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The 'impersonal project' in Lev Tolstoy's prose

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The 'impersonal project' in Lev Tolstoy's prose

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The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose
By Laurel Schmuck
Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture (Slavic Languages and Literatures)
Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture)
Faculty of the USC Graduate School
University of Southern California
August 15, 2018

Schmuck 2

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 3

Introduction ‘Self’ and ‘Personhood’ in Tolstoy’s Early Writings 5

Chapter 1 Similes of Experience in Anna Karenina—Degrees of Depersonalization 50

Chapter 2 The Parable Explained—Tolstoy’s First Attempts at Christ-Like Authorship 68

Chapter 3 Fleshly Depersonalization and the Utopia of Extinction in Kreitserova sonata
(Kreutzer Sonata) 102

Chapter 4 Depersonalization and “Interpersonal” Infection—Narrative Techniques in
Tolstoy’s Detskii krug chteniia (Children’s Circle of Reading) 132

Chapter 5 Coupon “Karma”—Narrative Techniques in Tolstoy’s “Fal’shivyi kupon”
(“The Forged Coupon”) 170

Conclusion Assemblage Structure in Tolstoy, Voina i mir (War and Peace) Revisited 204

Appendix I 209

Appendix II 217

References 222

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Acknowledgments

I owe much of the credit for the conception and reworking of the ideas that populate this
dissertation to the people who filled my graduate school life with quotidian joys as well as
intellectual companionship: Susan Kechekian, Justin Trifiro, Chris McGeorge, Nike Nivar Ortiz,
Inessa Gelfenboym, Edwin Juarez Rosales, Nikita Allgire, Christine Solinsky, Spencer Artwick,
Erica Camisa Morale, Tom Seifrid, Olga Seliaznova, Ksenia Radchenko, Natasha Dame, Liza
Levina and Joseph Nakpil. Additionally, members of our field (from young colleagues to
established scholars) whom I met along the way outside of the USC community greatly
influenced my intellectual journey. These include Vera and Oleg Proskurin, Aleksei Shmelev,
Albert Vazquez, Brian Egdorf and Abbie Weil. Most importantly, my co-writer (of other
projects) and beloved friend and napersnik, Mac Watson, deserves my endless thanks and
admiration for his capacity for genuine dialogue and his generosity in continually sharing his
worldview and ideas with me. I am also deeply grateful to Mitchell Thomas for his emotional,
physical and musical support during my last year of writing, and to my family (Daniel, Bria, Dad
and Mom) for continuing to love and support me as life changes. Finally, I cannot forget to thank
the animals whose companionship made the writing, researching and editing of my dissertation
bearable when it might have been unbearable and enjoyable when it would otherwise be solitary
and isolating. These include the following dogs, cats and horses: Bogart, Goldie II, Trotsky,
Sputnik, Ebbie, Lakota, Chardonnay and Nell.
Of course, I could not have produced this manuscript without my dissertation committee.
Antonia Szabari, whom I met in a professionalization course on publication, was an invaluable
authority on how to position myself in the larger field of comparative literature. Her probing yet
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gentle questions led me to frame my dissertation in this larger context without losing track of my
project’s particular purpose in the field of Russian literature.
Greta Matzner-Gore’s knowledge of Russian nineteenth-century literature and criticism
has been an endless resource. She possesses the energy and excitement to continually offer new
interpretations of the texts we teach and study so often. Discussing my own analyses with Greta
and teaching for her have prepared me for our field more than anything else has.
Sally Pratt has been a supportive mentor to me from my very first visit to USC. Sally’s
nineteenth-century Russian poetry seminar changed my life and renewed my joy in the work we
do. She agreed to work with me at the end of that poetry course, and has since guided me
through the creation of a graduate course syllabus, the peer review and publication of an article,
and the preparation for my dissertation defense. Her mentorship has made me the teacher and
writer that I am today.
I knew I wanted Alik Zholkovsky as my main advisor my very first semester at USC. In
fall 2011, I was simultaneously taking his course on Russian criticism and his wife Lada
Panova’s pro-seminar. These courses were the most challenging intellectual situations I had yet
encountered in my life. Making it through these seminars, and enjoying the challenge and the
process, was proof to me that I was in the right place. Alik’s and Lada’s confidence in me gave
me the courage to move forward even when I was uncertain or producing shaky work. One day
when I met with Alik because of serious doubts about my purpose in the field, he told me that it
was my responsibility to use the skills that I had as well as I could even when I could not identify
their larger purpose. That simple advice along with his willingness to share his own work and
read mine has been a great gift. Alik inspires me to never stop reading and never stop analyzing.

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Introduction. ‘Self’ and ‘Personhood’ in Tolstoy’s Early Writings

Герой же моей повести […] — правда.
-Tolstoy, PSS IV, 4

[T]he hero of my tale […] is Truth.
-Tolstoy, Sebastopol, May 1855, 122-123.

From the very start of his artistic life, Tolstoy was motivated by two distinct forces—the
moral and the narrative. His entire life and art, including his diaries, fiction and nonfiction, are
characterized by an attempt to combine morality with art. Even Tolstoy’s first writings combined
moralizing and narrative strategies to convey a universalizing perspective on life. His famous
line at the end of his “May 1855” Sevastopol sketch, part of his brief foray into reportage, is an
iconic example of this tendency.
Strongly influenced by the eighteenth century and especially by the idol of his youth,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Tolstoy believed from an early age that he must immerse himself in an
expansive range of subjects while closely documenting his moral and intellectual self-betterment.
The self-building he narrates in his early diaries is testament to this.
At the same time a moral preoccupation with his relationships with others and the role of
art in his communication with his fellows prompted him to investigate the value of his work in
the context of its effect and its audience. His literary, journalistic and pedagogical endeavors in
his early career already show an interest in a larger outward-oriented project that would later be
characterized by Tolstoy’s activities in many different intellectual spheres that did not
immediately concern his talents or his fiction.
I identify the two forces that existed from the beginning in Tolstoy’s writing as first the
moral drive, which is evident in his inward-looking quest for self-perfection and conversion; and
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second the narrative drive, which is evident in the attempt to express moral ideas or feelings in a
comprehensible form that universalizes those ideas or feelings, or dramatizes conversion. The
simplest building block of the narrative for Tolstoy is a figure of speech, such as a simple simile
or a metaphor, or a short allegory or parable—a narrative inculcation of a moral idea or an
emotion in a short narrative form that is at least slightly removed from the individual experience
of one person and made comprehensible to others.
In Tolstoy’s first diary entry, he writes:

Вотъ уже шесть дней, какъ я поступилъ въ клинику, и вотъ шесть дней, какъ
я почти доволенъ собою. Les petites causes produisent de grands effets. — Я
получилъ Гаонарею, понимается, отъ того, отъ чего она обыкновенно
получается; и это пустое обстоятельство дало мнѣ толчокъ, отъ котораго я
сталъ на ту ступень, на которой я уже давно поставилъ ногу; но никакъ не
могъ перевалить туловище […] (Tolstoy PSS LXVI: 3).

It’s now six days since I entered the clinic, and for six days now I’ve been almost
satisfied with myself. Les petites causes produisent des grands effets. I have
caught gonorrhea where one usually catches it from of course; and this trivial
circumstance gave me a jolt which made me mount the step which I had put my
foot on long ago, but had been quite unable to heave my body on to […] (Tolstoy,
Tolstoy’s Diaries, Vol. I, Tr. R. F. Christian, 6).

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Even here in his first composition, Tolstoy already adopts the discourse that would
characterize so many of his later writings, that of speaking in universalizing metaphors, similes
or parables to express an individual experience that he believes to result from a universal moral
dilemma. He distills his predicament into the simple metaphor of climbing stairs. Having placed
a foot on a higher step, one still has to exert the effort to raise the rest of the body onto that
higher level. The small conversion experienced by the young Tolstoy convalescing from a
sexually transmitted disease in a clinic is translated into this universally applicable situation, a
short narrative that illustrates the emotional and moral drama which inspired Tolstoy’s desire for
change. This impersonal tendency, present from the beginning in Tolstoy’s description of human
experience stands in contrast to his reputation as a master of ultra-personal psychological
portraits of his characters.
Later in that same entry, he gives a summary of the artistic mission that would
characterize much of the literary and intellectual project of his later life:

Все, что сообразно съ первенствующею способностью человѣка —
разумомъ, будетъ равно сообразно со всѣмъ, что существуетъ;
разумъ
[15]
отдѣльнаго человѣка есть часть всего существующаго, а часть не
можетъ разстроить порядокъ цѣлаго. Цѣлое же можетъ убить часть. — Для
этаго образуй твой разумъ такъ, что бы онъ былъ сообразенъ съ цѣлымъ, съ
источникомъ всего, а не съ частью, съ обществомъ людей; тогда твой
разумъ
[16]
сольется въ одно съ этимъ цѣлымъ, и тогда общество, какъ часть,
не будетъ имѣть вліянія на тебя (Tolstoy PSS LXVI: 4).

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Everything that is in accord with man’s primary faculty – reason – will likewise
be in accord with everything that exists; an individual’s reason is part of
everything that exists, and a part cannot upset the organization of the whole. But
the whole can destroy the part. Therefore educate your reason so that it will be in
accord with the whole, the source of everything, and not with the part, with
human society; then your reason will merge into one with the whole, and then
society, as the part, will have no influence over you (7).

The tension between the self and the whole is key to understanding Tolstoy’s project
from the very beginning. He emphasizes reason and the inner self as a moral and intellectual
compass that, if followed, will lead the self into the whole. Merging with the whole, however,
means sacrificing the discrete boundaries of self. This goal, which cannot be reached without
first attaining true self-knowledge, is what I argue characterizes much of Tolstoy’s late thought
and narrative experimentation.
The blurring of boundaries between selves is what defines Tolstoy’s late concept of
artistic “infection:”

Главная особенность [заражения] в том, что воспринимающий до такой
степени сливается с художником, что ему кажется, что воспринимаемый им
предмет сделан не кем-либо другим, а им самим, и что всё то, что
выражается этим предметом, есть то самое, что так давно уже ему хотелось
выразить. Настоящее произведение искусства делает то, что в сознании
воспринимающего уничтожается разделение между ним и художником, и не
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только между ним и художником, но и между ним и всеми людьми, которые
воспринимают то же произведение искусства. В этом-то освобождении
личности от своего отделения от других людей, от своего одиночества, в
этом-то слиянии личности с другими и заключается главная
привлекательная сила и свойство искусства (Tolstoy PSS LX: 149).

The chief peculiarity of [infection] is that the receiver of a true artistic impression
is so united to the artist that he feels as if the work were his own and not someone
else’s—as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to
express. A real work of art destroys in the consciousness of the receiver the
separation between himself and the artist, and not that alone, but also between
himself and all whose minds receive this work of art. In this freeing of our
personality from its separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies
the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art (Tolstoy, “What is
Art?”, 133).

The seeds for this concept are already present in Tolstoy’s earliest works, such as his diary entry
about gonorrhea. The literal infection from which Tolstoy suffered necessitated the antidote of a
unifying artistic infection by means of universal moral truths. It was not until Tolstoy’s late
period that these convictions were integrated into narrative form.

Philosophical Influences
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Tolstoy’s oft-quoted recollection that, at the age of fifteen, he wore a medallion of Jean-
Jacques Rousseau around his neck, and that he felt he had written certain pages of Rousseau
himself (Orwin 37), is a central clue to the creation of “self” in early Tolstoy. In fact, the ideas
which Tolstoy first gleaned from his hero, most notably the criticism of all things conventional
or “comme il faut,” never disappeared from Tolstoy’s writing. Nonetheless, Tolstoy did, by the
end of his career, denounce Rousseau’s approach to truth-seeking—exploration and glorification
of personal identity. The pursuit of truth for late Tolstoy involves instead a paradoxical
progression of inward scrutiny that prompts an outward turn. One must know oneself in order to
renounce oneself. As an old man proclaims to Nekhliudov in Voskresen’e (Resurrection) when
he arrives to Siberia in the latter part of the novel: “верь всяк своему духу, и вот будут все
соединены. Будь всяк сам себе, и все будут заедино […] «Как, — говорят, — тебя зовут?»
Думают, я звание какое приму на себя. Да я не принимаю никакого. Я от всего отрекся:
нет у меня ни имени, ни места, ни отечества, — ничего нет. Я сам себе. Зовут как?
Человеком” (PSS XXXII: 419) (“[…] if every one believes himself all will be united; every one
be himself, and all will be as one. […] They say, ‘What is your name?’ thinking I shall name
myself. But I do not give myself a name. I have given up everything: I have no name, no place,
no country, nor anything. I am just myself. ‘What is your name?’ ‘Man.’” (Tolstoy,
Resurrection, 329)). This passage already links the renunciation of identity with its foremost
proponent—Christ. Surrendering one’s name for the universal title of “Man” calls to mind one of
the most humble or natural (rather than supernatural) monikers for Christ—“Son of Man,” which
Tolstoy claims, in his translation of the gospels, is a name given to all men: “Υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
— сын человеческий и по смыслу и по употреблению значит и не может значить ничего
другого, как «человек» в смысле общих всем людям свойств человеческих (“Υἱὸς τοῦ
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ἀνθρώπου — the Son of Man in meaning and in use signifies human qualities common to all”)”
(XXIV:90; translation mine). The old man in Voskresen’e advocates an initial, centripetal
attention toward the self, followed by a centrifugal one, aimed at overcoming individual markers
of self. Together, these actions amount to the ideal self-shedding Tolstoy has in mind. The
renunciation of name, which marks one’s difference, or delineation, from others, is part of an
ideal state of communion. The assumption of the banner of universal “man” is at the same time a
gesture of agitation in the context of the political problems addressed in this novel. The old
man’s crime for which he is eventually imprisoned is that of lacking a passport. Refusing to
identify oneself with institutional documentation makes one dangerously “individual”
ideologically, even if one’s goal is unification—a tension that characterized Tolstoy’s own
relationship with church and government institutions.
An earlier model of this same namelessness is Platon Karataev’s dog in Voina i mir (War
and Peace):

Собаченка эта жила у них в балагане, ночуя с Каратаевым, но иногда ходила
куда-то в город, и опять возвращалась. Она вероятно никогда никому не
принадлежала, и теперь она была ничья и не имела никакого названия.
Французы звали ее Азор, солдат-сказочник звал ее Фемгалкой, Каратаев и
другие звали ее Серый, иногда Вислый. Непринадлежание ее никому и
отсутствие имени и даже породы, даже определенного цвета, казалось,
нисколько не затрудняло лиловую собаченку (PSS XII:92).

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This little dog had made its home in their shed, sleeping by the side of Karatayev
at night, and though it sometimes made excursions into the town, always returned.
Probably it had never belonged to anyone and still had no master and no name.
The French called it Azor; the soldier who told stories called it Femgalka;
Karatayev and others called it Gray or Floppy. The fact that it belonged to no one,
had no name, or breed, or particular color, did not seem to trouble the little
lavender dog in the least (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1203-1204).

The dog does not require the centripetal, followed by the centrifugal, focus to be happy with his
communitarian lot. Tolstoy often worked out his philosophical ideas by means of animal
subjects. These subjects, according to Tolstoy, lacked the extra capacities of imagination and
reason that lead humans astray, and are able therefore to live wholly natural lives. They serve as
ideal examples throughout Tolstoy’s works, but when the same philosophies are dramatized
through human subjectivity, as above in Voskresenie, the tension of knowing oneself before
extending outward complicates the achievement of the ideal, while creating the drama of it.
One of Tolstoy’s other philosopher-idols, Arthur Schopenhauer, espoused just such a
progression in order to achieve a negation of self, along with the world perceived by it:

But if we turn our glance from our own needy and embarrassed condition to those
who have overcome the world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-
knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely denied itself, and who then
merely wait to see the last trace of it vanish with the body which it animates; then,
instead of the restless striving and effort, instead of the constant transition from
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wish to fruition, and from joy to sorrow, instead of the never-satisfied and never-
dying hope which constitutes the life of the man who wills, we shall see that
peace which is above all reason, that perfect calm of the spirit, that deep rest, that
inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere reflection of which in the
countenance, as Raphael and Correggio have represented it, is an entire and
certain gospel; only knowledge remains, the will has vanished (Schopenhauer
531; emphasis mine).

This outward turn in philosophy toward the other came later in life for Tolstoy when he
connected with Fet over Schopenhauer in the 1870s. He absorbed Schopenhauer’s philosophy
through Fet’s and Tiutchev’s poetry, and he also read Schopenhauer closely, corresponding with
Fet often on the subject (Eikhenbaum 181). The shift accompanied Tolstoy’s interest in Eastern
philosophy and his translation of the Gospels. These new perspectives caused him to question
certain tenets of the worldview he imbibed when reading Rousseau.
In contrast with Tolstoy’s late brand of truth-seeking, embodied in the old man in
Voskresen’e, Rousseau claims difference as the guiding principle in his worldview. He writes
that through uniqueness, i.e. through his individual identity, he has access to truth. He traces the
folds of his memory to find this truth, which is not truth of facts, but a subjective truth of feeling:

I have entered upon a performance which is without example, whose
accomplishments will have no imitator. I mean to present my fellow-mortals with
a man in all the integrity of nature, and this man shall be myself.
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I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have
been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least
claim originality (Rousseau 12).

For Rousseau, “Uniqueness sanctioned the audacity of his psychological revelations, the
replacement of typological schemata with personality,” which led to the formulation of “a
majestic new generalization of the laws of spiritual life” (Ginzburg 155). This was also a strategy
for Tolstoy in his early work—most obviously Detstvo (Childhood), where the diligent tracing of
emotion leads to the illumination of a certain set of universal truths (through Tolstoy’s
childhood, we arrive at the universal Childhood). However, Tolstoy’s late method of truth-
seeking shows a complete rejection of this sensibility. His opposing strategy, that of self-
knowledge geared toward self-effacement, differs from Rousseau’s method in its outward turn.
For Rousseau, and in part, the early Tolstoy, the subject of scrutiny is feeling (or psychological
reaction to external stimuli), not conscience: “I have only one faithful guide on which I can
depend: this is the succession of sentiments by which the succession of my existence has been
marked […] I cannot be deceived in what I have felt, nor in that which from sentiment I have
done, and to relate this is the chief end of my present work” (Rousseau 316). For Rousseau, a
scrutiny of internal feeling and identity reveals an external reality, which is given significance by
personal experience. As described by Ginzburg, “By studying the impulses of the soul, he
reconstructs, on the basis of their psychological consequences, the factual circumstances that
gave rise to them” (Ginzburg 154). An early Tolstoy endowed his character Olenin in Kazaki
(The Cossacks), with this epiphany inspired by a Rousseauian approach to selfhood:

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И вдруг на него нашло такое странное чувство беспричинного счастия и
любви ко всему, что он, по старой детской привычке, стал креститься и
благодарить кого-то. Ему вдруг с особенною ясностью пришло в голову, что
вот я, Дмитрий Оленин, такое особенное от всех существо, лежу теперь
один, Бог знает где, в том месте, где жил олень, старый олень, красивый,
никогда может быть не видавший человека, и в таком месте, в котором
никогда никто из людей не сидел и того не думал. […] около меня, пролетая
между листьями, которые кажутся им огромными островами, стоят в
воздухе и жужжат комары: один, два, три, четыре, сто, тысяча, миллион
комаров, и все они что-нибудь и зачем-нибудь жужжат около меня, и
каждый из них такой же особенный от всех Дмитрий Оленин, как и я сам»
(PSS VI: 76-77).

Suddenly, with extraordinary clarity, he thought: ‘Here I am, Dmitri Olenin, a
being quite distinct from every other being, now lying all alone Heaven only
knows where—where a stag used to live—an old stag, a beautiful stag who
perhaps had never seen a man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat
or thought these thoughts. […] above me, flying in among the leaves which to
them seem enormous islands, mosquitoes hang in the air and buzz: one, two,
three, four, a hundred, a thousand, a million mosquitoes, and around me all of
them buzz something and for some reason and each of them is just such a Dmitri
Olenin separate from all as I am myself’ (The Cossacks (in Kreutzer Sonata and
Other Stories, tr. Louise and Aylmer Maude, 260-261)).
Schmuck 16

In his moment of clarity, Olenin is still a completely separate being, just like the mosquitoes.
There is a unity among individuals in this moment, but the discreteness of personality is upheld.
The unity among Olenin, the stag and the mosquitoes amounts to the common experience of
emotional and physical stimuli. Olenin’s literal inhabitation of the stag’s seat lays bare the
emotional epiphany he experiences as he imagines what it is like to be in the stag’s, and in the
mosquitoes’, place. They all share, so Olenin imagines, an emotional uniqueness of personality,
which is defined when external stimuli act upon their physical and emotional receptors to create
an individual experience. The division between the external and internal is essential for defining
personal identity as discretely individual phenomenon. Once Tolstoy begins to pursue methods
of breaking down the barriers between internal and external (through “infection” of art,
impersonal, universal genre, etc.) this kind of psychological account of external stimuli and their
effects on the internal emotional state begin to disappear from Tolstoy’s writing.
A shift away from this sentimental approach occurred as Tolstoy began to focus on the
Gospels rather than Rousseau in his later career. Despite Tolstoy’s eventual excommunication,
he by no means disengaged from the Church, either in Russia or beyond, during the time before
and after his “second birth.” Moreover, he was deeply interested in theology, especially as he
wrote his treatises on faith and his translation and various explications of the Gospel. In fact, as I
will claim later, the Gospel, among other religious texts, influenced Tolstoy’s writing more and
more in the years leading up to his death.
Because Tolstoy’s philosophical transformations were so often accompanied by his
enthusiastic adoration of writers and thinkers he was reading, I find Rene Girard’s concepts of
mediation and desire helpful in reading the effects of these philosophical shifts on Tolstoy’s
Schmuck 17

prose. In terms of Girard’s concept of triangular desire, laid out in Deceit, Desire, and the
Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure, Tolstoy’s early imitation of Rousseau can be
categorized as “internal mediation:” in this case, the spheres of imitator and imitated (subject and
mediator) “penetrate each other” (Girard 9). As Tolstoy moves toward the Other, his desire could
rather be cast as external mediation, where “the distance is sufficient to eliminate any contact
between the two spheres of possibilities of which the mediator and the subject occupy the
respective centers” (Girard 9). His feeling that he has written pages of Rousseau himself show
the interpenetration of the two authors’ spheres. However, once Tolstoy identifies the fallacy of
seeking truth through analysis of feeling, he moves toward the latter of the two models, and the
mediator consequently changes—from Rousseau to Christ. Though significant portions of
Rousseau’s ideology are retained as invariant themes in Tolstoy’s work, Tolstoy no longer
imitates Rousseau aesthetically. Instead, he turns to a model who professes the late Tolstoyan
brand of truth-seeking—knowledge of self leads to renunciation of self and union with others.
This is Christ, whom he attempts to imitate as man and author.
The imitative tendency in Tolstoy thus shifts toward a new object. In his reverent
emulation of Rousseau, Tolstoy sought Godlike perfection through self-scrutiny: “The impulse
of the soul toward God is inseparable from a retreat into the self” (Girard 58). As Tolstoy began
to extend toward the Other, with the desire to commune with all, he began to imitate another
mediator, the “Son of Man,” who, to Tolstoy, is a human representative of God’s goodness, and
is the embodiment of the Other, his fellow man. “Just as three-dimensional perspective directs all
the lines of a picture toward a fixed point, either beyond or in front of the canvas, Christianity
directs existence toward a vanishing point, either toward God or toward the Other. Choice
always involves choosing a model […]” (Girard 58).
Schmuck 18

Tolstoy ultimately chose Christ, leaving behind the self-centric worldview of Rousseau.
The scrutiny of self that characterized Tolstoy’s early work is gradually transformed into a more
guilt-ridden scrutiny of past mistakes and the consequences of those mistakes in a post-
conversion life. Tolstoy’s focus moves away from sentimental accounts of his inner development
towards a focus on the consequences of wrongdoing, whether in thought or deed, on others. This
emphasis also results in a close attention to the connections between actions, their consequences
and their consequences’ consequences. This later form of scrutiny accounts for the stories that
reveal workings of evil in the past lives of converting heroes, such as in “Otets Sergii” (Father
Sergius”), Voskresen’e (Resurrection), “Smert’ Ivan Il’icha” (“The Death of Ivan Il’ich”) and
“Fal’shivyi kupon,” (“The Forged Coupon”) to name a few.
Tolstoy’s imitation of Christ, though, inevitably yields a tension between becoming
selfless and becoming godlike. Along with his efforts to imitate Christ in life, Tolstoy also
strives to imitate Christ as author. Since Christ ultimately commands his followers to renounce
the self, the imitation of Christ as author presents a dilemma—should Tolstoy aim for self-
effacement or godlike authority in his writing, and is it possible to do both? I argue that Tolstoy
accomplished both to varying degrees and at different times, and occasionally simultaneously.
These efforts led to examples of depersonalized, impersonal and interpersonal narrative
techniques in his later writings.
As Tolstoy’s writing style and narrative structures became more and more frugal, his
choice of sparser language was paired with an abnegation of the personal in language, character
and plot. This is part of a larger trend in modernism, which “[o]ften involved a decentering of
subject: an art emphatically not conceived as self-expression, an art displacing the centre of
interest onto language, or onto poetic transmutation itself, or even dissolving the self as usually
Schmuck 19

conceived in favor of some new constellation” (Taylor 456). It is no surprise that Tolstoy came
to similar conclusions as the modernists did, since his earlier works already recognized
mysterious impersonal forces as powerful counterpoints to the individual.
Modern Writers and Movements Parallel to or Following Tolstoy’s Impersonal
Experiments
Modernist literary groups whose aesthetic and life ideologies followed ideas of psychic
unity formed parallel to Tolstoy in the late nineteenth century. One notable group, which
originated in France, but had some ties to Russia, that exemplified such a philosophy is the
unanimists (approximately 1908-1933):

This new concept-Unanimism-is primarily centred on the group as a unit. The
group may be of any size or constituted in any manner […] but maintaining an
essential psychic continuity […] These groups are not always conscious of their
own existence. When they are they become deified, i.e., super-human because
[…] super-individual. They create out of themselves a god (dieu with a small d).
Dieu with a capital D is the godhead of the "Unanime" with a capital U, the super-
group co-extensive with humanity into which all other groups, according to the
theory, are ultimately destined to merge. For, according to Romains, we are now
on the threshold of a Unanimist age; it is a process beginning. It should be added
also that groups are more than human in that they include their inanimate
surroundings. A street group-conscious would include the walls of the houses and
the roadway. Similarly a train or a boat is a group material and human. Even an
individual can be considered a group composed of micro-biological organisms-
Schmuck 20

cells, ganglions and so on-which cooperate to create the whole person (Walter
865-866).

Though Tolstoy dismissed some of the future members of this school as decadents when he
wrote “Chto takoe iskusstvo?” in the 1890s, he did not seem to be aware of them when they later
developed in this direction in the first decade of the twentieth century. Parallel to Jung and to
such literary movements is the notion of class-consciousness described by Marx: “the laboring
masses should feel their community of grievances and of interests, their solidarity as a class in
opposition to all other classes” (Marx and Engels 182). In contrast with its parallels, this is not a
psychic unity, but a psychologically- and sociologically-formed state of communion.
All of these parallel moments, which contributed to a common trend of impersonality in
Modern thought, had an effect on literary production. The unanimists wrote their own literature
reflecting their ideals. More mainstream genres, such as ideological realism and dystopian
science fiction, also owe some of their inspiration to these movements. Katerina Clark, in her
morphological study of the socialist realist narrative, writes of the socialist hero and the
collective unity: “When the Soviet hero sheds his individualistic self at the moment of passage it
could be said that he dies as an individual and is reborn as a function of the collective (Clark
174). Zheleznyi potok (The Iron Flood) by Alexander Serafimovich encapsulates this value
system perhaps, out of all the Socialist Realist classics, in the most narrative manner. The story
follows an army of displaced villagers during the Civil War as they travel alongside a railroad
toward conflict with the white army and with the Cossacks. During the course of the story, the
crowd of characters transforms from individuals into a collective unit. “Quite apart from its
merits or defects as literature, The Iron Flood is a significant historical document. It is significant
Schmuck 21

not so much for the events which form the core of its narrative as for the approach and method of
the author. […] Its portrayal of the mass as the hero in history; its unconcern with individual
personalities” (Brown 123). In this way, Zheleznyi Potok is not only Socialist Realist, but
unanimist. In contrast, Evgeny Zamiatin’s dystopian masterpiece, My (We), explores the
discovery of self in spite of the oppression of the collective. Zamiatin’s novel, however, ends
with the hopeless erasure of self once again, when D-503, after his brain operation, does not even
remember the personhood of the collective, let alone his own: “кто -- мы? Кто -- я?” (“Who are
those ‘we’? Who am I?”) Likewise, Ayn Rand’s Anthem illustrates a reaction against such
reflections of the collective in narrative. The hero’s discovery the of the pronoun “I” at the end of
the novel is an iconic response to the elimination of the capacity to speak or even think outside
the collective (Zholkovsky, “Gore mykat’”): “I am. I think. I will. My hands… My spirit… My
sky… My forest… This earth of mine. What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the
answer.” This finale is in response to the rest of the novel, which is full of we after we: “WE
ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE. THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT
WE: ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER.”
Though it is provocative to place Tolstoy beside movements like these which sprung up
later from partially common roots, Tolstoy’s impersonal project lacked the trauma of a complete
regime change in his life (though he did experience censorship and conflict with the
government), like that which prompted all three examples just mentioned. It must be stressed that
Tolstoy came primarily out of a tradition of romanticism, and therefore began as an utterly
personal writer. So, like other pre-revolutionary writers on the cusp of Modernism, Tolstoy’s
impersonal project retains connections to both Romantic and upcoming Modernist trends. In his
study of pronoun play in Russian literature, Alexander Zholkovsky notes, after discussing the
Schmuck 22

political examples just mentioned, that: “Не то чтобы к роковому 1917 году русская
литература не располагала опытом работы с обезличивающим мы.” (“It’s not so that
Russian literature neglected to engage with the impersonalizing ‘we’ until the fatal year of
1917.”) Zholkovsky offers the non-political, pre-revolutionary example of Chekhov’s
“Dushechka”:
Тема чеховской «Душечки» (1899) – полное растворение заглавной героини
в ее партнерах […] оборотной стороной которого оказывается
вампирическое поглощение ею их личностей (приводящее к смерти обоих
мужей, отъезду сожителя и протестам мальчика). Оригинальной словесной
проекцией этой темы является обыгрывание местоимения мы. Сначала в
рассказе вводится и укореняется лейтмотивная формула мы с... ( Ванечкой, а
затем Васечкой), сплавляющая Душечку и ее очередного мужа в единую
личность […] (Zholkovsky, “Gore mykat’”)
The theme of Chekhov’s “Dushechka” (1899) is the full dissolution of the titular
heroine into her partner[s…] which if approached from the reverse looks like a
vampiric appropriation of their personalities […] The original linguistic
projection of this theme is in Chekhov’s playfulness with the pronoun “we.” From
the beginning of the story, the leitmotif formula my s… (we with…)
1
(Vanechka,

1
Not possible in English, the way to say “he and I” in Russian is by saying “we with him.” In
Chekhov’s story, Dushechka essentially renames herself “We with [current partner],” thereby
dissolving her own identity into his.
Schmuck 23

and after that Vasechka), fuses Dushechka and her latest husband into one
personal identity.”
The presence of sentimental and romantic traditions are still felt in the background of Chekhov’s
story, and despite Tolstoy’s disagreement with Chekhov and others about the interpretation of
“Dushechka” (about this more later), Tolstoy’s proto-Modernist and Modernist experiments most
resemble Chekhov’s example. Much attention has been paid to Tolstoy’s interpretation of the
story, but nothing has yet been said about the significance of Chekhov’s pronoun play with
respect to Tolstoy’s own project of blending selves. I will address this in my discussion of
infection.
The Personal Paradox
It is not surprising, then, that Tolstoy also resembles the more Romantic Modernist trend
that succeeded him. The philosophical affinity between Tolstoy’s ideas and a Romantic brand of
Modernism can be seen in Taylor’s elaboration of the centripetal-centrifugal progression
discussed at the beginning of this introduction:

[I]nwardness is as much a part of the modernist sensibility as of the Romantic.
And what is within is deep: the timeless, the mythic, and the archetypical that are
brought forth by Mann or Joyce—or Jung, whose work is fully a product of the
modernist sensibility—may be transpersonal. But our access to it can only be
within the personal. In this sense, the depths remain inner for us as much as for
our Romantic forbears. They may take us beyond the subjective, but the road to
Schmuck 24

them passes inescapably through a heightened awareness of personal experience
(Taylor 481).

Taylor points out the obvious—the inescapably personal nature of perceiving. In the same way,
but with deliberate emphasis on the ethics of careful perception
2
, Tolstoy’s path toward
“transpersonal” effects always comes through genuine self-knowledge.
In Olga Meerson’s study of personalism as it is worked out in poetics in various late
nineteenth-century authors’ writing, the same tension arises. The inevitable reality of a reader’s
personal perception, as well as the narrator’s “personal” (to a certain extent, even if the narrator
is an object, an animal or a god) perspective serves as a condition of Meerson’s theoretical
framework. Her goal is to show how the author’s person is filtered through the persons of his
characters, which are seeing subjectivities, not seen objects. She shows how this general reality
can be manipulated aesthetically to achieve different aims. Though personalism sounds like a
perfect antonym for Tolstoy’s impersonal project, some of its guiding principles are not
antithetical to Tolstoy’s aims. Meerson differentiates “individualism” from “personalism” by
highlighting the connoted objectification of individualism:

2
This ultimately relates to what Gary Saul Morson discovers about truthseeking in Tolstoy. It is
through lack of attention that characters misidentify meaning in life, which is actually quite
simple. “It is in the rhythms of everyday life, in the ordinary and unnoticed, that the meaning of
life is to be found […] the truths we seek are hidden in plain view (Morson 5).
Schmuck 25

Главное в персонализме то, что он никак не синонимичен индивидуализму,
а, с интересующей нас точки зрения, даже ему противоположен. И дело
здесь в том, что личность — не синомин индивида. Индивид — это человек
как наименьшая, атомичная единица собрания людей — “индивид” —
потому, что далее неделим, как объект наблюдения для другого субъекта,
ему внеположного. Личность жe — это человек видящий, а не
наблюдаемый, субъект, а не объект (Meerson 19-21).

The main thing with personalism is that it is not synonymous with individualism,
but, interestingly for us, is even contradictory to it. And the thing here is that
identity [lichnost’] is not a synonym of individual. An individual is a person,
likened to the smallest atomic unit
3
of a group of people—“individual” because it
cannot be divided further, as an object of observation for another subject, who
exists beyond the limits of this object. Identity [lichnost’] is a person seeing, not
an observed object, but a subject (my translation).

3
Interestingly Tolstoy used a similar metaphor in his notebooks to express the absurdity of
analyzing individuals in history when he was finishing Voina i mir: “Человек, личность, есть
атом. Он необходим, как необходим атом для теории физики, но определение его может
довести только до абсурда” (PSS LXVIII: 88; italics Tolstoy’s) (“A person, identity, is an
atom. It is indispensable, as an atom is indispensable to the theory of physics, but the definition
of it will lead only to the absurd” (my translation)).
Schmuck 26

Tolstoy would not have made the same distinction to champion subjectivity over individualism.
Rather, Tolstoy used subjectivity as the first step toward self-knowledge, after which that
subjectivity should eventually be overcome.
4
The objectification of the individual was not the
only alarming attribute of individualism for Tolstoy. The seeing “I” also proves to be
individualistic when the “seeing” is carried out improperly. Meerson goes on to transpose these
concepts onto poetics:

В применении к поэтике это значит, что персоналистские тексты
моделируют не образы героев и сюжетные повороты как некую
объективную реальность или по ее образцу, а напротив, моделируют
субъектное видение и сознание самих героев и восприятие этим видением и
других, и себя, и сюжетных поворотов. Такой подход для литературы
предпологает, что никакая реальность не остается не пропущенной через
призму того или иного сознания (Meerson 21).

