War and Peace earlier in this study. Tolstoy skillfully
35Ibid., p. 450
36ibid.} pp. 639-640
4a
brings this idea in when he contrasts Levin's reactions at the birth of
his first child with those at the death of his brother, a life given and
a life taken.
"All he knew and felt was that what was happening was what had
happened nearly a year before in the hotel of the country town at the
deathbed of his brother, Nickolay. But that had been grief— this was
joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary
-conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were in that ordinary
life through which there came glimpses of something-sublime. And in the
contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceiv
able heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged
behind, unable to keep up with it."
’ •Ever since, by his beloved brother's deathbed, Levin had first
glanced into the questions of life and death in the light of these new
convictions, as he called them, which had during the period from his
twentieth to his thirty-fourth year imperceptibly replaced his childish
and youthful beliefs— he had been stricken with horror, not so much of
death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and how, and
what it was. The physical organization, its decay, the indestructibility
of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, evolution, were the
words which usurped the place of his old belief. These words and the ideas
associated with them were very well for intellectual purposes. But for
life they yielded nothing, and Levin felt suddenly like a man who has
changed his warm fur cloak for a muslin garment, and going for the first
time into the frost is immediately convinced, not by reason, but by his
49
■whole nature, that he is as good as naked, and that he must infallibly
perish miserably."
"From that moment, though he did not distincly face it, and still
went on living as before, Levin had never lost this sense of terror at
his lack of knowledge.’ 1
"He vaguely felt, too, that what he called his new convictions
were not merely lack of knowledge, but what they were part of a whole
order of ideas, in which no knowledge, of what he needed was possible."
"At first, marriage, with the new joys and duties bound up with
it, had completely crowded out these thoughts. But of late, while he
was staying in Moscow after his wife’s confinement, with nothing to do,
the question that clamored for a solution had more and more often, more
and more insistently, haunted Levin’s mind."
"The question was summed up for him thus: 'If I do not accept the
answers Christianity gives to the problems of my life, what answers
do I accept?’ And in the whole arsenal of his convictions, so far from
finding any satisfactory answers, he was utterly unable to find anything
at all like an answer."
"He was in the position of a man seeking food in toy-shops and
tool-shops."
"Instinctibely, unconsciously, with every book, with every conversation,
with every man he met, he was on the lookout for light on these questions • .
and their solution."
"$hat puzzled and distracted him above everything -was that the
majority of men of his age and circle had, like him, exchanged their old
50
beliefs for the same new convictions, and yet saw nothing to lament in
this, and were perfectly satisfied and serene. So that, apart from the
principal question, Levin was tortured by other questions too. 'Were
these people sincere?' he asked himself, or were they playing a part?
or was it that they understood the answers science gave to these problems
in some different, clearer sense than he did? And he assiduously studied
both these men's opinions and the books which treated of these scientific
explanations."
"One fact he had found out since these questions had engrossed his
mind, was that he had been quite wrong in supposing from the recollections
of the circle of his young days at college, that religion had outlived
its day, and that it was now practically non-existent. All the people
nearest to him who were good in their lives were believers. The old
prince, and Lvov, whom he liked so much, and Sergey Ivanovitch, and all
the women believed, and his wife believed simply as he had believed in
his earliest childhood, and ninety-nine hundredths of the Russian people,
all the working-people for whose life he felt the deepest respect,
believed."
"Another fact of which he became convinced, after reading many
scientific books, was that the men who shared his views had no other con
struction to put on them, and that they gave no explanation of the questions
of no possible interest to him, such as the evolution of organisms,
the materialistic theory of consciousness, etc."
"Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened
that seemed extraordinary to him. He, and unbeliever, had fallen into
51
praying, and at the moment he prayed, he believed. But that moment had
passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that moment fit into
the rest of his life.”
1 1 He could not admit that at the moment he knew the truth, and •
that now he was wrong; for as soon as he began thinking calmly about it,
it all fell to pieces. He could not admit.that he was mistaken then, for
his spiritual condition then was precious to him, and to admit that it
was a proof of weakness would have bee s to desecrate those moments. He
was miserably divided against himself, and strained all his spiritual
forces to the utmost to escape from this condition."
"These doubts fretted and harassed him, growing weaker or stronger
from time to time, but never leaving him. He read and thought, and the
more he read and the more he thought, the further he felt from the aim
he was pursuing."
"Of late in Moscow and in the country, since he had become convinced
that he would find no solution in the materialists, he had read and reread
thoroughly Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, the
philosophers who gave a non-materialistic explanation of life."
"Their ideas seemed to him fruitful when he was reading or was
himself seeking arguments to refute other theories, especially those of
the materialists; but as soon as he began to read or sought for himself
a solution of problems, the same thing always happened. As long as he
followed the fixed definition of obscure words such as spirit, will,
freedom, essence, purposely letting himself go into the snare of words
the philosophers set for him, he seemed to comprehend something. But he
52
had only to forget the artificial train of reasoning, and to turn from
life itself to what had satisfied him while thinking in accordance with
the fixed definitions and all this artificial edifice fell to pieces at
once like a house of cards, and it became clear that the edifice had
been built up out of those transposed words, apart from anything in life
more important than reason."
, ! At one time, reading Schopenhauer, he put in place of his will
the word ’love1, and for a couple of days this new philosophy charmed him,
till he removed a little away from it. But then, when he turned from
life itself to glance at it again, it fell away too, and proved to be
the same muslin garment with no warmth in it— ."37
As a young student, and later as a "scientifically enlightened"
member of the "intelligentsia" of the gentry Levin conscientiously thought
himself if not an atheist, certainly an agnostic. He, however, had been
brought up in the orthodox Christianity of the Russian Church, and marriage
to a devout member of the church had turned his mind back toward an orthodox
belief. During his wife’s confinement prior to childbirth he had time
to think on these things. Under the emotional strain during the birth
of his child, he had unconsciously reverted to his earlier training and
prayed to the God whose existence he doubted. Apparently the responsibil
ities of' marriage and fatherhood are conducive to orthodoxy in matters
of religion. The respectable family'man, that' is, the one who has been
brought up in an orthodox. Christian manner, often seems to wander back
into the folds of some definite religious belief, no matter how far the
37jbid., 988-991
53
skepticism of bis youth has lead him astray. Although is was the
experiences surrounding his brother's death that first turned Levin's
thoughts to a philosophic trend, his absorption into the ranks of family
men has whetted his desire to fulfill his spiritual longing and has
channeled his introspection more toward the Christian approach.
However, he is not entirely satisfied with his views, and after
the birth of his child, his introspection returns once more to a terrifying
uncertainty.
"All that spring he was not himself, and went through fearful
moments of horror."
"'"Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life's impossible;
and that I can't know, and so I can't live,' Levin said to himself."
"'In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is
formed a bubble-organism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and
that bubble is me.'"
"It was an agonizing error, but it was the sole logical result of
ages of human thought in that direction."
"This was the ultimate belief on which all the systems elaborated
by human thought in almost all their ramifications rested. It was the
prevalent conviction, and of all other explanations Levin had unconsciously,
not knowing when or how, chosen it, as any way the clearest and made it
his own."' .
"But it was not merely a falsehood, it was the cruel jeer of some
wicked power, some evil, hateful power, to whom one could not submit."
"He must escape from this power. And the means of escape every
54
man had in his own hands. He had but to cut shore this dependence on
evil. And there was one means— death.”
"And Levin, a happy father and husband, in perfect health, was
several times so near suicide, that he his the cord that he might not
be tempted to hang himself, and was afraid to go out with his gun for
fear of shooting himself."
"But Levin did not shoot himself, and did not hang himself, he
went on living."
"When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he
could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair, but
he left off questioning himself about it. It seemed as though he knew
both what he was and for what he was living, for he acted and lived
resolutely and without hesitation. Indeed, in these latter days he
was far more decided and unhesitating in life than he had ever been."38
One day Levin is watching his peasant work. He becomes deeply
introspective. "'Why is it all being done?' he thought. 'Why am I
standing here, making them work? What are they all so busy for, trying
to show their zeal before me? What is that old Matrona, my friend,
toiling for? (I doctored her when the beam fell on her in the fire)1
he thought, looking at a thin old woman, who was raking up the grain,
moving painfully with her bare, sunblackened feet over the uneven, rough
floor. 'Then she rcovered, but today or tomorrow or in ten years she
won't; they'll bury her, and nothing will be left either of her or of
that smart girl in the red jacket, who with that skillful, soft action
3&Ibid., pp. 991-992
55
shakes the ears out of their husks. They'll bury her and this piebald
horse, and very soon too— and they'll bury her and Fyodor the thresher
■with his curly beard full of chaff and his shirt torn on his white
shoulders— they will bury him. And what's more, it's not them alone—
me they'll bury too, and nothing will be left. What for?'"39
It is shortly after this bit of moody introspection that a simple
satement by one of these peasants unravels all the tangled threads of
thought that had been the tortured trend of Levin's introspection for
some time. It is a simple peasant that had revealed to Pierre in War
and Peace the simple philosophy that had satisfied his spiritual longings.
This is a favorite tenet of Tolstoy's religion, that he expostulated
in his latter years, that is , this ability of the simple peasant to grasp
the wisdom of the Infinite, which eludes the grasp of worldly intellectuals.
Perhaps the idea came to Tolstoy from the passage in the New Testament
where Jesus says "I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed
them unto babes.
■The peasant, whose simple statement changes the course of Levin's
introspection, speaks of another peasant, who seems to be a general favorite
among the laborers. He trys to explain why this particular peasant is so
well liked. Of him the.old peasant says, "Fakanitch is a righteous man.
39lbid., pp. 996-997
^®The New Testament, King James Version, Matthew XI:25
He lives for his soul. He does not forget God. >*i41 ...•’•Yes, yes, good
bye! ' said Levin, breathless with excitement, and turning round he took
his stick and walked quickly towards home. At the peasant's words that
Fokanitch lived for his soul, in truth, in God's way, undefined but
significant ideas seemed to burst out as though they had been locked
up, and all striving towards one goal, they thronged whirling through
his head, blinding him with their light."
"Levin strode along the highroad, absorbed not so much in his
thoughts (he could not yet disentangle them) as in his spiritual condition,
unlike anything he had experienced before."
"The words uttered by the peasant had acted on his soul like an
electric shock, suddenly transforming and combining into a single whole
the whole swarm of disjointed, impotent, separate thoughts that had incessantly
occupied his mind. These thoughts had unconsciously been in his mind even
when he was talking about land."
"He was aware of something new in his soul, and joyfully tested
this new thing, not yet knowing what it was."
"'Not living for his own wants, but for God? For what God? And
could one say anything more senseless than what he said? He said that one
must not live for one's own wants, that is, that one must not live for
what we understand, what we are attracted by, what we desire, but must
live for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one can understand
nor even define. What of it: Didn't I understand those senseless words
of Fyodor's? And understanding them, did I doubt their truth? Did I
^-Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, p. 993
57
think them stupid, obsure, inexact? Wo, I understood him, and exactly
as he understand the words. I understood them more fully and clearly
than I understand anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted
nor can I doubt it. And not only I, but every one, the whole world
understand nothing fully but this, and about this only they have no
doubt and are always agreed.1”
”1And I looked out for miracles, complained that I did not s ee a
miracle which would convince me. A material miracle would have persuaded
me. And here is a miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing,
surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it]"’
'"Fyodor says that Kirillov lives for his belly. That's comprehensible
and rational. All of us as rational beings can't do anything else but
live for one's belly, but must live for truth, for God, and at a hint
I understand him] And I and millions of men, men who lived ages ago and
me t living now— peasant, the poor in spirit and the learned, who have
thought and xxrritten about it, in their obscure words saying the same thing—
we are all agreed about this one thing: x*ihat we must live for and what
is good. I and all men have only firm, incontestable, clear knowledge,
and that knowledge cannot be explained by the reason— it is outside it,
and has no causes and can have no effects.'”
'"If goodness has caused it it is not goodness, if it has effects,
a reward, itris not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of
cause axd effect."*
'"And yet I know it, and we all know it. What could be a greater
miracle than that?'"
58
"'Can I have found the solution of it all? Can my suffering be
ocer?1 thought Levin, striding along the dusty road, not noticing the
heat nor his weariness, and experiencing a sense of relief from prolonged
suffering. This feeling was so delicious that it seemed to him incredible.
He was breathless with emotion and incapable of going further; he turned
off the road into the forest and lay down in the shade of an aspen..."
"'Yes, I must make it clear to myself and understand,' he thought,
'...What have I discovered? What is it makes me glad? I have discovered
nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that
in the past gave me life. I have been set free from falsity, I have
found the Master.
"'Of old I used to say that in my body, that in the body of this
grass and of this beetle, there was going on a transformation of matter
in accordance with physical, chemical and physiological laws. And in all
of us, as well as in the aspens and the clouds and the misty patches,
there was a process of evolution and struggle...As though there could
be any sort of tendency and struggle in the eternalj And I was astonished
that in spite of the utmost effort of thought along that road I could
not discover the meaning of life, the meaning of my impulses and yearnings.
Now I say that I know the meaning of my life: 'To live for God, for my
soul.' And this meaning, in spite of its clearness, is mysterious and
marvelous. Such, indeed is the meaning of everything existing. Yes,
pride,' he said to himself, turning over on his stomach...'And not merely
pride of intellect, but dullness of intellect. And most of all, the
deceitfulness; yes, the deceitfulness of intellect. The cheating, knavish
59
ness of intellect, that's it,' he said to himself. And he briefly went
through, mentally, the whole course of his ideas during the last two
years, the beginning of which was the clear confronting of death at the
sight of his dear brother hopelessly ill."
"Then, for the first time, grasping that for every man, and himself
too, there was nothing in store but suffering, death, and forgetfulness,
he had made up his mind that he must either interpret life so that it
would not present itself to him as the evil jest of some devil, or shoot
himself."
"But he had not done either, but had gone on living, thinking, and
feeling, and had even at that very time married, and had had ma 'y joys
and had been happy, when he was not thinking of the meaning of his life."
"lhat did this mean? It meant that he had been living rightly, but
thinking wrongly."
"He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths
that he had sucked in with his mother's milk, but he had thought, not
merely without recognition of these truths, but studiously ignoring them."
"Now it was clear to him that he could only love by virtue of the
beliefs in which he had been brought up."
"'1/hat should I have been, and how should I have spent my life, if
I had not had these beliefs, if I had not known that I must live for God
and not for' my own desires? I should have robbed and lied and killed.
Nothing of what makes the chief happiness of my life would have existed
for me.' And with the utmost stretch of imagination he could not conceive
the brutal creature he would have been himself, if he had not known what
60
he was living for."
"'I looked for an answer to my question. And thought could not
give an answer to my question— it is incommensurable with my question.
The answer has been given me by life itself, in my knowledge of what is
right and what is wrong. And that knowledge I did not arrive at in any
way, it was given to me as to all men, given, because I could not have
got it from anywhere. '**
11'Where could I have got it? By reason I could have arrived at
knowing that I must love my neighbor and not oppress him? I was told that
in my childhood, and I believed it gladly, for they told me what was already
in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the
struggle for existence, and the law that requires us to oppress all who
hinder the satisfaction of our desires. That is the deduction of reason.
But loving one's neighbor reason could never discover, because it's
irrational.'"
Levin has witnessed his sister-in-law trying to correct her children
by reasoning with them what trouble their mischief ?rould cause. He is
struck by the passive, weary incredulity with which the children hear
what their mother says to them. They cannot take in the broad reasoning,
cannot conceive it. They only know that it is fun what they are doing,
and trying to reason out the harm in what they were doing only spoils the
fun.
"'Isn't it just the same that we do, that I did, searching by the
aid of reason for the significance of the forces of nature and the meaning
of the life of man?' he thought."
61
"'And don't all the theories of philosophy do the same, trying by
the path of thought, which is strange and not natural to man, to bring
him to a knowledge of what he has known long ago, and knows so certainly
that he could not leive at all without it? Isn't it distinctly to be
seen in the development of each philosopher's theory, that he knows what
is the chief significance of life beforehand, just as positively as the
peasant Fyodor, and not a bit more clearly than he and is simply trying
by a dubious intellectual path to come back to what every one knows?"1
"'Mow then, leave the children to themselves to get things alone
and make their crockery, get the milk from the cow and so on. Would they
be naughty then? Why, they'd die of hunger. Well, then, leave us with
our passions and thoughts, without any idea of the one God, of the Creator,
or without any idea of what is right, without any idea of moral evil.'"
'"Just try and build up anything with those ideasJ We only try and
destroy them, because we're spiritually provided for. Exactly like children!'"
"'Whence have I that joyful knowledge, shared with the peasant, that
alone gives peace to my soul? Whence did I get it?"
"'Brought up with an idea of God, a Christian, my whole life filled
with the spiritual blessings Christianity has given me, full of them, and
living on these blessing, like the children I did not understand them,
and destroy, that is try to destroy, what I live by. And as soon as an
important moment of life comes, like the children when they are cold and
hungry, I turn to Him, and even less than the children'when their mother
scolds them for their childish mischief, do I feel that my childish efforts
at wanton madness are reckoned against me.'"
"'Yes, what I know, I know not by reason, but it has been given
to me, revealed to me, and I know it with my heart, by faith in the
chief thing taught by the church.1"
"'The church, the church.1' Levin repeated to himself...'But can
I believe in all the church teaches?' he thought, trying himself, and
thinking of everything that could destroy his present peace of mind.
Intentionally he recalled all those doctrines of the church which had
always seemed most strange and had always been a stumbling-block to him."
"'The Creation? But how did I explain existence: By existence?
By nothing? The devil and sin. But how do I explain evil?...The attonement
But I know nothing, nothing, and I can know nothing but what has been told
me and all men.'"
"And it seemed to him that there was not a single article of faith
of the church which could destroy the chief thing— faith in God, in
goodness, as the one goal of man's destiny."
"Under every article of faith of the church could be put the faith
in the service of truth instead of one's desires. And each doctrine did
not simply leave that faith unshaken, each doctrine seemed essential to
complete that great miracle, continually manifest upon earth, that made
it possible for each man and millions of different sorts of men, wise men
and imbeciles, old men and children— all men, peasants, Lvov, Kitty,
beggars and kings to understand perfectly the same one thing, and to
build up therby that life- of the soul which alone is worth living, and
which alone is precious to us."
"Lying on his back, he gazed up now into the high, cloudless sky.
'Do I not know that that is infinite space, and that is not a single
round arch? But, however I screw up my eyes and strain my sight, I
cannot see it not round and not bounded, and in spite of my knowing
about infinite space, I am incontestably right when I see a solid
blue dome, and more right than when I strain my eyes to see beyond it.1”
"Levin ceased thinking, and only, as it were, listened to mysterious
voices that seemed talking joyfully and earnestly within him."
"’Can this be faith?1 he thought, afraid to believe in his
happiness. ’My God, I thank theel' he said, gulping down his sobs,
and with both hands brushing away the tears that filled his eyes."
...."He.walked across the terrace and looked at two stars that had
come out in the darkening sky, and suddenly he remembered. 'Yes, looking
at the sky, I thought that the dome that I see is not a deception, and
then I thought something, I shirked facing something,’ he mused. 'But
whatever it was, there can be no disproving itj I have but to think, and
all will come clear.’ '"
"Just as he was going into the nursery he remembered what it was
he had shirked facing. It was that if the chief proof of the Divinity
of His revelation of what is right, how is it this revelation is confined
to the Christian church alone? What relation to his revelation have the.
beliefs of the Buddhists, Mohammedans, who preached and did good too."
"'Well, what is it perplexes me?' said Levin to himself, feeling
beforehand that the solution of his difficulties was ready in his soul,
though he did not know it yet. ’Yes, the one unmistakable, incontestable
manifestation of the Divinity is the law of right and wrong, which has
come into the world by revelation, and which I feel in myself, and in the
recognition of which— I don't make myself, but whether I will or not— I
am made one with other men in one body of believers, which is called
the church. Well, but the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Confucians, the
Buddhists— what of them?1 he put to himself the question he had feared to
face. 'Can these hundreds of millions of me be deprived of that highest
blessing without which life has no meaning?' He pondered a moment, but
immediately corrected himself. 'I am questioning the relation to Divinity
of all the different religions of all mankind. I am questioning the
universal manifestation of God to all the world with all those misty blurs.
What am X about? To me individually, to my heart has been revealed a
knovsrledge beyond all doubt, and unattainable by reason, and here I am
obstinately trying to express that knowledge in reasons and words.1"
"'Don't I know that the stars don't move?' he asked himself, gazing
at the bright planet which had shifted its position up to the topmost twig
of the birch-tree. 'But looking at the movements of the stars, I can't
picture to myself the rotation of the earth, and I'm right in saying
that the stars move.'"
'"And could the astronomers have understood and calculated anything,
if they had taken into account all the complicated and varied motions of
the earth? All the marvelous conclusions they have reached about the
distance, weight, movements, and deflections of the heavenly bodies are only
founded on the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies about a stationary
earth, on that very motion I see before me now, which has been so for
millions of men during long ages, and was and will be always alike, and
can always be trusted. And just as the conclusions of the astronomers would
65
have been vain and uncertain if not founded on observations of the seen
heavens, in relation to a single meridian and a single horizon, so
would my conclusions be vain and uncertain if not founded on that conception
of right, which has been and will be always alike for all men, which has
been revealed to me as a Christian and which can always betrusted in my
soul. The question of other religions and their relations to Divinity I
have no right to decide, and no possibility of deciding.'"
"'This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and
enlightened all of a sudden, as I had dreamed, just like the feeling for
my child. There was no surprise ins this either. Faith— or not faith— I
don't know what it is— but this feeling has come just as imperceptibly
through suffering, and has taken firm root in my soul.'"
nlI shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the
coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly;
there will be still the same wall between the holy of holies in my soul
and other people, even my wife; I shall still go on scolding her for my own
terror, and being remorseful for it; I shall still be as unable to under
stand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my
life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every
minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive
meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it.
Thus Levin finds inner peace and his troubled introspection levels
off into calm meditation. A simple peasant has unwittingly shown him. the
philosophical approach to life that is conducive to his peace of mind. He
^ - 2Ibid. , pp. 1022-1027
66
has learned that'he cannot reconcile metaphysics and logic, that hecannot
comprehend the ways of God to man through reason alone, that the Christian
approach’ is one of faith, not dependent upon an inductive ladder of logic.
His is not to question "IJhy?" It has been a bitter battle, fought and
won on the' field of philosophic introspection.
1?hat has been the use of philosophic introspection by Leo Tolstoy
in the two novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina as revealed by this
study? First of all it can be assumed that if Tolstoy is the superb
realist critics have acclaimed him to be, the Russian people about whom
he writes are generally inclined to be philosophically introspective
because he portrays them as such. Conversely if they are an introspective
people, inclined to philosophical speculation, he as a realist, must
exhibit this tendency in them. This then would be one use he makes of
philosophic introspection, that of a realistic portrayal of character.
Leo Tolstoy, as has been shown by excerpts from biographical
material, was himself very much inclined to philosophical introspection.
It is only natural that he would reflect this tendency in his work. In
his latter years he had certain positive ideas, a positive philosophical
approach of his own. A man of his convictions would necessarily avail
himself of the opportunity of expressing these ideas .through his works.
Thus we can assume that he uses philosophical*introspection as a sounding
board for his own philosophy. Both Pierre and Levin arrived at similar
conclusions in their quest for an inner peace through philosophical
introspection. These conclusions are very similar to the final form
Tolstoy's philosophy assumed in the primitive Cristianity creed of his
latter years. A simple, unlearned (unlearned in the intellectual sense
of the word) peasant had shown them the way to this inner peace. Tolstoy's
philosophy emphasized the simple way of the peasant as an ideal approach
to his philosophy. Love, a simple emotion, had mellowed the approach
of Pierre, Prince Andrey, and Levin in their final philosophy of life.
Romantic love had influenced their quest for a spiritual solace, but the
determining factor, the one which opened up the way for a final vision
of the peace they sought, was a realization of a love for mankind, brotherly
love, the underlying theme of Tolstoy's creed.
Tolstoy then uses philosophic introspection extensively in his
works because, first of all, he is a realist portraying an actual Russian
trait, but prinarily as a device to convey a philosophy of his own. It
might be said there is a sub-plot to his novels in the field of philosophic
introspection, for in each of the three cases studied in these two novels
of his there is this parallel plot technique': Each character, that is,
Pierre, Andrey, and Levin, is stimulated to philosophical introspection by
an emotional experience. Each gropes and seeks an answer to the questions
raised in his mind as a result of a reaction to this experience. All
three characters through a gratifying emotional experience arrive at a
temporary answer to the questions posed by the initial reaction. Subsequent
bitter experiences bring about another emotional reaction in each which
voids the conclusions about the philosophical problems that trouble him.
Philosophical introspection is, thus, an integral and dominant part
in both the character and plot development in the works of Leo Tolstoy.
FEODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Feodor Dostoevsky spent four years as a political prisoner in
Siberia. A prisoner in Siberia has much time on his hands, and this is
conducive to introspection. Dostoevsky was no doubt introspective
during his days of imprisonment. In the works of Dostoevsky are manifested
the type of ideas that possessed his introspection during those days
spent in the nHouse of the Dead", which was his name for the place of
his confinement.
It has been well said of him, that "he felt ideas, as we feel
frost or heat, hunger or thirst; they were to him potent realities which
pull the strings of all human actions. Ideas are the real heroes of his
novel; but his ideas are so strongly individualized, so vividly tangible,
and so organically complex, that they cease to be mere abstractions and
become living beings."43The ideas among which he moved, or rather by
which he was obsessed, are the essential ideas of God and of Good and Evil,
The primary questions that overshadowed much of hi3 introspection, as
can be gathered from the examination of his works, are: How is it possible
to reconcile individual suffering and individual evil with the supreme
goodness and perfection of God? How can this suffering and that evil be
dissolved into eternal harmony? How can universal harmony make up for
the undeserved suffering of a tortured child, which has been, and whatever
may happen, cannot cease to have been. In short they are concerned
with how to justify the ways of God to man.
For a study of the use of philosophic introspection in Dostoevsky
I have chosen his Brothers Karamazov because it is my favorit novel and
43Mirsky, Modern Russian Literature, p. 50
69
because it well exemplifies Dostoevsky's use of ideas in his works, and
Crime and Punishment because it is his best knovm work at least in the
United States.
Dostoevsky does not always bring out the introspection of his
characters, that is, he does not peer always directly into the minds of
his characters to see what trend their introspection is taking. Often
he presents the results of introspection in his characters in a philosophical
discussion, but the introspective development of the ideas of the characters
is easily recognized.
Brothers Karamazov concerns a family of a father and three sons,
Dmitri, Alyosha, and Ivan, and also Smerdyakov, who is probably a half-
brother to the other three. Although the plot deals with the murder of
the father and subsequent developments, the philosophical overtones of the
book are concerned with an allegory of three approaches to life. Dmitri
represents the physical or sensual approach to life, Ivan the intellectual, V
and Alyosha the spiritual. Dmitri is highly emotional, and his introspection
does not manifest itself very strongly in the novel. Alyosha and Ivan,
especially Ivan, however, are deeply introspective. Consequently the study
of philosophic introspection in this novel will be primarily concentrated
in them. Ivan is the more introspective of the two because of his inductive,
logical approach to philosophy. Alyosha is of a deeply spiritual nature,
and as an orthodox believer, Alyosha has great faith in Christian dogma,
and deductive reasoning and perhaps some emotion will overshadow his intro
spection.