When applied to poetics this means that personalist texts do not fashion figures of
heroes and narrative twists like any objective reality or by the patterns of that
reality. On the contrary, they fashion subjective seeing and the consciousness of
the heroes themselves and the perception of others, of self and of narrative twists

4
This process is explained philosophically by Charles Taylor above (481), and is demonstrated
by Tolstoy in the quote by the old man in Voskresen’e, who preaches that man need only know
himself (listen to his conscience) in order to unite with others.
Schmuck 27

by means of that seeing. Such an approach for literature supposed that there is no
reality that is not filtered through the device of someone or another’s
consciousness.

This is readily understood by Tolstoy especially in his early writing, where he accomplished
great feats of depicting ultra-personalized perceptions. It is this knack of his for personalizing
that eventually would lead to his theory of “infection.” The “personalist” assumption that all
artistic material is filtered through perceiving consciousness is one of the building blocks for a
theory that attempts to find a way to universalize that perception. “Infection” is essentially an
impersonal (in the sense of being universally applicable, like impersonal grammatical
constructions) system of personalized art.
One of Meerson’s main goals is to argue against Barthes’ famous theory expressed in “La
mort de l’auteur” that the author’s work does not originate in the author’s person, and that one
should not use his intentions or biography in the interpretation of that work. I argue that
Tolstoy’s early career is firmly rooted in creating the “seeing subjects” through which his
personal ideas are filtered, as described by Meerson. His late period, on the other hand,
prefigured the depersonalization of literature that would become ubiquitous in Modernism.
In fact, Tolstoy’s project can be read in light of Barthes’ theory up to a point. Barthes
hearkens back to an oral and performative tradition of literary cultures in the same way that
Tolstoy looks to folk literature as an ideal of non-individualist art:

[…] in ethnographic societies, the responsibility for a narrative is never assumed
by a person, but by a mediator, shaman or relator whose “performance”—the
Schmuck 28

mastery of the narrative code—may possibly be admired but never his ‘genius’.
The author is a modern figure, a product of our society insofar as, emerging from
the middle ages with English empiricism, French rationalism and the personal
faith of the Reformation, it discovered the prestige of the individual, of, as it is
more nobly put, the ‘human person’. It is thus logical that in literature it should be
this positivism, the epitome and culmination of capitalist ideology, which has
attached the greatest importance to the ‘person’ of the author (Barthes 142-143).

As Barthes lays out his “prehistory of modernism,” he writes of Proust: “Proust gave modern
writing its epic. By a radical reversal, instead of putting his life into his novel, as is so often
maintained, he made of his very life a work for which his own book was the model” (Barthes
144). Tolstoy in the same way understood the project of constructing an “authorless” body of
works, which illustrated his reduction of self far better than he could in life.
In Tolstoy’s most obvious attempt at removing himself from his work, in his Krug
chteniia, he does take on the role of the mediator, or more specifically in his case—the curator.
Barthes’ idea, on the other hand, of the performance of language with no origin does not, in the
end, coincide with the vision of Tolstoy, whose inescapable control over that “performance’s”
interpretation, would look more like a prophesying voice or an inspired hand, whose origin is
God, truth or goodness, coming from true self-knowledge of the human soul and thereby
transcending its boundaries. Tolstoy attempts to depersonalize or to diminish the author’s
personhood, but he never goes so far as to discredit a central meaning in a text. He may play with
the notion of the ultimate annihilation of the Schopenhauerian will, which cannot be known or
described, but he would never discredit the very mechanism for expressing true feeling or moral
Schmuck 29

message in a text. This would undo his mission, which is after all to set up a network by which
meaning can be shared and universally accessed. His steps toward this goal do have something in
common with what Barthes describes a certain revolutionary force that threatens to tear down
institutional laws, scientific theories and theological dogma. Nonetheless, Tolstoy never dares to
topple meaning itself. For this reason, Tolstoy does not go as far as Barthes’ theory:

writing posits meaning ceaselessly to evaporate it, carrying out a systematic
exemption of meaning. In precisely this way literature (it would be better from
now on to say writing), by refusing to assign a ‘secret’, an ultimate meaning, to
the text (and to the world as text), liberates what may be called an anti-theological
activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary, since to refuse to fix meaning is, in
the end, to refuse God and his hypostases—reason, science, law (Barthes 147).

When Barthes speaks of the written word as authorless, he argues that the true seat of authority is
in readership: “no one, no ‘person’, says it: its source, its voice is not the true place of writing,
which is reading” (Barthes 147). The unique tension in Tolstoy’s project lies in his reluctance to
give up control of the text until its reading is utterly fixed. The author gives up his authority to
the reader only when the interpretation is so transparent that author and reader merge into one.
The removal of personality from authorial identity is a feat Tolstoy never fully achieved,
though Paperno claims he came closest in his Krug chteniia, where, for the most part, he silenced
his own voice and replaced it with the voices of other albeit carefully picked writers.

Schmuck 30

Infection
The notion of authorial identity is important for Tolstoy’s own theory of art, in which
“infection” with genuine feelings the author felt when creating a piece of art are transmitted to
the reader through a well-constructed narrative (or other forms of art). The feelings here
communicated are not building blocks of personality, but rather potentially universal
experiences, which are accessible to all through art.
The communication between author and reader of genuine feelings felt at the moment of
a piece of art’s creation is a tenuous possibility, and brings up questions of intent and
performance. Theories of art as performative, as quoted earlier in Barthes essay, and which
emerge in response to modernist trends of impersonality in literature bring up irony. Tolstoy no
doubt would reject the artifice of performance and any irony it might enable in a text. Irony
implies two audiences—an intelligently perceptive one and one that is not. This division would
create an exclusivity surrounding the meaning of a text which would set up boundaries between
selves, rather than dissolving those barriers. Because of this separation between readers and
author, “infection” is not always successful—especially when the author may or may not be
performing or using irony. Tolstoy’s dissonant reading of Chekhov’s “Dushechka” is a perfect
example of such a potentially misplaced infection.
Though the majority of readers and Chekhov himself read the story as funny, Tolstoy
claimed that “не смешна, а свята, удивительна душа «Душечки» с своей способностью
отдаваться всем существом своим тому, кого она любит” (PSS XLI: 375) (“not funny, but
holy, remarkable is the soul of Dushechka with her capability to give away her entire being to the
one she loves”). Though it is tempting to hold this up as an example of false infection, I will first
Schmuck 31

examine Tolstoy’s defense in his “Posleslova k ‘Dushechke’” (“Afterword to ‘Dushechka’”). He
argues that Chekhov, though consciously (“in his reasoning”) wanted to present a laughable
character, he instead acted according to his inner feeling:

Я думаю, что в рассуждении, не в чувстве автора, когда он писал
«Душечку», носилось неясное представление о новой женщине […] и он,
начав писать «Душечку», хотел показать, какою не должна быть женщина.
Валак общественного мнения пригласил Чехова проклясть слабую,
покоряющуюся, преданную мужчине, неразвитую женщину, и Чехов пошел
на гору, и были возложены тельцы и овны, но, начав говорить, поэт
благословил то, что хотел проклинать (PSS XLI: 375).

I think that in his reasoning, not in feeling, when he wrote “Dushechka,” there
was an unclear conception of the new woman […] and he, having begun to write
“Dushechka,” wanted to show, how a woman should not be. The Balak
5
of social
opinion invited Chekhov to curse the weak, subdued, devoted to her husband,
uneducated woman, and Chekhov went up the mountain, and the sacrificial calves
and rams were prepared, but, having begun to speak, the poet praised that which
he wanted to curse.

In addition to arguing that his infection theory worked even against reasonable intention,
Tolstoy, perhaps unwittingly is also proposing a depersonalization of writing. “Толстой таким

5
Balak, King of Moab, offers Balaam money to curse the Israelites in the Biblical story.
Schmuck 32

образом, пускает в xод издавна известный аргумент, что намерения писателя приxодят
порой в противоречия с тем, что им пишется.") ("Tolstoy in this way launches the well-
known argument that the intentions of the author from time to time come in conflict with what he
writes.”) (Lakshin 101). Chekhov’s text, Tolstoy proposes, is not wholly under Chekhov’s
rational control. Rather, as a true artist, Chekhov’s genuine feeling got the best of him and,
bubbling up of its own accord, imbued the text with its artfulness.
It is impossible to verify the process of infection or its degree of successful
implementation. However practical or impractical the mechanism of Tolstoy’s “infection” is, it
nonetheless constitutes another example of his conceptualization of depersonalization. The
process of infection is to make two or more people experience one and the same feeling and
thereby give up the discreteness of their minds and experience. Additionally, as in the case
above, infection theory, due to the laws of performance, increases the separation between an
author’s intentions and his work.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Tolstoy’s Early and Mid-Career Writings
In the following chapters, I will examine Tolstoy’s innovative narrative techniques,
inspired by his moral thought, which undermine the dominance of “personal” linkages in his
fiction and nonfiction. By tracing impersonal, depersonalized or transpersonal techniques in
Tolstoy’s late writing, I will show how his “second birth” did not merely affect his philosophy
and treatise-writing, but inspired bold experimentation in narrative form. Before introducing the
contents of the upcoming chapters, I will provide a catalogue of impersonal, interpersonal and
depersonal motifs in Tolstoy’s earlier works as a useful preface to my studies.
In Voina i mir (War and Peace), Tolstoy made his first significant attempt to alter the
Schmuck 33

structure of a narrative to subvert the “personal” linkages which make up the traditional novel.
Though Tolstoy’s novel still relies mostly on relationships between characters to connect the
plot, these characters are chosen to counterbalance the personalities of so-called “great men”
who were understood to have dictated the course of history. Tolstoy’s emphasis on seemingly
insignificant events, rather than widely accepted cause-and-effect interpretations of historical
events is an attempt to draw attention away from personality. By contrasting the “great men”
with the sum of all the seemingly insignificant actions of the masses, the power is shifted to the
many instead of the few:

Каждый человек живет для себя, пользуется свободой для достижения
своих личных целей и чувствует всем существом своим, что он может
сейчас сделать или не сделать такое-то действие; но как скоро он сделает
его, так действие это, совершенное в известный момент времени, становится
невозвратимым и делается достоянием истории, в которой оно имеет не
свободное, а предопределенное значение.
Есть две стороны жизни в каждом человеке: жизнь личная, которая тем
более свободна, чем отвлеченнее ее интересы, и жизнь стихийная, роевая,
где человек неизбежно исполняет предписанные ему законы.
Человек сознательно живет для себя, но служит бессознательным орудием
для достижения исторических, общечеловеческих целей. Совершенный
поступок невозвратим, и действие его, совпадая во времени с миллионами
действий других людей, получает историческое значение. Чем выше стоит
человек на общественной лестнице, чем с бòльшими людьми он связан, тем
Schmuck 34

больше власти он имеет на других людей, тем очевиднее
предопределенность и неизбежность каждого его поступка.
«Сердце царево в руце Божьей».
Царь — есть раб истории (PSS XI: 6).

Every man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his own ends, and feels
in his whole being that he can at any moement perform or abstain from
performing this or that action, but as soon as he has performed it, that action
executed at a given moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history,
in which it has not a free but a predetermined significance.
There are two sides to the life of every man: the personal life, which is free to
the degree that its interests are abstract, and the elemental life of the swarm, in
which he ineluctably follows the laws decreed for him.
Consciously man lives for himself, but unconsciously he serves as an instrument
for the accomplishment of the historical, social ends of mankind. An act
committed is irrevocable, and that action coinciding in time with the actions of
millions of other men acquires historical significance. The higher a man stands in
the social scale, the more connections he has with people, and the more power he
has over them, the more manifest is the predetermination and inevitability of his
every act.
“The hearts of kings are in the hand of God.”
A king is the slave of history (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 731-732).

Schmuck 35

The notion of “swarm life” is a radical depersonalization of linkages among people and events.
Outside of “swarm life,” Voina i mir’s narrative is still highly personal. Many of the ideas
expressed in the novel are presented through the inner monologs of the characters. However,
several of these characters express the ideas of an interpersonal philosophy that would later be
expressed by Tolstoy structurally. One of the characters whose perspective contains seeds for
Tolstoy’s later interpersonal ideas is Natasha. Several scenes in particular offer an interpersonal
capacity in Natasha that distinguishes her from the other characters in the novel (except for her
counterpart Pierre, about whom will follow). Most memorably, her natural openness results in
her downfall when she is being seduced by Anatol’. She feels an absence of borders between him
and her, as if her “selfhood” is not contained: “между ним и ею нет никакой преграды”
(“between him and her there were no barriers”) (PSS X: 332). Situations like the seduction of
Natasha occur throughout Tolstoy’s early and late work (see for example Semeinnoe schast’e
(Family Happiness) and Anna Karenina). Usually a female character who is essentially
identified as deeply good becomes fascinated with the excitement of social flirtation and is
drawn into the first intoxicating intimacy she experiences. Usually the character repents and
finds pleasure in marriage or motherhood after her mistake, often after a period of physical-
emotion illness. In Voina i mir, there is also an ambivalent loss of boundaries between self and
family in the character of Natasha in the epilogue. Natasha does not lose personal identity to the
extent Dushechka does, but she is made unrecognizable physically and her mind is overrun with
problems of the family. She plays the role of the mother so well that her former identity is no
longer evident in her appearance or personality.
A late example of this loss of discrete personality is found in the short story “Chto ia videl
Schmuck 36

vo sne” (“What I Dreamed”)
6
(1906), explicitly links the phenomenon with Tolstoy’s aesthetic
idea of “infection,” which plays out as a human idea in the story and as an aesthetic one outside
of it. The first chapter of the story features information about the young girl gone astray (after the
fact) entirely from the perspective of her angry father, who paints an incriminating picture of his
daughter. His exaggeratedly self-absorbed perception is pointed out by another character who
rebukes him: “всё «я». Ведь она тоже «я». (“always ‘I’. Is she not also ‘I’”) (PSS XXXVI: 76).
In the following chapter, when we are presented with the daughter’s story again, this time from
her perspective, the seduction scene is told with explicit use of the term “infection”: “она сама
не знает, как и когда началось это страшное заражение взглядами и улыбками, смысл
которых нельзя было выразить словами, но которые имели значение, как ей казалось,
превосходящее всякие слова. Эти взгляды и улыбки открывали друг другу их души, не
только их души, но какие-то общие всему человечеству, великие и самые важные тайны”
(PSS XXXVI: 80; emphasis mine). (“she herself did not know how and when it all began—this
terrifying infection by way of smiles and glances, the meaning of which could not be expressed
in words, but which had meaning, it seemed to her, far superior to any words.”) Afterwards, she
finds herself pregnant and abandoned, and forsakes her previous interest in society for the joy of
motherhood despite her suffering as estranged from and condemned by all. After hearing her side
of the story, the reader, who, since the story was previously filtered through the father’s
perspective was previously unable to feel pity for the daughter, may now be infected with this

6
This story is analyzed by Jacob Emery as one of several instances of the infection metaphor’s
use in Tolstoy’s fiction in “The Infections Imagination of Leo Tolstoy,” The Russian Review,
Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oct. 2011), pp. 627-645.
Schmuck 37

feeling (at least this is the clear purpose of this structuring principle in the story). Finally, when
the father visits his daughter with the intention of expressing his anger, he instead is infected
with pity, which opens his soul to himself and others:

— Папа, прости, — сказала она, подвигаясь к нему.
— Меня, — проговорил он, — меня прости, — и он захлюпал, как ребенок,
целуя ее лицо, руки и обливая их слезами.
Жалость к ней открыла ему самого себя. И увидав себя, какой он был
действительно, он понял, как он виноват перед ней, виноват за свою
гордость, холодность, даже злобу к ней. И он рад был тому, что виноват, что
ему нечего прощать, а самому нужно прощение (PSS XXXVI: 84; emphasis
mine).

“Papa, forgive me,” she said, moving toward him
“Me,” he said, “forgive me,” and he began to weep like a child, kissing her face
and hands and drenching them with tears.
Pity for her opened him up to himself. Seeing himself as he really was, he
understood how guilty he was before her, guilty for his pride, coldness and even
hatred toward her. And he was happy that he was guilty and that there was
nothing for him to forgive, and that he himself was in need of forgiveness
(emphasis mine).

Returning “to the more prominent example of Natasha, her openness is not only exhibited
Schmuck 38

in the dangerously infectious seduction she experiences with Anatol’. Her capacity to dissolve or
blend her selfhood with that of others is also evident in her prayers, when she expects that “вот-
вот невидимая сила возьмет ее и избавит от себя, от своих сожалений. желаний, укоров,
надежд и пороков” (“any moment now an invisible force will seize her and deliver her from
herself, her regrets, reproaches, her hopes and her vices”) (PSS XI: 75).
Pierre and Natasha seem to be the chosen characters who embody and occasionally
comprehend both the negative and positive effects of the dissolution of self. In a single passage,
Pierre accesses both extremes during his time as a prisoner with the French army. First he
becomes aware of a communal sense of disunity and coldness descending on the French officers
and the prisoners alike, among whom previously reigned a friendly accord. Pierre identifies an
“unknowable force” guiding the actions of the group. He does not see in individual people, but
only a general movement:

Пьер не видал людей отдельно, а видел движение их.
Все эти люди и лошади как будто гнались какою-то невидимою силою. Все
они, в продолжение часа, во время которого их наблюдал Пьер, выплывали
из разных улиц с одним и тем же желанием скорее пройти; все они
одинаково, сталкиваясь с другими, начинали сердиться, драться;
оскаливались белые зубы, хмурились брови, перебрасывались всё одни и те
же ругательства, и на всех лицах было одно и то же молодечески-
решительное и жестко-холодное выражение, которое по утру поразило
Пьера при звуке барабана на лице капрала.
[…]
Schmuck 39

Казалось, все эти люди испытывали теперь, когда остановились посреди
поля в холодных сумерках осеннего вечера, одно и то же чувство
неприятного пробуждения от охватившей всех при выходе поспешности и
стремительного куда-то движения. Остановившись, все как будто поняли,
что неизвестно еще куда идут и что на этом движении много будет тяжелого
и трудного.
[…]
От офицеров до последнего солдата было заметно в каждом как будто
личное озлобление против каждого из пленных, так неожиданно
заменившее прежде дружелюбные отношения (PSS XII: 104-105).

Pierre did not see these people individually; he saw only the general movement.
All these men and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible power.
During the hour Pierre watched them they all came pouring out of the different
streets with one and the same impulse: to get on as quickly as possible. They all
jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight; teeth were bared, brows
furrowed, the same oaths were exchanged, and on every face there was the same
expression of reckless determination and cold cruelty that had struck Pierre that
morning on the corporal’s face when the roll of drums sounded.
[…]
It seemed that all these men, now that they had halted in the midst of fields in
the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced the same disagreeable
awakening after the haste and eagerness to push on that had possessed them at the
Schmuck 40

start. It was as if they realized, now that they had come to a halt, that they did not
know where they were going, and that much misery and hardship lay before them.
[…]
From the officers down to the least soldier there was evidence of something
resembling personal spite against every one of the prisoners, in surprising contrast
to their former friendly attitude (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1215-1216).

In the same chapter, after a paradoxically joyous time with the prisoners around the fire, Pierre
wanders off by himself and experiences the other extreme of self-transcendence. He laughs at the
seemingly ridiculous idea that his expansive, eternal soul could be contained through
imprisonment. Then he becomes aware of surrounding nature, and of his faraway friends’
continued fireside carousal, and he proclaims to himself that all this that is outside him is at the
same time his, himself and inside of him:

Пьер вернулся, но не к костру, к товарищам, а к отпряженной повозке, у
которой никого не было. Он, поджав ноги и опустив голову, сел на
холодную землю у колеса повозки и долго неподвижно сидел, думая.
Прошло более часа. Никто не тревожил Пьера. Вдруг он захохотал своим
толстым, добродушным смехом так громко, что с разных сторон с
удивлением оглянулись люди на этот странный, очевидно-одинокий смех.
— Ха, ха, ха! — смеялся Пьер. И он проговорил вслух сам с собою: — Не
пустил меня солдат. Поймали меня, заперли меня. В плену держат меня.
Кого меня? Меня? Меня — мою бессмертную душу! Ха, ха, ха!.. Ха, ха, ха!..
Schmuck 41

— смеялся он с выступившими на глаза слезами.
[…]
Прежде громко шумевший треском костров и говором людей, огромный,
нескончаемый бивак затихал; красные огни костров потухали и бледнели.
Высоко в светлом небе стоял полный месяц. Леса и поля, невидные прежде
вне расположения лагеря, открывались теперь вдали. И еще дальше этих
лесов и полей виднелась светлая, колеблющаяся, зовущая в себя
бесконечная даль. Пьер взглянул в небо, в глубь уходящих, играющих звезд.
«И всё это мое, и всё это во мне, и всё это я!» думал Пьер. «И всё это они
поймали и посадили в балаган, загороженный досками!» Он улыбнулся и
пошел укладываться спать к своим товарищам (PSS VII: 104-106).

Pierre went back, not to his companions by the campfire but to an unharnessed
wagon where there was no one. He sat down on the cold ground by one of the
wagon wheel, his legs tucked under him and his head hanging, and remained
motionless for a long time, deep in thought. More than an hour passed. Nobody
disturbed him. Suddenly he burst into such loud peals of exuberant, good-natured
laughter that on every side men looked up in astonishment at the sound of this
curious, and evidently solitary laughter.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: “The soldier did not
let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold me captive. Who is ‘me’?
…Me? Me—is my immortal soul! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!...” and he laughed till
the tears came to his eyes.
Schmuck 42

[…]
The vast, endless bivouac, which not long before had been humming with talk
and the crackling of campfires, had grown quiet; the red glow of the fires had
faded and died out. High overhead in the luminous sky hung the full moon.
Forests and fields beyond the confines of the camp, unseen before, were now
visible in the distance. And further still, beyond those fields and forests, was the
bright shimmering horizon luring one on to infinity. Pierre contemplated the
heavens, and the remote, receding, glimmering stars.
“And all that is mine, all that is within me, and is me!” he thought. “And they
caught all that and put it in a shed barricaded with planks!”
He smiled and went to lie down and sleep beside his companions (Tolstoy, War
and Peace, 1216-1217).

Though Natasha and Pierre have momentary access to a world where the boundaries between
selves and nature retract, there is another character that is constantly in tune with this reality.
This is, of course, Platon Karataev, who: “does not exist of himself: he is only a part of the
whole, a drop in the ocean of the life of the nation. And this life he reproduces in his very
impersonality, just as a drop of water in its roundness reproduces the world” (Merezhkovsky
206). Merezhkovsky likely refers here to Pierre’s dream following the death of Karataev:

Пьер подошел к костру, поел жареного лошадиного мяса, лег спиной к огню
и тотчас же заснул. Он спал опять тем же сном, каким он спал в Можайске
после Бородина.
Schmuck 43

Опять события действительности соединялись с сновидениями, и опять кто-
то, сам ли он или кто другой, говорил ему мысли и даже те же мысли,
которые ему говорились в Можайске.
«Жизнь есть всё. Жизнь есть Бог. Всё перемещается и движется, и это
движение есть Бог. И пока есть жизнь, есть наслаждение самосознания
Божества. Любить жизнь, любить Бога. Труднее и блаженнее всего любить
эту жизнь в своих страданиях, в безвинности страданий».
— «Каратаев!» вспомнилось Пьеру.
И вдруг Пьеру представился, как живой, давно забытый, кроткий старичок
учитель, который в Швейцарии преподавал Пьеру географию. — «Постой»,
сказал старичок. И он показал Пьеру глобус. Глобус этот был живой,
колеблющийся шар, не имеющий размеров. Вся поверхность шара состояла
из капель, плотно сжатых между собой. И капли эти все двигались,
перемещались и то сливались из нескольких в одну, то из одной разделялись
на многие. Каждая капля стремилась разлиться, захватить наибольшее
пространство, но другие, стремясь к тому же, сжимали ее, иногда
уничтожали, иногда сливались с нею.
— Вот жизнь, — сказал старичок учитель.
«Как это просто и ясно», подумал Пьер. «Как я мог не знать этого прежде».
— В середине Бог, и каждая капля стремится расшириться, чтобы в
наибольших размерах отражать Его. И растет, сливается, и сжимается, и
уничтожается на поверхности, уходит в глубину и опять всплывает. Вот он
Каратаев, вот разлился и исчез. — Vous avez compris, mon enfant, — сказал
Schmuck 44

учитель (PSS XII:158-159).

Pierre went up to one of the fires, ate some roast horse flesh, lay down with his
back to the fire, and instantly fell asleep. It was the same sort of sleep he had
fallen into at Mozhaisk after the battle of Borodino.
Again the events of reality mingled with those of the dreams, and again
someone, he or other, articulated his thoughts—indeed the very thoughts that had
come to him at Mozhaisk.
“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves, and that
movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in the consciousness of the
divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else in this
life is to love life in one’s sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.”
“Karatayev!” came to Pierre’s mind.
And suddenly there rose before him, as though alive, a long-forgotten gentle old
man who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. “Wait,” said the little
old man. And he showed Pierre a globe. The globe was an animate vibrating ball
with no fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of drops closely pressed
together. The drops moved, changed, several merging into one, or one splitting
into many. Each drop tended to expand, to occupy as much space as possible, but
others, with a like tendency, compressed it, sometimes destroying it, sometimes
merging with it.
“That is life,” said the old teacher.
“How simple and clear it is,” thought Pierre. “How is it I did not know this
Schmuck 45

before?”
“In the center is God, and each drop strives to expand as to reflect Him to the
greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the surface, sinks to the
depths, and again emerges. That’s how it was with Karatayev: He expanded and
disappeared. [You have understood, my child,]” said the teacher (Tolstoy, War
and Peace, 1272).

Pierre’s dream is one of the clearest analogies for Tolstoy’s conception of self as he approaches
his later period. The metaphor of droplets, which are both discreet and completely indiscreet
when joined with other droplets represents the boundaries of self. An initial expansion, when a
droplet forms and reflects light—the process of true self-knowledge—is followed by total union
or annihilation. This analogy follows the death of Karataev and sums up his importance to these
ideas—even incorporating his characteristic roundness into the metaphor of total love. The final
interpretation of the dream by the old teacher is that Karataev “expanded and disappeared.” He
follows the formula of self-knowledge followed by self-effacement that is ideal for Tolstoy.
In Anna Karenina, the theme of self-forgetting, or oblivion (zabyt’sia/zabvenie),
succeeds the pulsing globe discussed above in Tolstoy’s catalog of arch-metaphors
7
. Oblivion
serves as “a sort of a guiding metaphor inflected through many lines of action in the narrative”
(Love 66). In Levin’s mowing scene, he is able to experience this loss of awareness of self in a
blissful way: “Чем долее Левин косил, тем чаще и чаще он чувствовал минуты забытья, при

7
See Gustafson’s discussion of emblematic realism, for an analysis of how such figures in
Tolstoy guide the structure and unity of the larger work (152-153).
Schmuck 46

котором уже не руки махали косой, а сама коса двигала за собой всё сознающее себя,
полное жизни тело […] Это были самые блаженные минуты” (“The longer Levin mowed,
the more often he felt those moments of oblivion during which it was no longer his arms that
swung the scythe, but the scythe itself that lent motion to his whole body, full of life and
conscious of itself […] These were the most blissful moments”) (Love 75). Giving oneself over
to the all-encompassing, depersonalized Schopenhauerian will is the only momentary method of
achieving happiness. All other attempts are unsuccessful.
In “Khoziain i rabotnik” (“Master and Man”), a physical action of union between two
men serves as the climax of the story’s plot and an outward demonstration of metaphorical self-
transcendence: “Он понимает, что это смерть, и нисколько не огорчается и этим. И он
вспоминает, что Никита лежит под ним и что он угрелся и жив, и ему кажется, что он —
Никита, а Никита — он, и что жизнь его не в нем самом, а в Никите. Он напрягает слух и
слышит дыханье, даже слабый храп Никиты. «Жив Никита, значит жив и я», — с
торжеством говорит он себе” (XXIX:43-44). (“He remembered that Nikita was lying under
him and that he had got warm and was alive, and it seemed to him that he was Nikita and Nikita
was he, and that his life was not in himself but in Nikita. He strained his ears and heard Nikita
breathing and even slightly snoring. ‘Nikita is alive, so I too am alive!’ he said to himself
triumphantly” (Tolstoy, “Khoziain i rabotnik,” 54)). Jacob Emery points out that “This is the
exact inversion of the "all men are mortal, Caius is a man, therefore Caius is mortal" which
torments Ivan” in “Smert’ Ivana Il’icha” (Emery 643). Ivan Il’ich stresses that he is not Caius
and therefore sees a separation between himself and his fellow men. Whereas, in “Khoziain i
rabotnik,” the boundaries between men are blurred because of the Vasilii Andreevich’s self-
sacrificing action.
Schmuck 47

Narrative Experimentation
In the chapters of this dissertation, I will focus strictly on the narrative experiments that
belonged to Tolstoy’s ‘impersonal project.’ I begin my exploration with Anna Karenina. In this
work, a formulaic simile structure proliferates as a means of describing characters’ emotional
experience. Rather than personalizing experience, Tolstoy overtly connects the feelings of his
characters with impersonal universalized descriptions of emotional experience. A character will
feel the way in which a person would feel if a certain thing were happening to him/her under
certain conditions. The heavy repetition of this simile structure in Anna Karenina shows a
sustained effort to disconnect personal experience from individual characters.
The longer, more narrative version of a simile is an allegory or a parable, which can be
defined as a multi-component simile involving some narrative action. The parable depersonalizes
more than just an experience of feeling. It dramatizes a moral problem through an impersonal
and therefore universal medium. In my second chapter, I trace the use of parables in Tolstoy’s
fiction and nonfiction. Tolstoy’s interest in the Biblical parables is well-documented in his
translation and explications of the Gospel. I argue that Tolstoy lifts the strategy (from a few of
Jesus’ parables) of telling a parable and then explaining its components as a multi-part simile in
order to harness the full force of such a genre to communicate moral ideas.
My third chapter is the only one dealing with a fleshly depersonalization. Instead of
writing in parables, Tolstoy creates one of his most personal heroes, who espouses a theory that
would lead to the depopulation of the earth. Tolstoy appropriates the language of Darwinism and
the biblical creation story in order to reverse arguments for procreation and the expansion of self.
In addition to Pozdnyshev’s theory of physical depersonalization, his raw monolog is what I call
degenerative writing. Its uncontrolled ugliness subverts personhood through the empowerment of
Schmuck 48

an irregular self by tapping into the chaotic, uncensored reserve of desire and jealousy common
to all.
In my fourth chapter, I investigate a more ambitious experiment in Tolstoy’s impersonal
project: his children’s reading circle. A shorter version of his Circle of Reading for adults, this
cycle of stories for children includes short stories that operates with more dependence on
interpersonal connections rather than on individual characters than a traditional narrative arc.
Tolstoy used these stories in his meetings with peasant children in the last years of his life,
interspersing them with readings from the Gospels. This is an example of Tolstoy’s larger project
in life to remove his individual voice from his art. Irina Paperno argues that his Circle of Reading
marked his success in finally removing his personal identity from his art, and instead remaining
silent. The children’s circle of reading, though most of its stories are written by Tolstoy, is a
practical version of his Circle of Reading for adults. These stories dramatize the interpersonal
linkages between people and the good or evil they serve to channel. They are demontrations of
Tolstoy’s moral infection in action.
In my final chapter, I turn to the linkages between characters or episodes as a strategy for
creating impersonal narrative. Tolstoy’s famous 1876 letter to Strakhov about the labyrinth of
linkages that makes up art serves as a key to Tolstoy’s late holistic narrative approach. Focusing
on the linkages between in order to understand the underlying forces connecting art allows for an
emphasis on the wholeness of a given work instead of an emphasis on its the parts. A central
protagonist is absent in The Forged Coupon. Instead an object connects the first few plot
segments, and before long, only the moral force that at first accompanied the object unites the
episodes. Tolstoy appropriates the style of Biblical and Buddhist parables to accomplish his
purpose by making each episode resemble a short parable. He innovates the parable form by
Schmuck 49

spreading out the moral consequences dramatized in the tale across the whole story. The moral
force grows and diminishes throughout the course of the story, but no one character is expanded
into a personal hero with significant individual psychological depth. In The Forged Coupon,
Tolstoy accomplishes what he only wrote about when naming his “hero” of “May 1855”
Sevastopol sketch. This is Tolstoy’s most effective experiment in merging morality with
narrative.
In my conclusion, I will return to Voina i mir to present a reading of Tolstoy’s narrative
linkages in the context of Gille Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s notion of assemblage structure and
Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory. I will explore one of the underlying discourses that, in
contemporary thought, has become most relevant to Tolstoy—ecological thinking. I will attempt
to identify the reasons for this and the possible fruits of such explorations.
The chapters that make up this dissertation serve as case studies in the development of an
impersonal “project” in Tolstoy’s life and writing. A causal link does not necessarily connect the
different instantiations of Tolstoy’s interest in transcendence of selfhood to one another.
However, in certain instances, these smaller projects will intersect or overlap. For example, the
recurrence of the Tolstoy’s use of Biblical language in different experiments in his narratives and
essays will be relevant both to the subjects of both the fourth and the fifth chapters. Ultimately
these case studies are chosen to provide glimpses of the project that was being constructed
collectively among all of Tolstoy’s essays, stories, novels, notes and correspondences toward the
end of his life. In the final chapter and the conclusion, a more cohesive model of the impersonal
project is described both in one of Tolstoy’s final works (“Fal’shivyi kupon”) and in Tolstoy’s
“zhiznetvorchestvo” (“life art”).

Schmuck 50

Chapter 1. Similes of Experience in Anna Karenina—Degrees of Depersonalization

Anna Karenina remains one of Tolstoy’s most personal works, in that its characters are
depicted with great psychological depth, and philosophical dilemmas are worked out through the
“dialectika dushi” (“dialectic of the soul”). Nonetheless, symptoms of an interest in alternative
approaches to realistic classification of characters’ emotions and experiences pop up throughout
the novel. A general trend of impersonalization underlies the formulaic similes employed to
describe characters’ experience of emotion. This is an example of narrative technique that
achieves an impersonal effect. Though not structurally central to the makeup of the novel,
Tolstoy’s similes of experience highlight one aspect of Tolstoy’s early impersonal project (some
examples appear in works from his earlier period) on the level of character description. These
similes will develop into more extensive tools—extended similes and parables—in Tolstoy’s
later works that are even more representative of his impersonal project. These smaller similes,
therefore, are an essential building block for Tolstoy’s later experiments.
Tolstoy’s descriptions of personal experience are a central characteristic of his prose
throughout his career. As his ideas on selfhood began to change towards his later period, his
rejection of individuality manifested itself thematically and stylistically in his works.
The impersonal construction, which can be employed in manifold forms, is one way to trace this
ideological-aesthetic effect in his writing.
Under impersonal construction, I include grammatically impersonal constructions—
where there is no grammatical subject—and “semantically” impersonal constructions, where the
subject noun signifies a nameless or generalized subject. In Anna Karenina, a construction recurs
often that creates this effect, though it is not always “impersonal” in the grammatical sense.
Schmuck 51

Tolstoy’s similes of experience, with which he describes a given “feeling” (“chuvstvo”) of a
character by comparing their experience to that of another, often unnamed, generalized “person,”
adhere, in their purest form, to a very strict formula. By taking a familiar character and placing
him outside his comfort zone, so to speak, Tolstoy is defamiliarizing experience—putting it in a
context in which it would not normally be, so that we can see it in a new way. This is done in
place of simply naming the emotion. (In the few cases where Tolstoy does not implement the full
formula, and does name the emotion, the effect is stunted.) This strategy is employed to stress
one of Tolstoy’s major themes, that of unity and universalness (all humans—and to a certain
extent later, all living things—are in it together). I will present the particular formula to be
discussed and its examples as well as examples that adhere less strictly to it (both in Anna
Karenina and elsewhere) below, and I will discuss the effect of this strategy in conveying the
“impersonal” when describing experience.
The formula, in its purest form, works as follows:
[A character] “experiences a feeling, similar to that, which would be felt by a person, who” […],
for example, Vronsky’s emotional reaction upon encountering Karenin in the following
quotation:

Vronsky: Увидев Алексея Александровича с его петербургски-свежим лицом
и строго самоуверенною фигурой, в круглой шляпе, с немного-выдающеюся
спиной, он поверил в него и испытал неприятное чувство, подобное тому,
какое испытал бы человек, мучимый жаждою и добравшийся до
источника и находящий в этом источнике собаку, овцу или свинью,
которая и выпила и взмутила воду (PSS XVIII: 112).
Schmuck 52

When he saw Karenin, with his fresh Petersburg face, his sternly self-confident
figure, his round hat and his slightly rounded back, Vronsky believed in his
existence, and had such a disagreeable sensation as a man tortured by thirst
might feel on reaching a spring and finding a dog, sheep, or pig in it,
drinking the water and making it muddy (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 96-97).

Here, though Tolstoy is turning what was at first individual into something general, he is
also performing his customary defamiliarization. In order to create this impersonalized
description of what the character is feeling, Tolstoy breaks down the feeling (which would not be
successfully expressed if simply named) into its elements and rebuilds it by describing particular
situational factors needed to create the sensation the character is feeling. The three-episode
structure of the simile’s narrative allows the reader to experience each elemental shift in
Vronsky’s feelings. First, the feeling of thirst; second, the hope of finding a spring; and third, the
disappointment of finding it muddied and contaminated.
A somewhat similar analysis of experience can be found in Roland Barthes’ S/Z, where
he explicates Balzac’s story “Sarrasine” in terms of five codes. One of these codes is that of
general experience, which he calls REF, or “reference.” This is used whenever a “statement is
made in a collective and anonymous voice originating in traditional human experience. Thus the
unit has been formed by a gnomic code, and this code is one of the numerous codes of
knowledge or wisdom to which the text continually refers” (Barthes 18). Barthes uses this code
to identify statements that nearly fit Tolstoy’s formula above. For example, from Balzac’s text:
Schmuck 53

“‘Be still,’ she said, with that forceful and mocking air all women so easily assume when they
want to be in the right […] ** REF. Feminine psychology” (Barthes 68).

Barthes also defines the concept of character in a useful way for this study:

When identical semes traverse the same proper name several times and appear to
settle upon it, a character is created. Thus, the character is a product of
combinations: the combination is relatively stable (denoted by the recurrence of
the semes) and more or less complex (involving more or less congruent, more or
less contradictory figures); this complexity determines the character’s
“personality,” which is just as much a combination as the odor of a dish or the
bouquet of a wine. The proper name acts as a magnetic field for the semes;
referring in fact to a body, it draws the semic configuration into an evolving
(biographical) tense (Barthes 67-68).

In Barthes’ estimation, the concept of “character” and “personality” are made clearer or more
obscure by the number of times they are named and how congruent the various descriptions or
namings of the character are. For example, Tolstoy’s creation of Prince Andrei involved a
connection drawn between multiple unnamed roles, which combined to create Andrei’s
character: “В Аустерлицком сражении, которое будет описано,
3
но с которого я начал
роман, мне нужно было, чтобы был убит блестящий молодой человек; в дальнейшем ходе
моего романа мне нужно было только старика Болконского с дочерью; но так как неловко
описывать ничем не связанное с романом лицо, я решил сделать блестящего молодого
Schmuck 54

человека сыном старого Болконского” (Tolstoy PSS LXI: 80). (“In the battle of Austerlitz that
was not just written, but with which I began the novel, I needed for a brilliant young man to be
killed; in the most distant plot line of my novel I only needed the old Bolkonsky with his
daughter; but since it was awkward to describe a character who wasn’t linked to anyone in the
novel, I decided to make the brilliant young man the son of old Bolkonsky.”) Just as this
connection of Andrei’s contributes to a more defined, personal character, so to not use the proper
name, but the name of a general person or a cultural or psychological type, is to obscure the
personality of that character, or connect them with general experience. In Tolstoy’s fiction, the
effect of the impersonal, the depersonalized or the defamiliarized person are all achieved by
variations in naming. Just as a character can be constructed through naming, it can be
deconstructed through connection to symbolic (SYM) figures:

As figure, the character can oscillate between two roles, without this oscillation
having any meaning, for it occurs outside of biographical time (outside
chronology): symbolic structure is completely reversible: it can be read in any
direction. Thus, the child-woman and the narrator-father, momentarily effaced,
can return, can overtake the queen-woman and the narrator-slave. As a symbolic
ideality, the character has no chronological or biographical standing; he has no
Name; he is nothing but the site for the passage (and return) of the figure (Barthes
68).

Schmuck 55

This symbolic substitution of an archetype—“queen-woman” in the Balzac example cited by
Barthes, which is paired with the REF of feminine psychology, can replace a named character
with a symbolic, impersonalized figure.
At first it seems that something similar is done in Tolstoy, sometimes simply with REF,
and sometimes with both REF and SYM. For example, Kitty’s comparison to a warrior here:

Кити испытывала после обеда и до начала вечера чувство, подобное
тому, какое испытывает юноша пред битвою. Сердце ее билось сильно, и
мысли не могли ни на чем остановиться (PSS XVIII: 50).

Kitty experienced something resembling a young man’s feelings before a
battle. Her heart was beating violently and she could not fix her thoughts on
anything (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 43).

In this example, one could apply Barthes’ method and claim that Kitty’s experience is a
combination of REF (male psychology: a soldier’s anticipation of battle) and SYM (the symbolic
substitution of her romantic drama for a battle scene). Tolstoy’s formula is employed with quite a
different goal, though, than the descriptions in the text Barthes’ analyzes. Balzac’s purpose in
creating the Comedie humaine was to compile a scientific catalogue of social life. In his
introduction, he mentions Rousseau’s negative view of conventional society and takes the
opposing view (Balzac 17). For Balzac, convention is positive. Humans acting uniformly
according to culture and convention, with a system of categories imposed upon society to create
order instead of chaos or difference, is a positive reality for Balzac. He writes that a woman
Schmuck 56

acted the way all women would act under certain psychological conditions. She is part of the
type which Barthes identifies as the “Queen - Woman.” By describing this typical behavior,
Balzac is reinforcing a Classical understanding of character types going back to La Bruyère’s
“Les Caractères.”
Tolstoy, on the other hand, works toward an entirely different aim. He is not trying to
separate people into types, as the general trend in realism and a harking back to the classics
would dictate. The classification of characters as types both unifies and separates in the wrong
ways for Tolstoy. Types exhibit sameness in a conventional manner among each category, while
exhibiting fragmentation—instead of wholeness—overall. Tolstoy instead creates difference
where there would be sameness (in conventional categories) and unity where there would be
separation. He shows difference by removing a character from the situation they are actually in
by supplying a simile or metaphor that describes a completely different situation, far-removed
from their actual life and typical reserve of experience. He accomplishes unity by showing how
any human in the new, supplied situation could feel what this character is feeling now. He
therefore sharpens the effect of the sensation through defamiliarization and, at the same time,
establishes a universal experience. On a structural level, Tolstoy creates an additional layer of
unity through the uniform grammatical structure that underlies most of the examples.
In Tolstoy’s works, only small number of examples adhere strictly to this formula. The
majority of them, ten, are found in Anna Karenina and its drafts
8
. The others are sprinkled
throughout his essays and fiction, but do not accumulate in great enough number to establish a
recognizable repetitiveness in a given work. In Voina i mir, there are a couple examples that
adhere strictly to the formula. These examples are representative of major philosophical ideas

8
See Appendix 1 for full list of these ten examples.
Schmuck 57

condensed into short allegorical form and inserted into a character’s experience to illustrate
Tolstoy’s points on history and contingency, for example, in this simile of experience describing
Napoleon’s role in the victory or defeat of his army:

Наполеон испытывал тяжелое чувство, подобное тому, которое испытывает
всегда счастливый игрок, безумно кидавший свои деньги, всегда
выигрывавший, и вдруг, именно тогда, когда он рассчитал все случайности
игры, чувствующий, что чем более обдуман его ход, тем вернее он
проигрывает (PSS XI: 244).

Napoleon experienced a heavy feeling, similar to that which a lucky gambler
experiences, mindlessly throwing his money, always winning, and then suddenly,
exactly when he has figured out all the aspects of chance in the game, feeling that
the more calculated his move, the more certain will he lose.

In Anna Karenina, these examples show a clear, repeated strategy for describing the
emotional experience of characters
9
. The structure allows for a five-times-removed

9
This group of quotations has been remarked upon by at least two scholars. Sydney Schultze, in
The Structure of Anna Karenina, divides the examples into three categories, which express by
different means (through personal experience, through the character’s experience or by generally
recognizable experience), that “actions and emotions are not unique.” This in some ways
coincides with my argument, but does not elaborate on any of the structural mechanics of the
Schmuck 58

depersonalization of what would otherwise be a very individual and personal emotion. First,
there is a verb of experience, almost always “ispytat’/ispytyvat,’” which linguistically separates
the person from, while still connecting them to, the feeling to which they are subject. Second,
there is a simile structure which connects the feeling with a more general feeling, which will be
subsequently described; this connector is usually “podobnyi.” Third, there is usually a clausal
break when the simile is initiated: “podobnoe tomu, kakoe/kotoroe.” Then, the whole process
begins again with a depersonalized subject, the unnamed “chelovek,” who, fifthly also is
separated from a (finally-) described feeling by the verb of experience, “ispytat’/ispytyvat,’”
again. Additionally, when the sentence is in the past tense, there is yet another effect of
separation given through the subjunctive mood via the particle “by.”
It must be stressed that the levels of distance inserted between the character and the
emotion he or she is feeling are ultimately and paradoxically tools for unity. By first breaking
down the feeling into something that can be experienced by any person who is subject to several
very specific factors, the feeling is at first distanced from the individual character, but only as a
vehicle for establishing a unity between that character and people in general. This step-by-step
construction of the feeling to which the character is subject is a way of showing how this
character is just like any human would be in the right set of circumstances. Therefore, all humans
are “in it together.”
The recurrence of ten examples that use the full formula demonstrates Tolstoy’s strategy
in full effect. However, there are numerous other examples, where the formula is used far more

quotations. The other scholar to work with these quotations, Anna Weirzbicka, is a linguist and
uses the quotations as a case study in her “Semantic Structure of Words for Emotions.”
Schmuck 59

loosely—i. e., it is missing one or more of the pieces of the formula. Sixteen of these looser
examples are from Anna Karenina, and others exist less frequently in Tolstoy’s other works,
such as in Voskresen’e’s drafts and in Fal’shivyi kupon.
These examples still serve to connect a person’s experience with a more generalized, less
personalized description of a feeling. However, they do not achieve the reinforced effect of the
five-times-distanced descriptions that adhere fully to the formula described earlier. These
examples do include other, slightly weaker methods of distancing though.
In the following example, the formula is not entirely adhered to, due to the naming of the
generalized person (by giving him a profession: “fokusnik,” instead of simply calling him by the
most general name: “chelovek”):

Pierre (in Voina i mir): На этих вечерах он испытывал чувство подобное
тому, которое должен испытывать фокусник, ожидая всякий раз, что
вот-вот обман его откроется (PSS X: 179).

At such times he felt like a conjurer who expects that at any moment his
tricks will be seen through (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 532).

Nonetheless, this example adds an extra distancing effect through the word “dolzhen.” This
makes the feeling more abstract and removed from the effect of “real life experience,” because
the feeling is less determined. It is simply something that one “must feel” if the correct factors
are at play. The added “dolzhen” also adds an element of speculation—this is what a non-
magician would imagine a magician might feel in a certain situation.
Schmuck 60

In other instances, such as in the following example, the naming, or categorizing, of the
“chelovek” changes the formula:

Vronsky and Anna: Присутствие этого ребенка вызывало во Вронском и в
Анне чувство, подобное чувству мореплавателя, видящего по компасу,
что направление, по которому он быстро движется, далеко расходится с
надлежащим, но что остановить движение не в его силах, что каждая
минута удаляет его больше и больше от должного направления и что
признаться себе в отступлении — всё равно, что признаться в погибели.
Ребенок этот с своим наивным взглядом на жизнь был компас, который
показывал им степень их отклонения от того, что они знали, но не хотели
знать (PSS XVIII: 195).

The presence of that child always aroused in Vronsky that strange feeling of
unreasoning revulsion which had of late come to him. It evoked both in Vronsky
and in Anna a feeling such as a sailor might have who saw by the compass
that the direction in which he was swiftly sailing diverged widely from the
right course but was quite unable to stop, and felt that every moment was
taking him farther and farther astray, and that to acknowledge to himself
that he was diverging from the right direction was tantamount to
acknowledging that he was lost. This child with his naïve outlook on life was
the compass which showed them their degree of divergence from what they knew,
but would not recognize, was the right course (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 170).
Schmuck 61

Here, the effect is less that of depersonalization than it is of generalization. By naming the
sailor, or the magician, the soldier, the swimmer, the scientist, the hunter or the deaf person
(other examples used in Anna Karenina), Tolstoy infers that the feeling being described is
experienced by everyone in this general category. This is a step away from the personal, but does
not reach the level of distancing achieved by the earlier examples of the full formula. These
examples show a shared experience, but not a universal one.
In other examples, the formula is simply economized in various ways. In some of these,
so much of the formula is lacking that there is little evidence a distancing effect is even at play.
However, others that cut out one or more grammatical steps in the process described above still
achieve an impersonal, universal effect, such as here:

Prince Shcherbatsky: Несмотря на испытываемое им чувство гордости и как
бы возврата молодости, когда любимая дочь шла с ним под руку, ему теперь
как будто неловко и совестно было за свою сильную походку, за свои
крупные, облитые жиром члены. Он испытывал почти чувство человека
неодетого в обществе (PSS XVIII: 239).

In spite of the pride and the sense of renewed youth which he experienced while
walking arm-in-arm with his favourite daughter, he felt almost awkward and
ashamed of his powerful stride and his large healthy limbs. He had almost the
feeling that might be caused by appearing in company without clothes
(Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 208).
Schmuck 62

Here, the only remnants of the formula in use are: the verb ispytyvat’; the generalized
subject (chelovek); the generalized name for feeling (chuvstvo), rather than naming a
particular feeling, such as embarrassment; and the universal situation of being exposed in
public. Though fewer distancing devices are inserted between the subject and his
described feeling, such as are used in the full formula, a weakened but distinct effect is
still achieved in this, and in other similar examples.
In examples where the emotion is named with its verbal noun form as a conventional
idea, the effect is much weakened. Tolstoy replaces the formula with a more conventional and
less effective substitute, such as in the following:

Levin: Левин улыбался своим мыслям и неодобрительно покачивал головой
на эти мысли; чувство, подобное раскаянию, мучало его. Что-то стыдное,
изнеженное, Капуйское, как он себе называл это, было в его теперешней
жизни. «Жить так не хорошо, — думал он. — Вот скоро три месяца, а я
ничего почти не делаю (PSS XIX: 54).

Left alone, having put away his papers in the new portfolio she had bought, he
washed his hands at the new washstand with the new and elegant utensils that had
also appeared through her agency. He smiled at his thought and shook his head
disapprovingly at it. A feeling resembling repentance tormented him (Tolstoy,
Anna Karenina, 441).

Schmuck 63

By naming an abstract concept, this is already less artistic, less of a trope, and less
defamiliarizing in the Tolstoyan manner. Nonetheless, these examples retain an impersonal
effect more in line with that of Balzac’s project. A verbal noun is a generalized form, a
classification of feeling. The extended Tolstoyan gesture—that of defamiliarizing and
universalizing at the same time—is not deployed here to its fullest.
In other examples, such as in the following, the need for an impersonal subject is
bypassed by an appeal directly to the reader’s experience, or more likely, using the conventional,
general “ty” when conjugating the second “ispytat’/ispytyvat’” in the simile:

Levin: Все эти хлопоты, хождение из места в место, разговоры с очень
добрыми, хорошими людьми, понимающими вполне неприятность
положения просителя, но не могущими пособить ему, всё это напряжение,
не дающее никаких результатов, произвело в Левине чувство
мучительное, подобное тому досадному бессилию, которое
испытываешь во сне, когда хочешь употребить физическую силу (PSS
XIX: 222)

All those worries, the going from place to place, conversations with very kind
good people who quite understood the unpleasantness of the petitioner’s position
but were unable to help him, and all these efforts which yielded no results,
produced in Levin a painful feeling akin to the vexatious helplessness one
experiences when trying to employ physical force in a dream (Tolstoy, Anna
Karenina, 585).
Schmuck 64

This exhibits a generalizing, but less removed, effect, because “ty” is, after all, more personal
than the unnamed “chelovek.”
Finally, the least effective examples in evoking an impersonal or universal understanding
of an emotion are those that use personal pronouns or the character’s name when conjugating the
verb of experience. In several examples, characters use their past, usually their childhood, to
form the frame of reference for their current feeling. See, for example, the following:

Anna: Чувство, подобное тому, которое она испытывала, когда купаясь
готовилась войти в воду, охватило ее, и она перекрестилась. (PSS XIX:
348).

A feeling seized her like that she had experienced when preparing to enter
the water in bathing, and she crossed herself. (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 695).

Because this is self-reflexive and refers to something contained within the text itself, this does
not achieve the effect of universality conveyed by Tolstoy’s ideal usage of formula described
here for similes of experience. Such examples are more representative of a “dialektika dushi”
(“dialectics of the soul”) than of a universal, impersonal experience.
One final example of the formula can be found in Voskresen’e, and goes one step further
in its content than any of the examples here, and than the formula based on the repeated
examples in Anna Karenina:

Schmuck 65

Нехлюдов испытал чувство подобное тому, которое должна
испытывать лошадь, когда ее оглаживают, чтобы надеть узду и вести
запрягать. А ему нынче больше, чем когда-нибудь, было неприятно возить.
(PSS XXXII: 98).

Nekhliudov felt as a horse must feel when it is being caressed to make it
submit to having the bit put in its mouth and be harnessed, and today he felt
less than ever inclined to pull (Tolstoy, Resurrection, 98).

Here the second figure in the simile is replaced with an animal. In tandem with the extra
distancing effect achieved by the “dolzhna,” this simile adds even more defamiliarization to the
depersonalizing gesture Tolstoy honed in Anna Karenina.
In the various degrees of effectiveness seen in the above set of examples and the full
expression in the initial set, Tolstoy is able to set up a communal reserve of impersonal feelings
to which the character’s experiences are connected by similes. The distancing effect from each
individual character is achieved mostly through the grammatical structure of the similes, but the
content sometimes offers further contrast. For example, the categorized impersonal subjects of
the emotion offered in the second half of the simile, or, when the full formula is used, the
description of the conditions surrounding the depersonalized subject, are often such that they
would likely never be or surround the character undergoing the given experience in the novel.
For example, Kitty ≠ soldier; Vronsky ≠ thirsty wanderer; Karenin ≠ man among treacherous
natural elements; Anna ≠ sailor; Prince Shcherbatsky ≠ naked man in public; Levin ≠ dissipated
wrongdoer; Vronsky ≠ clinically insane person; Anna ≠ drowning person; Anna ≠ person in
Schmuck 66

stocks; Varen’ka and Sergei Ivanovich ≠ scientists; Levin ≠ deaf person. In some of the
examples, the experiences linked with various characters could technically be experienced at
some point by the character in the right circumstances, but what is important here is that the
characters have absolutely never yet undergone the experiences compared with their feelings
(except in the few cases referring to a character’s past). This means that Tolstoy’s similes all lead
to an external (to the characters’ constructed worlds), reserve of experience. This provides
contrast, and stresses the idea that all humans are “in it together,” and so is less dependent on the
personal characteristics of the individual character.
When, however, a character feels especially ostracized from that communal reserve of
experience, things such as language, society and the self begin to erode, or at least seem to.
When Anna is still living with Karenin, but is already engaged fully in her affair with Vronsky,
she feels the “impossibility” of her situation, and her inner self becomes fragmented:

Ей не только было тяжело, но она начинала испытывать страх пред новым,
никогда не испытанным ею душевным состоянием. Она чувствовала, что в
душе ее всё начинает двоиться, как двоятся иногда предметы в усталых
глазах. Она не знала иногда, чего она боится, чего желает. Боится ли она и
желает ли она того, что было, или того, что будет, и чего именно она желает,
она не знала (PSS XVIII: 304-305).

She was not only disturbed, but was beginning to be afraid of a new mental
condition such as she had never before experienced. She felt as if everything was
being doubled in her soul, just as objects appear doubled to weary eyes.
Schmuck 67

Sometimes she could not tell what she feared and what she desired. Whether she
feared and desired what had been, or what would be, and what it was she desired
she did not know (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 263).

The sensation she feels is not put in the context of the whole. It is not what one might feel if one
were made subject to certain circumstances. Rather, the feeling is “never before experienced.”
She feels the sensation that her “self” is doubling, or dividing. Cut off from her fellows, she does
not feel common emotions that bind her to other people. Instead she feels new and terrible
things, and far from communing with others, she is not even whole within herself. Her desires
are not known to her, and her self is splitting.
This fragmentation and isolation felt by Anna in this particular scene is counterbalanced
by the universality of human emotion and experience expressed through the repetition of
Tolstoy’s formulaic similes of experience. The large-scale deployment of these similes (twenty-
six in all) in Anna Karenina marks a significant stage in Tolstoy’s experimentation with
impersonal strategies in constructing his narratives. These similes create an impersonal and
universal effect on the level of character description. The selection of the simile as the vehicle
for this strategy is an important link to other experiments in Tolstoy’s impersonal project, such as
the parable and the extended simile, which will be discussed in the following chapter.

Schmuck 68

Chapter 2. The Parable Explained—Tolstoy’s First Attempts at Christlike Authorship

Что касается художественного творчества вообще, то оно после «Исповеди» перестало на
время «интересовать» Толстого, помимо всего, потому, что «диалектика души» потеряла
свою прежнюю ценность. Все основные персонажи Толстого изображались подвижными,
меняющимися, текучими. Это не мешало представлению о характере, об
индивидуальности, потому что внимание самого автора было сосредоточено именно на
изображении личности со всеми ее душевными и умственными противоречиями. Уже
Левин в «Анне Карениной» (если не говорить о Пьере «Войны и мира») почти лишен
характера в собственном смысле этого слова, потому что его фигура постепенно к концу
романа превращается в отвлеченный символ — в героя притчи: «диалектика души»
подменяется умственной диалектикой, действующей за пределами характера. Более того:
в финале и эта диалектика снимается, поскольку Левин находит выход из всех сомнений и
противоречий. В старческих вещах Толстого понятие характера почти исчезает. В
«Воскресении» этот процесс разложения характера завершается: Нехлюдов уже никак не
характер, не личность. К этому времени Толстой (через «народные рассказы») нашел для
себя новый художественный метод и жанр, в котором «диалектика души» уже не играла
роли: метод сатирического и нравоучительного изображения действительности, жанр
«притчи» или «мистерии» (как «Власть тьмы»).
-Eikhenbaum, “O protivorechiiakh L’va Tolstogo,” pg. 44
10

As far as artistic creation in general is concerned, after “Ispoved” (“Confession”) this no longer,
for a time, “interested” Tolstoy, among other things, because “dialectics of the soul” had lost
their former value. All Tolstoy’s central characters were depicted as lively, changing, fluid. This
did not cause problems with the representation of character, of individuality, because the
attention of the author himself was focused namely on the depiction of personal identity with all
its spiritual and mental contradictions. Already Levin in Anna Karenina (not to mention Pierre in
Voina i mir) is almost deprived of character in the proper sense of the word, because his figure
gradually towards the end of the novel transforms into an extracted symbol—a hero of a parable:
“dialectics of the soul” are exchanged with a mental dialectic, which acts outside the boundaries
of character. Moreover: in the end that dialectic is removed, since Levin finds a way out of his
doubts and contradictions. In the works of his old age, the understanding of character almost
disappears. In “Voskresen’e” this process of the deconstruction of character is completed:
Nekhliudov is already not a character, nor a personality. By this time Tolstoy (by means of
“folktales”) had found for himself a new artistic method and genre, in which the “dialectic of the
soul” no longer played a role: the satirical method and didactic depiction of reality, the genre of
the “parable” or “mystery” (as in “Vlast’ t’my”).

10
All unattributed translations are mine.
Schmuck 69

Tolstoy’s philosophy of anti-individualism and self-abnegation in the latter part of his life
and career precipitated a narrative shift away from the individual and the personal. The source of
the philosophical turn is the same as that of the narrative one: Tolstoy’s reading of the Gospel.
Along with his efforts to live like Christ after his “second birth” in the late 1870s came his
efforts to “write” like Christ. He undertook several projects during and after this period that
revolved around his reading, analyzing, translating, explicating, emulating or dramatizing the
contents of the Gospels. These projects include: his conversion treatises (such as “Ispoved’”
(“Confession) and “V chem moia vera” (“What I Believe”), among others); his translation,
annotation and unification of the gospels; his short didactic fiction; and his long conversion
narrative, Voskresen’e. Anna Karenina was written just on the cusp of this shift in Tolstoy’s
thinking and writing, and therefore also offers some useful examples of early instantiations of
these tendencies.
The connection between Tolstoy’s reading of the Gospels and his turn away from
selfhood in his philosophy and writing is motivated first by the central tenet of the gospel
message to deny the self
11
and second by Jesus’ rhetorical style, which is overwhelmingly
impersonal. Sermons, parables, commandments and rabbinical dialogue are all characterized
mostly by depersonalized constructions: whether because of semantic universality (parables);
grammatically or stylistically impersonal structures (commandments; sermons) or
logical/rational deductions of moral law (rabbinical dialogue).

11
Luke 9:23, for example: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross daily and follow me.”
Schmuck 70

Tolstoy’s reading of the Gospels in the original Greek, his consultation with scholars and
his reinterpretation of the Gospels’ contents had a profound effect, I argue, on his own writing.
The parable especially, which he would later call one of the best forms of art in “Chto takoe
iskusstvo?” (“What is Art?) (PSS XXX: 109), constitutes an equal share of message and
narrative. Purely a story in its initial telling, which is executed clearly and briefly, the parable is
essentially a complex simile containing a moral message that is only loosely veiled in the
narrative. When it is not only told in narrative but also followed with an explanation which
elucidates each component of its simile, the parable becomes the ultimate vehicle for clear moral
messages. When used this way, the parable can be associated closely with allegory:

[A]n allegory will be considered as a story in figurative language whose several
points refer individually and collectively to some other event which is concealed
and revealed in the narration. An example is the story, told by the prophet
Ezekiel, of the great eagle which refers to the king of Babylon. Every major
element of the allegory in Ezekiel 17: 3-10 is later interpreted step by step in
17:11-21. This seems to be exactly what Jesus does in the story of the Sower in
Mark 4:3-8 as interpreted point by point in 4:14-20. With such a warrant,
apparently stemming from Jesus himself, and with so many other allegories
present in the synoptic tradition, it was quite understandable that the term
"parable" be taken to mean allegory. Hence the traditional interpretation of the
form used by Jesus was that it was allegory and needed careful point-by-point
decoding (Crossan 333).

Schmuck 71

The telling of a parable and the subsequent decoding or explaining of it, as Jesus does with the
Parable of the Sower, is an important tool for Tolstoy that will be discussed in depth in this
chapter.
The parable can also retain significant narrative merits, which are often created by the
manipulation of expectations—the moral is revealed by an unexpected event or interpretation
(How can a Samaritan be our true neighbor? Why would the father rejoice at the return of such
an ill-deserving son? Etc.) The power of the parable to absorb the reader/listener makes this form
a particularly successful conveyor of meaning:

To say, then, that a [New Testament] parable is an extended metaphor means not
that the parable “has a point” or teaches a lesson, but that it is itself what it is
talking about (there is no way around the metaphor to what is “really” being
said). Thus to say that the parable of the Prodigal Son is a metaphor of God’s love
suggests that the story has a meaning beyond the story of a human father and his
wayward son, but that only through the details, the parable itself, are we brought
to an awareness of God’s love that has the shock of revelation. If the story of the
Prodigal Son tells us about that love, it does so indirectly, for the story itself
absorbs our interest. We do not, I think, naturally allegorize it (is the father
“God”? is the feast a symbol of “the kingdom”?) The story is “thick,” not
transparent; like a painting, it is looked at, not through (Teselle 632).

Tolstoy attempts to combine this narrative absorption, along with its revelatory “shock,” with the
explication of allegorical components mentioned earlier. These effects combined make the
Schmuck 72

parable a form which allows for optimal authorial control. In fact, as there is always present a
great tension between Tolstoy’s overwhelming selfhood and his desire and attempts to do away
with the self in his writing, the use of the parable is also fraught with both impulses. Authorial
control is a significant force at play:

Tolstoy’s attitude toward authorial intent, and his creative use of it, remind us of
more than the obvious fact that he wanted to assert control over meaning and of
his oeuvre. Insofar as we can ascertain through our own interpretation of
Tolstoy’s fiction, we can see that his genius was not just in authoring his works,
but in creating, maintaining, and using his authorial identity in complex and
unique ways […] (Weir 226)

I argue that the parable began to directly influence Tolstoy’s formal composition in the 1870s
and continued to influence him until the end of his career in various ways. Most often the form
was employed as a means of conveying a moral message or epiphany with a heavily determined
interpretation in a pointedly universal, impersonal way.
The traces of the figurative techniques that will later be combined with Gospel-parable
narrative strategies can be seen as early as Voina i mir (War and Peace), where Tolstoy’s
extended similes more closely resemble those of the Iliad than the Bible:

Москва между тем была пуста. В ней были еще люди, в ней оставалась
еще пятидесятая часть всех бывших прежде жителей, но она была пуста.
Она была пуста, как пуст бывает домирающий, обезматочивший улей.
Schmuck 73

В обезматочившем улье уже нет жизни, но на поверхностный взгляд он
кажется таким же живым, как и другие.
Так же весело, в жарких лучах полуденного солнца, вьются пчелы вокруг
обезматочившего улья, как и вокруг других живых ульев; так же издалека
пахнет от него медом, так же влетают и вылетают из него пчелы. Но стоит
приглядеться к нему, чтобы понять, что в улье этом уже нет жизни. Не так
как в живых ульях летают пчелы, не тот запах, не тот звук поражают
пчеловода. На стук пчеловода в стенку больного улья, вместо прежнего,
мгновенного, дружного ответа, шипенья десятков тысяч пчел, грозно
поджимающих зад и быстрым боем крыльев производящих этот воздушный
жизненный звук, ему отвечают разрозненные жужжания, гулко
раздающиеся в разных местах пустого улья. Из летка не пахнет, как прежде,
спиртовым, душистым запахом меда и яда, не несет оттуда теплом полноты,
а с запахом меда сливается запах пустоты и гнили. У летка нет больше
готовящихся на погибель для защиты, поднявших кверху зады, трубящих
тревогу стражей. Нет больше того ровного и тихого звука, трепетанья труда,
подобного звуку кипенья, а слышится нескладный, разрозненный шум
беспорядка. В улей и из улья робко и увертливо влетают и вылетают
черные, продолговатые, смазанные медом пчелы-грабительницы; они не
жалят, а ускользают от опасности. Прежде только с ношами влетали, а
вылетали пустые пчелы, теперь вылетают с ношами […]
Так пуста была Москва […] (PSS XI:329-331; emphasis mine).

Schmuck 74

Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people there, perhaps a fiftieth
part of the population had remained, but it was empty: empty as a queenless,
dying hive is empty.
In a queenless hive there is no longer any life, though to a superficial glance it
seems as much alive as other hives.
The bees hover about a queenless hive in the heat of the midday sun as
buoyantly as they do over living hives; they fly in and out of it in the same way,
and from a distance it too smells of honey. But one has only to examine it
carefully to realize that there is no life in the hive. The bees do not fly in the same
way, and the beekeeper is struck by both the difference in the smell and the
sound. To his tap on the wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant,
unanimous response of the buzzing of tens of thousands of bees threateningly
arching their backs, and of the vital whirring hum produced by the swift vibration
of their wings, he is greeted by a hollow disjointed buzzing that comes from
different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting platform to the hive,
instead of the former spirited fragrance of honey and venom, and the breath of
warmth from the multitudinous life within, comes an odor of desolation and decay
mingled with the scent of honey. There are no sentinels on guard, arching their
backs and trumpeting the alarm, ready to die in defense of the hive; no more low,
even hum, the throb of activity, like the sound of water boiling, but in its place the
fitful discordant rustle of disorder. Timidly, furtively, black oblong honey-
smeared robber bees fly in and out of the hive; they do not sting but crawl away
Schmuck 75

from danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive and flew out
empty; now they fly out laden […]
So was Moscow empty […] (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1048-1049).

Here the explanation is only a restating of the introductory simile: “Так пуста была Москва”
(“So was Moscow empty.”) This structural component serves more as a frame for the simile than
as an explanation for it. The reiteration of the initial simile’s first subject (Moscow) reminds us
to what the hive was being compared and then reintroduces us to the plot after such an extended
digression: “Так пуста была Москва, когда Наполеон, усталый, беспокойный и
нахмуренный, ходил взад и вперед у Камер-коллежского вала” (PSS XI:331) (“So was
Moscow empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and morose, paced back and forth by the
Kamerkollezhsky Rampart” (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1049)).
Though in Voina i mir, more Homeric similes abound than Gospel ones, Tolstoy’s
interest in extended similes is already apparent. Full expression of Tolstoy’s mimicry of the
Gospel parable appears as early as Anna Karenina. A frequent complaint against Tolstoy’s style
at this transition point in his moral conversion is his overbearing explanations of his own
metaphors and similes. Perhaps the best example is the depiction of Karenin’s reluctant
confrontation with “real life”:

Всю жизнь свою Алексей Александрович прожил и проработал в сферах
служебных, имеющих дело с отражениями жизни. И каждый раз, когда он
сталкивался с самою жизнью, он отстранялся от нее. Теперь он испытывал
чувство, подобное тому, какое испытал бы человек, спокойно прошедший
Schmuck 76

над пропастью по мосту и вдруг увидавший, что этот мост разобран и что
там пучина. Пучина эта была — сама жизнь, мост — та искусственная
жизнь, которую прожил Алексей Александрович (XVIII: 150-151;
emphasis mine).

He had lived and worked all his days in official spheres, which deal with
reflections of life, and every time he had knocked up against life itself he had
stepped out of the way. He now experienced a sensation such as a man might feel
who, while quietly crossing a bridge over an abyss, suddenly sees that the bridge
is falling to pieces and that he is facing the abyss. The abyss was real life; the
bridge was the artificial life Karenin had been living. (Tolstoy, Anna
Karenina, 129-130).