Alyosha is in a monastery. His introspection is meditative. Zossima,
an elder in the monastery, who is very popular with the people, is famous
70
for his healing powers. Actually he is a master psychologist as well as
a man of faith. Early in the novel Alyosha ponders over Zossima's
popularity in the following bit of introspection: ’ ’ Alyosha did not
wonder why they loved him so, why they fell down before him and wept
with emotion or merely at seeing his face. OhJ he understood that for
the humble soul the Russian peasant worn out by grief and toil, and still
more by the everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the
world's, it was the greatest need and comfort to find some one or something
holy to fall down before and worship.n
"'Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet somewhere
on earth there is some one holy and exalted. He has the truth; he knows
the truth; so it is not dead upon the earth; so it will come on day to
us, too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise.'"
"'No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of
renewal for all: that power, which will, at least, establish truth on the
earth, and all men will be holy and love oneanother, and there will be no
more rich or poor, no exalted or humbled, but all will be as the children
of God, and the true Kingdom of Christ will come.' That was the dream in
Alyo sha's heart."^
Dostoevsky's philosophy was apparently based upon a passionate
devotion to the person of Christ. T5hile yet in Siberia he once wrote,
"If Christ is not all truth, I prefer to be with Christ against truth,
than with truth against Christ."^^Yet there is a dual nature in Dostoevsky.
He had a sometimes uncontrollable passion for gambling, and in much of
^Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, p. 26
45Mirsky, Modem Russian Literature, p. 50
his work there is a certain bitterness. This duality of nature is
manifested in Brothers Karamazov through the characterizations of Alyosha
and Ivan. Alyosha exhibits the Christian side of Dostoevsky's nature, .
while Ivan, as indicated in subsequent paragraphs, represents the other
side, one embittered by disillusioning facts of life, a coldly intellectual
side, which becomes skeptical when trying to reconcile human misery with
Divine love. The intense bitterness manifested in Ivan's introspection
at times must have been felt by Dostoevsky at one time or another. It
is too vivid to have been drawn entirely from his imagination. Thus
Dostoevsky exhibits the struggle between his two natures by the use of
philosophic introspection in Alyosha and Ivan.
Ivan's introspection takes the following trend: "'...There was
nothing in the whole world to make man love their neighbors. That there
was no law of nature that man should love mankind, and that, if there
had been any love on earth hitherto, it was not owing to natural law,
but simply because men have believed in immortality...that the whole
natural law lies in that faith, and that if you were to destroy in mankind
the belief im immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining
the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing
then would be immoral; everything would be lawful, even cannibalism.
That's not all— that for every individual like ourselves, who does not
believe- in God or immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately
be changed into the exact contrary of the former religious law, and that
egoism, when to the inevitable, the most rational, even honorable outcome
of his position.' "46
46Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, Tr., Constance Garnett, pp. 67-68
72
This is an excerpt from a conversation Ivan has with Alyosha.
Here Dostoevsky uses the conversational method to reveal the trend of
Ivan's philosophic introspection.
Smerdykov, an epileptic character, typical of Dostoevsky's creations,
is a servant in the Karamazov household. He is the illegitimate son of
son of the village idiot, "Stinking Lizabeta," by Fyodor Karamazov,
father of Ivan and Alyosha. At least it is intimated in the novel that
Fyodor fathered the child as a result of a drunken orgy during which
Lizabeta became pregnant, Smerdyakov is considered decidedly intellectually
inferior by the family, but he possesses a very introspective nature.
His hobby is "storing up ideas." In a conversation concerning a newspaper
article about a Russian soldier, who was captured by heathen tribes in
Asia, Smerdyakov reveals his introspective tendency with a presentation
of some of his philosophical ideas. The captors of the soldier under
discussion had attempted to force him to deny the Christian faith. He
had remained true to his established faith until death. Smerdyakov
takes the initiative in the discussion at the dinner table among Ivan,
Alyosha, their father, and another servant, Grigory. '"Well, my opinion
is,’ Smerdyakov began suddenly and unexpectedly in a loud voice, 'that
if that laudable soldier's exploit was so very great there would have
been, to my thought, no sin in it if he had on such an emergency renounced,
so to speak, the name of Christ and his own christening, to save by that
same his life, for good deeds, by which, in the course of years to
expiate his cowardice. "'^7
47Ibid., pp. 131-132
73
Fyodor Karamozov reveals later in a conversation the type of
philosophic introspection that goes on in the mind of a sensualist.
,,lFor I mean to go on in my sins to the end. For sin is sweet; all abuse
it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly.
And so all the other sinners fall upon me for being so simple. And
your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my taste, let me tell you;
and it's not the proper place for a gentleman, your paradise, even if
it exists. I believe that I fall asleep and don't wake up again, and
that's all. You can pray for my soul if you like. And if you don't
want to, don't, damn youJ That's my philosophy.'"^®
Ivan is again talking to Alyosha, revealing more of his philosophical
speculations. Again it is Dostoevsky expressing some more of his intro
spective moments.
"'Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if
I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the ones I love, lost faith
in the order of things, was convinced in fact that everything was in a .
disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck
by every horror of man's disillusionment— still I would want to live and
having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn from it till I have
drained itj At thirty though, I shall be sure to leave the cup, even if
I've not emptied it, and turn away— where I don't know. But till I am
thirty, I know that my youth will triumph over everything— every disillusion
ment, every disgust with life. I've asked myself many times whether there
is in the world any despair that would overcome this frantic and perhaps
48ibid., p. 180
74
•unseemly thirst for life in me, and I've come to the conclusion that
there isn't, that is till I'm thirty, and then I shall lose it of myself
■I fancy. Some drivelling, consumptive moralists— and poets especially—
often call that thirst for life base. It's a feature of the Karamazov's
it's true, that thirst for life regardless of everything; you have it
no doubt too, but why is it base: The centripetal force on our planet
is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing for life, and I
go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe in the order
of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in
the spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves,
you know, sometimes you know without knowing why. I love some great
deeds done by men, though I've long ceased, perhaps, to have faith in
them, yet from old habit one's heart prizes them...I want to travel in
Europe, Alyosha, I shall set off from here. And yet I know that I am
only going to a grave-yard, that's what itisj Precious are the dead
that lie there, every stone over them speaks of such burning lives in
the past, of such passion to faith in their work, their truth, their
struggle and their science, that I know I shall fall on the ground and
kiss those stones and weep over them; though I'm convinced in my heart
that it's long been nothing but a grave-yard. And I shall not weep
from despair, but simply because I shall be.happy in my tears, I shall
steep my soul in my emotion. I love the sticky leaves in spring, the
blue sky— that's all it is. It's not a matter of intellect or logic,
it's loving with one's inside, with one's stomach. One loves the first
strength of one's youth. Do you understand anything of my tirade, Alyosha?'
75
Ivan laughed, suddenly. "
,nI understand too well, Ivan. One longs to love with one's inside,
with one's stomach. You said that so well, and I am awfully glad that
you have such a longing for life,' cried Alyosha. 'I think every one
should love life above everything in the world.'"
"'Love life more then the meaning of it?'"
"'Certainly, love it, regardless of logic as you say, it must be
regardless of logic, and it's only then one will understand the meaning
of it. I have thought so a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan,
you love life now you've only to try to do the second half and you are
saved.'"
"'You are trying to save me, but perhaps I am not lost.' And what
does your second half mean?'"
"'Why one has to raise up your dead, who perhaps have not died
after all...'"
"...'It's different for other people; but we in our green youth
have to settle the eternal questions first of all. That's what we care
about. Young Russia is talking about nothing but the eternal questions
now. Just when the old folks are all taken up with practical questions.'"
Here Ivan pictures the tendency of Russians, especially the younger
ones, towards preoccupation with philosophic introspection, apparently
a national trait of the times, accounting for so much of-Russian fiction
being taken up with this sort of thing.
^Ivan^continues to speculate in a philosophical vein. "'Well,
only fancy, perhaps, I too accept God,' laughed Ivan...'You know that
76
there was an old sinner in the l&th century, who declared that, if there
were no God, he would have to be invented...And man has actually invented
God. And what1s strange, what would be marvellous, is not that God /
should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the /
necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast
as me. So holy it is, so touching, so wise, and so great a credit it
does to man. As for me, I’ve long resolved not to think whether man created
God or God man^} And I won’t go through all the axioms laid on by Russian
boys on that subject, all derived from some European hypothesis; for
what's a hypothesis there, is an axiom with the Russian boys and not
only with the boys but with their teachers too, for our Russian professors
are often just the same boys themselves. And so I omit all the hypothesis.
For what are we aiming at now? (^I am trying to explain as quickly as
possible my essential nature, that is, v/hat manner of rnanl am, what I
believe in, and for what I hope, that's it, isn't it? And therefore I
tell you that I accept God simply. But you must note this: if God exists
and if He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created
it according to the geometry of Euclid and the human mind with the
conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet there have been and
still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the most
distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more
widely the whole of being, was only created in Euclid's geometry; they
even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid
i
can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I have come
to the conclusion that, since I can't understand even that, I can't
77
expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly that I have no
faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidian earthly mind,
and how could I solve problems that are not of this world?
,MI advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha,
especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are
utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three
dimension. And so I accept God and am glad to , and what’s more I accept
His wisdom, His purpose— which are utterly beyond our ken: I believe
in the Word to Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was with
God, and Which Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There
are all sorts of phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don't
I? Yet would you believe it, in the final result I don't accept it at all.
It's not that I don't accept God, you must understand, it's the ivorld
created by Him I don't and cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I
believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that
all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will banish like
r
a pitiful mirage,\J-ike the despicable fabrication of the impotent and
infinitely small Euclidian mind of man, that in the world's finale, at
the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass
that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments,
for the atonement of all crimes of humanity, of all the blood they've
shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify
all that happened with men— but though all that may come to pass, I
don't accept it. That's what's at the root of me, Alyosha; that's my
creed~7 j I must make you one confession,' Ivan began. ' I could never
73
understand how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's neighbors
to my mind, that one can't love, though one might love those at a distance
...To my thinking, Crist-like love for men is a miracle impossible on
earth. He was God. But we are not gods.'"^-9
Here is some of the conflict that must have gove on in the mind of
Dostoevsky, when his intellectual approach to philosophy clashed with his
emotional approach to Christianity.
Later on Zossima, Alyosha's beloved elder, dies. His body is
corrupted before it is put away. It is commonly supposed by his devout
followers that the body of such a holy man would not be corrupted after
death as ordinary human bodies are. Alyosha is disillusioned by this
experience, and his faith is shaken. He is dejectedly introspective.
"And not the man who should, he believed, have been exalted above every
one in the whole world, that man, instead of receiving the glory that
was due, was suddenly degraded and dishonored! What for? Wio had judged
him? ?ilho could have decreed this? Those were the questions that wrung
his inexperienced virginal heart. Ihere is the finger of Providence? Tliy
did Providence hid its face?"5®
Ivan's introspection takes a peculiar trend toward the close of
the novel. Brain fever possesses him, and he begins to suffer from
hallucinations. His hallucinations deal with a very sophisticated devil.
The hallucinations split his inner thoughts and make an introspective
dialogue out of an introspective soliloquy. Ivan has a lengthy discussion
49Ibid., pp. 241-249
50lbid., p. 361
79
with his imaginary devil. I vd.ll include only *a portion of it to show
the form of introspection his fever-ridden brain now assumes.
"'Is there a God or not?' said Ivan with a smile of hatred."
n1...My dear fellow, upon my word I don't know.'"
"'You don't know, but you see God? No, you are not someone apart,
you are myself, a logical development of my ego, you are I and nothing
more] You are rubbish, you are my fancy]
"'Well, if you like, I have the same philosophy as you, that would
be true...I know that for a fact, all the rest, all these worlds, God
and even Satan— all that is not proved, to my mind. Does all that exist
of itself, or is it only an emanation of myself, a logical development of
my ego, which alone has existed forever: but I make haste to stop for I
believe you will be jumping up to beat me directly.'"51
The devil taunts,him. "'Confess that you have faith in me even
to the ten-thousandth of a grain.'"
"'Not for one minute,' cried Ivan furiously. 'But I should like
to believe in you,' he added strangely."52
Doubts still persist in Alyosha's mind after Zossima's death. A
new something revives the doubts which he thought had been suppressed, and
his introspective moments are troubled. "This new something was the
harassing impression left by the conversation with Ivan, which now persist
ently Haunted Alyosha's mind. At this moment It haunted him. Oh, it was
not that something of the fundamental, elemental, so to speak, faith of his
soul had been shaken. He loved his God and believed in Him steadfastly,
51lbid., p. 694
52ibid., p. 697
80
though he was suddenly murmuring against Him. Yet a vague but tormenting
and evil impression left his conversation with Ivan the day before,
suddenly revived again now in his soul and seemed forcing its way to the
surface of his consciousness,"53
After a brief and rather unsuccessful attempt at rebellion against
the will of God, Alyosha suddenly finds peace and returns to the monastery.
The following reaction will show how emotion dominates his introspective
moments.