Directly after employing one of his characteristic similes of experience, where he generalizes
experience by means of a formulaic comparison, Tolstoy goes on to identify each component of
the simile with its analog in Karenin’s life. This practice of writing figuratively and then
including the figure’s didactic explication stands out in the midst of his novel of supposed
stylistic “clarity.” Though his gesture offers ample clarification of the author’s message, it takes
away from the frugal elegance of the simile itself.
In another example from the same novel, an elaborate simile is laid out, then explained:

Присутствие этого ребенка вызывало во Вронском и в Анне чувство,
подобное чувству мореплавателя, видящего по компасу, что направление, по
Schmuck 77

которому он быстро движется, далеко расходится с надлежащим, но что
остановить движение не в его силах, что каждая минута удаляет его больше
и больше от должного направления и что признаться себе в отступлении —
всё равно, что признаться в погибели. Ребенок этот с своим наивным
взглядом на жизнь был компас, который показывал им степень их
отклонения от того, что они знали, но не хотели знать (PSS XVIII: 195).

The presence of that child always aroused in Vronsky that strange feeling of
unreasoning revulsion which had of late come to him. It evoked both in Vronsky
and in Anna a feeling such as a sailor might have who saw by the compass that
the direction in which he was swiftly sailing diverged widely from the right
course but was quite unable to stop, and felt that every moment was taking him
farther and farther astray, and that to acknowledge to himself that he was
diverging from the right direction was tantamount to acknowledging that he was
lost. This child with his naïve outlook on life was the compass which showed
them their degree of divergence from what they knew, but would not
recognize, was the right course (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 170).

Indeed, Tolstoy’s simile is clear without the added explanation. So, why does he include it?
One obvious motivation is the aforementioned desire to retain control of interpretation.
Tolstoy is not necessarily unique in his tendency toward exhaustive explanations. Flannery
O’Connor explains this phenomenon as a symptom of the authorial presence characteristic to
both eighteenth-century prose and the Victorian novel:
Schmuck 78

The major difference between the novel as written in the eighteenth century and
the novel as we usually find it today is the disappearance from it of the author.
Fielding, for example, was everywhere in his own work, calling the reader's
attention to this point and that, directing him to give his special attention here or
there, clarifying this and that incident for him so that he couldn't possibly miss the
point. The Victorian novelists did this, too. They were always coming in,
explaining and psychologizing about their characters. But along about the time of
Henry James, the author began to tell his story in a different way. He began to let
it come through the minds and eyes of the characters themselves, and he sat
behind the scenes, apparently disinterested (O’Connor 74-75).

Undoubtedly, the anxiety of losing interpretive control is one explanation for Tolstoy’s quirk. I
argue that he found a useful form in the Gospel parables that he would coopt and streamline in
his later works.
In addition, there are still other aspects of the Gospel parables, related to both form and
content, that would have attracted Tolstoy. Parables are one of the most depersonalized narrative
genres, and can therefore be used to express a universal experience. Parables almost never have
personalized characters (they are usually unnamed, categorized by social role, status or
profession—son, father, a rich man, a sower, a master, a slave)
12
. They are implicitly

12
The single Gospel parable which is an exception to this rule is the parable of Lazarus and the
rich man, which is unique to the Gospel of Luke (Luke 16: 19-31).
Schmuck 79

universalized demonstrations of moral laws. The clue from which I surmise Tolstoy’s emulation
of their form is precisely the seemingly superfluous explanation tacked onto the simile used to
describe Karenin’s experience. In the Gospels, the parables are occasionally explained to the
disciples after their telling. This occurs with two of Jesus’ parables. The first is the parable of the
sower (Matthew 13:3-9; 18-23—quoted below; also appears in Mark 4:1-20 and Luke 8:5-15).
Parable:

A sower went out to sow.
4
And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and
the birds came and devoured them.
5
Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they
did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth
of soil,
6
but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no
root, they withered away.
7
Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up
and choked them.
8
Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a
hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
9
He who has ears, let him hear.”

Explanation:

18
Hear then the parable of the sower:
19
When anyone hears the word of the
kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what
has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.
20
As for what
was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and
immediately receives it with joy,
21
yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a
while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word,
immediately he falls away.
22
As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one
Schmuck 80

who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches
choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
23
As for what was sown on good soil,
this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and
yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

The second is the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30; 36-50).
Parable:

24
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be
compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field,
25
but while his men were
sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went
away.
26
So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared
also.
27
And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master,
did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’
28
He
said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you
want us to go and gather them?’
29
But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds
you root up the wheat along with them.
30
Let both grow together until the harvest,
and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in
bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Explanation:

Schmuck 81

36
Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him,
saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.”
37
He answered, “The
one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
38
The field is the world, and the
good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil
one,
39
and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the
age, and the reapers are angels.
40
Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with
fire, so will it be at the end of the age.
41
The Son of Man will send his angels, and
they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,
42
and
throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.
43
Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of
their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

The explanations by Jesus of his parables are essentially analyses of similes. Parables
after all are short allegories, metaphors or similes. Jesus’ parables are often prompted with a
simile: “The kingdom of God is like […].” When Jesus explains the parable of the sower and the
parable of the wheat and weeds, he simply identifies each component of the simile: A:[analogous
universal human condition] = (“this is”) B: [component of parable narrative]. For example:
“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and
snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path” (emphasis mine).
With the parable of the sower, Jesus adheres to the simile structure even in his explanation. With
the parable of the wheat and weeds however, he simply identifies the components of the simile
with “to be” verbs: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world,
and the good seed are the children of the kingdom […]” (emphasis mine). In his “Kratkoe
Schmuck 82

izlozhenie evangeliia” (Short Exposition of the Gospel”), Tolstoy modifies Jesus’ parables to
make them even clearer by interspersing the explanation with the unfolding of the parable
narrative. For example, the parable of the sower, the original of which is quoted above, Tolstoy
tells thus:

XIII, 24. Царство Бога вот к чему применить: хозяин посеял хорошие семена
на своем поле. Хозяин — это дух отец; поле — это мир; семена хорошие
— это сыны царства Бога.

25. Вот лег хозяин спать, и пришел враг и насеял на поле кистерю. Враг —
это соблазн, кистерь — это сыны соблазна.

27, 28. Вот пришли к хозяину работники и говорят: или ты плохие семена
сеял? У тебя на поле много кистерю вышло. Пошли нас, мы выполем.

29. А хозяин говорит: не надо; а то вы станете полоть кистерь, да и
потопчете пшеницу.

30. Пускай растут вместе. Придет жатва, тогда велю жнецам отобрать
кистерь и сожгу, а пшеницу уберу в сарай.
Жатва — это конец жизни людской, а жнецы — это силы небесные. И
сожгут кистерь, а пшеница очистится и соберется. Так и при конце жизни
Schmuck 83

пропадет всё, что было обман времени, и останется одна настоящая жизнь
— в духе. (PSS XXIV: 836; emphasis mine).

13:24. The kingdom of God is compared to what[?]: the master sewed good seeds
in his field. The master is the Father's spirit; the field is the world; the good
seeds are the sons of the kingdom of God.

25. Then the master lied down to sleep, and an enemy came to the field with
kister’ (an invasive grass). The enemy is temptation, the kister’ is the sons of
temptation.

27, 28. Then the master’s workers came to him and said: did you sew bad seeds?
Much kister’ has come up in your field. Send us, we will pull it up.

29. But the master says: don’t bother; or you will trample the wheat as you weed
out the kister’.

30. Let them grow together. The harvest will come, and I will command the
reapers to sort out the kister’ and burn it, while the wheat I will put in the barn.
The harvest is the end of human life, and the reapers are the heavenly
powers. And they will burn the kister’, but the wheat will be cleared and gathered
together. In this way will everything that was the illusion of time will fade away,
and only real life will remain—in spirit.
Schmuck 84

Note that directly after introducing the overarching simile (kingdom of God—master sowing
good seeds in his field), Tolstoy breaks the parable down into its simple parts and gives the
explanation for each part directly after its narrative telling. So after the introduction of the simile
just mentioned, Tolstoy explains: the master is the spiritual father; the field is the world; and the
good seeds are the sons of the kingdom of God.
Tolstoy obviously likes this additionally clarified explanation of each component of the
simile. For example, when translating and unifying the same parable, he mainly translates
Matthew, as he often prefers this Gospel. Nonetheless, in one spot where Matthew does not
include one of the clear A = B explanations of the parable, Tolstoy smuggles in this explanation
from Luke:

Лк. VIII, 11. Семя есть слово
Божие.
Семя — это разумение Бога.
Мф. XIII, 19. Ко всякому,
слушающему слово о царствии и
не разумеющему, приходит
лукавый и похищает посеянное в
сердце его; вот кого означает
посеянное при дороге.
Когда человек слышит учение о
царстве Божием и не принимает
в сердце свое, — враг приходит
и похищает то, что посеяно было
в сердце его. Это семя,
посеянное при дороге.
Schmuck 85

20. А посеянное на каменистых
местах означает того, кто слышит
слово и тотчас с радостию
принимает ого;
Что на камне посеяно, это тот,
кто слышит учение царства
Бога, понимает учение и потом
с радостью принимает его в
сердце.
21. но не имеет в себе корня и
непостоянен: когда настанет
скорбь или гонение за слово,
тотчас соблазняется.
Но не держит корня сам в себе, а
только на время. И как придет
теснота, обида из-за учения,
тотчас же поддается обману.

22. А посеянное в тернии означает
того, кто слышит слово, но забота
века сего и обольщение богатства
заглушает слово, и оно бывает
бесплодно.
А то, что в репьи высеялось —
это тот, кто учение понимает,
но заботы светские и любовь
2
богатства давит учение, и оно
не приносит плода.

23. Посеянное же на доброй земле
означает слышащего слово и
разумеющего, который и бывает
плодоносен, так что иной
приносит плод во сто крат, иной в
шестьдесят, а иной в тридцать.
А то зерно, что попало на
хорошую землю, — это тот, кто
понимает учение и принимает
в сердце свое, то родит которое
сам-сто, которое сам-
шестьдесят, которое сам-
тридцать.
(PSS XXIV: 188; emphasis mine).
Schmuck 86

Luke 8:11. Now the parable is this:
The seed is the word of God.

Matthew 13:19. When anyone hears
the word of the kingdom and does
not understand it, the evil one comes
and snatches away what has been
sown in his heart. This is what was
sown along the path.

20. As for what was sown on rocky
ground, this is the one who hears the
word and immediately receives it
with joy,

21. yet he has no root in himself,
but endures for a while, and when
tribulation or persecution arises on
account of the word, immediately he
falls away.

22. As for what was sown among
thorns, this is the one who hears the
word, but the cares of the world
and the deceitfulness of riches choke
the word, and it proves unfruitful.

23. As for what was sown on good
soil, this is the one who hears the
word and understands it. He
indeed bears fruit and yields, in one
case a hundredfold, in another sixty,
and in another thirty.”
The seed is the understanding of
God.

When a person hears the teaching of
kingdom of God and does not
receive it into his heart, the enemy
comes and preys on what would have
been sewn in his heart. This is the
seed, sewn on the road.

What is sewn on the rock is he who
hears the teaching of the kingdom
Schmuck 87

of God and receives it with joy in
his heart.

But he does not have the roots, and
only keeps it for a time. And as soon
as there is pressure or offense
because of the teaching, he gives in
to deceit.

And that which is sewn in the
thistles is he who understands the
teaching, but social cares and love
of wealth suffocate the teaching so
that it does not bear fruit.

And that grain which falls on the
good earth, that is he who
understands the teaching and
receives it into his heart, and it
multiplies a hundred, sixty or
thirty times over.

Tolstoy even goes further to offer his own explanation of the “inner meaning” of the parable
using the same form:

Такое значение притчи с внешней стороны, но внутренний смысл совсем
другой. И Иисус объясняет внутренний смысл.
Внешний смысл притчи тот, что для Бога одни люди предопределены к
смерти, другие к жизни. Внутренний же смысл тот, что нет
предопределения, но каждый может удержать разумение и приобресть его с
избытком.

Упавшее на дорогу — это: равнодушие, пренебрежение к разумению, и
потому Иисус предостерегает от равнодушия и пренебрежения и говорит,
что люди должны делать усилие, чтобы принять в сердце разумение.

Упавшее на камни — это слабость, и потому Иисус предостерегает от нее
и указывает на то, что человек должен сделать усилие, чтобы не
поколебаться от обид и гонений.

Репьи — это заботы мирские, и Иисус предостерегает и указывает на то,
что человек должен сделать усилие, чтобы откинуть их.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 89

Хорошая земля — это понимание и исполнение, несмотря на обиды и
заботы. И Иисус указывает на то, что кто сделает это усилие и исполнит, тот
получит жизнь с избытком (XXIV: 189-190; emphasis mine).

This is the meaning of the parable from the external point of view, but the inner
meaning is entirely different. And Jesus explains the inner meaning. The external
meaning of the parable is that for God some people are predestined for death and
others for life. The inner meaning of the parable is that there is no predestination,
but everyone may have understanding and acquire it in surplus.

That which fell on the road is: indifference to, neglect of understanding, and
because of this Jesus warns against indifference and disregard and says that
people must exert effort in order to receive understanding in their hearts.

That which fell on the rock is: weakness, and because of this Jesus warns
against weakness and points out that one must exert effort not to oscillate due to
offense or persecution.

The thistles are: worldly cares, and Jesus cautions and points out that one must
exert effort in order to rid oneself of them.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 90

The good earth is: understanding and fulfillment, despite offense and cares.
And Jesus points out that one who exerts effort and carries this out will receive
life in all its fullness.

Tolstoy praises the parable form for its clarity, but he still attempts to further clarify the
gospel parables by uniformly adhering to a narration-plus-explanation format for every parable
he includes in his own translation. Elsewhere, Tolstoy changes out words based on “better”
Greek synonyms (when multiple Greek synonyms are used in different Gospels) in order give the
clearest Russian text. This is all part of his effort to increase clarity. The similarity between his
parable and explanation form can be seen between this and the above quote about Karenin. The
difference in the case of Karenin is the use of the parable-like structure and explanation to
describe an emotional state. This may be explained retrospectively by Tolstoy’s insistence in his
theory of art on both authentic feeling and Christian morality. This kind of simile is a hybrid of
the two types of good art he later describes in “Chto takoe iskusstvo”—universal art (that which
transmits human feeling understandable to a person of any culture) and Christian art (clear moral
message) (PSS XXX: 159).
Tolstoy later wrote a full narrative parable, “Tri syna” (“Three Sons”), in the late 1880s.
This parable adheres exactly to the above parameters. It is even subtitled “A Parable.” This
parable sounds as if it could belong to the ranks of those parables unique to the Gospel of Luke,
the ones with slightly more developed characters and richer narratives (“The Prodigal Son”;
“The Good Samaritan”; “Lazarus and the Rich Man”): In the narrative portion, a father gives
each of his sons his inheritance in succession, telling each to “Live as I live and all will be well
with you.” The first two sons misunderstand the father’s words: The first son lives for pleasure,
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 91

runs out of money and is unhappy. The second lives independently of everyone and is also
unhappy. The third son looks at his brothers’ experience and at his father’s life and understands
correctly: He must simply do good to others as his father had always done. The parable contains
elements of the folktale in addition to its Gospel-like feel: the third son finds the true meaning of
his father’s words; and the father’s task, given to the first son in the beginning, seems cryptic
until it is revealed to be quite simple in the end. Most importantly, Tolstoy adheres strictly to the
model of parable explanation he learned from the Gospel writers and practiced in his translation
and abbreviation of the Gospels. After the narrative portion ends, Tolstoy goes on to explain
each element of the parable: “Отец — это Бог; сыновья — это люди; именье — это жизнь”
(XXVI:304) (“The father is God; the sons are people; the inheritance is life”). He employs a
clear A = B analysis. Furthermore, he explains the moral in detail after this initial explanation as
is done at times in the Gospel and consistently in Tolstoy’s “Soedinenie” and his “Izlozhenie.”
In “Ispoved’,” the first work he finished after his “second birth,” Tolstoy is already firmly
in the realm of writing and explaining his own parables. He writes an original parable to describe
the sensation he felt during his conversion:

Со мной случилось как будто вот что: Я не помню, когда меня посадили в
лодку, оттолкнули от какого-то неизвестного мне берега, указали
направление к другому берегу, дали в неопытные руки весла и оставили
одного. Я работал, как умел, веслами и плыл; но чем дальше я выплывал на
середину, тем быстрее становилось течение, относившее меня прочь от
цели, и тем чаще и чаще мне встречались пловцы, такие же, как я, уносимые
течением. Были одинокие пловцы, продолжавшие грести; были пловцы,
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 92

побросавшие весла; были большие лодки огромные корабли, полные
народом; одни бились с течением, другие отдавались ему. И чем дальше я
плыл, тем больше, глядя на направление вниз, по потоку всех плывущих, я
забывал данное мне направление. На самой середине потока, в тесноте
лодок и кораблей, несущихся вниз, я уже совсем потерял направление и
бросил весла. Со всех сторон с весельем и ликованием вокруг меня неслись
на парусах и на веслах пловцы вниз по течению, уверяя меня и друг друга,
что и не может быть другого направления. И я поверил им и поплыл с ними.
И меня далеко отнесло, так далеко, что я услыхал шум порогов, в которых я
должен был разбиться, и увидал лодки, разбившиеся в них. И я опомнился.
Долго я не мог понять, что со мной случилось. Я видел перед собой одну
погибель, к которой я бежал и которой боялся, нигде не видел спасения и не
знал, что мне делать. Но, оглянувшись назад, я увидел бесчисленные лодки,
которые, не переставая, упорно перебивали течение, вспомнил о береге, о
веслах и направлении и стал выгребаться назад вверх по течению и к берегу.
Берег — это был бог, направление — это было предание, весла —
это была данная мне свобода выгрестись к берегу — соединиться с
богом. Итак, сила жизни возобновилась во мне, и я опять начал жить (PSS
XXIII: 46-47; emphasis mine).

What happened to me was something of this kind: I was put into a boat (I do not
remember when) and pushed off from an unknown shore, shown the direction of
the opposite shore, had oars put into my unpractised hands, and was left alone. I
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 93

rowed as best I could and moved forward; but the further I advanced towards the
middle of the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my
goal, and the more frequently did I encounter others, like myself, borne away by
the stream. There were a few rowers who continued to row, there were others who
had abandoned their oars; there were large boats and immense vessels full of
people. Some struggled against the current, others yielded to it. And the further I
went the more I forgot, seeing the progress down the current of all those who
were adrift, the direction given me. In the very centre of the stream, amid the
crowd of boats and vessels which were being borne down stream, I quite lost my
direction and abandoned my oars. Around me, on all sides, with mirth and
rejoicing, people with sails and oars were borne down the stream, assuring me and
each other that no other direction was possible. And I believed them and floated
with them. And I was carried far; so far that I heard the roar of the rapids in which
I must be shattered, and I saw boats shattered in them. And I recollected myself. I
was long unable to understand what had happened to me. I saw before me nothing
but destruction, towards which I was rushing, and which I feared. I saw no safety
anywhere, and did not know what to do; but, looking back, I perceived
innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously pushed across the stream,
and I remembered about the shore, the oars, and the direction, and began to pull
back upwards against the stream and towards the shore.
That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars were the
freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God. And so the force
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 94

of life was renewed in me, and I again began to live (Tolstoy, A Confession, 61-
62).
13

The above parable of the rowboats is an exact imitation of a traditional parable, with the
exception of its being told from the first person. In this sense, many of Tolstoy’s variations on
the parable are more personal before they become universal and depersonalized through their
form and presumed applicability to all people. This is another example of the centripetal,
followed by centrifugal, attention repeatedly stressed in the process of transcending self and
attaining community. Like the old man in Voskresen’e, Tolstoy suggests that when one truly
knows oneself, he is only then able to merge with his fellows. Despite its autobiographical
premise, the rowboat parable mimics both the extended simile (“как будто вот что”) (“is akin to
something like”) and the immediate explanation using the A=B formula: “Берег — это был бог,

13
“Ispoved’” is one of those treatises that shows ample signs of artifice (Christian 215). The
above parable is artfully employed to universalize the otherwise very individual feeling of
“going against the flow:”

While it is hard to deny Tolstoy’s sincerity, it is equally hard to deny his artifice.
Concealed by the colloquial language, the omitted pronouns, the seemingly casual
‘and’, ‘but’, ‘thus’, 'and so', lie the carefully constructed runs of threes, the sets of
nouns and verbs, sometimes five or six in number with no conjunctions, the
rhetorical appoggiaturas and the conscious literary exploitation of the parable, the
long simile or the dream (Christian 216).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 95

направление — это было предание, весла — это была данная мне свобода выгрестись к
берегу — соединиться с богом” (“That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars
were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God.")
In another passage in “Ispoved’” Tolstoy modifies this form while using some of the
same techniques to translate a well-known “Eastern fable” into his own words:

Давно уже рассказана восточная басня про путника, застигнутого в степи
разъяренным зверем. Спасаясь от зверя, путник вскакивает в безводный
колодезь, но на дне колодца видит дракона, разинувшего пасть, чтобы
пожрать его. И несчастный, не смея вылезть, чтобы не погибнуть от
разъяренного зверя, не смея и спрыгнуть на дно колодца, чтобы не быть
пожранным драконом, ухватывается за ветви растущего в расщелинах
колодца дикого куста и держится на нем. Руки его ослабевают, и он
чувствует, что скоро должен будет отдаться погибели, с обеих сторон ждущей
его; но он всё держится, и пока он держится, он оглядывается и видит, что две
мыши, одна черная, другая белая, равномерно обходя стволину куста, на
котором он висит, подтачивают ее. Вот-вот сам собой обломится и оборвется
куст, и он упадет в пасть дракону. Путник видит это и знает, что он
неминуемо погибнет; но пока он висит, он ищет вокруг себя и находит на
листьях куста капли меда, достает их языком и лижет их. Так и я держусь за
ветки жизни, зная, что неминуемо ждет дракон смерти, готовый растерзать
меня, и не могу понять, зачем я попал на это мучение. И я пытаюсь сосать тот
мед, который прежде утешал меня; но этот мед уже не радует меня, а белая и
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 96

черная мышь — день и ночь — подтачивают ветку, за которую я держусь. Я
ясно вижу дракона, и мед уже не сладок мне. Я вижу одно — неизбежного
дракона и мышей, — и не могу отвратить от них взор. И это не басня, а это
истинная, неоспоримая и всякому понятная правда.
Прежний обман радостей жизни, заглушавший ужас дракона, уже не
обманывает меня. Сколько ни говори мне: ты не можешь понять смысла
жизни, не думай, живи, — я не могу делать этого, потому что слишком
долго делал это прежде. Теперь я не могу не видеть дня и ночи, бегущих и
ведущих меня к смерти. Я вижу это одно, потому что это одно — истина.
Остальное всё — ложь.
Те две капли меда, которые дольше других отводили мне глаза от
жестокой истины — любовь к семье и к писательству, которое я называл
искусством, — уже не сладки мне (PSS XXIII: 13-14; emphasis mine).

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an
enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the
bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the
unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the
enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be
eaten by the dragon, seizes a twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it.
His hands are growing weaker, and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to
the destruction that awaits him above or below; but still he clings on. Then he sees
that two mice, a black and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 97

the twig to which he is clinging, and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap
and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he
will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of
honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I
too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably
awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had
fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me; but
the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and
night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly, and the
honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice,
and I could not tear my gaze from them. And this is not a fable, but the real
unanswerable truth intelligible to all.
The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon
now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told, “You cannot
understand the meaning of life, so do not think about it, but live,” I can no
longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and
night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true.
All else is false.
The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth
longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing—art as I called it—
were no longer sweet to me (Tolstoy, A Confession, 17-18).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 98

First, the fable on which Tolstoy’s is based has a very different ending than Tolstoy’s.
The true ending is that the traveler imbibes the drops of honey and forgets the dangers and death
on all sides, allowing him to die in bliss. Tolstoy’s variation seems to contain an implicit
condemnation of the original ending. The original ending suggests an enlightened state in which
one savors the beauty and truth of life to the extent that one can fully surrender to any fate. This
kind of highly disciplined outlook is not a universally graspable truth that can be fully
understood through the process of reading the fable, however. For this reason, the original fable,
by Tolstoy’s [later explicit] estimation, is not a good (clear, moral and/or universal) piece of
art.
14
Tolstoy therefore modifies the fable to satisfy his standards and to express his meaning. He

14
И таким было всегда хорошее, высшее искусство: Илиада, Одиссея,
история Иакова, Исаака, Иосифа, и пророки еврейские, и псалмы, и
евангельские притчи […] — передают очень высокие чувства и, несмотря на
то, вполне понятны нам теперь, образованным и необразованным, и были
понятны тогдашним, еще менее, чем наш рабочий народ, образованным
людям. Говорят о непонятности. Но если искусство есть передача чувств,
вытекающих из религиозного сознания людей, то как же может быть
непонятно чувство, основанное на религии, т. е. на отношении человека к
Богу? (PSS XXX: 109-110).

And such has always been the nature of good, supreme art; the “Iliad,” the
“Odyssey,” the stories of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the Hebrew prophets, the
psalms, the gospel parables, […] all transmit very elevated feelings, and all are
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 99

replaces the mystical ending with one that is universally comprehensible—that in the face of real
and imminent demise (“жестокая истина” (“harsh truth”)), the pleasures of life (“любовь к
семье и к писательству” (“love for family and for writing”)) lose their allure.
This is not a strictly Gospel-style parable, like the previous one (though the previous one
did not resemble the style of the Gospels, the structure was the same). In the “Eastern fable”
adapted here, a direct moral call to action is not necessarily involved. Rather, a feeling is being
expressed. There is a strong moral element and context implicit in that feeling, and it could (and
perhaps, should) lead to moral action, but there is no call to action explicit in the message of this
adapted parable. Instead, the moral-aesthetic stance takes the place of this call to moral action,
and one can still see the techniques that Tolstoy picked up from the Gospels deployed here,
though they are slightly less obvious.
Rather than an explicit simile at the beginning, the narrative begins with a third-person
allegory. Still a simile-like comparison does connect the fable to the author in a dramatic
narrative gesture. Suddenly, after the use of the third-person pronoun “он” (“he”), as the traveler
licks the honey droplets, the reader is blindsided by the first-person pronoun “я” (“I”), when the
author’s persona is thrust into the fable halfway through. This is accomplished with a simile-like,

nevertheless quite comprehensible to us, educated or uneducated, as they were
comprehensible to the men of those times, long ago, who were even less educated
than our laborers. People talk about incomprehensibility; but if art is the
transmission of feelings flowing from man’s religious perception, how can a
feeling be incomprehensible which is founded on religion, i.e. on man’s relation
to God? (PSS, Vol. 11, 89-90)

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 100

comparative linkage of the story to the author’s life: “Так и я держусь за кусты […]” (“Just so
do I hold onto the bush […]”) This also operates as a clarification, or an early taste of the
explanation to come: the traveler = I. This flourish adds a personal element, rather than an
impersonal one, to this otherwise depersonalized fable, whose hero was until now a nameless,
generic “traveler.” Nonetheless, Tolstoy manages, by upsetting the reader’s expectations (after
all, we should already know the real ending to the fable, which is “давно уже рассказана”
(“already told since long ago”), to present a much more human, comprehensible and therefore
universal—as well as more Tolstoyan, i.e. less stoic, epicurean or existential—ending to the
story). The genuine feeling he transmits at the end of the story, which if read with the
expectation of the traditional ending both surprises and feels more familiar to a reasonable
reader, makes this parable both comprehensible and instructive, like Gospel parables. This is
finalized through the same method of explanation used by Jesus in the Gospels and Tolstoy
elsewhere—the immediately revealed simile components shown in an A = B format: “две капли
меда” (“two drops of honey”) = “любовь к семье и к писательству” (“love for family and for
writing”).
Before reading this parable, the reader may have found it preposterous that one could lose
his taste for honey, let alone his loving family or his well-regarded novels. However, when
presented with all the narrative force of the above-mentioned techniques, his apathy toward these
good things is made reasonable and is easily sympathized with.
The above examples constitute just a few of the many parables that fill Tolstoy’s late
literature—mostly in, but not limited to, his Gospel-adjacent writing. In the final chapter of my
dissertation, I discuss the deployment of parable form on a larger scale as a structural tour de
force which diminishes the role of personal characters in the linkages of the narrative. Here
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 101

though, we see the seeds of later experimentation. The first examples of similes of experience in
Anna Karenina and the last of the Eastern fable show the influence of the parable form technique
outside of its Gospel-like implementation. In these examples, the parable is used to convey an
intense, universally comprehensible emotion prompted by moral imbalance. The impersonal,
universal nature of the parable form, along with the high level of authorial control over its
interpretation, motivate its use in Tolstoy’s late moral worldview. In his effort to “write” like
Christ, Tolstoy’s style exhibits a tension between universal self-denial and overbearing authorial
control.
As we move on to the single example of fleshly depersonalization in Tolstoy’s writings,
we will still be analyzing a text that is largely indebted to the Gospels and the conversion
narrative—Kreitserova sonata (The Kreutzer Sonata). Tolstoy’s project of depersonalizing his
art was directly related to his own conversion and was intended to “convert” his narratives as
well. The Bible was consistently an influence in this process, but it was not the only one. Tolstoy
also appropriated the discourse of science and philosophy in order to promote his cause of
universal union and rejection of individual personal identity. In Kreitserova sonata, Tolstoy
addresses the physical implications of his moral project. In his campaign for abstinent
brotherhood of all men and women, Tolstoy constructed a counter theory to Darwinian evolution
that was a “moral evolution” with the power to unite all people by making them extinct. This
fleshly and literal depersonalization is presented in one of Tolstoy’s most personal narrative
voices, Pozdnyshev. In the following chapter, we will look at the many discursive threads that
make Tolstoy’s utopian extinction work in Kreitserova sonata’s narrative in the following
chapter.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 102

Chapter 3. Fleshly Depersonalization and the Utopia of Extinction in Kreitserova sonata
(Kreutzer Sonata)

Но, может быть, вам не нравится эта форма выражения, и вы эволюционист?
То и тогда выходит то же самое. Высшая порода животных — людская, для
того чтобы удержаться в борьбе с другими животными, должна сомкнуться
воедино, как рой пчел, а не бесконечно плодиться; должна так же, как
пчелы, воспитывать бесполых, т. е. опять должна стремиться к
воздержанию, а никак не к разжиганию похоти, к чему направлен весь строй
нашей жизни. (PSS XXVII: 30-31)

But maybe you don’t like that form of expression, and you are an evolutionist?
Well then it comes out just the same. As the superior breed of animals—the
human race, in order to hold up in struggle with other animals, should unite into
one, like a swarm of bees, but not eternally procreate; it must, just like the bees,
raise sexless ones, i.e. again strive for abstinence, and not toward the stirring up of
vice, around which the entire order of our lives is arranged.

Not long after the publication of Kreitserova sonata, Max Nordau published his study of
degeneration in writers and artists, naming among them Tolstoy. Nordau discounts Tolstoy’s
views on abstinent union, and criticizes Tolstoy’s moralism as “mystic emotionalism.” Nordau
found Tolstoy’s theory of universal union and extinction to be the conception of a degenerate
man with misplaced sympathies. For Tolstoy, Nordau writes, “the individual is nothing; the
species is everything.” Nordau argues that the unity between individuals is falsely achieved in
Tolstoy's philosophy: “The mystic practices a sentimental anthropomorphism. He transfers his
own feelings, without more ado to other beings, who feel quite different from himself.” Though
Nordau’s diagnosis of Tolstoy as an aberrant degenerate is irrelevant to the status of Kreitserova
sonata as a narrative, Nordau does stumble upon some key themes in the story that have been
little investigated. Degeneration, or extinction, is an important thread in the tapestry of this
motley narrative. The process of this extinction is based on unification, the erasure of difference,
and the “transfer of feelings,” that Nordau notices as a tendency of Tolstoy. Nordau picks up on
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 103

a characteristic omniscience and empathy in Tolstoy’s prose that transcends the boundaries of
self and other. This is the basis for his notion of “infection” in art and in his religious thought
that all people should be made one through denial of self.
Just like Tolstoy’s famous concept of “infection,” about which he would write in “Chto
takoe isskustvo?” (“What is Art?”), “degeneration” has both positive and negative connotations,
especially in Tolstoy. The moral overtone is negative, akin to degradation, but the evolutionary
association, which I will analyze later in this chapter, is ultimately positive for Tolstoy. De-
generation signifies a reverse movement back to the root –gen, which means “that which
produces,” from the Greek Greek -genēs “born.” To undo this process is to reverse the
proliferation of individuals and to return to a unified, undiversified whole, even if that whole is a
zero—extinction. In Tolstoy’s late thought on personhood, he repeatedly strove for avenues to
oneness. In his views on sexuality, this was manifested in his belief that all men and women
should live as brothers and sisters, as one family. He knew the logical conclusion of such an
arrangement and saw nothing sad about such an extinction. He wrote to Chertkov in 1888:

Родъ человеческий прекратится? Прекратится животное человекъ. Экая бѣда
какая! Выродились допотопныя животныя, выродится и человеческое
животное наверное (если судить по внешности въ пространстве и времени).
Пускай его прекращается. Мнѣ такъ же мало жалко этаго двуногаго
животнаго, какъ и ихтіозавровъ и т. п., только бы не прекратилась жизнь
истинная, любовь существъ, могущихъ любить. А это не только не
прекратится, если родъ человѣческій прекратится отъ того, что люди изъ
любви отрекутся отъ наслажденій похоти, но увеличится въ безчисленное
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 104

количество разъ, такъ увеличится эта любовь, и существа, испытывающія ее,
сделаются такими, что продолженіе рода человѣческаго для нихъ и не
нужно будетъ. Плотская любовь только затѣмъ и нужна, чтобы не
прекратилась возможность выработки изъ людей такихъ существъ. (PSS
LXXXVI: 183-184).

The end of the human race? The human animal cease to exist. What misery! The
antediluvian animals went extinct, and so will the human animal probably (if one
is to judge externally in space and time). Let it end. I have so little pity for this
two-legged animal, just as for the ichtosaurus and the like, as long as true life, and
the love of beings capable of loving doesn’t end. And that will not only not end if
the human race ceases to exist because people go astray out of love for the
enjoyments of vice, but it will increase an infinite number of times, just so will
this love increase, and the beings experiencing it will be made such that the
continuation of the human race for them will no longer be necessary. Only then
will carnal love again be necessary in order that the making of such beings out of
people never comes to an end.

From this letter it is clear that “vyrozhdenie” (in this case denoting extinction, though
literally “degeneration”) is linked with a positive result—the multiplication of “true life”
and “love.” Tolstoy’s theory already bears great resemblance to the one he will
communicate through Pozdnyshev in Kreitserova sonata. This theory of fleshly
depersonalization, must be converted into narrative form that also reflects the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 105

depersonalized oneness Pozdnyshev predicts. This is accomplished through the
dramatization of Pozdnyshev’s conversion, and through “infection.” Pozdnyshev’s
parable of jealousy and murder is expanded into a carthartic exercise in “infectious”
personal feelings that enmesh readers in Pozdnyshev’s frenzy (and consequently in
Tolstoy’s ideological hypothesis), allowing them to renounce those personal feelings and
the evil they only imagine committing by the end of the story.
Origins of the Narrative
Since Tolstoy’s theory is nearly identical to Pozdnyshev’s, his main character in
Kreitserova sonata, the question of narrative effect becomes central. Why create a
narrative at all? Why not simply write an essay similar to the afterword Tolstoy did write
following the publication of his story? The answer is, as it often is with Tolstoy’s more
didactic works, to create drama. Tolstoy sought to combine a theory (his new sexual
ethics, along with their implications about human extinction) with a narrative idea (the
plot idea, “Ubiistvo zheny” (“A Wife’s Murder”) that he came up with after hearing a
story of adultery from his friend, the actor V. N. Andreev-Burlak in the 1870s (PSS
XXVII: 563)) in order to endow the aforementioned theory with dramatic appeal and
effect. From the genesis of the story, we can surmise that Tolstoy had theatricality in
mind, as well as an investigation of the power of art. When he heard Beethoven’s
“Kreutzer Sonata” for the second time, he was with two of his friends—the artist Repin
and V. N. Andreev-Burlak. After being much affected by the piece, Tolstoy made an
agreement with his friends that each of them would create a work of art inspired by the
sonata—Repin, a painting; Tolstoy, a story; and Andreev-Burlak, a dramatic reading of
Tolstoy’s story in front of the painting (Troyat 475). This initial vision of building the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 106

sonata into a Gesamtkunstwerk, though never accomplished (Repin forgot and Andreev-
Burlak died soon after), shows Tolstoy’s interest in a dramatic rendition of his plot and
idea. This also motivates the monologue form of most of the novella. Still, the question of
how the narrative is otherwise constructed remains, along with the question of how its
narrative structure reflects the idea of degeneration and eventual unity and extinction.
I interpret the form of Kreitserova sonata as a dramatization of two narrative
effects, both of which are related to Tolstoy’s ideas on art that would be later
incorporated into his theory (in “Chto takoe isskustvo?’) and practice (see my next
chapter on his late children’s stories):
First, the entire narrative is built around infection of the narrator by Pozdnyshev.
Like many of Tolstoy’s more didactic narratives, infection, which amounts to an erasure
of emotional boundaries between persons, plays a major role in the relations between
characters. In this particular narrative, infection works as a means for triggering catharsis.
The narrator has not experienced the things Pozdnyshev has, and so has to experience
them through him (and so do we), through infection accomplished through hearing (or
reading) his monolog. The narrator then, and we through him, undergoes the successful
experience of art in the way that Pozdnyshev fails to when he hears the sonata. We do not
need to commit murder ourselves, but we experience it like a Greek tragedy, and we are
cleansed and are made able to pursue the future conceived by Pozdnyshev after his
conversion. Unlike Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata infects
properly, under the right circumstances to be morally effective. This interpretation is
further motivated by Tolstoy’s inital idea for the story as a dramatic experiment in his art
theory—to be read dramatically by Andreev-Burlak and accompanied by visual art by
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 107

Repin. This earlier experimental conception seems to be Tolstoy’s attempt to replace his
own hearing of the sonata with a more successful infection of ideas through narrative,
drama and visual art all at once.
Stephen Baehr argues that Kreitserova sonata is an exemplar of “genuine art”
according to Tolstoy’s later treatise:

Pozdnyshev[…]’s vivid recollections of past feelings so infect the narrator
that he copies the words verbatim—a sufficient basis for “genuine art” in
Tolstoi’s scheme. Like all genuine art, these feelings are “new” (as is
reflected in the many comments of the narrator that “all this was new and
astounded me”); as in all genuine art, communication results from an
“inner need to express feelings” (XXX, 150), as Pozdnyshev […] states
when he remarks that “it is painful for me to remain silent” (XXVII, 16)
[142]. Like the best true art this tale (which the narrator calls a rasskaz—
which can mean a “short story” [XXVII, 78] [195]) is based upon the
highest “religious consciousness” of the time. […] Pozdnyshev […] meets
all Tolstoi’s criteria for the true artist: he has the ability to “relive” his past
feelings and is strongly infected by them himself (as is seen in the strange,
choke-like sound that he involuntarily emits at crucial points in the
narrative); he is able to recount characteristic details of these past feelings
(details which seem almost excessive when judged by non-Tolstoian
standards); and he understands the problems of his time. […] In short,
Pozdnyshev […] fulfills Tolstoi’s dictum that the true artist “must stand
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 108

on the level of the highest world view of his time, must relive a feeling
and have the desire and the means to communicate it and must have talent
for some form of art” […] Like the new Tolstoian artist, Pozdnyshev […]
is […] simply a man driven by an inner need to spread the “Good News”
of brotherly love and unity. His transformation illustrates Tolstoi’s hope
that just as Pozdnyshev […] had once been “like all of the people in his
circle,” so in the future will all of these people […] transform their lives
into “art” (Baehr 449-451).

Through this genuine art, Pozdnyshev infects the narrator in a cathartic manner, making it
possible for someone without Pozdnyshev’s experience to become of one mind with him and
arrive at his conversion without taking the same tragic path to get there.
The second narrative effect at play in the structure of Kreitserova sonata, which reflects
its meaning, is what I propose to call “degenerative” narrative. The structure of the novella is,
more so than other Tolstoy narratives, reminiscent of Dostoevsky’s characters’ long, emotional
monologs. Much like in Dostoevsky’s novels, there is a philosophical dialog among characters,
after which one character hijacks the conversation for many pages so that we often forget there is
a dialog or a frame narrative at all. The narrative proliferates and expands via digressions, and
does not express its idea succinctly or clearly. This is the opposite of a perfected narrative for
Tolstoy, especially with regard to length and clarity. Perhaps if aligned with the thematic play of
procreation/extinction, Pozdnyshev’s rant is an example of a degenerate narrative. It is overly
productive. This structure stands in contrast to what Tolstoy would consider narrative perfection,
which in his own work is approached through sparser and sparser narratives, culminating (as
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 109

Irina Paperno argues in Who, What Am I?) in the narrative silence of Krug chteniia. This
interpretation is buttressed by Tolstoy’s afterword, which through short form and enumeration,
expresses the several points involved in Tolstoy’s moral theory. This afterword could have been
published in place of Kreitserova sonata if it weren’t for the central question of art and infection
with which Tolstoy hoped to dramatize his moral theory on the unification and extinction of
humans. The afterword’s clarity illuminates the striking lack of clarity in Pozdnyshev’s rants.
Perhaps Tolstoy was dramatizing the degeneration (which I will discuss below vis a vis Darwin
and Chernyshevsky) through narrative structure. After all, as Baehr notes in his analysis of
Kreitserova sonata as a work of “genuine art” according to Tolstoy’s treatise, art can be
“negative”: “Tolstoy clearly indicates that the best religious art can be either ‘positive’ or
‘negative.’ Like negative religious art, [Pozdnyshev’s] recollections express an ‘indignation, a
horror at the destruction of love” (Baehr 450). Tolstoy’s ventriloquist act with Pozdnyshev uses
an ultra-individual skaz. This can be read as a form of defamiliarization:

Such studied linguistic incompetence is akin to defamiliarization. Exponents of
the "natural" outlook (Natasha, Pierre, Strider, Tolstoy's fictional narrators, and
his nonfictional preaching self) struggle with the multilayered shell of
conventions, rules, and other manifestations of the hated comme il faut, trying to
get through to the simple, fundamental, unconventional Truth. This results in
"non-neutral," awkward, poor, but "true" discourse, groping for the real essence of
things and not ashamed of its own aesthetic uncouthness (Zholkovsky,
“Grafomanstvo kak priem”).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 110

If Pozdnyshev belongs to these ranks, he is an exceptional case. His uncontrolled speech does
not just challenge convention, it threatens the censorship of the Freudian superego and rebuilds a
Rousseauian id through the empowerment of an irregular self. Pozdnyshev’s uncouth narrative is
an eloquent manifestation of extreme self. How does it fit, then, in this study?
This “true” discourse, however ugly or irregular, is an invariant mode in Tolstoy’s essay-
writing. Tolstoy, in fact, with regard to a select few of his writings, fits into the tradition of
“plokhopis’” (coined by Zholkovsky) in the tradition of Gogol’ and others:

“Miscontrolled” writing signaled the liberation of a previously disciplined
“lower” voice. This was analogous to such manifestations of literary decontrol as
the “works” of Koz’ma Prutkov, Dostoevsky’s “hurriedly unpolished” manner,
Leo Tolstoy’s deliberately primitive “truth-searching” discourse (sometimes quite
Akakii-like), Leskov’s skaz, Rozanov’s homely homilies, Khlebnikov’s quasi-
graphomaniac poetics, Zoshchenko’s coy primitivism, down to Limonov’s stark
uncouthness, which prompted a traditionalist contemporary’s (Naum
Korzhavin’s) provocative labeling personazhi pishut “[Now it is the] characters
[who do the] writing.” […] In a broader, philosophical sense, the effect of
“characters writing” is akin to such modern cultural phenomena as Nietzschean
relativization of values, Freudian triple-voicedness of the psyche, and
Dostoevskian-Bakhtinian dialogism (Zholkovsky, “Rereading Gogol’s Miswritten
Passages” 24-25).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 111

In the following sections, I will describe the theory of degeneration and moral evolution
espoused within the narrative structure of Kreitserova sonata, its textual sources, and the way
these sources are reimagined by Tolstoy to create his theory of the unification and extinction of
man through fleshly depersonalization.

The Union and Extinction of Man
With his call to celibacy in Kreitserova sonata, Pozdnyshev imagines an erasure of
sexual difference between male and female, and eventually of humanity itself following its
successful abstinent union. Through Pozdnyshev’s theory, Tolstoy accomplishes a reversal of
Darwinian natural, and most specifically, sexual selection. Pozdnyshev’s theory traces the
gradual erasure of the differences between species, so to speak, in contrast to Darwin’s study of
their emergence. The resulting effect is a unifying force (“сомкнуться воедино” (“converge into
one”); “соединяться воедино любовью” (“unite into one through love”) (PSS XXVII: 30-31))
that eliminates sexual difference and ultimately results in extinction. Tolstoy posits a path to
extinction (via erasure) in place of a path back to origin (via evolution).
This anti-Darwinian interpretation of Tolstoy’s argument is supplemented by other
influences which Tolstoy revises in light of his changing ideas. In fact, Kreitserova sonata is a
vehicle for Tolstoy to chew up and spit out multiple ideological discourses with which he
disagreed (evolution/struggle for existence) or which were no longer valid in his worldview and
are in need of revision (Genesis' great commission for procreation), and the move away from
monogamous marriage to abstinent marriage (the shift from his position in “V chem moia vera?”
(“What I Believe”) to his new one that takes the epigraphs of Kreitserova sonata literally and
totally). I suggest reading Kreitserova sonata as Tolstoy’s practice in narrative degeneration, and
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 112

more specifically as his reworking of many of the ideological discourses he was processing at the
time of its composition. Three major sources that were rewritten in Tolstoy’s late vision and
presented as part of Pozdnyshev’s proposal are: 1) the creation story of Genesis, 2) Darwin’s The
Origin of Species, via an article by Nikolai Chernyshevsky, and 3) Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s
rhetoric of perfectibility. Pozdnyshev’s language is fraught with the lexicon of the creation story,
and his argumentation parodies evolutionary biology while taking Rousseauian perfectibility to
its logical, though nearly absurd, end—that of the unification and extinction of mankind, the
ultimate depersonalization.
The technique with which Tolstoy presents these revised texts is through the “infection”
of the narrator. Through the empathic co-experience of Pozdnyshev’s temptation, moral fall and
redemption, the narrator is infected emotionally with the values Pozdnyshev expresses:

Tolstoy believed that an “evolution of feelings” would bring about a new kind of
art in the future, providing “a means of transferring Christian religious
consciousness from the realm of mind and reason to the realm of feeling” and thus
bringing people together in “perfection and unity” […] In short, this new religious
art will lead to the elimination of murders such as that committed by Pozdnyshev;
it will accomplish this goal by infecting people in such a way that “the feelings of
brotherhood and love…will become the habitual feelings and the instinct of all
people” […] (Baehr 447-448).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 113

Through an empathic bond of minds, the narrator is also able to grasp the truth of
universal brotherhood even though he has not had firsthand experience with the all-
consuming passions that eventually prompted Pozdnyshev’s conversion.
Tolstoy’s theory of “moral evolution,” his counter theory to Darwinian evolution,
is transmitted in conjunction with his tale of moral fall followed by conversion, and the
moral is communicated through emotional infection to the narrator, Pozdnyshev’s
erstwhile confidant. In one of Tolstoy’s efforts at Christ-like authorship, he coopts the
discourse of the Gospels, as well as Genesis, while reworking Rousseau’s ideas and
parodying Darwin’s—all in order to create a counter theory in a similar “scientific” idiom
to other theories of human progress or degeneration. In this chapter, I will analyze
Tolstoy’s reworking of his influences and opponents (in the case of Darwin) to create his
theory of ultimate unity and subsequent extinction.
The Bible

I will begin with the Biblical intertext. In Kreitserova sonata, a discourse of "the animal
versus the human" pervades Pozdnyshev’s rhetoric. He portrays the positive and negative animal
traits that men and woman develop in their sexual relationships with one another with a deep
ambivalence throughout the story. Tolstoy channels the lexicon of the Biblical creation story to
explore the position of woman as helper to man (in place of animals), and in order to refute his
own former belief in monogamous Christian marriage. He replaces God's command to “be
fruitful and multiply” with his own call to global celibacy and his belief in woman's position as
man's helper in perfecting society on earth. This is part of Tolstoy’s project to appropriate the
authority of Biblical discourse to advocate for his goals of depersonalized union of all people.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 114

In chapter 16 of Kreitserova sonata, Pozdnyshev launches into a diatribe about the
torture and suffering of having children. He outlines the process by which contemporary women
neglect their children as a result of their fear of becoming attached and then losing them. He
asserts that women love the idea of adorable little children, but they cannot love them fully
because their imaginations will go wild with fears of disease, danger and death. For this reason,
children become “a torment,” and the mothers give away their children to wet nurses.
Pozdnyshev posits, “It was an ordeal for her, and for me as well. And she couldn’t have done
anything else but suffer.” (Kreutzer Sonata 141) This shows a strong tension between the
negative and the positive significance of the human as animal in Pozdnyshev’s philosophy. The
woman possesses “animal-like” (животные) impulses to take care of her children, just as the
majority of women do, but those impulses aren’t exactly what animals have, because animals
lack two things that humans possess—imagination and reason, which cause the animal-like
impulses in women to degenerate into egoism.
15

Further developing his ideas about child-rearing, Pozdnyshev explores what happens to
the woman and her animal-like impulses when one of her children falls sick or dies:

15
Tolstoy is clearly beholden to Schopenhauer for his philosophy of the animal versus the
human in this text. He takes the basic ideas espoused by Schopenhauer about the difference
between the human and animal mind and draws conclusions about the moral ramifications of
these differences. Due to woman’s imagination and reason, she is able to worry excessively
about the wellbeing of her children, and thus be in torment, or she is able to give her children to a
wet nurse and sever her emotional bond in order to give free rein to mental diversion in society
life.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 115

Ведь влечение к детям, животная потребность кормить, лелеять, защищать
их — была, как она и есть у большинства женщин, но не было того, что есть
у животных, — отсутствия воображения и рассудка. Курица не боится того,
что может случиться с ее цыпленком, не знает всех тех болезней, которые
могут постигнуть его, не знает всех тех средств, которыми люди
воображают, что они могут спасать от болезней и смерти. И дети для нее,
для курицы, не мученье. Она делает для своих цыплят то, что ей
свойственно и радостно делать; дети для нее радость. И когда цыпленок
начинает болеть, ее заботы очень определенные: она греет, кормит его. И
делая это, знает, что она делает всё, что нужно. Издохнет цыпленок, она не
спрашивает себя, зачем он умер, куда он ушел, поквохчет, потом перестанет
и продолжает жить попрежнему […] Ведь если бы она была совсем
животное, она так бы не мучалась; если же бы она была совсем человек, то у
ней была бы вера в Бога, и она бы говорила и думала, как говорят верующие
бабы: «Бог дал, Бог и взял, от Бога не уйдешь». Она бы думала, что жизнь и
смерть как всех людей, так и ее детей, вне власти людей, а во власти только
Бога, и тогда бы она не мучалась тем, что в ее власти было предотвратить
болезни и смерти детей, а она этого не сделала (XXVII:42-43).

After all, her attachment to her children, her animal instinct to feed, caress and
protect them, were just as strong in her as they are in the majority of women; she
did not, however, have what the animals have—an absence of reason and
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 116

imagination. The hen isn’t afraid of what may happen to her chick, knows nothing
of all the diseases that may attack it, or of all those remedies human beings
imagine will save them from sickness and death. And the hen’s chicks are not a
source of torment to her. She does for them what it’s natural and agreeable for her
to do: her children are a delight to her. And when one of her chicks starts to show
signs of being ill, the range of her concerns is very limited: she feeds the chick
and keeps it warm, secure in the knowledge that what she’s doing is all that is
necessary. If the chick dies, she doesn’t ask herself why it has died, or where it’s
gone, she merely clucks for a while, then stops, and goes on living as before. But
that’s not how it is for our unfortunate women, and that’s not how it was for my
wife […] After all, if she’d really been an animal, she wouldn’t have suffered like
that; if she’d really been a human being, she’d have believed in God, and she’d
have said and thought what the peasant women say: “The Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away; we’re all in the hands of God.” She’d have considered that the
lives and deaths of all God’s creatures, her own children included, fell outside the
jurisdiction of human beings and were dependent on God alone, and then she
wouldn’t have been tormented by the thought that it was in her power to prevent
the deaths and illnesses of her children—but this she didn’t do. (Kreutzer Sonata
141-143, emphasis mine)

This passage is replete with the words for suffering and torture. Among others, the words
мучаться/мучение (“to suffer/suffering”) and пытка (“torture”) are employed regularly. I
would argue that this association between suffering and childbirth/child-rearing is taken from the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 117

book of Genesis and God’s curse on Eve after the fall: “I will surely multiply your pain in
childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,” (Genesis 3:16 ESV). In Genesis, childbirth
acquired the curse of pain after the fall. In Tolstoy, the suffering differentiates humans from
other animals.
This association with Genesis does not come out of nowhere. Let us go back to chapter
13 of Kreitserova sonata to explore a dialogue between Tolstoy, God and Tolstoy’s younger self
as Pozdnyshev voices his views on what women should be. After Pozdnyshev outlines his
conflicted argument about what is animal-like about men and women in their relations with one
another, he makes the following well-known declaration about the need for celibacy which
Tolstoy echoes himself in his afterword.
Though Pozdnyshev asserts that both man and woman are created like animals, he
condemns only the man for not abiding by the wisdom that even animals obey by not engaging
in carnal love after a woman is pregnant. Furthermore, he rebukes man for actively making
enemies of women, who should be helpers to man in humanity’s progress toward goodness and
truth:

Мужчина и женщина сотворены так, как животное, так, что после плотской
любви начинается беременность, потом кормление, такие состояния, при
которых для женщины, так же как и для ее ребенка, плотская любовь
вредна. Женщин и мужчин равное число. Что же из этого следует? Кажется,
ясно. И не нужно большой мудрости, чтобы сделать из этого тот вывод,
который делают животные, т. е. Воздержание {…] Животные как будто
знают, что потомство продолжает их род, и держатся известного закона в
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 118

этом отношении. Только человек этого знать не знает и не хочет. И озабочен
только тем, чтобы иметь как можно больше удовольствия. И это кто же?
Царь природы, человек. Ведь вы заметьте, животные сходятся только тогда,
когда могут производить потомство, а поганый царь природы — всегда,
только бы приятно. И мало того, возводит это обезьянье занятие в перл
создания, в любовь. И во имя этой любви, т. е. пакости, губит, — что же? —
половину рода человеческого. Из всех женщин, которые должны бы быть
помощницами в движении человечества к истине и благу, он во имя своего
удовольствия делает не помощниц, но врагов (PSS XXVII:35-36).

Men and women are [created] (сотворены) like animals, so that carnal love is
followed by pregnancy, and then by the nursing of young, both states in which
carnal love is harmful for the woman and her child. There’s an equal number of
men and women. What follows from that? The answer would seem to be quite
clear. It surely doesn’t require a great deal of intelligence to come to the
conclusion the animals arrive at—abstinence, in other words. […] Animals seem
to know that their offspring assure the continuation of their species, and they stick
to certain laws in this regard. It’s only man who doesn’t know these laws, and
doesn’t want to know them. He’s only concerned with obtaining the greatest
possible amount of pleasure. And who is this? The king of nature—man. You’ll
notice that the animals copulate with one another only when it’s possible for them
to produce offspring; but the filthy king of nature will do it any time, just so long
as it gives him pleasure. More than that: he elevates this monkey pastime into the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 119

pearl of creation, into love. And what is it that he devastates in the name of this
love, this filthy abomination, rather? Half of the human race, that’s all. For the
sake of his pleasure he makes women, who ought to be his helpmates in the
progress of humanity towards truth and goodness, into his enemies. (Kreutzer
Sonata 132-4; emphasis mine).

Here the lexicon of the Biblical creation story comes into play. Not only does “Мужчина
и женщина сотворены…” (“Man and woman are created”) echo the repeated phrase in Genesis
“Сотворил Бог человека…мужчину и женщину сотворил их” (“So God created man […]
male and female he created them.”) (Genesis 1:27 ESV), but the assertion that woman is
intended as a “помошница” (“helper”) for man hearkens back to necessity of a “помошник”
(“helper”) (Genesis 2:18 ESV) for man—God’s reason for creating woman, because the animals
he has already created are not sufficient companions. It is important to note that in the Garden of
Eden, after Eve’s creation as Adam’s helper, the couple “не стыдились” (“were not ashamed”)
(Genesis 2:25 ESV) despite their nakedness. This stands in contrast to Pozdnyshev, who marvels
that he engaged in carnal love with his pregnant wife “unashamedly” (“не стыдя
́сь”) (Kreutzer
Sonata 131). It is only after the fall that Adam and Eve acquire shame, and it is only after
Pozdnyshev’s conversion that he acquires it.
In the biblical account of creation, all of these references anticipate God’s commission
for human beings—“плодитесь и размножайтесь” (“Be fruitful and multiply”) (Genesis 1:28
ESV), the same commission he gave to animals after their creation (Genesis 1:22 ESV). This is
the opposite of what Pozdnyshev—as well as Tolstoy himself in his afterword—will suggest as a
conclusion to the problems discussed in the story (that is, abstinence and the eventual perfection
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 120

of and end to the human race). Therefore, it is not surprising that Tolstoy would contrast this
completion of the life of humankind and the allusion to its end with the story of its beginning.
Tolstoy is replacing the Biblical “origin” story with an “end” story, which he will later
complicate with his revisions of Darwin.
In his rewriting of the Biblical creation text, Tolstoy is not only quoting the Bible in the
way Pozdnyshev expresses his ideas. Tolstoy is also quoting himself. In 1883-4, he wrote a
treatise on his new beliefs called “V chem moia vera” (Maude 546) This treatise was mostly
inspired by Tolstoy’s conversion to follow Jesus’s command in the Gospel of Matthew not to
resist evil (the root of his doctrine of non-resistance). However, Tolstoy also writes about his
new beliefs about marriage:

бог сотворил вначале человека — мужчиной и женщиной, так чтобы два
были одно, и что поэтому человек не может и не должен разъединять то, что
соединил бог. Я понимаю теперь, что единобрачие есть естественный закон
человечества, который не может быть нарушаем. Я понимаю теперь вполне
слова о том, что тот, кто разводится с женою, т. е. с женщиной, с которой он
сошелся сначала, для другой, заставляет ее распутничать и вносит сам
против себя новое зло в мир. Я верю в это, и вера эта изменяет всю мою
прежнюю оценку хорошего и высокого, дурного и низкого в жизни. То, что
прежде мне казалось самым хорошим, — утонченная, изящная жизнь,
страстная и поэтическая любовь, восхваляемая всеми поэтами и
художниками, — всё это представилось мне дурным и отвратительным (PSS
XXIII:457).
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 121

God at first created man, male and female, so that the two were one, and therefore
man may not and should not divide that which God hath joined. I now understand
that monogamy is the natural law of humanity, which must not be infringed. I
now fully understand the saying that whoso divorceth his wife (i.e. the woman
with whom he has first come together) for another, causes her to become
dissolute, and brings fresh evil into the world to his own detriment. I believe this,
and that belief alters my whole former evaluation of what is good and lofty and
what is bad and mean in life. What formerly seemed to me the best—a refined,
elegant life, with passionate and poetic love, extolled by all the poets and artists—
all this has come to appear to me bad and repulsive (“What I Believe” 365-6).

Here we see the same language (“Бог сотворил вначале человека -- мужчиной и
женщиной”/“God at first created man, male and female”) as Tolstoy later uses. It is unclear then
whether Tolstoy is referring to himself or to the Bible in Kreitserova sonata. However, the latter
half of this quotation echoes the same reversals as Pozdnyshev expresses in his own worldview
(what was once held up as a goal—gratification of desires—has now become disgusting and
low). Likewise, Tolstoy’s conversion made him reject sex in marriage, which he once saw as his
personal goal. I argue that Tolstoy is referring in Kreitserova sonata not only to the Biblical
creation story but to his own now defunct declarations on the morality of Christian marriage in
his earlier treatise, “V chem moia vera.”
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 122

Tolstoy conceptualizes man’s ability to pursue the oneness of extinction because he is
different from the other animals. He continually refers to man’s inner temptation to gratify the
“self” as his animal instinct, which is in conflict with his spiritual, human life.

Та борьба между стремлением к жизни животной и жизни разумной,
которая лежит в душе каждого человека и составляет сущность жизни
каждого, по этому учению совершенно устраняется. Борьба эта переносится
в событие, совершившееся в раю с Адамом при сотворении мира (PSS
XXIII:376).

The struggle between the inclination towards an animal life and a rational life,
which lies in the soul of each man and forms the essence of each life, is
completely set aside by this teaching. That struggle is relegated to an event which
happened to Adam in paradise at the time of the creation. (“What I Believe” 232)

Tolstoy links the struggle between the animal and the human sides of man to the creation story in
general, and specifically to the fall of Adam. However, throughout “V chem moia vera” he
associates the reasonable life (разумная жизнь) with goodness and the animal life (животная
жизнь) with evil (with the exception of some references to emulation of certain animals, like
bees). When paired with Tolstoy’s reading of Darwin, which I will discuss in a moment, it
becomes clear that Tolstoy is proposing a human (or moral, reasonable) evolution rather than an
“animal” one.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 123

The very act of quoting Biblical statements and especially of rewriting the commands of
God (“be fruitful and multiply” becomes “be celibate until there’s no one left”) recalls to mind
Gary Saul Morson’s work on Tolstoy’s absolute language. Morson asserts that Tolstoy tries to
insert “eternal truths” into his fictional works. This is part of an overall desire to voice truths that
he believes to be timeless and outside of history (Morson 670-2). Morson writes, “Among
Tolstoy’s absolute statements are those that exhibit characteristics of both biblical commands
and proverbs. […] The language of […] these forms is timeless, anonymous, and above all
categorical” (Morson 672). Morson highlights the irony of trying to couch undialogized
statements in a dialogizing form (usually the novel), as well as the irony of a man whose absolute
truths are all eventually subjected to his human weaknesses. Morson concludes that “the central
irony of Tolstoy’s life was that his quest to speak like God became the mark of his all-too-human
personality” (Morson 687). This overall scheme in Tolstoy’s life and writings is evident
especially in Kreitserova sonata, where Tolstoy not only attempts to quote and modify a Biblical
command, but he does so by quoting and modifying the language of his own now-changed
assumption. And all the time, his absolute, and presumably “undialogized” statements, albeit
delivered mostly through the mouthpiece of Pozdnyshev (along with some direct statements in
his afterword) are given in the form of a diatribe, full of digressions and contradictions—in one
of Tolstoy’s most structurally Dostoevskian texts. This is the contradiction of between moral
theory and the narrative style with which it is presented. The conversation with narrator and
others on the train dialogizes Pozdnyshev’s claims, but Tolstoy goes on to espouse a similar
theory undialogized in the afterword.
Darwin (Via Chernyshevsky)

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 124

Though in appropriating Rousseau and the Bible, Tolstoy was making modifications to
authors/texts he admired, with the following source, Darwin’s Origin of Species, Tolstoy
appropriates an opposing worldview in order to create his own theory in the same pattern.
Tolstoy, as is well known, was mostly critical of Darwin. Pozdnyshev’s digression on the
extinction of humanity after its perfection through celibacy in chapter XI was written after a one-
year hiatus from working on the novella, and just a few months after Tolstoy read
Chernyshevsky’s critique of natural selection and wrote in his diary: “Статья Чернышевск[ого]
о Дарвине прекрасна. Сила и ясность” (“Chernyshevsky’s article about Darwin is splendid.
Force and clarity”) (PSS 50: 16; 12/19/1888). I propose to read chapter XI as Tolstoy’s counter-
theory to the Darwinian struggle for existence and natural selection.
This evolutionary reading may seem out of place in a work written decades after the
publication of Darwin’s groundbreaking book, The Origin of Species, but, in fact, the late 1880s
were a time of renewed interest in and criticism of Darwin’s theories in Russia. Tolstoy was kept
abreast of these debates by his friend Strakhov, who was deeply involved in a “crusade against
Darwinism” alongside Danilevskii and Rozanov (Vucinich 149). Though Tolstoy stayed out of
the fray, he did remark on Darwinism rather often in his notes and diaries, and his theory of
celibacy, perfection and extinction of mankind in Kreitserova sonata is, I argue, clearly linked
with his thoughts on evolution. In a discussion of evolutionary theory with Il’ia Mechnikov (a
biologist often critical of Darwin on account of Malthusian arguments) during his visit to Iasnaia
Poliana, Tolstoy “agreed with [Mechnikov] that they were both ‘pursuing the same goal of
perfection and happiness, but going along such different roads’” (Todes 103). This suggests
Tolstoy responded to questions of biological evolution with countertheories of moral evolution.
Though he had little interest in searching for humanity’s origin, he was very interested in
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 125

humanity’s physical and moral future. Kreitserova sonata combines these two aspects by
couching Pozdnyshev’s theory of fleshly depersonalization through moral evolution toward
perfection and extinction in a confessional conversion narrative.
Chernyshevsky’s article, which he read not long before writing chapter XI, was the most
influential text on Darwinism he seemed to have read closely. The essay, entitled
“Происхождение теории благотворности борьбы за жизнь” (“The Origin of the Beneficence
of the Struggle for Life”) was published under the pseudonym Staryi transformist (Old
transformist), in Russkaia mysl’ (Russian Thought) in 1888. It is a tour de force a la Tolstoy of
imposing clear simple “common sense” logic onto Darwin’s theories and thereby exposing their
presumed flaws. Chernyshevsky manages to do this without reference to supporting scientific
scholarship and without any expertise (Vucinich 147) of his own outside of the historical-
ideological context he uses to undermine Darwin and Malthus (the most abhorrent evolutionary
figure to the Russian mentality throughout the 19
th
century).
In his article, Chernyshevsky lays out his argument with the same sort of extended,
simple logic Tolstoy uses in Kreutzer Sonata to argue for global celibacy. One of Tolstoy’s
complaints about Darwinism is that “it is not simple and can be puzzling, and the fact that it is
stupid is not immediately perceptible, because it is curly [kurchav]” (Mclean 159). Tolstoy
values clarity above all, and this is why he was so impressed by Chernyshevsky’s article.
Alexander Vucinich writes, in his study of Darwinism in Russia, that “Chernyshevsky’s
argumentation was more an exercise in logic than an exhibition of scientific erudition. His paper
presented an orderly sequence of tight arguments relying on personal judgment and unadorned
by customary citations from Western sources” (Vucinich 147). Vucinich notes that
“Chernyshevsky could see no connection between the struggle for existence and the growing
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 126

physiological complexity of organisms” (Vucinich 147) and that Chernyshevky criticized
Darwin’s scientific method because he “indulged in digressions that took him away from the
questions for which he sought answers, and he did not always draw a clear line between essential
and trivial facts” (Vucinich 147). Stopping to emphasize the contrast of his own clarity with the
obscurity of Darwin’s theory in the midst of his logical tour de force concluding his article,
Chernyshevsky writes: “Ход вывода прост и ясен” (“The progression of inference is simple and
clear”) (Chernyshevsky). This interjection speaks to the very Tolstoyan bent of his criticism, and
is paired with Tolstoy’s praise for the article (“Сила и ясность.”) If an argument (or narrative) is
not clear, and its underlying logical structure is not transparent, it is not good or truly meaningful
in the late Tolstoyan evaluation.
Chernyshevsky’s ultimate critique of natural selection and the struggle for existence as
the means of evolution boils down, in Chernyshevsky’s estimation, to Darwin’s “ребяческая
наивность” (“infantile naiveté”) Chernyshevsky asserts that: “Нормы, по которым Дарвин
производил анализы фактов жизни, были клочки оптимической философии в популярной
переделке, подводящей всякие факты без всякого исключения под простонародную
поговорку: 'все на свете к лучшему'” (“The norms by which Darwin conducted his analyses of
the facts of life were scraps of optimistic philosophy in popular recasting, subsuming any and
every fact without any exception under the simple folk saying: 'everything gets better with
time'")(Chernyshevsky).