• N
“His soul was overflowing but with mingled feelings; no single
sensation stood out distinctly, on the contrary, one drove out another in
a slow continual rotation. But there was a sweetness in his heart and,
strange to say, Alyosha was not surprised at it...Oh.' in his rapture he
was weeping even over these stars, which were shining to him from the abyss
of space, and he was not ashamed of that ecstasy. There seemed to be
threads from all those innumerable xvorlds of God linking his soul to them,
and it was trembling all over in contact with other worlds. He longed
to forgive every one and for everything...But with every instant he felt
clearly and as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as
that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea
had seized the sovereignty of his mind— and it was for all his life and
forever and ever. He had fallen on the-earth a weak boy, but he rose up
a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment
of his ecstasy. And never, never, all his life long could Alyosha forget
that minute."
53Ibid., p. 361
81
"'Someone visited my soul in that hour,' he used to say afterwards,
with implicit faith in his words."54
Such were the thoughts of Alyosha as he approaches spititual
maturity. These thoughts only border on introspection at times, as he
seems to feel them rather than think them.
It is clear in a comparison of introspective moments of Ivan and
Alyosha that Ivan is the more introspective of the two in the true sense
of the word. Alyosha's emotional approach and deductive method, that his
orthodox Christianity demands is not conducive to an introspective nature,
as it accepts rather than questions the tenets of its philosophy. Intro
spection is dependent on interrogation. Dostoevsky may have had a purpose
in this comparison as I vdll indicate at the conclusion of this study of
Dostoevsky's works.
The plot of Crime and Punishment can be said to be motivated in a
sense by philosphic introspection. The idea that initiates the action on
which the plot hinges is a product of philosophic introspection. It is
not a religious nature, as is much of Russian literary philosophizing,
at least not of a Christian nature, yet perhaps of the religion of Nietsche.
It is based on a "superman theory," but is little more than an elaborate
philosophical justification for crime.
Dostoevsky's presentation of the idea is only indirectly introspective.
For when the idea is introduced, it has long since ’ evolved from the
tortured cerebral chambers of Raskolnikov, central character of the novel.
Raskolnikov is an erstwhile student. Extreme poverty has cut short his
academic career. His is a man of much more than average intelligence.
54ibid:, p. 387
82 .
Yet by the mere obstacle of poverty, his intellectual ability is serving
no purpose. He lies on his bed, and in the heat and filth of an attic
hovel that is his room he, in his moments of philosophic introspection,
begins to fashion his theory. He molds a literary work out of it, and
it appears in a periodical. Dostoevsky .brings out the salient points of
Raskolnikov's doctrine in a discussion among a group of young intellectuals,
#10 rehash the article with Raskolnikov. Porfiry Petrovich, a criminal
investigator, has read it, and he and Raskolnikov discuss it along with
Razmihin, student friend of Raskolnikov. Porfiry is speaking:
".’There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are certain
persons who can...that is, not precisely are able to, but have a perfect
right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and that the law is not
for them.1"
Porfiry is apparently suspicious of Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov has
already put his theory into practice. He has murdered an old woman, a
pawnbroker, who is looked down upon by all who knew her for her malicious
usurey and miserliness. Perhaps he may be doing the world a favor by
ridding it of her. At any rate he had thought he could resume his
education financing it with the money he would take from her after
murdering her. With his intellectual ability, enhanced by the proper
academic background, he felt he could contribute a great deal to the
world. Therefore the crime was fully justified.
"Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and intentional distortion
of his idea."
"•What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But not because of
S 3
the influence of environment?' Razumihin inquired with some alarm even."
"'No, not exactly because of it,' answered Porfiry. ’In his article
all men are divided into 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary'. Ordinary men
have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law in any
way, just because they are extrordinary. That m s your idea, if I am not
mistaken?'1 1
"Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and knew where
they wanted to drive him. He decided to take up the challenge."
"'That wasn't quite my contention,' he began simply and modestly.
'Yet I admit that you have stated it almost correctly; perhaps if you like,
perfectly so...The only difference is that I don't content that extra
ordinary people are always bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call
it. In fact, I doubt whether such an argument could be published. I
simply hinted that an "Extraordinary man has the right— that is not an
official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to
overstep certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the
practical fulfilment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the
whole of humanity). You say that my article isn't definite; I am ready
to make it as clear as I can. Perhaps I am right in thinking you want
me to; very well. I maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and
Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of
one, a dozen, a hundred or more men, Newton would have had the right,
would have been duty bound. ..to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men,
for the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity.
But it does not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people
right and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember,
84
I maintain in my article that all...well, legislators and leaders of
men, such as Lyeurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all
without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law,
they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and
held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either,
if that bloodshed— often of innocent persons, fighting bravely in
defence of ancient law— yrere of use to their cause. It's remarkable,
in fact that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leader of
humanity were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that
all great men or even men a little out of common, that is to say capable
of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals— more
or less of course. Otherwise it's hard for them to get out of the
common rut; and to remain in the common rut is what they can't submit
to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed,
to.submit to it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all
that. The same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before.
As for my division of people into Ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge
that it's somewhat arbitrary, but I don't insist upon exact numbers.
I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a
law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is,,so to
say., material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the
gift or. talent to utter a new word. There are, of course, subdivisions,
but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked.
The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament
and law-abiding; they live under conrols and love to be controlled.
To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that's their
85
vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for than. The second
category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to
destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are
of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied
ways the destruction forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse,
or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his
conscience, a sanction fro wading through blood— that depends on the idea
and its dimensions, note that. It's only in that sense I speak of their
right to crave in my article (you remember it began with a legal question).
There's no need for much anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever
admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in
doing so fulfill quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same
masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship
them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present,
the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people
in it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal.t Each class
has an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me—
and vive la guerre eternalle— till the New Jerusalem, of course.'"
"'Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you?"1
"'I do,' Raskolnikov answered fimly."
"'And...and do you believe in God? Excuse my curiosity.'"
"'I do,' repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to porfiry.3 3
"'And...do you believe in Lazarus rising from the dead?'"
"'I...I do. Why do you ask all this?"*
"’You believe it literally?'"
86
"‘Literally,1n
“•You don’t say so,.,1 asked from curiousityj Excuse me. But let
us go back to the question; they are not always executed. Some on the
contrary.'“
'"Triumph in their lifetime? 0, yes, some attain their ends in
this life, and then.
“'They begin executing other people?’"
”'lf it’s necessary; indeed, for the most part they do. Your
remark is very witty.'"
“'Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distinguish those extra
ordinary people from the ordinary ones? Are there signs at their birth?
I feel there ought to be more exactitude, more external definition. Excuse
the natural anxiety of a practical law-abiding citizen, but couldn’t they
adopt a special uniform, for instance, couldn’t they wear something, be
branded in some way? For you know if confusion arises and a member of
one category imagines that he belongs to the other, begins to 'eliminate
obstacles’, as you so happily expressed it, the.
“'Oh, that very often happensI That remark is wittier than the other.’"
’ "Thank you.
“'No reason to; but take note that the mistake can only arise in the
first category, that is among ordinary people (as I perhaps unfortunately
called them). In spite of their predisposition to obedience very many of
them, through a playfulness of nature, sometimes vouchsafed even to the
cow, like to imagine themselves advanced people, 'destroyers', and to push
themselves into the ’ new movement ’, and this quite sincerely. Meanwhile
the really new people are very often unobserved by them, or even despised
as reactionaries of grovelling tendencies. But I don't think there is
any considerable danger there, and you really need not be uneasy for they
never go very far. Of course, they might have a thrashing sometimes for
letting their fancy- run away with tem and to teach them their place, but
no more; in fact, even this isn't necessary as they castigate themselves,
for they are very conscientious: some perform this service for one another
and others chastise themselves with their own hands...They will impose
various public acts of penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and
edifying effect; in fact you've nothing to be uneasy about...It’s a law
of nature.'"
"'Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on that score;
but there's another thing worries me. Tell me, please, are there many
people who have the right to kill others, these extraordinary people? I
and ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it's alarming
if there are a great many of them, eh?"1
"'Oh, you needn't worry about that either,' Raskolnikov went on in
the same tone. 'People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity
for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so
in fact. One think only is clear, that the appearance of all these grades
and subdivisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity some law of
nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am convinced
that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast mass of mankind
is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by some
mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and stocks, to
88
bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a thousand with a
spark of independence. One is ten thousand perhaps— I speak roughly,
approximately— us born with some independence, and with still greater
independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius is one of
millions, and.the great geniuses, the crown of humanity, appear on earth
perhaps one man in thousand millions. In fact I have not peeped into
the retort in which all this takes place. But there certainly is and
must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter of chance.*"
,M...but what is really original in all this, and is exclusively
your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed in the name of
conscience...That I take it, is the point of your article. But that
sanction of bloodshed by conscience is to my mind...more terrible than
the official, legal sanction of bloodshed...1 , 1 Raauraihin is speaking,
Porfiry speaks, "•...Mhat if some man or youth imagines that he
is a Lycurgus or Mohamet— a future one, of course— and suppose he begins
to remove all obstacles.,.He has some great enterprise before hime and
needs money for it...and tries to get it...do you see?”*
"’I must admit,1 he went on calmly, ‘that such cases certainly
must arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that
snare; young people especially.’1 1
1 1 * Yes, you see. Well then?*”
"1lhat then?' Raskolnikov smiled in reply; ‘that’s not my fault.
So it is and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Raaumihin)
that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons,
banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There’s no need to
89
be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief.»"
"*...But what of his conscience?'"
n,If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That
will be his punishment— as well as the prison.*"
"'But the real geniuses,' asked Bazumihin frowning, 'those who
have the right to murder? Oughtn't they to suffer at all even for the
blood they've shed?'"
"'Khy the word ought? It's not a matter of permission or prohibition.
He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are
always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The rally
great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth,' he added dreamily,
not in the tone of the conversation."55
It is "not in the tone of the conversation" because here Raskilnikov
seems to be philosophising introspectively aloud. He is advancing a tenet
of Dostoevsky, a favorite one. The Dostoevsky we see through his literary
creations is a firm believer in suffering as a prerequisite to greatness
of soul. He himself suffered greatly as a prisoner through an injustice,
as an epileptic, and from extreme povery at times.
Raskolnikov becomes truly introspective as.he broods in his room
over the crime and its aftermath. *"I ought to have known. ..And how dared
I, knowing myself, knowing how I should be, take up and axe and shed
blood! I ought to have known beforehand.,.Ah, but I did know!' he whispered
in despair. At times he came to a standstill at some thought."
"'No, those men are not made so. The real Master to whom all is
55Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Tr. C. Garnett, pp. 264-268
90
permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, forgets an army in
Egypt, wastes half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off
with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and
so all is permitted. No, such people it seems are not of flesh but of
bronze! * "
"At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a state of feverish
excitement. "The old woman was only an illness...I was in a hurry to
overstep...I didn't kill a human being, but a principle! I killed a
principle, but I didn't overstep, I stopped on this side...I was only
capable of killing. And it seems I wasn't even capable of that...Principle?
commercial people; 'the happiness of all* is their case. To, life is only
given to me once and I shall never have it again; I don't want to wait
for 'the happiness of all'. I want to live myself, or else better not live
at all. I simply couldn’t pass by my mother starving, keeping my rouble
in my pocket while I waited for the happiness of all, and so my heart is
at peace. Ha-ha! Why have you let me slip? I only live once, I too want...
Ech, I am an aesthetic louse and nothing more, *1 he added sudde ly laughing
like a madman, 'Yes, I am certainly a louse,’ he went on, clutching at
the idea, gloating over it, and playing with it with vindictive pleasure.
1In the first place, because I can reason that I am one, and secondly,
because for a month past I have been troubling benevolent Providence, calling
it to witness that not for my own fleshly lusts did I undertake it, but
with a grand and noble object— ha-ha! Thirdly, because I aimed at carrying
it out justly as possible, weighing, measuring and calculating, (of all the
that fool Razumihin abusing the socialists? They are industrious,
91
lice I picked out the most useless one and proposed to take from her only
as much as I needed for the first step, no more nor less (so the rest
would have gone to a monastery, according to her will, ha-ha!). And what
shows that I am utterly a louse,' he added, grinding his teeth, 'is that
I am perhaps viler and more loathsome than the louse I killed, and I felt
A J _ /
beforehand that I should tell myself so after killing her77 Can anything
be compared with the horror of that.' The vulgarity! The abjectness J I
understand the 'prophet' with his sabre, on his steed: Allah commands
and 'trembling' creation must obey! The 'prophet' is right, he is right
when he sets a battery across the street and blows up the innocent and
guilty without designing to explain! It's for you to obey, trembling
creation, and not to have desires, for that's not for you! I shall never,
never forgive the old woman!*"56
Raskolnikov meets Sonia, a young girl who has been forced to
prostitution to help support the family which her drunken father has been
unable to support. She is deeply religious and only direct need has driven
her to the profession, which is utterly distasteful to her. Raskolnikov
senses her deeply spiritual nature and come to admire her a great deal.
He philosophises with her. "'But perhaps, there is no God at all,* Ras
kolnikov answered with a sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her."
Sonia is horrified at his doubt and promptly reproves him. In the
course of the conversation he kneels down and kisses her foot. He explains
his action. "'I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering
of humanity. It was not because of your dishonor and your sin I said
$6Ibid., p. 326
92
that of you, but because of your great suffering. But you are a great
sinner, that's true,' he added almost solemnly,'and your worst sin is that
you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. Isn't that fearful?
Isn't it fearful that you are living in this filth which you loath so,
and at the same time you know yourself (you've only to open your eyes)
that you are not helping any one by it, not saving any one from anything.'
Tell me,' he went on almost in a frenzy, 'how this shame and degradation
can exist in you side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It
would be better, a thousand times better and wiser to leap into the water
and end it alii'"57
Raskolnikov is again talking with Sonia. He is confessing his crime
and at the same time advancing his philosophical justification for the
crime. was like thisi I asked myself one day this question— what
if Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had
not had Toulon not Egypt not the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his career
with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, there
had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, vAio had to be
murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his career, you understand).