Tolstoy would no doubt enjoy reading an entire school of scientific thought summed up
in a folk aphorism. Chernyshevsky does go on to further illustrate this point in detail in his
powerful conclusion, which most embodies Tolstoyan argumentation. After criticizing Darwin
for assuming everything naturally gets better, he employs his own simple assumptions: that bad
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 127

cannot lead to good; only good leads to good while bad always leads to bad. Suffering and illness
afflicting the weaker organisms will therefore only lead to more suffering, and ultimately
degradation rather than evolution. He relies on accepted vocabulary of physiological and
biological language for the loss or decline of function in an organism’s parts in order to
generalize his theory with a negative counterpart to natural selection: “Как называется
на языке физиологии порча организма, возрастающая по ряду поколений? Она называется
вырождением.” (“In the language of physiology, what is damage to an organism called, when it
grows over a series of generations? It is called degeneration.”) Finally, in an adept flourish that
fuses the moral and scientific meanings of a single word, Chernyshevsky elevates his discourse
to the moral plane: “И как называется вырождение, состоящее не только в ухудшении
здоровья организма, но и в изменении самой организации? Оно называется понижением
организации, деградацией.)” (“And what is degeneration called, when it consists not only of
the worsening of an organism’s health, but also of the changing of its physical makeup? It is
called the lowering of that organism, degradation.”)
Not only does Chernyshevsky’s formulation mirror the vertical trajectory of natural
selection, only in the other direction, but he incorporates the moral nuance of the word
degradation in naming his theory. To degrade can mean to wear down by erosion, such as in
geology, to become less complex, in chemistry, to become less powerful or vital physically, or
perhaps most important for Tolstoy’s understanding, to decline morally. I argue that Tolstoy, in
his first exposition of his theory of global celibacy, via the voice of Pozdnyshev, channels
Chernyshevsky’s moralized reversal of natural selection in order to set up his own evolutionary
theory which operates by means of moral forces. Tolstoy lifts this ready-made reversal from
Chernyshevsky and imbues it with Tolstoy’s own philosophy of moral evolution, which leads to
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 128

less and less complexity and difference. Tolstoy’s complete moral theory, built on
Chernyshevsky’s initial rhetorical argument, revolves around the unification of species, not the
diversification of them. Tolstoy is able to illustrate his anti-selfhood philosophy through a quasi-
scientific discourse. This appropriated discourse gives greater force to Pozdnyshev’s theory,
which is both moral and physical: the union of all people through spiritual love and selflessness,
along with the non-proliferation of offspring through abstinence, will cause the spiritual union of
people, who will become less and less diverse until they disappear. This is spiritual oneness
accompanied by physical sameness.
The excerpt of Pozdnyshev’s diatribe contained in chapter XI is situated in a narrative
pervaded by references to animal behavior as a model or analogy for human behavior—
especially concerning reproduction. In fact, the whole scenario with Trukhachevsky could be
read as a parody of Darwinian sexual selection—where two males compete for a female. Only
here, reproduction has already taken place, so the purpose of selection is moot in terms of
progeny. This theory is supported by Pozdnyshev’s attention to the colors and movements of the
musician and his likening to a bird, as if he was performing a mating dance in addition to his
music (a mating call): “Помню то странное чувство, с которым я смотрел на его затылок,
белую шею, отделявшуюся от черных, расчесанных на обе стороны волос, когда он своей
подпрыгивающей, какой-то птичьей походкой выходил от нас” (PSS XXVII:54) (“I
remember that strange feeling, with which I looked at his nape, his white neck, set apart from his
black hair, combed out on either side, when with his springy, somehow birdlike gait, he took
leave of us.”) Moreover, Pozdnyshev feels at one point that his wife has chosen Trukhachevsky
simply because of the bright color of his lips: “пять человек детей, и она обнимает
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 129

музыканта, оттого что у него красные губы!” (PSS XXVII:70) (“five kids, and she embraces a
musician just because of his red lips!”)
In chapter 11 of Kreitserova sonata, which was written in April 1889, a few months after
reading Chernyshevsky’s article, Tolstoy demonstrates, with similar logical strategy, his own
theory of evolution, whose apotheosis is extinction. He begins by positing a teleology. Using
characteristic extended logical progression, Pozdnyshev builds his supposition of a teleology. If
there is a goal, then if it is met, everything must end. Passion and sexual desire are the clear
culprit, hampering our progress toward our goal. He then proceeds to elaborate on an entire pre-
designed system, which will lead to our eventual evolution into perfect celibate beings who can
happily unite and then become extinct. Carnal love is a built-in safety valve, so that when
humans are not strong enough to reach perfection in one generation, they can reproduce, so that
their children can correct their mistakes and get a little bit closer. This entire process,
Pozdnyshev says, takes many thousands of years, much like natural selection.
Rousseau

And finally, in Kreitserova sonata, the language of Rousseau’s idea of “perfectibility” is
evident throughout. Rousseau’s notion of perfectibility, laid out in his Second Discourse, which
is only accessible to humans, “is the mechanism which brings into play the faculties that will
enable individuals and the species to establish a new balance between needs and powers when
the previous balance between them has been irreversibly upset by a change in circumstances”
(Gourevitch xix). In Pozdnyshev’s speech about music, he notes that his experience with the
sonata was missing precisely the aid of circumstances posited by Rousseau that should have,
according to Pozdnyshev, allowed the completion of important deeds that coincided with the
music. Additionally, the persistent differentiation between human and animal behavior in the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 130

story and the insistence of Pozdnyshev that the makeup of society is such that the human race
must counteract the pervasive falsity through abstinence and eventual extinction recalls
Rousseau’s concept.
The ideological message of both Pozdnyshev and the afterword about the duty of humans
toward progress uses language of “perfectibility,” such as the phrases: “the movement of
humanity toward truth and goodness” and “the movement of humanity forward” «движение
человечества к истине и благу» «движение человечества вперед» (Tolstoi, XII: 153).
Tolstoy, in his standard fashion, breaks Rousseau’s abstract idea into elemental steps and follows
this progression to its logical end. Perfection means the goal is complete. This would make
further attempts at perfectibility moot, and all people would become one and go extinct. Tolstoy
coopts Rousseau’s idea and uses it in a manner contrary to Rousseau’s ultimate philosophy of
self, which Tolstoy tears down in Kreitserova sonata.
Tolstoy accomplishes this with the language of the creation story—an end based on its
own origin—and with a trajectory that mirrors Darwin’s struggle for existence, only moving in
the correct direction, according to Tolstoy. But for Tolstoy, the differences between individuals
are erased with every step toward perfection until all are “made one in love.” All this is
accomplished in a motley narrative structure that, I propose, is based on the rewriting or refuting
of sources Tolstoy is struggling to overcome in this period. Furthermore, the narrative structure
reflects the degeneration described by Pozdnyshev. Tolstoy’s love for clarity comes out in his
appreciation of Chernyshevsky’s article, and somewhat in his enumerated exposition of his
theory in the afterword to Kreitserova sonata, but within the story, digressions and wild
emotional outbursts characterize Pozdnyshev’s delivery of the theory of degeneration. I propose
that this is in fact an attempt at creating a narrative that degenerates, and subsequently converts,
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 131

along with its hero. A rare example of the “negative” religious art mentioned later in Tolstoy’s
“Chto takoe isskustvo?”, the strong individual presence of Pozdnyshev’s personality, and his
overly productive narrative, stand in opposition to the Christlike narrative creations Tolstoy
would repeatedly attempt to produce in his late career. Nonetheless, the moral theory
communicated in this novella preaches Tolstoy’s vision of the effacement of personality, the
erasure of sexual difference and the eventual unity of all people, followed by their extinction.
Through infection and catharsis, the narrator is able to glimpse this future vision as a positive
value after undergoing the harrowing relived experiences of Pozdnyshev’s tragedy.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 132

Chapter 4. Depersonalization and “Interpersonal” Infection—Narrative Techniques in Tolstoy’s
Detskii krug chteniia (Children’s Circle of Reading)

After exploring the fleshly depersonalization of Pozdnyshev’s grand theory of moral
evolution in Kreitserova sonata, a chronological shift to Tolstoy’s late period (the 1900s) seems
abrupt. This is because Tolstoy’s project of minimizing selfhood in his writing progressed
dramatically by this period, and characters like Pozdnyshev are no longer given the floor to spout
off moralizing diatribes, even if those diatribes are aimed at depersonalization. Instead, Tolstoy’s
efforts had already shifted primarily toward curating rather than creating. He was assembling
compendiums of other writers’ work, mixed with his own writings and translations, with the
purpose of educating and enriching the average reader. This sociological dimension to his work
was another part of the project of diminishing his own selfhood, and selfhood in general in the
creation and purpose of his work.
In 1906, Tolstoy began to meet with the peasant children on his estate to discuss moral
and religious problems. He read the Gospels with them, and decided to intersperse these readings
with short stories: “Теперь читаем [с детьми] Евангелие. Я хочу перебить его рассказами”
(PSS XL: 507) (“Now the children and I are reading the Gospels. I want to intersperse them with
stories”). He began to gather stories for this purpose, amassing 75 at one point (PSS LVI: 186).
During this process, he read something by Victor Hugo and was inspired to write creatively:
“Гюго завлек в желание художественной работы” (PSS LVI: 190) (“Hugo has reawakened
the desire in me for artistic work”). In the spring of 1907, Tolstoy wrote six stories to be included
in his Detskii krug chteniia (Children’s Circle of Reading)—a reader conceived of for use in his
discussions with the peasant children. In the end, the materials gathered for this reader were
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 133

subsumed into the Krug chteniia (Circle of Reading) for adults later published under the title Na
kazhdyi den’ (For Every Day), and the children’s stories were left unused (PSS XL:508).
When compared with his earlier writings for children, several of these stories (many of
which are rewritings of existing tales) exhibit a vastly new and different narrative makeup. The
earlier stories I will address here—those included in Novaia azbuka (The New Hornbook) and
Russkie knigi dlia chteniia (Russian Books for Reading)—were written shortly after Voina i mir
(War and Peace). They often concern child and animal characters, who undergo dramatic
situations of loss or danger before summoning inner strength resembling natural forces in order
to extricate themselves from catastrophe. I will show how Tolstoy’s late children’s stories—
those intended to make up the Detskii krug chteniia—have a different system of invariant themes
and structures that concern the “moral” as an abstract concept set in motion through empathic
communication between characters. This common principle is related to Tolstoy’s notion of
“infection” from “Chto takoe iskusstvo?” (“What is Art?”), and can be better understood through
the lens of Gary Saul Morson’s concept of “prosaics” in Tolstoy. Like in “Fal’shivyi kupon”
(“The Forged Coupon”) (see chapter 5 of this dissertation), where the emphasis is on the linkage
between characters rather than on the characters themselves, an invariant theme of these late
children’s stories is the empathic connection between characters, which is accomplished through
small attempts to see the world outside themselves and then to better understand another’s point
of view.
The gradual strengthening of a moral theme through these empathic moments of
“infection” can be called the “interpersonal” effect in these stories. The notion of “infection”
already implies the blurring of boundaries between individual people. The concept itself involves
a common element that moves freely between or among individuals, connecting them. Tolstoy’s
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 134

characters experience all kinds of infection in his earlier works. One kind which is relevant here
is the sharing of dreams, such as Anna and Vronsky experience in Anna Karenina (see
Zholkovsky, “A Dystopian ‘Newdream’ Fivefold,” about which more later). Though individual
characters are far more prominent in the children’s stories discussed here than in such a
structurally innovative work as “Fal’shivyi kupon,” the expression of meaning often does not
operate based on personality so much as on the interactions of characters. With an aim to discuss
moral questions with the peasant children on his estate, Tolstoy conceived of a narrative strategy
to convey moral ideas that relied on simple structure and easily comprehensible plot action. For
these purposes, the presence of one or two main characters is necessary. Within this traditional
narrative format, Tolstoy manages to construct a sophisticated narrative system in several of
these stories which dramatizes the notion of moral “infection.”
The paradox of Tolstoy’s teaching is that one must become wholly oneself before
escaping the self, such as is expressed in the beginning of the fourth story in Tolstoy’s late
children’s cycle, “G. S. Skorovoda”:

Kогда же человек познает [Б]ога в самом себе, он увидит то, что истинное
благо его в том, чтобы исполнять волю этого духа. А воля этого духа всегда
согласна с волею [Б]ога. […] Такой человек сливает свою волю с волей
[Б]ога и считает, что жизнь его принадлежит не ему, а [Б]огу и во всем, что с
ним случается, видит волю [Б]ога. Для того чтобы не ошибаться в том, что
есть воля божия, каждый человек должен слушаться своего внутреннего
голоса, который указывает ему, чтò добро и чтò зло (PSS XL: 407).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 135

When a person comes to know God in himself, he sees that true goodness for him
is in fulfilling the will of this spirit. And the will of this spirit is always in
accordance with the will of God […] Such a person blends his will with the will
of God and considers that his life belongs not to him, but to God, and in all that
happens to him, he sees the will of God. In order not to mistake what the will of
God is, every person should listen to his inner voice, which shows him what is
good and what is evil.

In the following stories, the notion of consciousness and its limits, along with the “infection” that
occurs by the shared understanding of a feeling or idea are all connected to the process of
transcendence of self, which includes movement toward and away from the self. In Gary Saul
Morson’s exposition of “prosaics,” he quotes Tolstoy’s analysis of Dostoevsky’s Prestuplenie i
nakazanie as the central text behind this philosophy. In “Dlia chego liudi odurmanivaiutsia?”
(“Why do people stupefy themselves?”), Tolstoy writes that the evil is worked out: “от чуть-
чуточных изменений, которые совершаются в области сознания, могут произойти самые
невообразимые по своей значительности последствия, для которых нет пределов” (PSS
XXVII: 281) (“out of the little-by-littleness of changes that occur in the sphere of consciousness,
there can come the most unimaginably significant consequences for which there are no
boundaries”). The central invariant theme of most of Tolstoy’s late children’s cycle is the
positive and negative “infection” with moral action. Through empathic relationships, the correct
moral behavior of Skorovoda, the murdered old woman (in “Fedotka”) and the jester Palachek
are little by little understood and transmitted to the people around them. In contrast, the immoral
behavior of the parishioners negatively “infects” the old man in the church. This technique for
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 136

transmitting (im)moral ideas can be called “interpersonal” infection. In contrast to Tolstoy’s
children’s stories of the 1870s, where central characters and external circumstances of crises took
center stage
16
, Tolstoy’s late children’s stories dramatize the “chut’-chutochnost’” of moral
“infection” through the empathic blurring between characters’ consciousnesses. This piecemeal
process of infection might be termed “micro-infection.”
My emphasis here will be on the depersonalizing and interpersonal effects present in
these stories. I must add, however, that though these effects are some of the most prominent in
this story cycle, they are not the only ones present. Also at play here are other Tolstoyan
concerns, such as the debunking of conventional behavior; Christ-like writing (clear, effective,
parable form); and defamiliarization of familiar objects or concepts. I will attempt to identify all
of these strategies as they work in the stories, and will delineate where these problems and the
problem of personhood interact.

Children’s Stories of the 1870s
Zholkovsky and Shcheglov, in their analysis of the structure of five of the stories from
Novaia azbuka and Russkie knigi dlia chteniia, identify the following invariant plot (archiplot),
which is also present in Tolstoy’s writing for adults (mostly Voina i mir):

In a situation of acute shortage or catastrophe jeopardizing life and its basic
values it turns out that salvation is possible through actions which appear
unreasonable and absurd on the surface, but stem from an intuitive grasping of
events, contact with their deep essence and discovery within oneself of inner

16
See Shcheglov and Zholkovsky (8), quoted later in this chapter.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 137

reserves of natural strength; actions which take into account the unpredictability
of events, imitate nature’s methods, rely on the benevolence of Providence, and
are not chary of “self-reduction to zero.” By contrast, salvation cannot be brought
about by apparently reasonable actions that originate from logical cognition of
reality, that are palliative and superficial, that conform to rigid rules and that
presuppose a prior calculation of all the possiblities. In the course of these events
the basic, “natural” joys of life prove to be the only true values while artificial and
thought-up aims are discredited (Shcheglov and Zholkovsky 8).

By expressing these invariant themes in short form, Tolstoy “yields a kind of ‘children’s edition’
of the Tolstoyan archiplot” (Shcheglov and Zholkovsky 10). According to this scheme,
seemingly irrational actions reveal a deeper knowledge of natural forces, and salvation is gained
through “self-reduction to zero.” Though always centered around a child or animal character, this
invariant of “self-reduction,” I would argue, is already a depersonalizing force. One’s
submissiveness to the larger, natural and providential forces that guide the world minimizes the
emphasis on self. Nonetheless, the salvation of the central child or animal is always implicitly
valued above the life of the aggressor (shark, bear, prisoners, mad dog), and this is accentuated
with the commission of a heroic act. In contrast, the stories in Tolstoy’s later Detskii krug
chteniia are characterized by an effect of equilibrium accomplished through the transmission of
moral ideas through interpersonal communication and empathic understanding
17
. This effect

17
One of the stories from Tolstoy’s 1870s cycle does include an “infection”-like operation:
“Pryzhok,” where the father’s transmission of courage to his son by threatening to shoot him
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 138

reflects the Buddhist moral idea of “love toward all living things” which Tolstoy includes in the
third reading (“Budda”) that he hoped to insert among his creative stories in the final publication
of the children’s reader
18
(PSS XL: 508).

Stories of Detskii krug chteniia
19

“Bednye liudi”
“Bednye liudi,” the first of these stories, is perhaps the most similar to the structure and
plot of his 1870s children’s stories, with some very important differences. Its title is also shared
with one of Dostoevsky’s most famous works, and this is not insignificant in light of Tolstoy’s
fascination with Dostoevsky at the time, and his analysis of Dostoevsky in his conversion

causes the son to act both irrationally and courageously when he jumps off the ship into the
water, an action that ultimately saves him from falling to his death on the deck.
18
The reader was to be organized with one reading per week (per Sunday, to be precise). The
order was to be as follows: 1st Sunday - Dialog between Francis of Asissi and Brother Leo; 2nd
Sunday - “Bednye liudi”; 3rd Sunday - “Budda” (from Krug chteniia, 110-115); 4th Sunday -
“Tsarskoe novoe plat’e”; after this the schedule is no longer explicitly noted, but presumably the
5th Sunday - “Starik v tserkvi”; 6th Sunday “G. S. Skorovoda”; and 7th Sunday “Shut Palechek”
(PSS XL: 507-514).
19
For short synopses of each story, see Appendix II.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 139

writings
20
. It is a shortened prose version of Victor Hugo’s poem “Les pauvres gens.” Tolstoy’s
version is approximately half as long as the original. Both contain the following basic plot: The
wife of a fisherman waits for her husband to come back from the sea on a windy night. She goes
to check on her neighbor, a sick widow and mother of two, only to find her dead. The
fisherman’s wife takes the two children to her home to join her own children. She fears that her
strict husband will not allow this adoption. Upon his return however, even before she tells him
what she has done, he declares that they must adopt the children and raise them as their own.
Like Tolstoy’s children’s stories of the 1870s, the central catastrophe—that the neighbor
children will go without a mother—is dramatized to accentuate the natural joy of family. This
“enjoying the simple values of life” is expressed through “catastrophe bringing about their
shortage and threatening their existence” followed by “‘rescue’ with subsequent ‘possession’,” in
order to “concretize […] the general Tolstoyan motif ‘acceptance of life,’ i.e. trust in its ultimate
beneficence” (Shcheglov and Zholkovsky 10). The “event X (here - the rescue) is preceded by a
contrary development likely to result in anti-X” (Shcheglov and Zholkovsky 12) in order to
provide drama. The contrast between the rescue and likely demise causes the tension that makes
the story exciting. In “Bednye liudi” this drama is created entirely within the woman’s mind. In
contrast to Tolstoy’s earlier children’s stories, there is no external drama surrounding the
neighbor children’s rescue. The woman immediately carries them to her own home and deposits
them in bed with her own children once they have been fed. In order to create drama, the story

20
Tolstoy quotes Dostoevsky in his “Mysli mudrykh liudei na kazhdyi den’” (“Thoughts of Wise
People for Every Day”) and, earlier, in his “Dlia chego liudi odurmanivaiut sebia,” he analyzes
the causes of Raskol’nikov’s moral degradation.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 140

has the woman imagine her husband’s anger at her because of her actions and his refusal to take
in the orphans. The second and final rescue is that of the husband who returns and declares—
despite a seemingly irrational optimism in light of his meager catch as a fisherman—that all must
live, denying the possibility of not taking in the orphans. So far, the difference between this story
and Tolstoy’s earlier stories is that an internal drama replaces the external drama.
Hugo’s poem contains much natural description, along with a poetic depiction of the
thoughts of both husband and wife, longing to be reunited while one is at sea and the other is at
home:

Lui, songe à sa Jeannie au sein des mers glacées,
Et Jeannie en pleurant l'appelle ; et leurs pensées
Se croisent dans la nuit, divins oiseaux du coeur
(Hugo, “Les pauvres gens,” II).
He, dreams of his Jeannie among the icy waters,
And Jeannie calls on him crying; and their thoughts
cross in the night, divine birds of the heart.

Tolstoy’s story gives no voice or thoughts to the fisherman, who is first called Paul (Pol’) and
later Pavel. From the beginning, the story is filtered through his wife, Zhanna’s psychology. First
she is consumed with anxiety over her husband’s safety. She imagines what would happen if
husband were to die at sea. She laments the need she and her children would experience if she
became a widow:

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 141

Люди они были бедные и кормились одной рыбой, которую ловил муж.
Утони он в море, как часто случалось с рыбаками, что бы сталось с семьею.
Да и не одна бедность пугала Жанну. Поль был молчаливый, на вид суровый
человек, но они десять лет жили вместе, и любили друг друга. Жанна без
ужаса не могла подумать о том, что бы было с ней, если бы муж не
воротился (PSS XL: 401).

They were poor people and fed themselves solely with the fish that her husband
caught. If he were to drown at sea, as often occurred with fishermen, what would
happen with the family. But not only poverty frightened Zhanna. Paul was a quiet
man with a severe disposition, but they had lived ten years together and loved
each other. Zhanna could not think without terror about what would happen to her
if her husband did not return.

Zhanna’s emotional response to this possible outcome spurs an association—she remembers her
neighbor, a widow who has been sick:

Ничего не видно, и та же страшная мысль о том, что будет с ней и ее детьми,
если он не вернется. И

она вспомнила о соседке Лизе, вдове, у которой
также пропал муж в море. Она вспомнила и то, что

соседка больна. «Пойду
навещу ее», подумала Жанна и, вернувшись домой, взяла фонарь и пошла к
соседке (PSS XL: 401).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 142

Nothing was visible, and that same terrifying thought about what would happen to
her and her children if he did not return. And she remembered her neighbor Liza,
a widow, whose husband had been lost at sea. She remembered that this neighbor
was ill. “I will go visit her,” thought Zhanna and, upon returning home, she took a
lamp and went to her neighbor.

The initial rescue is initiated because Zhanna, who in the beginning thinks of herself and the
misfortune she imagines is ahead, suddenly remembers her neighbor. This is a case of a
character’s moral expansion through empathy. One becomes capable of feeling a new feeling by
first imagining it from the point of view of someone else. In this case, Zhanna first imagines her
own misfortune if her husband were to drown at sea and never return. By doing this, she is
suddenly struck with the thought that this has already happened to her neighbor, and she realizes
that she should go and visit her. Therefore, the inner workings of Zhanna’s mind serve as the
generator of drama in this story, and empathy is made possible through the drama she produces.
Once experiencing hypothetical misfortune in her mind, Zhanna is led to visit her sick,
unfortunate neighbor, and she is consequently enabled to rescue the orphans.
This moment of empathy, reached through imagining what it would be like to be in the
same situation as another person, causes Zhanna to go next door and check on her neighbor.
Finding the woman dead and taking in her children, Zhanna once again is consumed with
anxiety, this time over her husband’s reaction when he discovers that she has taken in two more
children:

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 143

Пропадет муж, что она будет делать с 5-ю детьми? А вернется, как она
скажет ему про сирот?

Не позволит он взять их. Он человек суровый. «Боже
мой, боже мой, помоги мне», думает она, и пальцы ее быстро шевелятся,
работая привычное вязанье (PSS XL: 402).

If her husband is lost, what will she do with five children? And if he returns, what
will she say about the orphans? He will not allow her to take them. He is a severe
person. “My God, my God, help me,” she thinks, and her fingers move quickly,
working with her habitual knitting.

First presenting her previous anxiety in light of the acquisition of the new children, she contrasts
it with a new anxiety: If her husband does return, what will he say to her hasty adoption of the
two children? Suddenly, she is anxious at the thought of her husband’s return as much as she
previously desired and awaited it: “Ветер всё так же гудит, но вот вдруг из-за ветра
послышались еще как будто шаги у порога. «Не может быть. Нет, он»” (PSS XL: 402)
(“The wind continues to howl, but suddenly from out of the wind was heard something like steps
near the threshold. “It cannot be. No, it’s him.”).
Though Zhanna ultimately acts with utmost morality, except in her lack of immediate
forthrightness with her husband upon his return, her mode of moral discourse is shown to be
inferior to the model that is presented at the end of the story. Though she makes good
decisions—to check on her neighbor and to immediately rescue the orphans, Zhanna’s
perception of right and wrong are inseparable from her concept of self. Each scenario that she
imagines revolves around its effect on her: Instead of imagining the tragedy of her husband’s
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 144

death as a discrete phenomenon, she imagines it through its aftereffect on herself. Instead of
imagining the fate of the orphans if her husband does not allow her to keep them, she imagines
his anger toward her. She prays to God for help for herself, not for protection for her husband
and the orphans. The entire first part of Tolstoy’s story is fueled by Zhanna’s psychology, which
creates the narrative action. This is a snapshot of psychological realism. The invocation of God,
however, serves to foreshadow the godlikeness of her husband’s presence at the end of the story.
All of Zhanna’s reactions are, nonetheless, natural and comprehensible. It is the contrast
between them and the voice of her husband when he appears at the end of the story that exposes
the above focus on self. Keeping in mind that this is a story for children with the aim of
prompting discussion of moral ideas, the two-part structure may have been designed with a
particular use. Gary Saul Morson notes in his discussion of Tolstoy’s “prosaic” morality:

Tolstoy argues that the explicit moral one may draw from a work may not be what
is most important, even from an ethical point of view. What truly matters is how
the work “infects” us with moral values as we read. To whom do we extend
sympathy, when do we place ourselves in another’s position? (Morson 30).

In the first part of the story, we follow the inner workings of Zhanna’s mind. We are drawn in
with the imaginative scenarios she produces. We also experience empathy for her neighbor after
imagining a similar misfortune for Zhanna, whose point of view we share. This ultra-personal
experience is contrasted by the second part of the story, which moves from the personal to the
impersonal, ending with a god-like voice which declares equal weight to the meaning of all life.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 145

When Pavel returns home, he does not use the personal pronoun, “ia” (“I”), in any of its
forms. This is a significant modification of Hugo’s story. When Hugo’s fisherman appears, he
announces himself, albeit from the third person, as if from his wife’s perspective: “Et le pêcheur,
traînant son filet ruisselant,/ Joyeux, parut au seuil, et dit : C'est la marine!” (“The fisherman,
hauling in his dripping nets,/ Appeared, glad, and said, ‘The fleet is here!’”) (Hugo, “Les pauvres
gens,” IX). He repeats himself later, this time using the personal pronoun: “Me voici, femme!”
(“I’m here, wife!”) (Hugo, “Les pauvres gens,” X). Instead, in Tolstoy’s story, Pavel uses
impersonal constructions, or talks of others:

— Ну, что соседка?
— Кончилась, — сдерживая дыханье, сказала Жанна. «Сейчас надо сказать.
А скажешь... Не позволит он».
— Ну, а дети где? — сказал муж и нахмурился.
— Дети? Не знаю... дети... — замешалась Жанна.
— Что же и им помирать? Взять надо,

— глядя в огонь, сказал он.
— Павел, а Павел, ты встань, поди сюда, — сказала она, подходя к пологу
кровати. — Да ты поди сюда, — сказала она и заплакала.

“Pavel, ah Pavel, stand up, come here,” she said and began to cry.
Он встал и подошел к ней. Она отдернула полог. Дети так же, как и в том
до[ме], обнявшись спали на постели.
— Вот это так! — сказал Павел, потрепал по плечу Жанну и улыбнулся, —
Всем жить надо (PSS XL: 402).
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 146

“Well, how’s the neighbor?”
“Dead,” holding [her] breath, said Zhanna. “Now something needs to be said. Say
it… He won’t allow it.”
“Well, and where are the children?...” said [her] husband and frowned.
“Children? I don’t know… Children” Zhanna became confused.
“What are they to be left for dead…[They] must be fetched,” he said, looking
into the fire.
He stood and approached her. She opened the door. The children were just as they
had been in their house, asleep in an embrace on the bed.
“See, everything is as it should be [That’s it!],” said Pavel, as he patted Zhanna
on the shoulder and smiled, “all must live.”

Out of Pavel’s words above, I have emboldened the personal nouns and pronouns, along with
the impersonal constructions used to express his ideas. He immediately asks not about Zhanna or
their own children, but about the neighbor woman. Hearing of her death, he then asks about her
children. It is important that here, he does not say “ikh deti” (“their children”) but just “deti”
(“children”) without designation of a certain set of parents. After this, he uses no more subject
nouns or pronouns at all, but only impersonal constructions. When he asks, “What are they to be
left for dead” he uses the infinitive with the dative pronoun. After this, no more pronouns are
used, and he becomes even more impersonalized and godlike as he makes simple commands,
without personalized signifiers. Though it is impossible to render this phrase in normal English,
his command to fetch the children is essentially: “Must fetch.” Finally, when he is assured that
the saving has been done, he makes broad statements of necessity and affirmation. First, “See,
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 147

everything is as it should be,” a phrase reminiscent of God’s approval of his creation in Genesis
1: “И увидел Бог все, что он создал, и вот, хорошо весьма.” (Бытие 1:31). Finally, Pavel fills
the dative personal pronoun’s position in his grammar with the impersonal word for “all”
(“vsem”) as he declares that “All must live.” By means of grammar, Pavel becomes a god-like
presence in the story. He uses absolutely no personal pronouns referring to himself. No
psychology colors his perception of the situation. The subjective experience created in the first
part of the story, where Zhanna vacillates between moral decisions based on the possible
outcomes, is outshone here by an absolute voice of moral clarity. There is no heirarchy of
importance among people according to his words. Zhanna, blind to the possibility of life for all,
had weighed the consequences of her husband’s death against the lives of the orphans.
Nonetheless, the hints of this equality were given in images and linkages, all ones added by
Tolstoy in his rewriting.
This is not Tolstoy’s first ideological rewriting of another author’s work. Most notably, in
his rewriting of Guy de Maupassant’s “Le Port,” he added a similar leveling flourish (as if to say,
“we are all one family”), this time as a condemnation of dissolute sexual behavior, when a sailor
returns to the port to cavort with prostitutes only to accidentally sleep with his own sister. In
Tolstoy’s rewriting, he turns to the other sailor at the end and cries: “'Away! Do you not see that
she is your sister! Each of them is someone's sister. See, here is [my] sister Francoise! Ha, ha...
ha...' and he broke into sobs" ("Francoise," 369-70) (Zholkovsky, “How a Russian
Maupassant…”, http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~alik/eng/ess/mop.htm). In Tolstoy’s rewritings, he
replaces the traditional denouement with a moral line. This is true of “Le port” and “Les pauvres
gens.” Since Tolstoy shares much of Hugo’s vision, it is especially interesting how Tolstoy
nonetheless changes the message of the story. Some of Hugo’s invariant motifs include heroic
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 148

behavior by women or children in extreme situations (Shcheglov, “Tema, tekst, poeticheskii mir:
‘Sur une barricade…’ Viktora Giugo,” 884) as well as “solidarity in death,” (885). These are
both present in this story, but Tolstoy transforms these invariants into his own central ideas—
equal value of all human life, and rejection of individual personality.
Zhanna’s realization that she was one step away from being exactly like her neighbor,
and the transportation of the neighbor’s children to her own bed without even changing their
bodily positions (“На кровати у ее ног двое детей: мальчик 5 и девочка трех лет. Девочка
лежит головой на груди мальчика и одной ручонкой обнимает его (at their house) […] Дети
так же, как и в том до[ме], обнявшись спали на постели (at Zhanna’s house)” (PSS XL: 402)
(“On the bed at [the dead mother’s] feet [are] two children: a boy of five and a girl of three. The
girl lies with her head on the boy’s chest and embraces him with one arm”)) both suggest the
possible transposition of all families onto one another. Children are children, no matter under
whose roof they lie, and wives are widows whose husbands haven’t been killed yet. Pavel’s final
words, which end the story, are an impersonal grammatical construction that illustrates the
central moral idea of the story. All life has value, and therefore there is no room for the self.
Beyond the grammatical erasure of self worked out in Pavel’s speech upon his return,
there is another structural blurring of the lines between individuals in this story. Zhanna’s
instinctive impulse to adopt the neighbor’s children, which is afterwards second guessed in her
psychological analysis of the situation, mysteriously coincides with her husband’s unhesitating
command to adopt the children. Despite the irrationality of this action—especially when Pavel
really doesn’t catch any fish to feed them, both husband and wife share the same mind when
confronted with the situation of the neighbor’s death. This shared mind is actually present in
Hugo’s poem: “et leurs pensées/ Se croisent dans la nuit” (“and their thoughts/ cross in the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 149

night”). Perhaps this is one of the features that appealed to Tolstoy so much about this poem. The
shared thought is similar to the phenomenon of the shared dream in literature.

Sharing dreams, usually with mystical or ominous connotations, was used in
nineteenth-century literature (see “A Terrible Vengeance,” Anna Karenina, The
Brothers Karamazov, Lermontov’s “A Dream,” etc.) […] a mystical
transcendence of the boundaries of self […] (Zholkovsky, “A Dystopian
‘Newdream’ Fivefold”)

“Anna and Vronsky’s dream is a macabre version of other shared mind experiences” like Levin
and Kitty’s mystical moments of telepathy in Anna Karenina. (Knapp 99) Tolstoy likewise
gestures toward a shared personality, which blurs the concept of individuality in the second part
of “Bednye liudi,” by contrasting the godlike Pavel with the personal, psychologized Zhanna,
and at the same time uniting them in one mind. This makes Pavel and Zhanna another of “those
Tolstoy families sharing physical and psychological features” (Zholkovsky, “Before and After
‘After the Ball’,” 61). In the past accomplished through shared dreams (Anna and Vronsky),
parlour games (Levin and Kitty), dancing (father and daughter in “Posle bala” (“After the
Ball”)), incestuous behavior (Helene and Anatol’), etc. Here Tolstoy melds two characters’
minds through their shared reaction to the orphans’ plight. The shared consciousness is then
developed through contiguous structure and contrast. The first half of the story is a psychological
novel in miniature, while the second half is an impersonal, infinitive structure. The drama of
anticipation of a denouement and the difference between the husband and wife’s voice
(grammatically personal versus impersonal) create contrast and drama between the stories’ two
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 150

halves. Ultimately, Tolstoy erases the boundaries between selves, and creates an all-human,
rather than a personal, family in his rewriting of Hugo’s story. While the original contains the
semantic seeds of these moral ideas, Tolstoy’s rewriting uses structural and grammatical
strategies to maximize the effect.

“Tsarskoe novoe plat’e”
Tolstoy’s second story for Detskii krug chteniia was “Tsarskoe novoe plat’e,” a rewriting
of Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” This was not the first
time he rewrote this story. He translated the it, probably from an existing French, English or
German translation, as a young man in 1857. (This translation has been lost.) (PSS IIIL: 107). It
was included in his Azbuka more than three decades earlier. The earlier rewriting was much
closer to a translation of the original, with some minor modifications. The second rewriting
included major changes, and was approximately one sixth as long as the original tale by
Andersen.
Andersen’s well-known tale recounts the story of a vain king who receives a visit from
some weavers who tell him they can weave him new clothes which will be of the finest quality
and beauty, but will not be visible to the stupid. The king, taken in by the possibility of both
attaining a beautiful dress and exposing his unworthy subjects, is duped, and the crafty weavers
pocket the materials and gold given them for the project. Though they pretend to weave with
nothing on their looms, all the king’s attendants are also duped through fear of being found out
as stupid. The king too, when he sees nothing in the weaver’s hands as they present the outfit,
pretends to be impressed with the beautiful design out of fear that he too is stupid. Finally, when
the king leads a procession through the kingdom in his new outfit (i.e. completely naked), all his
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 151

subjects also, fearing to be found out as stupid, laud the outfit. Only a small child who yells out
that the king wears nothing is able to disabuse the people of the lie. The king, realizing he is
naked, continues to strut on all the prouder in order not to lose face.
In Tolstoy’s first rewriting of this story for the Azbuka, he shortens it drastically, but only
makes minor changes to the plot. He replaces the child at the end with a customary
defamiliarizing voice—the fool (“durachok”): “Вдруг один дурачок увидал царя и закричал:
«Смотрите: царь по улицам ходит раздевшись!»” (PSS XXI: 276) (“Suddenly a fool saw the
king and cried out: ‘Look: the tsar walks the streets undressed!’”), and he changes the king’s
pride (albeit feigned) to shame: “И царю стало стыдно, что он не одет, и увидали, что на
царе ничего не было” (PSS XXI: 276) (“And the tsar was ashamed, that he was not dressed and
that [they] saw how there was nothing on [him].”)
Tolstoy’s second rewriting is a wholesale reworking of the structure and plot of
Andersen’s original. Starting with his version in the Azbuka, Tolstoy goes on to completely
remove the money and materials from the story. Much like the invisible force that moves the plot
in Fal’shivyi kupon, the spirit of self-interest propagates falsehood across the entire town.
Furthermore, the “tailors” in this version never tell a lie. They serve as illuminators of falsehood
instead of tempters. When they propose the making of the dress, they simply say: “«Мы можем
сделать такое платье, какого никто никогда не видал»” (PSS XL: 403) (“We can make such a
dress, such that no one has ever seen”), which is of course true in the literal sense. They refuse
materials and even money. Additionally, they put a sign on the door of their workplace, which
reads: “те люди, которые к своей должности не годятся, не могут видеть этого платья”
(PSS XL: 403) (“those people who are not fit for their position are not able to see this dress.”)
This is not true of all people, but it is an inclusive statement: Because all people cannot see the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 152

dress, so those who are unworthy of their position are also unable to see it. Nonetheless, those
who see this statement in the story interpret it personally, applying it to themselves directly and
magically. Because of its effect on their self-interest, the words become true in the sense in
which they interpret it. Accordingly, the invisible dress, which is really nakedness itself, reveals
the self-serving liars that make up the government structure and the town’s society. That is, until
a small child, who is not yet versed in the machinations of self-interested lying, speaks the truth,
revealing the king’s and everyone’s nakedness and unworthiness of their position in the social
power structure.
In the second rewriting, Tolstoy adds the explicit cry “On golyi!” (“He’s naked!”), which
is different from his Azbuka version, and different from Andersen’s Danish original, both of
which use idiomatic versions of “He’s undressed!” or “He’s got nothing on!” This adds, through
its blunt, literal language (in place of delicate idiom), an additional emphasis on the
defamiliarizing voice of the child, as he destroys the conventional blindness of the whole town.
Finally, Tolstoy changes the ending of the later version of the story. In his first rewriting,
he changes Andersen’s text, giving the king shame instead of feigned pride. In the later story, the
entire town experiences shame: “И вдруг все увидали, что он голый, увидал и сам царь, и
ему и всем стало стыдно” (PSS XL: 403, emphasis mine) (“And suddenly everyone said that
he was naked, the tsar himself saw, and he and everyone were ashamed”). This is the
culminating effect of the structure Tolstoy has assembled of the propagation of deceit through
the vehicle of self-interest. In the end, since the entire structure of the community is built on self-
interest, everyone has a stake in the king’s nakedness.
Only the little child has a redemptive effect in revealing the deceit, but the rest of the
town has already been corrupted through each of their individual acts of deception, committed to
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 153

protect their self images. Though there are structural similarities to the propagation of evil in
Fal’shivyi kupon, this story does not directly deal with “personhood” or the boundaries of
personality in the same way that Fal’shivyi kupon and some of Tolstoy’s other stories in the
Detskii krug chteniia do. Instead, this story is about another major Tolstoyan theme, that of
convention. Just like in his short story, “Posle bala,” the naked truth is revealed at the end, in
contrast to pretty, but deceitful, veneer that coats everything in society. The entire society
becomes one uniform whole through the corruption of self-serving lies. This negative infection is
the counterforce to the positive unity Tolstoy aims to illustrate elsewhere. The demarcation of
selfhood is generally negative for Tolstoy. But there are two sides to the coin. In addition to
positive merging of selves, there is also the negative “swarm” life described in Voina i mir, and
this instance falls into that category—mob mentality instead of spiritual communion. Individual,
elemental breakdown of truth is necessary before general truth can be asserted, so the oneness
that exists in this story is an example of a negative, conventional unity.
It might be added here that the theme of nakedness pervades Tolstoy’s ouevre, all the
time evoking a tension between his desire to uncloak the truth, which is obscured by layers of
deceit and convention, and his desire to cover up the naked body—because he is, at heart, a
prudish writer. The story in which this tension is most evident is “Posle bala.” The motifs of
covering the beloved’s body with clothing and “bodilessness” are contrasted with the naked body
of the suffering, Christ-like defector, who is flogged at the command of the beloved’s father. The
contrast is made between the two episodes: at the ball and after the ball. These motifs are even
discussed in the framing narrative, quoted here in a study of these themes:

Today you... undress the women you love, for me, though,... the object of my love was
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 154

always clad in bronze [bronzovye odezhdy, lit. "bronze garments"]. Far from undressing,
we strove, like the good son of Noah, to cover up their nakedness.” The "bronze
garments" do not only symbolize the hero's 'platonism.' They also reflect his willing and
total acceptance of conventions--in a metaphoric epitome of all the kid and suede gloves,
Varen'ka's satin shoes, the father's touchingly cheap calfskin boots, etc. (in fact, the
association of man's identity with the cut of his boots preoccupied already the protagonist
of Youth [Ch. 31, "Comme il faut"]). The function of these and other items of clothing is
precisely to "cover up the nudity," blinding Man to the starkly naked unconventional
Truth (Zholkovsky, “Before and After ‘After the Ball’,” 61-62).

This covering up stands in contrast to “Tolstoy's emphasis on the 'natural, i. e. anti-cultural,
nakedness' of the flogged body” in the “after the ball” episode, despite its coating of Christian
myth (Zholkovsky, “Before and After ‘After the Ball’,” 63).
For Tolstoy, the puritanical impulse is self-evident, but the connection between
nakedness and defamiliarization made by Zholkovsky above warrants further explanation.
Ginzburg notes that a formulation of Tolstoyan defamiliarization can be found in one of
Tolstoy’s beloved Stoic philosophers, Marcus Aurelius, who wrote:

Surely it is an excellent plan, when you are seated before delicacies and choice foods, to
impress upon your imagination that this is the dead body of a fish, that the dead body of a
bird or a pig; and again, that the Falernian wine is grape juice and that robe of purple a
lamb's fleece dipped in a shellfish's blood; and in matters of sex intercourse, that it is
attrition of an entrail and a convulsive expulsion of mere mucus. Surely these are
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 155

excellent imaginations, going to the heart of actual facts and penetrating them so as to see
the kind of things they really are. You should adopt this practice all through your life, and
where things make an impression which is very plausible, uncover their nakedness, see
into their cheapness, strip off the profession on which they vaunt themselves. (6.13) This
extraordinary passage inevitably strikes the twentieth-century reader as an early example
of estrangement. The label is fully justified. Tolstoy had a deep admiration for Marcus
Aurelius and, in his old age, edited an anthology of universal wisdom in calendar form
that included more than fifty passages from Marcus Aurelius's reflections (Ginzburg,
“Making Things Strange: The Prehistory of a Literary Device, 11).

In Tolstoy, moments of nakedness accompany defamiliarization (the description of the
opera Natasha watches in Voina i mir
21
) as often as they mark ultra-conventional, depraved
people (Helene in Voina i mir and Betsy in Anna Karenina). This is a result of the coincidence of
the negative and positive meanings of nakedness in Tolstoy’s both priggish and defamiliarizing
mindsets. Both sides of this tension combine to create the shocking effect of Anna’s only explicit
nakedness in Anna Karenina, when she is laid out on the autopsy table after her death. This
scene harnesses the power of shock value to the prudish sensibility in combination with
defamiliarization, as her body is described in fragmented manner, in order to frustrate
recognition. Olga Matich compares this scene to the description of the slaughtered animals in
Tolstoy’s essay on vegetarianism, “Pervaia stupen’” (“The First Step”) (Matich 44).:

21
The word naked is repeated four times in the short description of the third act.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 156

на столе казармы бесстыдно растянутое посреди чужих окровавленное тело, еще
полное недавней жизни; закинутая назад уцелевшая голова с своими тяжелыми
косами и вьющимися волосами на висках, и на прелестном лице, с полуоткрытым
румяным ртом, застывшее странное, жалкое в губках и ужасное в остановившихся
незакрытых глазах, выражение, как бы словами выговаривавшее то страшное слово
— о том, что он раскается, — которое она во время ссоры сказала ему (PSS XIX:
362).

On a table, stretched shamelessly before the eyes of strangers, lay her mangled body still
warm with recent life. The head, left intact […] was thrown back; and on the lovely face
with its half open red lips […] [and] fixed open eyes was frozen an expression—pitiful
[…] and horrible” (Matich 43-44).

Thomas Seifrid reads the occurences of physical and spiritual nakedness as markers of crisis,
where a visual perspective is always used, noting the removal of “veils” when Ivan Il’ich looks
into the metaphorical face of death, and elsewhere:

Many well-known Tolstoyan topoi can be read as corollaries of this reflex, such as the
frequent episodes in Tolstoy’s fiction in which exposure to others’ vision, a literal or
spiritual nakedness, constitutes some form of crisis—the postcoital scene in Anna
Karenina […] in which Anna feels “shame before her spiritual nakedness” […] or the
scene in which a disrobed and thereby mortified Kitty is examined by the doctor—or,
conversely, episodes in which moral vacuity is expressed through exposing oneself to
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 157

others’ gazes, as wen Betsy Tverskaia purposely reveals her breasts at the theater or when
the disastrous steeplechase turns into a shameful “spectacle” […] Tolstoy himself
observed in his diary on 21 February 1908, “For me, a human being, the entire world is
visual” “Вес мир для меня, для человека, зрительный” (56: 112) (Seifrid, “Gazing on
Life’s Page,” 437).

With this visual orientation toward physical and spiritual truth, nakedness becomes both the ideal
and the unthinkable with respect to Tolstoy’s conflicted puritanical versus rebellious
defamiliarizer perspective. In “Novoe tsarskoe plat’e,” nakedness is deployed as part of the
latter Tolstoyan persona. The spiritual nakedness of the king and all the people is revealed
through the vision of a defamiliarzing child. Furthermore, the moral of the story is not only
revealed through defamiliarizing nakedness, but the people are shamed into this revelation—a
frequent strategy of Tolstoy, especially in tandem with defamiliarization—the story “Stydno”
(“Shame”), for example, pointed out by Shklovsky in his famous essay, uses the
defamiliarization and the naked body through imaginative examples of torture of the naked body.

“Fedotka”
“Fedotka” is one of the stories in this cycle which does not deal directly with selfhood,
but is part of a related, but different, Tolstoyan project—that of parabolic writing. This story is
based on the kernel from which Fal’shivyi kupon was built (see my final chapter on Kupon). The
condensed tale of one man’s moral fall, conversion and subsequent redemption is told in the
form of a single parable of moral “infection.” Fedotka’s conversion is prompted by the empathic
connection he makes with the woman he murders (the culmination of a life of smaller crimes—
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 158

just like the “chut’-chutochnost’” Tolstoy describes as the key to Raskol’nikov’s downfall in
Prestuplenie i nakazanie, from which the idea for the axe-murder in “Fedotka” is probably
taken). The empathic blurring between Fedotka’s and the murdered woman’s consciousness,
which is accomplished through the effective non-resistant cry of the woman as she dies (“What
have you, evildoer, done?”), allows Fedotka to be “infected” with his victim’s point of view.
Once he empathizes with her, he begins to make small steps toward his ultimate regeneration,
which is brought to fruition only after he spends many years doing hard labor in prison.
This story only grazes the topic of selfhood through its demonstration of Fedotka’s turn
toward selflessness in the latter half. Mostly, this story falls into Tolstoy’s project of attempting
to write like Christ, while transmitting Tolstoy’s message in the parable form.

“Starik v tserkvi”
Like the previous story, “Starik v tserkvi” also does not concern selfhood directly.
Rather, it is another attempt at writing in the style of the Gospels. The tale on which Tolstoy’s
story is based is actually a Ukrainian folktale told to Tolstoy by one of his peasants in 1903 (PSS
XL: 509-10). Tolstoy most likely chose to rewrite the story because of its use of the biblical
instance of Peter’s attempt to walk on water like Christ. The old man in the story at first is able
to walk on water like Christ and Peter before his loss of faith. Then, after the old man’s
temptation, he also loses the ability and sinks, like Peter.
This tale, like both “Tsarskoe novoe plat’e” and “Fedotka,” is related to two other major
projects in Tolstoy—the crusade against convention and the attempt to write like Christ. The old
man at first rejects the idea of going to a church service, which is indeed shown to be completely
divorced from the moral life. The moral life is instead shown to be lived out in small ways—
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 159

through kindness to family, neighbors and the poor. Once the man enters the church, rather than
encountering holiness, he finds pettiness and idleness—people simply look around at one
another, likely judging or coveting one another out of boredom and idleness. Once exposed to
this behavior, the old man, who, due to his privileged holiness, is able to see even the devils that
record the names of the sinful people, he is also tempted to laugh and be distracted by other
people’s sins, and is therefore himself contaminated. Through the contrast between the church
scene and the old man’s life on the other side of the lake, the conventional approach to morality
(church ritual) is shown to be empty and even harmful.
The second project to which this story belongs is Tolstoy’s attempts to write like Christ,
in parable form, i.e. in the style of the Gospel. The central miracle of the story, the old man’s
ability to walk on water, is based on Peter’s ability and loss thereof after he loses faith in Christ.
The Tolstoyan twist to this biblical borrowing is that the old man does not lose his faith, but is
simply distracted by the petty bustle of society and the dynamic of judgment he witnesses in the
church, and in which he takes part when he laughs. Instead of fear and loss of faith, as it happens
with Peter, the old man experiences a distraction from the simple, clear way he lived his life
before. This muddled state of mind makes it impossible for him to walk lightly across the water
as he did before. Instead, he is bogged down and wet, and must go by boat, and with the help of
his sons—an altogether more convoluted path home. The story is parabolic with a Tolstoyan tint
of anti-conventionality at the heart of its moral message. Tolstoy transmits this simple message
in the story through the punishment of the old man for his mistake of entering the church, giving
in to distraction, and judging his neighbors (or in this case, his enemies, the devils). Tolstoy
altered the tone of the tale in comparison with the original folktale, making the narration more
frugal and impersonal (PSS XL: 510), in accordance with the parabolic style.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 160

Also at play here is the concept of “roeivaia zhizn’” (“swarm life”), introduced in Voina i
mir as: “Есть две стороны жизни в каждом человеке: жизнь личная, которая тем более
свободна, чем отвлеченнее ее интересы, и жизнь стихийная, роевая, где человек
неизбежно исполняет предписанные ему законы” (PSS XI: 6) (“There are two sides of life in
every person: the personal life, which the freer it is, the more distracting its interests are, and the
elemental, swarm life, where a person inevitably follows laws predestined for him.”) On the one
hand, “swarm life” is set in contrast to “zhizn’ lichnaia” (“personal life”), and is therefore more
natural, without boundaries, etc. On the other hand, “swarm life” can be either positive or
negative. As in the example of Natasha’s seduction by Anatol’ in Voina i mir, where she feels
“fear at the lack of moral boundaries between him and her” and “free,” implying both naturalness
and danger in her proximity to Anatol’ (PSS X: 342). She is enveloped in the frenzy of seduction
and makes not individual choices, but is swept along and ends up dancing with and kissing
Anatol’. This unconscious movement contingent on the direction of movement or actions of
surrounding people is “roevaia zhizn’” (“swarm life”) at its worst. This is the way it appears in
“Starik v tserkvi.” The old man is caught up in the parishioners’ drama of judgment, gossip and
denunciation.

“G. S. Skovoroda”
Tolstoy’s story about Skovoroda amounts to a structurally reinforced saint’s life story,
designed to reflect a moral idea in the narrative structure. Skovoroda’s life is related as a
demonstration of the rejection of individual personality. This tale dramatizes the paradox of
Tolstoy’s ideas on “selfhood.” The idea that one must first truly know the “self” in order to
become part of God or the “all” is inherently contradictory. This is the idea with which
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 161

Skovoroda’s tale begins. Tolstoy then demonstrates this idea through the prism of an individual,
the person of Skovoroda. Yet, his personality is continually allied with God’s will and contrasted
with the misguided or temptation-fraught influence of the people who surround him. Skovoroda
manages to be both a strong personality and an embodiment of the impersonal principle, which is
first realized and then extinguished, as if reappropriated by the “all” or God at the end of his life,
when he is presumably buried in the simple hole he digs in the earth for his grave.
The story begins with a straightforward presentation of Grigorii Skovoroda’s life as a
model of “как не надо жить и как надо жить для того, чтобы получить истинное благо”
(PSS XL: 407) (“how one must not live and how one must live in order to receive true
goodness”). This is followed by a clear description of the principle Skovoroda’s life
demonstrates. This is done through a logical progression:

Для того, чтобы человеку найти благо, ему надо познать бога. Бога же
познать человек может только в самом себе. Когда же человек познает бога
в самом себе, он увидит то, что истинное благо его в том, чтобы исполнять
волю этого духа. А воля этого духа всегда согласна с волею бога. И потому
духовные желания человека всегда исполняются. И человек, живущий
духовной жизнью, всегда счастлив и спокоен. Такой человек сливает свою
волю с волей бога и считает, что жизнь его принадлежит не ему, а богу и во
всем, что с ним случается, видит волю бога.
Для того чтобы не ошибаться в том, что есть воля божия, каждый человек
должен слушаться своего внутреннего голоса, который указывает ему, чтò
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 162

добро и чтò зло. Человек должен жить не по своим прихотям и не по
советам других людей, а по требованиям, этого голоса духа божьего.
Дух божий призывает людей к общей для всех и радостной работе:
установлению царства божия на земле.
Работником для водворения царства божия на земле может быть только тот,
кто верит в бога.
Верить в бога — не значит верить в то, что он существует, а значит —
положиться на него и жить по его закону.
Весь закон его выражается в одном: люби ближнего (407).

In order for a person to find goodness, he must know God. He can do this only
within himself. Once he has known God in himself, he can know what he must do
to fulfill the will of his spirit. And the will of his spirit is always in agreement
with the will of God. A person who lives such a spiritual life will always be happy
and at peace. This kind of person blends his will with the will of God, and
acknowledges that he does not belong to himself, but to God. In all that happens
he sees only the will of God. In order not to mistake the will of God, every person
must listen to their inner voice, which tells them what is good and what is evil. A
person must live not by his own whims or by the suggestions of other people, but
by the commands of this inner spiritual voice of God. The spirit of God calls
people to a common task that is joyful for all: the establishment of the kingdom of
God on earth. A worker for this aim may only be someone who believes in God.
To believe in God does not mean to believe that he exists, but means to depend on
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 163

him and live by his law. All of his law is summed up in one law: love your
neighbor (my translation).

Though the progression from “knowing God” to the final exhortation to “love your neighbor” is
laid out in a seemingly ultra-rational, step-by-step progression, it is actually the expansion of the
principle: “know the godlike spirit within your ‘self,’ become one with God and transcend your
‘self,’ and love others as the will of God, and not the ‘self,’ dictates.” This is a more detailed
expansion of the paradox of knowing the self in order to transcend it: “Чтобы любить людей,
человек должен прежде отречься от любви к себе” (“In order to love people, a person must
first cut himself off from love of himself”) (407).
The tale of Skovoroda is a dramatization of this gradual transcendence of self. However,
in contrast to “Bednye liudi,” for example, the drama that unfolds in entirely unpsychological.
We are told of Skovoroda’s conversion, and we read his words, but we do not experience the
inner world of Skovoroda in a psychological way at any point. The change in his character—
from wanting to travel the world and sing to desiring only to serve others and teach—is apparent
in his external actions. His internal change, which is spelled out in the above-quoted introduction
to the story, is made clear through contrast to those around him; and through his direct speech on
moral teachings; or in witnesses’ accounts of his behavior. All of these external signs document
Skovoroda’s progressive rejection of any personalized desires, will or psychological life. Instead,
his outward life shows a conformity to God’s law of loving one’s neighbor. It is through
difference and individuality that Skovoroda is shown to be one with God, which equals a
rejection of individuality.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 164

In this story, Tolstoy accomplishes the unlikely task of writing a story that centers around
and praises a single personality while rejecting selfhood and individuality. Skovoroda
demonstrates the paradoxical principle outlined at the outset of the story by showing that
personality is inherently negative even while the reader follows an exceptional personality
through the tale. This demonstration of a principle through a character, whose rejection of his
own character lays bare the paradox at the basis of the genre of saints’ lives in general.

“Shut Palachek”

The story immediately following the saint’s life of Skovoroda is that of an infinitely
smaller figure, the jester Ivan Palachek. The structure of this story stands in contrast to the
preceding tale, in which a personality was gradually dismantled as it was united with God. In the
jester’s story, a contrasting trajectory is constructed.
At the beginning of the story, Ivan is a simple man who already knows and lives by the
laws of Christ as they were spelled out in the previous and this story. Ivan works for poor
working people, and eventually ends up in Prague, where he lives a modest Christian life as well.
He becomes known throughout Prague for his deeds, and the king sends a messenger to him
asking that he report to the king to work as a jester. Palachek, however, responds: “— Ваше
величество королевское желает, чтобы я ему служил, а мое величество небесное желает,
чтобы и я и вы все служили не великим, а малым” (414) (“Your highness the king desires,
that you serve him, and my highness God desires that both you and I serve not the great, but the
small.”) He then entrusts the decision of whether to work for the king to one of the little girls he
is taking care of. When she gestures that he may go to the king, Palachek starts his new life as
the king’s jester.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 165

Just as Palachek had become more and more well-known among the people for his
selfless deeds, so with the king, Ivan’s actions are “infectious.” Palachek’s irreverent behavior to
the king and generally guileless and selfless attitude are new and strange to the king, and
therefore have an accentuated effect on him. Palachek challenges the king to hear out a victim of
the death penalty, who turns out not to be guilty, and the king pardons him and is grateful to
Palachek:

— Что ты, брат король, или лучше Христа? — сказал Палечек.
— Отчего лучше Христа? — спросил король.
— Да как же. Христос какого разбойника простил на кресте, а ты казнишь,
не выслушав (416).
“What is wrong with you, brother king, or are you better than Christ?” said
Palachek.
“How better than Christ?” asked the king.
“Well just so. Christ forgave such a bandit on the cross, and you execute him
without hearing him out.”

By being challenged by Skovoroda to reason as Christ did on the cross, and to likewise
empathize with an accused criminal (as Christ forgave the bandit), the king is moved to hear out
the man condemned to death and commute the sentence.
Later, when Palachek finds a wounded man and tries to bring him to the hospital but is
turned away, he tells the king that he has found Christ’s body wounded and needs his help. When
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 166

the king finds that the man is not actually Christ, he has already been “infected” by the sentiment
of empathy, and is again grateful for Palachek’s teaching.
Another time, Palachek noticed some peasant children looking through a fence at the
noblemen’s children as they played in a royal courtyard. Palachek opened the gate and told the
noblemen’s children to play with these other children too. When the noblemen were upset, and
the king told Palachek that it was not proper for peasant children to play with royal children,
Palachek responded, “ — Брат король, — сказал Палечек, — все дети царского рода” (421)
(“‘Brother king,’ said Palachek, ‘all children are of noble blood’”). The king’s reaction to this is
negative, but a peculiar effect nonetheless takes place—that of his “infection”: “Король был
недоволен, но Палечек делал всё свое, то, что считал нужным по закону Христа. И король
всё больше и больше любил его и давал ему и деньги и одежды, когда Палечек приходил к
нему без денег и раздетый” (421) (“The king was not satisfied, but Palachek lived his life the
way he considered necessary by the law of Christ. And the king loved him more and more, and
gave him money and clothes when Palachek came to him without money or clothes.”) The king
was not satisfied, but he loved Palachek.
So, when Palachek acted according to the law of Christ, the king, in his empathy for
Palachek, acted toward him with love. Here the way the king’s love is expressed is especially
important. He gave him money and clothes, when Palachek was poor or unclothed. This is a
paraphrase of one of the commands of Christ: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you
clothed me […]” (Matthew 25:35-36). So, the king has actually been “infected” by Palachek’s
actions. When Palachek imitates Christ, and the king loves Palachek, the king too begins to live
by the law of Christ. The slow “infection” that takes place throughout the story travels up the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 167

ranks of society, from Palachek to the people around him, and finally extensively to the king,
who in turn, causes the infection to travel back down to his people through his decrees and his
support of Palachek.
In contrast to the saint’s life of Skovoroda, which documents his self-knowledge,
transcendence of self, and union with God, Palachek’s story is that of “infection” across a
community through empathic understanding and Christlike behavior. The first story operates on
the level of idea, while the second operates on the level of action.

Tolstoy’s Imitation of Christ—Man and Author
One general point can be made about Tolstoy’s attempt to create a “krug chteniia” for his
meetings with the peasant children during this period. This whole project was part of his larger
attempt to become Christlike in both his life and his authorial style. For Tolstoy, imitation of
Christ was not limited to moral living. When he began to chasten his prose in the 70s, and when
he wrote “Chto takoe isskustvo?” later, he was already trying to imitate Christ as an author. Like
Christ’s teachings, parabolic writing and writing whose meaning is reflected clearly both in its
language and structure is the kind of literature that is comprehensible to every kind of reader—
irrespective of their age or station in society. Tolstoy’s meetings with his peasant children—the
ideal reader, because of their simplicity of both mind and sociological status—were a part of his
“zhiznetvorchestvo.” This was a marriage between acting and writing like Christ: “Let the
children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to
you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:14-
15).
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 168

In “Chto takoe isskustvo?” Tolstoy repeatedly praises the biblical parable as the best kind
of writing because it is comprehensible to all:

мы считаем самым высоким искусством: художественно простые
повествования библии, притчи Евангелия (108) […] евангельские притчи
[…] передают очень высокие чувства и, несмотря на то, вполне понятны нам
теперь, образованным и необразованным […] (PSS XXX: 108-109)
we consider the highest art: the simple artful narratives of the Bible, the parables
of the Gospels […] Gospel parables transmit very high emotions despite the fact
that they are completely comprehensible to us now, to the educated and the
uneducation […]

Furthermore, Tolstoy implies that Christ is the ideal “writer,” when explaining what every man
(“on” here) inherently understands:

что Будда, Сократ и Христос велики, он тоже понимает, потому что знает и
чувствует, что и ему, и всем людям надо быть такими; но почему велик
человек за то, что он писал стихи о женской любви, — он не может понять
(PSS XXX: 171).

That Buddha, Socrates and Christ are great, [every man] also understands,
because he knows and feels, that he and all people must be such people; but why a
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 169

person great because he wrote poetry about feminine love, [every man] cannot
understand.

By contrasting Christ, Buddha and Socrates with a poet who writes about women’s love, Tolstoy
hints at his own project to emulate these three “authors” whose life and “authorial” legacy are of
course superior, in Tolstoy’s view, to the quintessential immoral writing he sets out to
delegitimize in his treatise. Tolstoy’s own efforts to become a writer like these men is
exceptionally clear in this late project to create his Detskii krug chteniia. For his weekly schedule
of meetings with his peasant children, Tolstoy interspersed his own original compositions and
rewritings (discussed in this chapter) with excerpted readings on Buddhism and from the Gospel.
This late project in life and literature made up one of Tolstoy’s more comprehensive attempts at
Christlike life and authorship. In the following chapter, I will discuss the most innovative
narrative experiment Tolstoy undertook during the late stage of his impersonal project. This next
endeavor, the long short story “Fal’shivyi kupon,” is an example of Tolstoy’s project as
expressed entirely through narrative structure and technique.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 170

Chapter 5. Coupon “Karma”—Narrative Techniques in Tolstoy’s “Fal’shivyi kupon”
(“The Forged Coupon”)

“25 Дек. 1903. Ясн. Пол. Началъ писать Фальшивый купонъ. Пишу очень небрежно, но
интересуетъ меня тѣмъ, что выясняется новая форма, очень sobre.”
22

“December 25, 1903. Iasnaia Poliana, Russia. I started to write ‘The Forged Coupon.’ I am
writing roughly, but what interests me is that a new form is being discovered, a very frugal one.”
-Tolstoy’s Diary

“Пусть изчеснет обман личности […]”

“Let the illusion of personality disappear […]”
-From Tolstoy’s Translation of Paul Carus’ “Karma”

Сказочка эта очень понравилась мне и своей наивностью и своей глубиной. Особенно
хорошо в ней разъяснение той, часто с разных сторон в последнее время затемняемой,
истины, что избавление от зла и приобретение блага добывается только своим усилием,
что нет и не может быть такого приспособления, посредством которого, помимо своего
личного усилия, достигалось бы свое или общее благо.
-Tolstoy, PSS XXXI: 47

This tale has very much pleased me both by its naivete and by its depth. Especially good is its
explanation of the truth, often from all sides of late overshadowed, that deliverance from evil and
the attainment of goodness can be brought about only through their own momentum and that
there doesn’t and cannot exist any contrivance whose means, despite personal efforts, would
bring about personal and communal good.
-Tolstoy’s preface to Paul Carus’ stories (my translation)

Tolstoy’s radical late views on morality and aesthetics deeply permeated his fictional
work, catalyzing new and experimental approaches to form and content in his later writings. In
these experiments, Tolstoy strove to shape his new ideology as narrative. One such work,
“Fal'shivyi kupon” (“The Forged Coupon”), exhibits an impersonal plot, a parabolic structure
and a narrative propelled by a moral force at first embodied in the titular banknote. This force

22
[умеренная.] (editor’s footnote) PSS Vol. 54, p. 201, tolstoy.ru
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 171

strongly resembles the Buddhist notion of “karma” as Tolstoy understood it. In the 1890s, around
the time of “The Forged Coupon’s” initial plot conception, Tolstoy translated and published a
story entitled “Karma” by Paul Carus, a German-American comparative religion philosopher
whom Tolstoy read and admired. I will explore how Tolstoy appropriated Carus’ synthetic
Christian-Buddhist ideas, among other influences, in his late innovation of ideology as narrative.
“Falshivyi kupon” begins with an embittered father who refuses to give his son extra
allowance money despite his son’s debt to a friend (incurred in order to go to the theater). After
receiving his usual amount (consisting of a two-and-a-half ruble coupon, or banknote, and fifty
kopecks), the young boy, feeling bitter and desperate, is convinced by an older, mischievous
friend to simply write a “one” in front of the amount on the banknote (making it worth twelve
and a half rubles) and to cash it at a store with some small purchase. The boys use the banknote
at a local shop and accomplish their purpose. However, the shop owner soon identifies the
forgery, berates his wife (the one who accepted it), and in turn gives it to a peasant selling wood.
The peasant, unaware the coupon is forged, tries to use it at a tavern, where it is immediately
noticed to be a forgery, after which he is arrested. The peasant identifies the shop owner who
gave it to him and brings him to court. However, the shop owner denies ever having seen the
peasant. By bribing one of his servants to lie in court, the shop owner wins the case. This is the
last appearance of the banknote itself in the story, but the evil deeds spurred by these initial
crimes continue, perpetrated by a chain of characters, one to the next, until a climax is attained in
the murder of an innocent woman at the end of part I. Part II outlines the reverse effect.
Beginning with the dying woman’s nonresistant, innocent face, which haunts her murderer, good
deeds and small conversions of heart toward good are accomplished in a similar chain, often
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 172

triggered by the reading of the Gospels. Finally, in the end, even the boy from the beginning of
Part I, who has not been mentioned in many chapters reappears and is “converted”.
“Fal’shivyi kupon” was written over a long period and never definitively finished. During
the time of its writing, Tolstoy was grappling with various influences and projects. The most
prominent explicit influence on this story is the Gospel, and particularly its parables. The most
prominent implicit influence on this text is the Buddhist idea of “karma” and the story Tolstoy
translated and published on the subject in 1894. In addition, other structural innovations
distinguish this story as a vehicle for Tolstoyan ideology that is not simply ventriloquized
through a central character. I will begin with its impersonal narrative.
The story is split into two parts, and each consists of many extremely short episodes.
Characters, once introduced, do not remain in the action for long, and are sometimes completely
forgotten after one appearance. Some characters return, but no single character is the hero or
antihero of the story, and no character is consistently described with psychological depth.
The most jarring difference between “Fal'shivyi kupon” and Tolstoy’s other late stories is
this lack of a personal hero. There are many temporary heroes in the work, but none rises to the
level of the individual, psychological heroes of Tolstoy’s other long short stories (“Smert’ Ivana
Il’icha” (“The Death of Ivan Il’ich”); “Kreitzerova sonata” (“The Kreutzer Sonata”); “Khoziain i
rabotnik” (“Master and Man”); “Posle bala” “(After the Ball”) ; and “Bog vidit prav’du…”
(“God Sees the Truth”)). These stories “owe their power chiefly to the way they focus upon a
single foreground figure and portray that figure’s life as having meaning principally in the light
of Tolstoy’s ideas.” (Orwin 130) The lack of a single hero makes up one major innovation in
“Fal'shivyi kupon,” which is a result of Tolstoy’s efforts to define his art in the context of his
beliefs in his post-conversion life. It was precisely the negation of personal identity and selfhood
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 173

that Tolstoy wanted to achieve in both his art and life. Though the ideals of self-denial and unity
of all people
23
occupied central roles in many of his novels and short stories, he could not
previously escape the need for the extremely personal, individual perspectives that dominated his
narratives.
Perhaps Tolstoy’s grandest attempt to write a post-conversion narrative is Voskresen’e.
This novel recounts the moral fall and subsequent conversion and regeneration of Nekhliudov, a
Russian nobleman. Much like in “Khoziaian i rabotnik,” Nekhliudov’s story is one of a
psychologically motivated conversion of an individual. Like “Fal’shivyi kupon,” Voskresen’e is
built on the anxiety that one’s haphazard, youthful mistakes could set in motion a chain of events
with the power to ruin another person’s life. After consciously attempting to reform himself and
the system around him with the hope of building a more egalitarian society, Nekhliudov
ultimately fails to unite himself with Maslova and her fellows. At one of the philosophical
turning points in the novel, Nekhliudov encounters an old man who will later be imprisoned for
lacking a passport (the institutional proof of his personal identity). The man professes an anti-
individual understanding of how to accomplish unity in the world. This man is the mouthpiece of
Tolstoy’s message of self-effacement:

Вер много, а дух один. И в тебе, и во мне, и в нем. Значит, верь всяк своему
духу, и вот будут все соединены. Будь всяк сам себе, и все будут заедино
[…] Я от всего отрекся: нет у меня ни имени, ни места, ни отечества, —
ничего нет. Я сам себе. Зовут как? Человеком. «А годов сколько?» — Я,

23
Perhaps best expressed in the character of Platon Karataev in Voina i mir (War and Peace).
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 174

говорю, не считаю, да и счесть нельзя, потому что я всегда был, всегда и
буду (PSS XXXII: 418-419).

There are many faiths, but the spirit is one—in me, and in you, and in him. So that
if every one believes himself all will be united; every one be himself, and all will
be as one” […] I have given up everything: I have no name, no place, no country,
nor anything. I am just myself. “What is your name?” “Man.” “How old are you?”
I say, “I do not count my years and cannot count them, because I always was, I
always shall be” (Tolstoy, Resurrection, 329).

This man basically espouses a Tolstoyan anarchistic worldview
24
, with an emphasis on a
lack of individualism save for a firm confidence in acting according to one’s conscience.
However, both this character and Nekhliudov are examples of individual lenses through which to
show a psychological grappling with an idea. Even if the idea at hand is that of anti-
individualism, we still see it worked out in the individual mind.

24
In fact, he is paraphrasing and synthesizing the words of the Hebrew god of the Old Testament
(“I am”) and Jesus of the Gospels. His words are a paraphrase of several places in the Gospel
where Jesus either denies his own family or asks that his followers give up theirs. He also
appropriates the timelessness and the universalness of all souls that Jesus claims in John 8:58:
‘So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’

Jesus
said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’”

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 175

The titular character in “Otets Sergii” is another example of an ultra-personal narrative of
individual conversion. The moral is that of selflessness and impersonal, communal goodness, but
this moral is brought to light through an individual experience. The moral is only fully revealed
in Sergii’s final fate, when he chooses to live as a nameless wanderer who, like the old man in
Voskresen’e, is ultimately arrested for lacking a passport and sent to Siberia (PSS XXXI: 46).
In contrast to the renunciation of self in the works just mentioned, all of which are
expressed through personal sacrifice of individual heroes, committed after internal realization of
previous injustices, Fal’shivyi kupon’s plot is built upon the minimization of individual
personality. By not elevating any one of its characters to the deeply psychological status of
previously depicted heroes, Tolstoy diminishes the importance of the individual by structural
means. The construction of the plot instead suggests that the center of gravity in this story resides
in the linkages between characters rather than in the characters themselves.
Here we can remember Tolstoy’s famous 1876 letter to Strakhov about the “лабирин[т]
сцеплений, в кот[ором] и состоит сущность искусства, и к тем законам, кот[орые] служат
основан[ием] этих сцеплений” (“labyrinth of linkages that makes up the stuff of art, and brings
[the reader] to the laws that serve as the basis for those linkages.”) (Tolstoy PSS LXII: 269).
Tolstoy suggests the possibility for different types of linkages identifying different types of
narrative systems. “Fal’shivyi kupon” focuses on the linkages themselves rather than the
characters or even the rhyming details of what Gustafson called “emblematic realism.” This is
already something different.