Well, would he have brought himself to that, if there had been no other
means? Wouldn't he have felt a pang at its being so far from monumental
and...and sinful, too? Well, I must tell you that I worried myself fear
fully over that 'question' so that I was awfully ashamed when I guessed
at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that it would not have given to him the
least pang, that it would not even have struck him that it was monumental...
5?Ibid., p. 326
93
that he would not have seen that there was anything in it to pause over,
without thinking about iti Well, I too...left off thinking about it...
murdered her, following his exampleTj And that's exactly how it was.' Do
you think it funny? Yes Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that perhaps
that's just how it was. "*58
Raskolnikov admits his inclination to introspection when he says,
...low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp the soul and the mind...I preferred
lying still and thinking. And I kept thinking. Your see I kept asking
myself then: Why am I so stupid, that if others are stupid— and I know
they are— yet I won't be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one waits for
every one to get wiser it will take too long...Afterwards I understood^ that
that would never come to pass, that men won't change and that nobody can
alter it and that it's not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that's so.
That's the law of their nature, Sonia,...that's soJ...And I know now, Sonia,
that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them.
Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most
things will be a lawgiver among them and he who dares most of all will be
most in the right So it has been till now and so it will always be. A
ISheri Raskilnikov talks, it is almost a soliloquoy, for although he
addresses the other participant in the dialogue, he forgets almost that
there is anyone there. His conversation really becomes a sort of oral
and that, if he had no other way, he would have strangled her in a minute
rl £ )
man must be blind not to see iti'"59
5&Ibid.. p. 326
59ibid., p. 422
94
introspection. "Though Baskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said this, he
no lo ger cared whether she understood or not. The fever had complete
hold of him; he was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy. Sonia felt that thi3
gloomy creed had become his faith and code."60
Raskolnikov continues his philosophical justification for his crime.
"I divined then, Sonia...that power is vouchsafed to the man who dares to
stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful} one has
only to dare] Then for the first time in my life an idea took shape in my
mind, which no one ha3 ever thought of but me, no one] I saw as clear as
daylight how strange it is that not a single person living in this world
had had the daring to go straight for it all and send it flying to the
devil] I...I wanted to have the daring...and I killed herTJ I only wanted
to have the daring, Sonia] That was the whole cause of it."6l
Strongly influenced by Sonia, Raskolnikov is persuaded to confess his
crime to the authorities. He is sentenced to a term in Siberia. Sonia
accompanies him to Siberia. Raskolnikov is not yet truly penitent. He is
only sorry that his philosophy has failed to materialize the way he had
anticipated it. His introspection continues to be of a brooding nature.
"Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a
continual sacrifice leading to nothing— that was all that lay before him.
And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he would only
be thirty-two and able to begin a new life] VShat had he to live for? lhat
had he to look forward to? Wiy should he strive? To live in order to
& >Ibid., p. 328
6lIbid.. p. 422
95
exist? Why he had been ready a thousand times before to give up exist
ence for the sake of the idea, for a hope, even for a fancy. Mere
existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted more.
Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he had
thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others...’In
what way,• he asked himself, 'was my theory stupider than others that
have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? Of course, in
that case many of the benefactors of mankind who snatched power for
themselves instead of inheriting it ought to have been punished at their
first steps. But those m m succeeded and so they were right, and I didn’t,
and so I had no right to have taken that step.’”62
One day Raskolnikov suddenly sees the fallacy of his entire philo
sophy. He accepts Sonia's Christian approach to the problems of life.
The novel ends on the note that through the Christian approach Raskolnikov
will one day accomplish the rehabilitation of his life, which a maladjusted
philosophical introspection had almost lead to destruction.
lhat use has Dostoevsky made of philosophic introspection? First
of all, he, like Tolstoy, is a realist and must portray the true Russian
tendency of introspection in his characterizations. However, in the
Brothers Karamazov philosophic introspection is used a great deal to show
the dual nature of Dostoevsky’s own introspection. Ihether Dostoevsky
deliberately used philosophic introspection to exhibit this tendency to
duality in his nature it is not my purpose to say, I rather think Ivan
is an unconscious manifestation of his other self, for the trend of the
^2Ibid., p. 547
96
novel is to show that only Alyosha through a spiritual approach to life,
which is in the main unquestioning and blindly devoted to Christian principles,
is successful in coping with the problems life presents. l^The tortured
trend of Ivan’s introspection, his troubled philosophical speculating,
hastened an attack of brain fever. He found no answer to the enigma of
life. Raskolnikov too found philosophic introspection an unsatisfactory
path to the realm of the abstract. At least the philosphy that had evolved
from his introspective moments only furthered the misery he sought to
escape from through his speculations. Only when he started to pattern his
life after Christian principles did he start to recover his mental equilibrum
and find some measure of peaceTj
In view of the treatment of philosophic introspection by Dostoevsky
in these two novels studied, that is, the type of introspection that
questions the scheme of things and is based on inductive reasoning, he
seems to consider it a blind alley that leads to tragic consequences. This
is in live with fiostoevsky’s consisten Slavophilism, of which he was an
exponent most of his life. Dostoevsky considered Russia as the means of
leading the rest of the world to the goal of Christian ideals through the
faith, which he seemed to think was imbedded deeply in the Russian soul*
He consistently opposed westernization with its scientific, logical approach.
It is obvious that his ideal approach to life is that of Alyosha and Sonia,
a humble submission to the ways of God to man and an unquestioning devotion
to the teachings of Christ, though he himself may have experienced at
one time the skepticism of Ivan and the miserable frustration of Raskolnikov*
ANTON CHEKHOV, LEONID ANDREYEV, MAXIN GORKY
There is a term in Russia, which in its Anglesized form is
"Chekhovskoe nastroenie." Translated into English, it means "the
Chekhov state of mind," It is characterized by a impotent yearning
after something better. state of mind is certainly not peculiar
to Chekhov, for it is encountered in the characters of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
and others. In fact William Lyoh Phelps in his Essays on Russian Novelists
considers this "paralysis of will," as he calls it, as typical among
heroes of Russian fiction.6%erhaps the Russians felt that Chekov best
expressed this yearning through his characterizations, thus awarding him
for making this type of introspection more articulate. It is a form of
philosophic introspection similar to that which we have encountered in
Pierre of War and Peace, Levin of Anna Karenina, and in some respects in
Ivan of Brothers Karamazov and Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment.
Chekhov*s characterizations tend to fall generally into two types:
the gentle and ineffective dreamer, and the vulgar and efficient man of
action. This is especially true in his play, The Cherry Orchard, which
is one of the two selections I shall use in tracing the use of philosophic
introspection in Chekhov. The gentle and ineffective dreamer is the
"perfect type" for philosophic introspection. Chekhov does not analyze
the thoughts of his characters as do Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. He suggests
the nature of their trend.
In Chekhov’s story called On the Way the hero remarks, "Nature has
set in every Russian an inquiring mind, a tendency to speculation, and
63uirsky, Modern Russian Literature, p. 85
6/*0£. Cit., p. 17
98
extraordinary capacity for belief; but all these are broken into dust
against our improvidence, indolence, and fantastic triviality."^5
Chekhov was a physician and this is a diagnosis of the Russian mind, a
recognition of the national tendency to be philosophically introspective,
yet with a will so paralyzed as to be unable to follow through with
the conclusions, if any, that their introspection had reached.
The other work of Chekov I shall examine in this study is Lights,
a short story. I selected The Cherry Orchard beeause it is his best
known play in America and Lights because philosophic introspection dominates
it to such a great extent.
In Lights a philosophic discussion is started by three characters
standing on the embankment of a railway under construction. The three make
an ideal quorum for the Russian national pastime of philosophising (although
one is a quorum in this respect). They are a young student, a grizzled
engineer, and a doctor, who narrates the story. The three are standing on
the embankment gazing across the countryside at night. The lights twinkling
across the darkened landscape start a trend of philosophic introspection
in each, symbolizing something to all three* This introspection inevitably
stimulates a philosophical discussion.
The student is reminded of an encampment of Amalekites or Philistines
waiting to give battle to the Biblical Saul or David. , He thinks MYes,
once Philistines and Amalekites were living in this world, making wars,
playing their part, and now no trace of them remains. So it will be with
us. Now we are making a railway, are standing here philosophising, but two
^%©ng, Translation of Chekhov1 s The Black Monk and Other Stories,
pp. 47-48
99
thousand yearsvd.ll pass— and of this embankment and all those men, asleep
after their hard work, not one grain of dust will remain. In reality, it’s
awful!"
This gloomy pre-occupation with death seems typieally Russian, at
least typical of the Russians we meet in the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
The student communicates his thoughts to his companions. He is
sharply reprimaned by the old engineer.
1 1 ’You must drop those thoughts...* said the engineer gravely and
admonishingly."
” ’Why?'"
’ ’*Because...Thoughts like that are for the end of life, not for the
beginning of it. You are too young for them,n
"•Why so?' repeated the student."
”*A11 those thoughts of the transitoriness, the insignificance and
the aimlessness of life, of the inevitability of death, ©f the shadows of
the grave, and so on, all such lofty thoughts, I tell you, my dear fellow,
are good and natural in old age when they come as the product of years of
inner travail, and are won by suffering and really are intellectual riehes;
for a youthful brain on the threshold of real life they are simply a calamity!
A calamity!.. .To my mind it is better at your age to have no head on your
shoulders at all than to think on these lines. I am speaking seriously,
Baron. And I have been meaning to speak to you about it for a long time,
for I notieed from the very first day of our acquaintance your partiality
for these damnable ideas!*”
’ ’’Good gracious, why are they damnable?’ the student asked with a
smile, and from his voice and his face I could see that he asked the question
100
from simple politeness, and that the discussion raised by the engineer did
not interest him in the least.”
Later in a hut beside the railway embankment the conversation is
continued with the engineer almost monopolizing the conversation. He again
attacks the gloomy trend of the young student's' introspection. M,I hate those
ideas with all my heart! * he said, 'I was infected by them myself in my
youth, I have not quite got rid of them even now,and I tell you— perhaps
because I am studpid and such thoughts were not the right food for my mind—
they did me nothing but harm. That's easy to understand! Thoughts of the
aimlessness of life, of the insignificance and transitoriness of the visible
world, Solomon's 'vanity of vanities' have been, and are today, the highest
and final stage in the realm of thought. The thinker reaches that stage
and— comes to a halt! There is nowhere further to go. The activity of
the normal is completed with this, and that is natural and in the order of
things. Our misfortunes that we begin thinking at that end. What normal
people end with we begin with. From the first start, as soon as the brain
begins working independently, we mount to the very topmost, final step and
refuse to know anything about the steps below.»"
"'What harm is there in that?' said the student".
"'But you must understand that it's abnormal...If we find means of
mounting to the topmost step without the help of the lower ones, then the
whole long ladder, that is the whole of life, with its colors, sounds, and
thoughts, loses all meaning for us. That at your age sueh reflections are
harmful and absurd, you can see from every step of your rational independent
life. Let us suppose you sit down this minute to read Darwin or Shakespeare,
101
you have scarcely read a page before the poison shows itself, and your
long life, and Shakespeare, and Sarwin, seem to you nonsense, absurdity,
because you know that you will die, that Shakespear and Darwin have died too,
that their thoughts have not saved them, nor the earth, nor you, and that
if life is deprived of meaning in that way, all science, poetry, and exalted
thoughts seem only useless diversion, the idle playthings of grown up
people; and you leave off reading at the second page. Now, let us suppose
that people come to you as an intelligent man and ask your opinion about war,
for instance: whether it is desirable, whether it is morally justifiable
or not. In answer to that terrible question you merely shrug you shoulders
and confine yourself to some commonplace, because for you, with your way
of thinking, it makes absolutely no difference whether hundreds of thousands
of people die a violent death, or a natural one: the results are the same—
ashes and oblivion*..It would be all right if, with our pessimism, we
renounced life, went to live in a cave, or make haste to die, but, as it is,
in obedience to the universal law, we live, feel, love women, bring up
children, construct railways]
It is interesting to note here that pre-occupation with death, almost is
a phobia with so many of the characters we meet in Russian fiction* Pierre
had been much concerned with it during his introspective moments. Prince
Andrey had thought a great deal about it. Levin was plunged into morbid depths
of introspection about it when he is brought face to face with the realization
of it, as he brother slowly succumbs to consumption. Evidently it plays a
dominant part in the aura of gloom that pervades so much of the Russian
introspection from the evidence presented by such realistic writers as
^Chekhov, Light, from Love and Other Stories, Tr. 0. Garnett, pp. 18-24
University of Southern California Library
102
Tolstoy and Chekhov.
At this point the engineer begins relating an experience from his
past. It is overcast with a philosophical melancholy and full of philosophical
intrusions, introspective soliloquies, as it were.
”*I was no more than twenty-six at the time, but I knew perfectly
well that life was aimless and had no meaning, that everything was a deception
and an illusion, that in its essential nature and results a life of penal
servitude in Sahalin was not in any way different from a life spent in Nice,
that the difference between the brain of a Dante and the brain of a fly was
of no real significance, that no one in this world is righteous or guilty,
that everything was stuff and nonsense and damn it alii I lived as though
I were doing a favor to some unseen power which compelled me to live, and
to which I seemed to say: ‘Look, I don't care a straw for life, but I am
living!• I thought on one definite line, but in all sorts of keys, and in
that respect I was like the subtle gourmand who could prepare a hundred
appetising dishes from nothing but potatoes. There is no doubt that I was
one-sided and even to some extent narrow, but I fancied at the time that
my intellectual horizon had neither beginning nor end, and that my thought
was as boundless as the sea. Well, as far as I can judge by myself, the
philosophy of which we are speaking has something alluring, narcotic in its
nature, like tobacco or morphia.. It becomes a habit, a craving. You take
advantage of every minute of solitude to gloat over thoughts of the aim
lessness of life and the darkness of the grave. While I was sitting in the
summer-house, Greek children with long noses were decorously walking about
the avenues. I took advantage of the occasion and, looking at them, began
103
reflecting in this style:
'Why are these children bom, and what are they living for: Is
there any sort of meaning in their existence? They grow up, without
themselves knowing what for; they will live in this God-forsaken, comfortless
hold for no sort of reason, and then they will die,..*"
"•And I actually felt vexed with those children because they were
walking about decorously and talking with dignity, as though they did not
hold their little colorless lives so cheap and knew what they were living
for...The trouble is that youth makes its demands, and our philosopher has
nothing in principle against those demands, whether they are good or whether
they are loathsome. One who knows that life is aimless and death inevitable
is not interested in the struggle against nature or the conception of
sin: IShether you struggle or whether you don*t, you will die and rot just
the same.. .Secondly, ray friends, our philosophy instills even into the very
young people what is called reasonableness. The predominance of reason
over the heart is simply overwhelming amongst us. Direct feeling, inspiration—
everything is choked by petty analysis. Where there is reasonableness
there is coldness, and cold people— it's no use to disguise it— know nothing
of chastity* That virtue is only known to those who are warm, affectionate,
and capable of love. Thirdly, our philosophy denies the significance of
each individual personality. It * s easy to see that if I deny the personality
of some Natalya Stapanova, it's absolutely nothing to me whether she is
insulted dr not. Today one insults her dignity as a human being and pays
her Blutgeld, and next day thinks no more of her...*" ^
^Ibid. * pp. 30-31
104
The engineer ceases his philosophising and gets into his story. In
the middle of his narrative he recalls a moment of melancholy, the atmosphere
conducive to philosophic introspection:
1 1 *1 made my way to the summer-house, felt for the seat and sat down.
Far below me, behind a veil of thick darkness, the sea kept up a low angry
growl. I remember that, as though I were blind, I could see neither sky
nor sea, nor even the summer-house in which I was sitting. And it seemed
to me as though the whole world consisted only of the thoughts that were
straying through my head, dizzy from the wine, and of an unseen power
murmuring monotonously somewhere below. And afterwards, as I sank into a
doze, it began to seem that it wets not the sea murmuring, but my thoughts,
and that the whole world consisted of nothing but me. And concentrating
the whole world in myself in this way, I thought no more of cabs, of the
town, and of Kisotehka, and abandoned myself to the sensation I was so fond
of: that is, the sensation of fearful isolation when you feel that in the
whole universe, dark and formless, you alone exist. It is a proud, demoniac
sensation, only possible to Russians, whose thoughts and sensations are as
large, boundless, and gloomy as their plains, their forests, and their snow.
If I had been an artist, I should certainly have depicted the expression
on a Russian's face when he sits motionless and, with his legs under him
and his head clasped in his hands, abondons himself to this sensation...And
together with this sensation come thoughts of the aimlessness of life, of
death, and of the darkness of the grave...The thoughts are not worth a brass
farthing, but the expression of the face must be fine.*”68
68lbid., pp. 45
105
Kisotchka, an old friend with whom he has been trying to have an
affair, is running away from her husband. He encounters her in a highly
emotional state this same dark night in the summer house. She asks him .
to take her t© her mother's house. They pass a large, old, deserted
building. "*1 looked at the dark windows and thought: ‘All this is very
impressive, but time will eome when of that building and of Kisotchka and
her troubles and of me with my thoughts, not one grain of dust will remain.
All is nonsense and vanity.*“
He finally succeeds in deceiving her as to his intentions and has an
affair with her, then deserts her. But remorse sets in, and he thinks,
‘ "I realized that I was not a thinker, not a philosopher, but simply a
dilettante.*.Our generation has carried this dilettantism, this playing
with serious ideas into science, into literature, into politics, and into
everything which it is not too lazy to go into, and with its dilettantism
has introduced, too, its coldness, its boredom, and its one-sidedness and,
as it seems to me, it has already succeeded in developing in the masses a
new hither-to non-existent attitude to serious ideas. ««69 1 4 • *1
The engineer after concluding his reminiscing of his early experiences
argues with the student. He tells him, "‘You despise life because its
meaning and its object are hidden from you, and you are only afraid of your
own death, while the real thinker is unhappy because the truth is hidden
from all and he is afraid for all men.•"70
Once again they look at the lights in the distance, the engineer says:
“‘Those lights remind the Baron of the Amalekites, but it seems to me that
69Ibid., p. 49
70Ibid., p. 63
they are like the thoughts of man...You know the thoughts of each individual
man are scattered like that in disorder, stretch in a straight line towards
some goal in the midst of the darkness, and, without shedding light on
anything, without lighting up the night, they vanish somewhere far beyond
old age. But enough philosophising! It's time to go bye-bye.
The doctor takes leave of his new-found friends. He is thinking
r , A great deal had been said in the night, but I carried away with me no
answer to any question, and in the morning, of the whole conversation there
remained in my memory, as in a filter, only the lights and the image of
Kisotchaka...There is no making out anything in this world...I saw nothing
before me but the endless gloomy plain and the cold overcast sky, I recalled
the questions which were discussed in the night. I pondered while the sun-
scorched plain, the immense sky, the oak forest, dark on the horizon and
the hazy distance, seemed saying to me: 'Yes, there's no understanding any
thing in this world!
Drama can only have direct introspection through the medium of a
soliloquy, where the playwright reveals the inner thoughts of his character
through the medium of the actor's oral presentation for the benefit of the
audience. Chekhov does not use the soliloquy in his Cherry Orchard. He
reveals his introspection of his characters by suggestion*
Two minor characters in this play, Ephikhodof, a clerk, and Charlotte,
a governess, reveal the trend of their introspection in this indirect
manner by suggestion:
107
"Ephikodof.— I am a man of cultivation; I have studies various
remarkable books but I cannot fathom the direction of my preference; do
I want to live or do I want to shoot myself, so to speak? But in order
to be ready for all contingencies, I always carry a revolver in my pocket.
Here it is (showing the revolver).1 *
* ’ Charlotte.— 0, you*re a clever fellow, Ephikhodof, and very alarming.
(going.) These clever people are all so stupid; I have no one to talk to.
I am always alone, always alone; I have no friend or relations, and who I
am, or why I exist, is a mystery."73
Even household servents of Russian fietion are introspective,
philosophically speculative.
Madame Ranevsky, owner of the cherry orchard from which the play
gets its name, Gayef, her brother, and Trophimof, a student, are the gentle
dreamer type of character portrayed by Chekhov. They like to spend their time
philosophizing. Here is a typical philosophical discussion among them:
"Madame Ranevsky.— No. Let's go on with the conversation we were
having yesterday.”
"Trophimof.— What about?"
"Gayef.— About the proud man.”
"Trophimof.— We had a long talk yesterday, but we didn't come to any
conclusion. There is something mystical in the proud man in the sense
in which you use the words. You may be right from your point of view,
but, if we look at it simple-mindedly, what room is there for pride? Is
^Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, from Two Plays by Chekhov, Tr. Calderon,
G. p. 11
108
there any sense in itj when man is so poorly constructed from the physical
point of view, when the vast majority of us are so gross and stupid and
profoundly unhappy? We must give up admiring ourselves. The only thing to
do is work."
Here Gayef again exhibits that Russian preoccupation with death when
he says: "We shall die all the same."
"Trophimof,— Who knows? And what does it mean, to die? Perhaps man
has a hundred senses and when he dies only five senses that we know perish
with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive."74
Later on in another philosophical discussion Trophimof says "To
avoid everything petty, everything illusory, everything that prevents one
from being free and happy, that is the whole meaning and purpose of our
life. Forward! We march on irresistibly towards that bright star, which
bums far, far before usi Forward! Don't tarry comrades!.,.Well, well, we
have fallen at least two hundred years behind the times. We have achieved
nothing at all as yetj we have not make up our minds how we stand in the
past; We only philosophise, complain of boredom, or drink vodka."75
Thus Trophimof characterizes much of the attitude of the landed
gentry in the days of Tolstoy and Chekhov. He also associates this tendency
of philosophic introspection with the peculiar paralysis of will, inability
to act decisively, so common among the characters of Russian fiction.
"We only philosophise," he says. In other words, we don’t do anything
about it.
Lopakhin represents the vulgar but efficient type of person in
7/ »Ibid.. p. 119
75ibid.. p. 123
109
Chekhov. His father was a serf, and like Chekhov’s father, has purchased
his freedom. Lopakhin i3 very intelligent, hasn’t any idealistic aspirations,
for he is a practical, shrewd business man. He is not given much to
philosophishing but is capable of it. And he makes an occasional keen
observation that shows that he too has his introspective moments. For
example:
"Lopakhin.— Here we stand swaggering to each other, and life goes by
all the time without heeding us. Ihen I work for hours without getting
tired, I get easy in my mind, and I seem to know why I exist. But God
alone knows what most of the people in Russia were born for...Well, who
cares? It doesn't affect the circulation of work.”7^
Chekhov realistically portrays the introspective, philosophical
tendencies of the Russian people in his characterizations. He has exhibit
ed a preoccupation with death in several of his characters, which has been
foremost at times in the thoughts of other fictional characters covered
in this study. The grizzled engineer in Lights and the aristocratic land
owners, Madame Ranevsky and Gayef in The Cherry Orchard are fond of philo
sophising. The student in each story is philosophically speculative.
One other use of philosophical introspection in the selections of
Chekhov included in this study, besides using it as a means of realistic
character portrayal, is a possibility in light of the trend of its use in
the excerpts studied. This is Chekhov's association of philosophic intro
spection with the inertia of the Russian people. He indicates twice, once
through Trophimof and another time through Lopakhin, that work, not
?6Ibid., p. 144
110
philosophising was the answer to many problems in life, and certainly a
way to overcome this paralysis of will, this inertia, this inability to
act, which seems to be a common tendency of the Russian people Tolstoy,
Dostoevsky, and Ghekhov write about. Perhaps Chekhov really felt that
with less philosophising and more action, Russians eould accomplish more,
even though’ one senses that Chekhov was more fond of his gentle dreamers,
his speculative philosophers than his industrious, practical Lopakhins.
The words of Anathema perhaps keynote the place philosophic intro
spection holds in the works of Leonid Andreyev, ”1 am tired of searching.
I am tired of living and fruitless suffering in my vain pursuit of the
thing that ever escapes me. Give me death, but do not torture me with
not knowing."7?
Most all of Andreyev*s characters are highly introspective, and this
accounts for the note of depair so prevalent in his works. Their insatiable
intellect finds no answers to the questions its introspection poses, no
meaning to life.
Moissaye Olgin in his Guide to Russian Literature says "Andreyev is
the spokesman of the Russian intellectual who was awakened by modern
progress from the sluggishness of a patriarchal system to the realization
of the complexity of life. The Russian intellectual was suddenly put before
enormous problems. The alternative of either heroic sacrifice for a common
cause or cowardly abstinence from life's constructive work loomed up before
every self-conscious individual. Life itself was undergoing catastrophic
changes. It looked as if a powerful hand had tossed all structures asunder,
revealing the very foundations. Russian intellect was feverishly serutiniz-
T^oigin, Guide to Russian Literature, 1820-1917, p. 232
Ill
ing life, revaluing the most harrowing problems. It was in the nature of
Russian surrounding to tinge all these gropings with the dark colors of
sadness, lonliness, and pessimism. Andreyev was the writer destined to
embody this spirit of intellectual unrest in striking artistic pictures. "78
Intellectual unrest is a fertile field for philosophic introspection.
The writing of Andreyev indicates the prolific nature of his introspection.
That his speculations only lead him into the blind alley of despair is not
the concern of this study. This study is only concerned with his use of it
in two works, The Little Angel, a short story, and He Hho Gets Slapped, a
drama. The former I chose because I consider it as representative of
Andreyev at his best, and the latter was selected because of its popularity
in America and because the hero is something of a summary of Andreyev's
philosophy, perhaps symbolically autobiographical.
"He" is a man of high education, of great intellectual achievement,
who leaves life, willingly in appearance, but forcibly in fact. He becomes
a clown. He performs stunts, gets slapsj the publie laughs, being unaware
that this laughter is a mockery at itself, at its culture, at its thought,
at its achievement.
There is little direct philosophic introspection in the lines of
He Who Gets Slapped. Once Gonsuelo, a bareback rider in the circus "He" is
featured in asks "And what is— death?" "He" answers, "I do not know, my
queen. Nobody knows."79
But the real introspection of the play is not in its dialogue, it
780£. Cit., p. 232
7^Andreyev, He Iho Gets Slapped. Tr. Zilboorg, p. 130
112
is the characterization of "He.” "He" is human intellect, that has sought
truth, strived towards a vague ideal. But this "splendid quest" is only
a farce, for Nature slaps then mocks its very efforts. Consuela, with
whom "He" seem infatuated, is a ray of hope in the tragi-comedy that is
life* But actually there is nothing to hope for, so hope is mockery that
heaps misery upon dispair. "He" takes the only way out— death, and sees
that "hope" dies with him. He poisons Consuela, then himself.
This is the morbid trend of Andreyev’s introspection if we are to
judge by his works, and indeed the very nature of his works indicates that
his introspection was in a state of intellectual anarchy.
This same bitter symbolism is manifested by Andreyev in his short
story The Little Angel. Hope is again sumbolized as futile. It melts as
wax.
Central characters in The Little Angel are Sashka, a boy of 13
summers, and his father, a consumptive erstwhile tutor for a rich family.
The father had held at one time in addition to being a tutor in this family,
the Zvetehnikov family, an appointment in the statistical office of the
local provincial government. Eventually he was compelled through his own
fault to marry his landlady's daughter. From that time he severed his
connection with the 5 vetchnikovs, and took to drink. Ihen consumption
began, to ravage his body, he was forced to give up drink, and now spends
his time "meditating on the injustice and sorrow of human life."
Sashka is a rebellious boy. He has been expelled from school, and
spends his time manifesting his dislike of everyone, including his mother,
byovert, spiteful acts. However, in spite of a general rudeness, he is de-
1X3
voted to his father.
Sashka is invited to a Christmas party at the Svetchnikovs. He is
his usual rude self and really wants no part of the party except a little
wax angel that hangs on the Christmas tree. He passionately entreats the
hostess for the little angel, and she finally gives it to him. He immediately
leaves the party and takes the angel home to his father.
When Sashka had first seen the angel he was strangely impressed by
it. He Mwas not conscious of the force of the mysterious influence which
attracted him towards the little angel, but he felt that he had known him
all his life, and had always loved him, loved him more than his penknife,
more than his father, more than anything else."^0
The angel has a similar effect upon his father, when Sashka first shows
it to him. "Within the big head strange torturing thoughts, though at the
same time full of delight, were seething. His eyes unblinkingly regarded
the little angel, and under his steadfast gaze it seemed to grow larger and
brighter, and its wings to tremble with a noiseless trepitation, and all the
surroundings— the timber-built, soot stained wall, the dirty table, Sashka—
everything became fused into one level gray mass without light or shade. It
seemed to the broken man that he heard a pitying voice from the world of
wonders, whereing once he dwelt, and whence he had been cast out forever.
There they knew nothing of dit, of weary quarreling, of the blindly cruel
strife of egotism, there they knew nothing of the tortures of a man arrested
in the streets with callous laughter, and beaten by the rough hand of the
night-watchman. There everything is pure, joyful, bright. And all this
SOAndreyev, The Little Angel. Tr., Lowe, Stewart’s Adventures in
World Literature, p. 869
1X4
purity found an asylum in the soul of her whom he loved more than life, and
had lost— when he had kept his hold upon his own useless life." (The father
had fallen in love with the sister of the hostess who had given the angel
to Sashka. He thinks that the sister has given the angel to Sashka.) "With
the smell of wax, which emanated from the toy, was mingled a subtle aroma,
and it seemed to the broken man that her dear fingers touched the angel,
those fingers which he would fain have caressed in one long kiss, till
death should close his lips forever. This was why the little toy was so
beautiful, this was why there was in it something especially attractive,
which defied description. The little angel had descended from that heaven
which her soul was to him, and had brought a ray of light into the damp
room, steeped in sulphurous fumes, and to the dark soul of the man from whom
had been taken all: love, and happiness, and life.”
“On a level with the eyes of the man, who had lived his life, sparkled
the eyes of the boy, who was beginning his life, and embraced the little
angel in their caress. For them present and future had disappeared: the
ever-sorrowful, piteous father, the rought, unendurable mother, the black
darkness of insults, ©f cruelty, of humiliation, and of spiteful grief. The
thoughts of Sashka were formless, nebulous, but all the more deeply for that
did they move his agitated soul. Everything that is good and bright in the
world, all profound grief, and the hope of a soul that sighs for God— the
little angel absorbed them all into himself, and that was why he glowed with
such a soft, divine radiance, that was why his little dragonfly wings
trembled with a noiseless trepidation."
“The father and son did not look at one another: their sick hearts
115
grieved, wept, and rejoiced apart. But there was something in their thoughts
which fused their hearts in one, and annihilated that bottomless abyss
which separates man from man and makes him so lonely, unhappy, and weak.
The father with an unconscious motion put his arm around the neck of his
son, and the son's head rested equally without conscious volition upon his
father’s consumptive chest."
After a display of emotion the father says ”’Ah, Sashka, Sashka...what
is the meaning of everything?”’^ typically Russian, introspective question.
The little angel is hung up by the flue of the stove as Sashka and his
father go to bed. The heat melts it and it falls to the floor ’ with a "plop."
The little angel is, of course, a symbol, after the symbolist technique
of Andreyev. It stimulates the introspection in the story, an introspection
which shows that the boy and his father are certainly kindred spirits. For
the father it symbolizes all that he was before he started downhill and all
that he might have been. For the boy it symbolizes all that he never had
the chance to be, that he was, perhaps, not even conscious of desiring to be.
The little angel ereates an introspective mood for both that momentarily erases
the mirery and depravity of their present position, a mood that will melt
away in the bitter heat of an oppressive way of life just as the little angel
melted away in the heat from the flue, and once again their intropsection will
be gloomy, perhaps embittered, in the Russian manner.
Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov is better known to the English speaking
world as Maxim Gorky, which means "the bitter one.” Perhaps the latter name
does best describe his literary work. He writes of the dregs of humanity
most often in his works, and the title of one of his dramas, The Lower Depths,
Sllbid., pp. 873-874
116
aptly describes the scene of action in a great portion of his writings.
Yet through the atmosphere of human misery and degradation that
surrounds much of his work there still penetrates occasional philosophical
outbursts from his characters. Thus we see the Russian philosophical
tendency carried down to the lowest strata of Russian society.
In two works of Gorky, which will be observed in his study, a short
story, One Autumn Might, and the play, The Lower Depths, the scene is
laid in this lowest strata of society, but its thieves, prostitutes, and
alcoholics continue to philosophise in the typical Russian tradition.
The narrator of One Autumn Night encounters a prostitute while
searching for food and shelter from the chill, damp October night. Both
are penniless and take shelter under an upturned skiff, munching on a stale
loaf of bread they have found. Striking up a conversation, they philo
sophise somewhat bitterly, but at tim« almost resignedly. The prostitute
speaks, What a cursed thing life isl ’ she exclaimed plainly, abstractedly,
and in a tone of deep conviction."
"But this was no complaint. In these words there was too much of
indifference for a complaint. This simple soul thought according to her
understanding— thought and proceeded to form a certain conclusion, which
she expressed aloud, and which I could not confute for fear of contradicting
myself. Therefore I was silent, and she, as if she had not noticed me,
continued to sit there immovable."
"'Even if we croaked...what then,..?' Natasha began again, this
time quietly and reflectively, and still there was not one note of complaint
in her words. It was plain that this person, in the course of her reflect-
117
ions on life, was regarding her own case, and had arrived at the conviction
that, in order to preserve herself from the mockeries of life, she was not
in a position to do anything else but simply * croak *— to use her own
expression* *
The narrator clearly indicates here that the prostitute is quite
introspective. The conclusion, the end point of her philosophical introspection
does not intimate the depth or profundity of the of the speculation her mind
has dwelt on. She has reached a simle conclusion, almost an obvious one in
her position. Perhaps, however, this simples conclusion is the result of
many introspective moments on her part. She may have sifted and discarded
many facts of life before she arrived at this conclusion.
The prostitute later tells the narrator of her recent experiences.
She has been mocked and beaten by her drunken lover. Life has also mocked
her, heaping other troubles upon the general misery of being forced in a
"walk of life" that is, perhaps, utterly distasteful to her. The narrator,
listens to her story. He is silent and does nothing but manifest his
physical discomfort by groaning, shivering, and gnashing his teeth. She
suddenly takes pity on him and warms his body by embracing him in an attempt
to share with him what little -warmth her body might afford. He says, "And
she comforted me...She encouraged me."
He thinks, "May I be thrice accursed! lhat a world of irony was in
this single fact for me! Just imagine! Here was I, seriously occupied at
this very time with the destiny of humanity, thinking of the reorganization
of the social system, of political revolutions, reading all sorts of devilishly
^Qorky, One Autumn Night, in Goumos, Treasury of Russian Humor and
Life, p. 249
118
wise books whose abysmal profundity was certainly unfathomable by their
very authors— at this very time, I say, I was trying with all my might to
make of myself ’a potent, active social force.’ It even seemed to me that
I had partially accomplished my object; anyhow, at this time, in my ideas
about myself, I had got so far as to recognize that I had an exclusive
right to exist, that I had the necessary greatness to deserve to live my
life, and that I was fully competent to play a great historical part therein.
And a woman was now warming me with her body, a wretched, battered, hunted
creature, who had no place and no value in life, and whom I had never
thought of helping till she helped me herself, and whom I really would not
have known how to help in any way even if the thought of it had occurred
to me."^3
The narrator here indicates that he too has been somewhat speculative,
I
has pursued philosophy, and questioned the scheme of things. A simple
prostitute sheds new light on his introspection, gives a little more mean
ing to life. She shares with him all that she has to offer at the moment,
bodily warmth. The great philosophers could take a lesson from this
simple bit of altruism.
The Lower Depths continues the trend of philosophical introspection,
featuring philosophising prostitutes and theorizing thieves. Excerpts from
the dialogue of the play exhibits a philosophical approach even by the
outcasts of society, which make up the cast of characters of the play.
’ ’ Nastya (a woman of the streets)— I’m fed up— I'm not needed here.
"Bubnov (a capmaker, currently unemployed) You’re not needed anywhere.
83Ibid., p. 250
119
For that matter all humans on thi3 earth are not needed."84
Anna, the neglected wife of an unemployed locksmith, Kleetch, is
dying of consumption. Luka, a pilgrim, perhaps symbolical of a false ray
of hope that penetrates the aura of gloom, which surrounds these miserable
outcasts of the lower depths, tries to comfort her*
"Anna.— Talk to me, grandpa dear. I feel sick— ."
"Luka.— It's all right. It's before death, dear. It's all right.
You keep hoping. You'll die, you see, .and then you'll have peace. You'll
have nothing to fear— nothing at all. There'll be peace and quiet— and you’ll
have nothing to do but die. Death quiets everything. It's kind to us
humans. When you die you'll have a rest, folks say. It's true my dear.
For where can a human being find rest in this world?”
"Anna.— But one has to suffer there too?"
"Luka.— There’ll be nothing there, nothing. Believe me. Peace and
nothing more. They'll call you before the Lord and say: Look, 0 Lord,
here's...And the Lord will look at you gently and caressingly and will say:
I know this Anna. Well, he'll say, conduct Anna to heaven...I know she's
had a very hard life...Give Anna a rest— ...You have to believe. You have
to die with joy, without fear...To us, I tell you, death is like a mother
to little children.1 1
"Anna.— But maybe— I'll get better?" ,
"Luka.— What for? For more suffering?"
z "Anna.— Well— just to live a little longer— just a little. If there
isn't going to be any suffering there, I can bear it here— yes, I can.
®%3akshy, Seven Plays of Maxim Gorky, p. 29
120
"Luka.— There’ll be nothing there. Just— ."
"Peppel (a thief).— That's true— or maybe it isn't. Another philo
sophical contribution by Luka: I know. I only say if a man hasn't done
somebody good, he's done him ill."®5
"Peppel (again later).— Listen, old man: Does God exist? Luka smiles,
making no answer.”
"Bubnov.— People live like chips floating down the river. The house
is built, but the chips are thrown away to take care of themselves."
"Peppel.— Well? Does he? Answer me."
"Luka.— If you believe in him, he exists. If you don't he doesn't.
Whatever you believe in exists."®^
"Bubnov.— It's like that with everybody— man is born, lives a while,
and dies. I'll die too— and so will you. Nothing is sorry about that,”®?
"Luka.— ...A man can teach another man to do good— believe me I"
"Bubnov.— Y-yesI Now I don't know how to tell lies. What good are
they? lhat I say i3— give 'em the whole truth just as it is. Why feel shy
about it?"
"Kleeteh.— (again jumping up suddenly to his feet, as if burned, and
shouting) lhat truth: TShere's the truth? (Running his hands through his
tatters) Here’s the truth.' No work, no strength, not even a place to live.
The only thing left is to die like a dog! This is the truth! Good God!
lhat do I want the truth for? I want to breathe more freely that's all I
ask. lhat have I done wrong? Why should I have been given the truth? No
®5lbid., p. 35
®6Ibid.. p. 38
®?Ibid., p. 43
121
chance to live— Christ Almighty— not a chance— that’s the truth! "
"Peppel.— And I've been wondering why you're free. It’s a rare
sight."
"Luka (Bubnov, reflectively).-—You've been saying we need the truth.
But it isn’t always that truth is good for what ails a man— you can't always
cure the soul with truth. I remember this case, for instance, I knew a
man who believed in the true and just land."
"Bubnov.— Believed in what?"
N .
"Luka.— ...In the true and just land. There must be such a land in
the world, he'd say. The people in that land, says he, are a special kind—
a find people. They respect one another, help one another, and everything
done is decent and fine. And so every day this man was thinking of going
to look for that true and just land. He was a poor man, and had a hard
life. But whenever things were so bad he was ready to lie down and die, he
didn’t let himself lose heartj he just smiled and said: It’s all right—
I can bear it. I'll wait a while, and then I'll give up this life and to
the true and just land. He had only one joy in life— that land."
"Peppel.— Did he go?"
"Bubnov.— TOiere? H o. ' Hoi"
* "Luka;.— Then there came to that place— all this happened in Siberia—
a man exiled by the government, a learned man, with books, maps, and all
sorts of things like that. So our man says to the scientist: Do me a favor,
please, show me where the true and just land lies and how to get there. The
scientist at once opens his books and spreads his maps— looks here, looks
there— there's no true and just land anywhere. Everything is right, all the
122
lands are shown— but the true and Just land is Just not there.”
"Peppel (in a low voice).— Not there. Really? Bubnov laughs.”
"Matasha.— Don’t interrupt. Go on, grandpa.”
"Luka.— My man doesn't believe him. It must be there, says he, look
harder for it. Otherwise your books and maps, says he— they'll be worthless
if they fail to show the true and Just land. The scientist is annoyed at
that. In fact he is somewhat sore at that. My maps, says he, are the truest
of all, and the true and just land doesn't exist anywhere. Hearing that my
man gets angry, too. What? says he. I've lived and suffered all these
years believing it exists, and your maps make out it doesn't? It's robbery]
And he says to the scientist: You dirty swine. You're a crook, not a scientist.
And bang] he punches him in the nose, and bang] again] (he pauses) After
that he went home— and hung himself."
"Luka prepares to leave...”
"Peppel.— Fihere are you off to now?”
"Luka.— To the Ukrainians. I've heard they've discovered a new faith
down there— I must have a look at it. Yes, people keep looking— keep
wishing for something better. GOd give them patience]"
"Peppel.— What's your opinion? Mil they find it?"
"Luka.— Who, People? They'll find it. Look for something— want some
thing with all your heart— you'll find it."
They discuss Luka after he has left.
"Kleetch.— The old man didn't like the truth...And he was right. I
say too— what can we do with truth when even without it can't breathe?
There's Assan— had his arm crushed on the job— it'll have to be cut off,
123
I suppose that's truth for you."
"Satin (banging on the table with his fist).— Shut up, you brutes,
numskulls! That's enough about the old man! (In a calmer tone) You're
the worst of all, Baron. You understand nothing— and lie. The old man
is not a faker, that's truth, Man— that’s the truth! He understands this—
you don't. You're dull, like a brick. I understand the old man— I do.
Certainly he lied— but it was out of pity for you, the devil take you!
There are lots of people who lie out of pity for others— I know it— I've
read about it. They lie beautifully, excitingly, with a kind of inspiration.
These are lies that soothe, that reconcile on to his lot. There are lies
that justify the load that crushed a worker's a m — and hold a man to blame
for dying of starvation— I know lies! People weak in spirit— and those
who live on the sweat of others— these need lifes— the weak find support in
them, the exploiters use them as a screen. But a man Kdio is his own master,
who is independent and doesn’t batter on others— he can get along without
lies. Lies are the religion of slaves and bosses. Truth is the god of the
free man...The old man lives from within— he looks at everything through his
own eyes. I asked him once: Grandpa, what do people live for? (Trying to
imitate Luka's voice and manner.) They live for something better to came,
my friend. Let's say, there are cabintmakers. They live on, and all of
them are just trash. But one day a cabinetmaker is born— such a cabinetmaker
as has never been seen on thi3 earth— there's no equal to him— he outshines
everybody. The whole eabinet making trade is changed by him— and in one
jump it moves twenty years ahead. Likewise, all the rest— locksmiths,
say-cobblers and other working people— and peasants, too— and even the masters—
they all live for something better to come. They live a hundred— and maybe
124
more years for a better man.•• Everybody, my friend, everybody lives for
something better to come. That’s why we have to be considerate of every
man— Who knows what’s in him? Ihy he was born and what he can do? Maybe
he was born for our good fortune— for our greater benefit. And most
especially we have to be considerate of youngsters. Kids need plenty of
elbowroom. Don’t interfere with their life. Be kind to them.,,aa
Philosophising seems to be mere wishful thinking on the part of the
characters in these two works of Gorky, just observed. Often when they
philosophise, they are just grasping at some straw to save themselves from
the dark waters of the misery that surrounds them. Sometimes they merely
make a bitter observation concerning unpleasant reality.
Gorky uses philosophic introspection to penetrate the gloom that
envelops the "lower depths," or perhaps just for an ironical contrast to
the hopelessness of this station of life.
aaIbid.. pp. 49-50
CONCLUSION
Philosophic introspection is prevalent in Russian literature
because thi3 philosophically speculative tendency is imbedded deeply
in the nature of Russians, as testified by six representative Russian
realists, observed in this study. Aristocrats and peasants, intellectuals
and simple minded souls, religious zealots and agnostics have all exhibited
a certain preoccupation with it in selections from Russian fiction
presented in this paper.
The first author studied was Nikolay Gogol, Gogol appears through
the eyes of his biographers a deeply introspective man both morally and
spiritually, but paradoxically the characters in his works, Dead Souls and
The Cloak exhibit little of this type of introspection. They are little
concerned with morals or spiritual matters but are primarily preoccupied
with mundane matters. They do not grapple with metaphysical problems such
as Tolstoy’s Levin or Dostoevsky’s Ivan. They are merely concerned with
the petty, everyday affairs of their own little world, and their intro
spection reflects this. Seldom does a philosophical note enter into their
mental speculations.
This lack of the philosophical element in the introspection Of the
characters ©f Gogol is compared to the abundance of it in the characters of
Gogol’s successors is not difficult to understand when the nature of Gogol’s
works is considered. Gogol is a humorist, a satirist. He deliberately
singled out those phases of Russian life, those types of Russian characters
which he considered undesirable. He sought to ridicule them out of
existence. Evidently he did not consider the philosophical phase of the
126
of the Russian character as undesirable, hence the lack of it in his satire,
in the characters which bear the brunt of his satire.
But underneath the satiric humor that characterizes much of Gogol’s
work there is a melancholy, which could stem only from introspection. Occasion
ally it breaks through the veneer of humor in the form of an introspective
soliloquy by Gogol, and even without the knowledge of Gogol the man that
we may get from his biographers, one cannot help but sense the deeply
introspective nature of this great Russian humorist even though the characters
he created may no be as introspective as those of Tolsoy and Dostoevsky.
Biographical and autobiographical material noted in thi3 study
concerning Leo Tolstoy indicated a man who was possessed of a philosophically
introspective nature from youth. The two novels of Tolstoy which we have
observed in thi3 study are generally conceded to be of a highly autobiograph
ical nature. Much of this autobiographical material centers around three
characters which we have examined in some detail in this paper— Pierre and
Prince Andrey of War and Peace and Konstantin Levin of Anna Karenina. We
have quoted numerous pages from these two novels showing the preoccupation
of these three characters with philosophy. In fact we noted a parallel plot
technique Tolstoy used in the pursuit of these three after a philosophy*
There is a definite trend in this philosophy of the three Tolstoy character
creations. This trend is the basis of the philosophical creed Tolstoy
embraced openly in the latter years of his life. It is a simple acceptance
of life after the manner of the Russian peasant, a sort of primitive Christ
ianity. Thus we see Tolstoy uses his novels as a sounding board for his
own philosophy.
127
Tolstoy, as this study has shown, uses philosophic introspection
more than any of the other authors studied. I devoted more space to Tolstoy
in this study than the other authors because Tolstoy devotes more space
to philosophic introspection than the other five authors observed. Tolstoy
uses philosophic introspection in his works not only as a realist and as
a sounding board, for his .philosophy but as a means of character and plot
development. It is a unifying force in the broad slice of life that is
War and Peace and in the narrower segment of Russian life that is Anna
Karenina.
¥Je found the characters of Feodor Dostoevsky trying to reconcile
individual suffering and individual evil with the supreme goodness and
perfection of God. This is a typical problem posed by philosophical intro
spection. In both of the novels of Dostoevsky examined in this paper there
is a strong indication that Dostoevsky considered this type of introspection
as the wrong approach if based on too much logic, and one which may lead to
tragic consequences. Ivan Karamazov, the skeptic, applied reason to this
approach, and the turmoil of his introspection lead indirectly to an attack
of brain fever. Raskilnikov is lead to crime, almost to insanity, and to
exile in Siberia through introspection of this sort. Dostoevsky insists on
faith, the simple faith of Alyosha Karamazov and Sonia, a prostitute, whose
introspection is seldom troubled by doubt of the logie of God’s ways to man.
It is evident from the earnestness with which Dostoevsky presents
the skepticism of Ivan and the warped philosophy of Raskolnikov that he too
had been troubled by similar problems, but the definite convictions he has
concerning the approach of faith seems also to have been reached through
128
first hand knowledge. Thus we see that Dostoevsky like Tolstoy has used
his novels as a medium to express his philosophy especially through the
device of philosophic introspection.
The "Chekhov state of mind," the impotent yearning after something
better, characterizes the introspection of the characters of Chekhov.
However, the use of philosophic introspection by Chekhov is more objective
of his characters as a medium of presenting his personal philosophy to the
reader, although his characters or none the less introspective than those
of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Chekhov is primarily the realist, portraying
this philosophic tendency of the Russian people merely as the result of
faithful realism on his part, though one sometimes feels that Chekhov
perhaps may feel a Russian would be better off with less philosophising
and more action.
The elusive answer to the question "Hhy?" motivates the pessimism
that dominates the introspection of Andreyev's characters. Mental and
spiritual anarchy characterizes the introspection of his creations. / - He
offers no solution to the puzzles that possess the introspection of his
characters, for he, perhaps most of all, was tortured by "not knowing."
Maxim Gorky has indicated that the physically hungry are not much
concerned with philosophic introspection, yet his half-starved thieves and
prostitutes exhibit an equal amount of spiritual hunger, and are none
the less introspective than the well-fed aristocracy of Tolstoy's works at
times.
Briefly to sum up the use of introspection by each of the authors
studied we see Gogol, more introspective than his characters, a Tolstoy and
129
a Dostoevsky deeply introspective through their characters. In Chekhov
we find an impotent yearning after something better, in Andreyev the
futility of this yearning, in Gorky the completely "down-and-out1 1 , in
spite of the hopelessness of their situation are still not cognizant of
this futility.
In the use of philosophic introspection Gogol is subjective. Although
he uses introspection merely as a faithful portrayal of Russian character,
he interjects his own introspection in his works at times. Tolstoy and
Doestoevsky are more subjective than Gogol in that much of the philosophic
introspection of their characters is concerned with their own philosophy.
Chekhov and Gorky are primarily objective in their use of introspection.
Andreyev like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is subjective, but unlike them, he
has no positive creed or principles to advance. His is a philosophy of
negation. He epitomizes the gloom that hangs over all of Russian intro
spection.
Whether gloomily preoccupied with death or hopefully with a new
way of life, whether concerned with the bitter realities of a present life
or the glorious promises of a life hereafter, Russians all, gentry and
peasantry, orthodox believers and skeptics, respected citizens and social
outcasts, exhibit a common tendency of philosophical introspection in the
works observed in this paper.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Andreyev, Leonid, Anathema, Translated by Herman Birnstein, Hew York,
The Macmillan Co., 1923.
, He Iho Gets Slapped, Translated by Gregory Zilboorg, New York,
Brentanas Co., 1921.
, The Little Angel. Translated by B. Lowe, in Stewart, William, and
Inglis, R., Adventures in florid Literature, New York, Harcourt Brace
and Co., 1938
, The Red Laugh, Translated by Alexandra Linden, London, T. Fisher
Unwin., 1915.
Chekhov, Anton, Love and Other Stories. Translated by Constance Garnett,
New York, Macmillan Co., 1923.
, The Black Monk and Other Stories, Translated by R. E. C. Long, New
York, Frederick Stokes Co., 1915.
, The Cherry Orchard, in Two Plays by Chekhov, with an introduction
and notes by George Calderon, London, Grant Richards, 1912.
Dostoevsky, Feodor, Brothers Karamazov, Translated by Constance Garnett,
New York, Macmillan Co., 1927
: , Crime and Punishment, Translated by Constance Garnett, New York,
Macmillan Co., 1937.
Gogol, Nikolay, Chichikov*s Journies, Translated by Bernard Gueraey, with
a Foreword by Clifton Fadiman, New York, The Readers Club Press, 1942.
, Dead Souls, Translate by Constance Garnett, New York, The Modern
Library, 1936.
, The Cloak, Translated by Cournos, John, in his Treasury of Russian
Life and Humor, New York, Coward-McCann, Inc., 1943.
Gorky, Maxam, One Autumn Night, Translated by Cournos, John, in his Treasury
of Russian Life and Humor. New York, Coward-MeCarm, Inc., 1943.
, The Lower Depths. Translated by Baksby, A., in his Seven Plays of
Maxim Gorky, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1945.
131
Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina, Translated by Constance Garnett, Philadelphia,
MacRae, Smith, and Co*, Inc., 1902.
, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth, Translated by C. J. Hagarth, New
York, E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1921.
, War and Peace. Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, with a Fore
word by Clifton Fadiman, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1942.
, lhat Is Art, Translated by Aylmer Maude, New York, Funk and Wagnalls,
1904.
Secondary Sources
Brukner, Leon, Literary History of Russia. Translated by H. Havelock, London,
T. Fisher, Unwin., 1908.
Gide, Andre, Dostoevsky, Translated by Arnold Bennett, New York, Alfred A.
Knopf, 1926.
Lavrin, Janko, Gogol, London, George Rutledge and Sons, 1925.
Mirsky, Modern Russian Literature, London, Oxford University Press, Humphrey
Milford, 1925.
Olgin, Moissaye, Guide to Russian Literature, London, Jonothan Cape, 1921.
Phelps, William Lyons, Essays on Russian Novelists, New York, Macmillan Co.,
1911.
Simmons, Ernest J., Dostoevsky, The Making of a Novelist, London, New York,
Oxford University Press, 1926.
. Leo Tolstoy, London, New York, Oxford Unitversity Press, 1926.
, An Outline of Modern Russian Literature. 1880-1940. Ithaca, Cornell
University Press, 1944.
Vogue, Eugene M. M., The Russian Novelists. Translated by Jane Edmonds,
Boston, D. Lathrop Go., 1887.
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Hicks, Isaac Albert
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The use of philosophic introspection in representative selections of Russian prose fiction
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Master of Arts
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Comparative Literature
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Holwerda, Gerhardus J. (
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), Lopatin, Ivan Alexievich (
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