It was not until Fal’shivyi kupon that Tolstoy was able to create a narrative that
deemphasized selfhood by means of narrative technique. One precursor and influence in this
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 176

structurally impersonal narrative is Paul Carus’ story “Karma.” A central source of Tolstoy’s
knowledge of Hinduism and Buddhism, Paul Carus, an American comparative religion
philosopher, wrote moral tales much like some of Tolstoy’s experiments. Tolstoy corresponded
with Carus and actively read his work beginning in the 1890s. Aylmer Maude, friend and
translator of Tolstoy, counted Carus among Tolstoy’s preferred contemporary authors in his
1900 essay, “Talks with Tolstoy” (Maude 200). Later in his life, Tolstoy read Carus’ Gospel of
Buddha often, keeping it in his office among his most-used books (as V. F. Bulgakov notes in his
description of Tolstoy’s library) (PSS LII: 270). In 1894, Tolstoy published a translation of one
of Carus’ religious stories, entitled “Karma,” in Severnyi vestnik (No. 12, pp. 350-358) (PSS
LIV: 566).
“Karma” begins with a rich jeweler who picks up a samana (“monakh” in Tolstoy’s
translation) in his carriage on the way to the market with hopes of receiving spiritual reward for
his good deed. The rich man drives recklessly past a poor rice merchant whose goods are spilled
onto the road when his cart is upset and overturned by the jeweler’s carriage. The poor rice
merchant, who depends on the money from selling his rice for survival, is distraught that this
misfortune may prevent him from reaching the market with his rice. When the rice merchant asks
the samana why he deserved such treatment, the samana reveals that the merchant is a
reincarnation of a relative of the rich jeweler who had done wrong to the jeweler in that previous
life and deserved this retribution as a result. The samana recommends to the rice merchant that
he do a good deed to the jeweler by returning a purse of gold that had fallen from the jeweler’s
carriage during the incident in order to repair the merchant’s karmic relations. Meanwhile, the
jeweler punishes an innocent servant for the missing gold. The servant bitterly flees his master
and begins a life of banditry. From this point on good and evil deeds proliferate, each causing a
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 177

proportional harm or benefit. By the end of the story, all characters have been punished and have
repented for any evil deeds done, while the good deeds done have lavished a collective reward
on all involved, all according to the law of karma. Near the end, a conversion parable is told to
the dying servant-turned-bandit, prompting his conversion through the infectious moral message
of the parable. The parable recounts a wicked man’s appeal to Buddha from hell. Buddha
extends a spider’s web down into hell for the man to climb out, but the web is only sturdy
enough to climb if it is shared with everyone. The man selfishly attempts to use the web only for
himself and it immediately ruptures. This succinct parable near the end of “Karma” encapsulates
the moral message of the larger story in short form.
Tolstoy notes in the preface to his translation why he so liked the story and how it
expressed fundamental truths common to Christianity and Buddhism such as the renunciation of
personality and the unbreakable linkages among men which prevent individual happiness at the
expense of others:

Сказочка эта […] показывается и то, что благо отдельного человека только
тогда истинное благо, когда оно благо общее. Сказочка эта как бы с новой
стороны освещает две основные, открытые христианством, истины: о том,
что жизнь только в отречении от личности — кто погубит душу, тот обретет
ее — и что благо людей только в их единении с богом и через бога между
собою: Как ты во мне и я в тебе, так и они да будут в нас едино... Иоан.
XVII, 21 (PSS XXXI: 47).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 178

This tale […] proves that individual happiness is never genuine save when it is
bound up with the happiness of all our fellows. […] This tale seems to shed light
on a new side of the two fundamental truths revealed by Christianity: that life
exists only in the renunciation of one’s personality—‘ he that loseth his life shall
find it’—and that the good of people is only in their union with God, through God
with one another […] (Carus iii-iv; translation adjusted for accuracy)

Not only does Tolstoy find ideas of anti-individuality that appeal to him in the story’s
moral message, but “Karma’s” structure mimics the impersonal style of Buddhist tales, just as
Tolstoy often emulates the style of the Gospel parables. Both of these are impersonal genres,
intended to describe universal moral dilemmas that apply to all people. I will discuss the role of
the parable in more detail a bit later. First, I will move on to the second major narrative
innovation of “Fal’shivyi kupon,” that of its narrative movement.
The question arises: what moves the plot of a story devoid of a personal hero? The forged
coupon itself is the initial cause of the long chain of wrongdoing in Part I. But soon after the first
few episodes, it disappears, leaving only the essence of its evil, which continues to propel the
narrative forward: “по цепочке передается не имидж какого-то одного главного героя, а
моральные последствия исходного преступления (уплаты фальшивым купоном)” (“[A]
chain of moral consequences is being transmitted (from the payment with the forged coupon),
instead of the image of a central hero”) (Zholkovsky 205).
The concept of a material object acting as the catalyst for a complete narrative’s plot
movement can be found in the counter-example of the “cursed jewel” in English literature. This
phenomenon, which can be observed in works such as Wilkie Collins’ Moonstone and Sir Arthur
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 179

Conan Doyle’s The Sign of the Four, are an instance of a plot actually moved by an object which
carries a curse or spell that acts upon the people and circumstances with which it comes in
contact. An important Russian example of this is Gogol’s “Portret” (“The Portrait”), where the
painting itself carries a curse to each new owner. It would seem at first that the forged coupon in
Tolstoy’s story is employed in this way. However, the coupon itself ceases to connect the plot
after the first few episodes. Tolstoy’s innovation lies in his removal of the actual object from the
device, leaving simply the effect of an action: the “breath” of evil itself quickly replaces the
banknote within the first few episodes. This is balanced by the essence of good in Part II, which
has an even more accelerated effect on the movement of the plot.
25

The precedent of the “cursed jewel” from English literature or the cursed portrait from
Gogol is something which Tolstoy may have, consciously or not, employed whether or not he
had a specific subtext in mind. The precedent for a moral propeller of the plot such as Tolstoy
substituted for the object does in fact also exist. This precedent is moral and philosophical rather
than narrative, but is present in Carus’ story
26
that so struck Tolstoy in its clear exposition of
moral truth. This precedent is the concept of Karma illustrated in the story, which grows out of
the understanding that the division between individual selves is illusory. Instead, all people are
part of one interconnected web, so when one does harm to another, one is really doing harm to

25
Victoria Somoff argues that this effect is taken from folktales with agglomerative plots, where
the same action is repeated over and over again in short episodes until the form ruptures and goes
back to its original link. See Somoff, Victoria. “Nonresistance to fiction: archaic folktale vs. later
Tolstoy.” Slavic and East European Journal, 2016, Vol.60(2) 284-306.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 180

oneself. This is the moral equivalent of Tolstoy’s aesthetic preoccupation with “stsepleniia”
(“linkages”).
This is expressed most clearly in the opening monolog of the “samana” (“монах”) in
Carus’ story: “Self is an illusion […] The illusion of self is like dust in your eye that blinds your
sight and prevents you from recognising the close relations that obtain between yourself and your
fellows […] (Carus 15-16) ( — Считать себя отдельным существом есть обман […] То, что
мы считаем себя отдельными существами, происходит оттого, что покрывало Майи
ослепляет наши глаза и мешает нам видеть неразрывную связь с нашими ближними (PSS
XXXI: 51).
27
)
Implicit in the notion that all people are connected is that the deeds of each person have
consequences for all. Instead of connecting the episodes of the story by means of a central
character, Tolstoy connects the actions of the story by means of the force of wrongdoing at first
embodied in the forged coupon.
This innovation is also partly inspired by “Karma.” Carus’ narrative, much like
“Fal’shivyi kupon,” follows the effects of good and evil deeds on victims and perpetrators. The
story follows people of various classes—rich men, merchants and servants—as they suffer or
benefit according to the law of karma for the deeds done in their past or even in past lives.

27
Tolstoy’s translation, as will be given alongside all remaining quotations from this story.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 181

Tolstoy’s conception is perhaps less fairly distributed than the notion of “karma,” since
he does not fully recognize the convenient explanation of deeds done in past lives
28
. For Tolstoy,
a deed done wrongly to another can often result in the displacement of that revenge on a
completely innocent party. Thus evil proliferates in unexpected directions. There is a precedent
for this kind of pattern on a smaller scale in Iunost’. Tolstoy’s own thoughts on the effect of evil
actions in society are dramatized by Tolstoy’s fictionalized autobiographical hero, Nikolen’ka
Irtenev. After a hostile encounter with an older man, Kolpikov, who insults him, he in turn
insults one of his good friends, Dubkov, without provocation. He explains his action after further
contemplation:

Только гораздо после, размышляя уже спокойно об этом обстоятельстве, я
сделал предположение довольно правдоподобное, что Колпиков, после
многих лет почувствовав, что на меня напасть можно, выместил на мне, в
присутствии брюнета без усов, полученную пощечину, точно так же, как я
тотчас же выместил его «невежу» на невинном Дубкове (PSS II: 123).

It was only when I thought this affair over quietly, long afterward, that I arrived at
the tolerably probable inference that Kolpiko[v], feeling, after the lapse of many
years, that he could attack me, had taken his revenge on me, in the presence of the

28
Nevertheless, Tolstoy’s exposure to the concept of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of
souls, could have contributed to his interest in the melding of separate minds and the blurring of
boundaries between the personal identities of people.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 182

beardless, dark-complexioned man, for the box on the ear which he had received,
just as I immediately revenged myself for his ill-bred action on the innocent
Dubko[v]. (PSS, Vol. 5, 256)

This demonstrates Tolstoy’s assumption about the societal effects of one single wrong
action perpetrated against another. This progression is similar to the way wrongdoing is passed
from one hero to the next in “Fal'shivyi kupon.” However, once again, it is carried out through
the psychological experience of the individual, and not through narrative form.
Both the chain of evil deeds implied in Iunost’ and the impersonal moral schema for the
salvation and unity of mankind discovered by Nekhliudov in Voskresen’e and Kasatskii in Otets
Sergii are essential precursors to “Fal’shivyi kupon,” which is the first work in which these ideas
are transmitted through narrative structure rather than through an individual character’s
experience.
Though Carus’ story does not dramatize Karma structurally to the extent Tolstoy’s story
does, Carus does include an emblem for such a structure in the story with which Tolstoy was
much impressed. This is the image of a spider web obliquely commented upon in Tolstoy’s
preface to his translation of the story. Tolstoy writes: “Как только разбойник, вылезавший из
ада, пожелал блага себе одному, так его благо перестало быть благом, и он оборвался”
(PSS XXXI: 47) (“From the very moment when the brigand on escaping from Hell thought only
of his own happiness, his happiness ceased and he fell back again into his former doom” (Carus
iv)). Tolstoy here refers to an episode in “Karma” where a conversion story is told to the
repentant dying servant-turned-robber (who had initially been wrongfully accused of stealing his
master’s gold purse) to give him hope for redemption. The story goes that a cruel robber named
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 183

Kandata died without repentance and began to suffer for his wrongs in hell. At this time Buddha
arrived on earth and was enlightened, and the robber begged from hell for mercy from Buddha.
Buddha, seeing that the robber had once in his life saved a spider from death, sent a spider’s web
down to hell for the robber to climb. As the robber climbed he felt others climbing behind him,
and began to fear that the web would break. He cried out that the web was his and it immediately
broke, sending him back into hell. He had not yet let go of the illusion of self, and for this reason
could not share the web with others and climb out of hell:

“The illusion of self was still upon Kandata. He did not know the miraculous
power of a sincere longing to rise upwards and enter the noble path of
righteousness. It is thin like a cobweb, but it will carry millions of people, and the
more there are that climb it, the easier it will be the efforts of every one of them.
But as soon as the idea arises in man’s heart: ‘This is mine; let the bliss of
righteousness be mine alone, and let no one else partake of it,’ the thread breaks
and he will fall back into his old condition of selfhood. For selfhood is damnation,
and truth is bliss. What is Hell? It is nothing but egotism, and Nirvana is a life of
righteousness.” (Carus 31).

Заблуждение личности еще жило в Кандате. Он не знал чудесной силы
искреннего стремления вверх для того, чтобы вступить на путь праведности.
Стремление это тонко, как паутина, но оно поднимет миллионы людей, и чем
больше будет людей лезть по паутине, тем легче будет каждому из них. Но как
только в сердце человека возникнет мысль, что паутина эта моя, что благо
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 184

праведности принадлежит мне одному и что пусть никто не разделяет его
со мной, то нить обрывается, и ты падаешь назад в прежнее состояние
отдельной личности; отдельность же личности есть проклятие, а единение есть
благословение. Что такое ад? Ад есть не что иное, как себялюбие, а нирвана
есть жизнь общая... (PSS XXXI: 55).

The emblem of the spider web communicates the paradoxical ideals of self-renunciation and of
Karma. Just as it seems unlikely that denying one’s own desires would lead to bliss, so does it
contradict reason that the spider-web would grow stronger as it grew thinner and was stretched
out to more people. Additionally, the web becomes an apt metaphor for the linkages that make
up Karma. Though this idea is expressed through description in “Karma,” Tolstoy deploys it as
structure in “Fal’shivyi kupon.” The web of interconnected fates that make up human society is
based on the paradoxical Christian/Buddhist ethos of realization of self through denial of self,
and elimination of evil through nonresistance to it. The metaphor of the spider web may have
particularly resonated with Tolstoy, since he used a similar metaphor in his early writing to
describe Dmitrii Olenin’s attempts to form a loving community in Kazaki (The Cossacks):
«Много я передумал и много изменился в это последнее время», писал Оленин, «и дошел
до того, что написано в азбучке. Для того чтоб быть счастливым, надо одно — любить, и
любить с самоотвержением, любить всех и всё, раскидывать на все стороны паутину
любви: кто попадется, того и брать […]» (PSS VI: 105). (“Lately much has changed, and I
have reflected on many things,” he began, “and the way things have turned out, I seem to be
back where I started. To be happy, one needs only one thing: to love. To love selflessly, to love
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 185

everyone and everything, to spread a [spider’s] web of love in all directions and catch whoever
falls into it […]” (Tolstoy, The Cossacks, 114)).
The web described in “Karma” is the same as the “chain” of evil and good defined in this
paper. Both in Christian texts and in Buddhist ones, Tolstoy highlighted these conceptualizations
of the linkages between people rather than the people themselves. In his Krug chteniia, Tolstoy
put together the story of Buddha. In this story, he writes: “Только человек, заменивший
любовью свои похотливые желания, порывает цепи невежества, страстей и избавляется от
страдания и смерти” (PSS XLI: 99) (“Only the person who substitutes love for his lewd desires
will break the chain of wrongdoing and passions, and be delivered from suffering and death”).
Later in the same story, this concept is described as a web or net: “Освобождайтесь от
опутывающей людей сети страстей” (PSS XLI: 100) (“Free yourselves from the web of
passion ensnaring people”)
29
.
Beyond the emphasis of chain-like or web-like linkages, there are other striking
similarities between “Fal’shivyi kupon” and Paul Carus’ “Karma.” Both revolve around the
movement of money at the beginning: In “Karma,” a misplaced purse of gold coins is returned to
its owner as a way of ensuring good Karma. Both stories deal with the mistreatment of servants
by their masters, which results in the moral corruption of the servants, sometimes leading to a

29
Both the chain and the web/net metaphors can be flipped to signify either a force for
redemption or temptation. The net just mention is one that ensnares one in sinfulness. However,
the net in the Gospel parable (Matthew 13:47-52) refers to a net drawing together and harvesting
all the fish in the sea.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 186

life of crime. The subsequent conversion of a servant-turned-criminal spurs a return to
equilibrium in both stories.
Tolstoy’s innovation of the impersonal plot combined with his use of the banknote (and
its karmic effect) to move the plot forward in a chain of proliferating evil (followed by the
reverse) is not carried out to a total or ideal extent. In contrast to traditional plots, which revolve
around groups of repeated characters and related actions, and which circle back to the same
actors, the idea of an open-ended chain of actions taking place among an ever-changing set of
characters is extremely innovative. If given full expression, this plot structure would be a
dramatization of the butterfly effect, where one small action makes a minute change, which in
turn makes another minute change, but these small changes build in an irrevocable chain until the
entire environment is altered drastically. Tolstoy tempered this idea with a few traditional
naturalizing attributes. The banknote’s actual presence as a link between the first few episodes is
one such traditional method of plot development, like the “cursed jewel” in English literature or
the portrait in Gogol. Additionally, instead of allowing his chains of good and evil to resolve in
utter open-endedness, Tolstoy reintroduces the young boy from the beginning of the story to
complete a more circular structure. This concession could also conform to the idea of ultimate
Karma (he eventually reaped what he sewed; “be it good or evil, finally it will come home to us”
(Carus 16)). But even in this case, the selection of such a narrow web of connections does not
correspond to the naturally extensive proliferation a complete exploration of such an effect
would have.
In an effort to identify the topology of Tolstoy’s plot in “Fal’shivyi kupon” more
precisely, I will position “Fal’shivyi kupon” in the context of several types of plots. Iurii,
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 187

Shcheglov analyzes the linkages between the constituent parts of a plot in order to classify
different topologies. He writes that the first task is to describe the general typology of

возможных форм связи между широко разведенными пространственными и
социальными сферами мира, изображенного в “экстенсивном”
произведении. Намечая такую типологию, мы обнаруживаем интересные
соотношения между преобладанием одной или другой из этих форм и теми
политическими, эстетическими и социокультурными парадигмами, в рамках
которых возникают соответствующие произведения. (Shcheglov 499)

possible forms of linkages between the widely cultivated spatial and social
spheres of the world depicted in “extensive” works. Noting such a typology, we
uncover interesting relationships between of one or another of these predominant
forms and political, aesthetic and sociocultural paradigms, in the frame of which
emerge related works.

Shcheglov articulates four main types of plots, based on the way in which these linkages operate.
The poetic model unites its various worlds through literary or verbal means, such as poetic
similes, speeches or memories of heroes (501); the historical model connects the various societal
spheres involved through interactions with an historical figure (502); the adventure model’s plot
is driven by the hero’s movement through time and space (such as Ostap Bender’s) (503-4); and
the administrative model features a hero who is restricted to immobility by a stultifying social
structure, so that the action moves forward without him, or even against him (504).
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 188

“Falshivyi kupon” does not fit neatly into any of these categories. It could be classified
partially as poetic, because every episode is like every other episode, establishing a congruity of
poetic form throughout the work. The plot cannot be compared with the adventure model,
because there is no protagonist. The impersonal plot and the forged banknote (and its residual
effect, after the note itself disappears) share some attributes with the administrative novel, and
can be compared to the plot structure of Tynianov’s “Podporuchnik Kizhe” (“Lieutenant Kizhe”)
(which is discussed in Shcheglov’s article (510)), where a typographical error spurs an
outrageous series of misunderstandings resulting in the creation of a character who only exists
administratively (in paperwork). We follow the object (or lack thereof) wherever it goes, without
regard to irrelevant characters, situations and environments. Like Tynianov’s story, “Fal’shivyi
kupon” is administrative in that a piece of information travels through the work (only
horizontally, not vertically, like in Tynianov). Still, there is no immobilized protagonist. None of
these plot topologies account for the particular moral dimension expressed in the structure of
Tolstoy’s story. Gogol’s “Portret” would perhaps be the closest plot topology if its structure were
totally organized by the portrait’s movement. It is instead dominated by the two deeply
psychologized personal perspectives of the two men most affected by the portrait.
In the analysis of “Fal'shivyi kupon,” moral and aesthetic questions are interwoven and
cannot be explored without regard to one another. Let us look at Tolstoy’s general thesis in
“Chto takoe iskusstvo?,” where he describes “infection” as a way of understanding art’s effect:

Признак, выделяющий настоящее искусство от поддельного, есть один
несомненный — заразительность искусства. Если человек без всякой
деятельности с своей стороны и без всякого изменения своего положения,
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 189

прочтя, услыхав, увидав произведение другого человека, испытывает
состояние души, которое соединяет его с этим человеком и другими, так же,
как и он, воспринимающими предмет искусства людьми, то предмет,
вызвавший такое состояние, есть предмет искусства. Как бы ни был
поэтичен, похож на настоящий, эффектен или занимателен предмет, он не
предмет искусства, если он не вызывает в человеке того, совершенно
особенного от всех других, чувства радости, единения душевного с другим
(автором) и с другими (с слушателями или зрителями), воспринимающими
то же художественное произведение (PSS XXX: 148).

There is one indubitable indication distinguishing real art from its counterfeit,
namely, the infectiousness of art. If a man, without exercising effort and without
altering his standpoint, on reading, hearing, or seeing another man’s work,
experiences a mental condition which unites him with that man and with other
people who also partake of that work of art, the object evoking that condition is a
work of art. And however poetical, realistic, effectful, or interesting a work may
be, it is not a work of art if it does not evoke that feeling (quite distinct from all
other feelings) of joy, and of spiritual union with another (the author) and with
others (those who are also infected by it) (PSS, Vol. 11, 132).

In “Chto takoe iskusstvo?,” Tolstoy’s posits that art is a means of communication
between men of spiritual ideas that is separate from reason which he describes as spreading like
an “infection.” This view of art is dramatized in “Fal'shivyi kupon,” where, in Part II, good art
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 190

(such as the reading of the Gospels, according to Tolstoy) spreads the essence of good like an
infection until many characters are brought to spiritual conversion.
However, it is also the false “creation” of the coupon at the beginning that can be
associated with Tolstoy’s thoughts in “Chto takoe iskusstvo?.” In his treatise, he makes a
constant effort to distinguish between good art and bad art.
The scrutiny of the coupon, an act repeated throughout the first few episodes of
“Fal'shivyi kupon,” is a dramatization of the effects of good and bad art. When the coupon
disappears from the plot, its evil effect continues to infect: “[B]ad art can lead even moral men to
commit immoral acts since, like all real art, it has the power to directly affect actions by infecting
a person against his will and disconnecting his powers of reason and judgment” (Baehr 446). In
this way, the concept of forgery and the anxiety of the effects of good versus bad art in Tolstoy’s
discourse on art enters “Fal'shivyi kupon” in the form of the forged coupon.
Let’s turn to the larger structure of the story and of its episodes. The tale’s many
short chapters relate evil (Part I) or good (Part II) deeds committed by characters who
remain little known to the reader. This experimental narrative structure can be explained
by delving into Tolstoy’s conception of what was good and bad art at this time in his life.
In “Chto takoe iskusstvo?,” he defines the greatest and most effective art as emulating the
Gospel parables: “The majority always have understood, and still understand, what we
also recognize as being the very best art: the epic of Genesis, the gospel parables…”
(PSS, Vol. 11, 88) In the same work, Tolstoy notes that this kind of art has always been
the most comprehensible and the best for transmitting values based on religious feeling:

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 191

И таким было всегда хорошее, высшее искусство: Илиада, Одиссея, история
Иакова, Исаака, Иосифа, и пророки еврейские, и псалмы, и евангельские
притчи […] — передают очень высокие чувства и, несмотря на то, вполне
понятны нам теперь, образованным и необразованным, и были понятны
тогдашним, еще менее, чем наш рабочий народ, образованным людям.
Говорят о непонятности. Но если искусство есть передача чувств,
вытекающих из религиозного сознания людей, то как же может быть
непонятно чувство, основанное на религии, т. е. на отношении человека к
Богу? (PSS XXX: 109-110).

And such has always been the nature of good, supreme art; the “Iliad,” the
“Odyssey,” the stories of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, the Hebrew prophets, the
psalms, the gospel parables, […] all transmit very elevated feelings, and all are
nevertheless quite comprehensible to us, educated or uneducated, as they were
comprehensible to the men of those times, long ago, who were even less educated
than our laborers. People talk about incomprehensibility; but if art is the
transmission of feelings flowing from man’s religious perception, how can a
feeling be incomprehensible which is founded on religion, i.e. on man’s relation
to God? (PSS, Vol. 11, 89-90)

One of these things Tolstoy admired about Carus’ story, which is basically made
up of Buddhist parables, was its comprehensibility for readers of all kinds and ages. He
writes in his preface to “Karma”:
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 192

Я читал эту сказочку детям, и она нравилась им. Среди больших же после
чтения ее всегда возникали разговоры о самых важных вопросах жизни. И
мне кажется, что это очень хорошая рекомендация.

I have read this tale to children and they liked it. And amongst grown-up people
its reading always gives rise to conversation about the gravest problems of life.
And, to my mind, this is the very best recommendation (Carus iii-iv).

I claim that employs the parable form in “Fal’shivyi kupon.” The short episodic
narratives that dramatize the wrongdoing of various fairly impersonal heroes are eventually
balanced in Part II by short episodes where heroes are set right through good works and reading
of the Gospel.
30
Tolstoy’s two-part structure is a separate innovation which adds another twist to
the form of the parable (which usually includes both one bad and one good act within a single
short episode).
Not only is the story based on the form of the biblical parable, but it may partially take its
premise from one specific parable from the Gospel of Matthew (the Gospel so often referenced
in Tolstoy’s late writing). In Matthew 18:23-35, in the parable of the unmerciful servant, Jesus

30
Parables whose content may have influenced “Fal’shivyi kupon” include: “The Parable of the
Vineyard (Matthew 20); “The Parable of the Sower”; “The Parable of the Weeds”; “The Parable
of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven” (all three contained in Matthew 13); and “The Parable of
the Talents” (Matthew 25).
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 193

teaches how man should learn to mimic the mercy he receives from God in his own interactions
with his fellow men: A king calls an indebted servant to repay him a large sum of money. The
servant does not have the money, and is to be put in prison. He begs the king to have mercy on
him, and the king relents, and does not punish him. The very same servant, upon leaving the
king, meets another man who owes him a small sum. When the man begs for mercy, the servant
nonetheless throws the man in prison. When the king hears of the servant’s lack of mercy, the
servant is thrown in prison after all.
This parable refers to a chain of actions among a society of men (forgive as you have
been forgiven) that is comparable to the two chains in “Fal'shivyi kupon”—the chain of evil in
Part I and the chain of good in Part II. The chain in the parable is disrupted by an evil servant
who, instead of passing on the forgiveness he received, is harsh to his fellow servant. When
Tolstoy’s story is examined against the scheme of this parable, “Fal'shivyi kupon” appears to
adopt the chain of good and bad deeds while making one very major revision that is typical of
Tolstoy’s views. In the Gospel parable, the king is good, while the servant introduces evil into
the chain. For Tolstoy, this would be out of order, for it is the masters who are ultimately
responsible for the sins of their inferiors in Tolstoy’s worldview. Consequently, in “Fal'shivyi
kupon,” the evil is passed from superior to inferior in the first two iterations of the chain. The
story begins with a father passing on his evil mindset to his son, who becomes embittered after
being treated harshly. Likewise, the boys talk down to the shopkeeper’s wife when they make
change with the coupon, taking advantage of their social status to vouch for the banknote’s
value. Most notable, however, is the third passing of the coupon. The shopkeeper passes it to a
poor peasant and, in doing so, corrupts not only the peasant, but his own servant as well, whom
he coerces to lie in court. Not surprisingly, Tolstoy turns the scheme of the Gospel parable
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 194

upside down to account for his own social views, putting higher social classes at the top of the
chain of evil and servants and prisoners at the bottom, allowing for the servants and prisoners to
be the root of conversion and to occupy the top of the chain of good, ultimately reversing the
social order.
Whether or not Tolstoy had this specific parable in mind, its message is consistent with
Tolstoy’s beloved mantra from the same gospel: “Do not resist evil…turn the other cheek”
(Matthew 5:39) and is based on the principle that doing good in exchange for evil will reverse
the sinful and false order of things that prevails in societies built on war, slavery and capitalism.
Tolstoy is putting a microscope to the individual exchanges which make up these larger systems
and implying that following the “turn the other cheek” model would cause a chain reaction from
the bottom up, upending the existing system.
The entire structure of “Fal’shivyi kupon” can be reduced to this simple formula’s effect.
The structure of mercy begetting mercy and evil begetting evil in each of the two parts of the
story hinge on one enactment of Jesus’ exhortation from Matthew 5:39. The moment that turns
the momentum around and begins the conversion process which characterizes part II happens
during the murder which closes part I. Stepan, the perpetrator, had murdered before. In fact, he
did not feel any remorse for this; he even felt pride.
His murder of Maria Semyonovna, however, was different because of the way she reacts,
following Christ’s words exactly:

Степан подошел к ней, готовясь ухватить ее за руки, чтобы она не мешала
ему, но она не подняла рук, не противилась и только прижала их к груди и
тяжело вздохнула и повторила:
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 195

— Ох, великий грех. Что ты? Пожалей себя. Чужие души, а пуще свою
губишь... О-ох! — вскрикнула она (PSS XXXVI:33).

Stepan moved closer to her, getting ready to seize her arms so that she could not
stop him, but she offered no resistance and did not raise her arms, merely pressed
them to her bosom, gave a deep sigh and said repeatedly: 'Oh, what a terrible sin.
What are you doing? Have mercy on yourself. You think you're harming others,
but it's your own soul you're ruining... O-oh!' she screamed (“The Forged
Coupon,” 221-2; emphasis mine).

Not only does Maria Semyonovna not use resistance against Stepan’s assault, but she
even implores him for his own benefit to reconsider. Immediately after this murder, Stepan lies
down to sleep in a ditch (a metaphorical death) and does not wake up until the beginning of Part
II.
In accordance with the death-and-resurrection motif, Stepan awakens with remorse from
the grave-like hole the next day (already in Part II) and embarks on a three-day journey of guilt
and fear. At the end of this stint, he turns himself in to the police. From this point forward,
interactions with his fellow inmates, who exhibit meekness and goodwill, and the reading of the
gospels spur the corresponding momentum (to Part I’s proliferating evil) of salvation and
conversion to good. In this sense, the parable form introduced by Tolstoy is only an expansion of
this one turning point, the implementation of his mantra of Christian nonresistance at the crux of
the plot—a single parable.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 196

It is impossible to not remark upon the murder scene’s similarity to the murder of
Lizaveta in Prestuplenie i nakazanie by Dostoevsky. Lizaveta is the prime example of an
innocent victim who similarly “даже руки не подняла защитить себе лицо” (“did not even
raise a hand to shield her face”). Dostoevsky’s novel investigates similar problems as Tolstoy’s
story: the journey from death to resurrection for a person who commits a crime (the crime also
involves money and is supposedly a victimless one as conceived at the beginning). In fact, it was
in Tolstoy’s analysis of Raskolnikov’s moral fall that the concept of small steps toward and away
from evil was most clearly articulated in Tolstoy’s corpus of writings on moral thought. In Gary
Saul Morson’s exposition of “prosaics,” he quotes Tolstoy’s analysis of Dostoevsky’s
Prestuplenie i nakazanie as representing the “little-by-little changes” in human consciousness
that are responsible for the most important moral consequences
31
.
Tolstoy also played with versions of “Fa ies for a reader he planned to publish for use in
his discussions with the peasant children on his l’shivyi kupon” that were even more similar to
Dostoevsky’s plot. We will explore the role of the axe, which was ultimately removed from
“Fal’shivyi kupon,” but that plays a role in Tolstoy’s thinking about the exhortation from
Matthew to “turn the other cheek” as well as the golden rule.
In 1906-7, Tolstoy was working on a group of children’s stor estate. The collection was
going to be called Detskii krug chteniia. One of these stories, “Fedotka,” is a very short and
slightly altered version of Stepan’s story in “Fal’shivyi kupon.” A description of this plot was
included in a list of plots to be expanded on back when he was first beginning to work on
“Fal’shivyi kupon”:

31
The full quotation and translation of Tolstoy’s pronouncement is cited in the previous chapter.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 197

В записи Дневника от 13 декабря 1897 года Толстой в числе сюжетов,
которые он хочет записать и которые стоит и можно обработать, называет и
«Фальшивый купон» и далее с пометкой «прекрасно» — «Разбойник
убивающий беззащитных», т. е. тот же сюжет о Степане Пелагеюшкине,
влившийся впоследствии в «Фальшивый купон» (PSS XXXVI: 558-559)
32
.

In his diary entry on December 13, 1897, Tolstoy, in his list of stories that he
wanted to record and which were worth maybe working up, he names “Fal’shivyi
kupon” and even marks it “splendid”—“a bandit killing the defenseless”, i.e.
exactly the plot about Stepan Pelegaiushkin.

In “Fedotka,” the story more closely resembles Prestuplenie i nakazanie than the scene in
“Fal’shivyi kupon.” The murder scene takes place, because the wife of the man Fedotka is
robbing appears unexpectedly and must be done away with. He kills her with an axe. When she
dies, she does not resist but simply asks: “Что ты, злодей, сделал?” (PSS XL: 404) (“What have
you done, scoundrel?”). Like in “Fal’shivyi kupon,” Fedotka, after a life of crime, is suddenly
haunted by this nonresistent woman’s last words: “о сколько ни пил Федот, не мог он забыть
старухи, как она ахнула и сказала: — Что ты, злодей, сделал? И так день и ночь
представлялась она ему и не давала покоя” (PSS XL: 405) (“As much as he drank, Fedotka
was not able to forget the old woman and how she moaned and said ‘What have you done,
scoundrel?’ And so day and night she appeared to him and did not give him peace.”). He, like

32
Written by N. Gudzii, editor and commentator of this edition of Tolstoy’s complete works.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 198

Stepan and Raskolnikov, turns himself in to the police and undergoes a redemptive
transformation in prison.
As Tolstoy was writing “Fedotka,” he was already working on his Mysli mudrykh liudei,
a compilation of wise thoughts from respected thinkers and himself, arranged in a calendar
format to be read throughout the year. Two telling passages about the “axe” as a tool may have
informed Tolstoy’s writing of “Fedotka” using the “axe” as a weapon while meditating on the
moral problems of “Fal’shivyi kupon.” The first is composed by Tolstoy himself for March 11:
“Бог дал дух свой, любовь, разум, чтобы служить ему; а мы этот дух употребляем на
служение себе, — употребляем топор на то, чтобы строгать топорище” (PSS XL: 98) (“God
gave his spirit, love, and reason in order that he be served; and we use that spirit to serve
ourselves,—we use the axe to carve its own handle.”) He turns the simple machine of an axe into
a metaphor for ill-use of our God-given tools of reason and love, which are meant to help us
unite with our fellows, in order to serve ourselves. The metaphor is felicitous, because trying to
use an axe to sculpt the wood of its own handle will never work, whereas the axe’s proper use
can yield good things. The second quotation using the axe is a Chinese aphorism:

Прямой путь или правило поведения, которому надо следовать, — недалеко
от людей. Если люди ставят себе за правило поведения то, что далеко от
них, то есть несогласно с их природой, то оно не должно быть принимаемо
за правило поведения. Плотник, вытесывающий топорище, имеет перед
собою образец того, что делает. Взяв в руки топорище того топора, которым
он тешет, он смотрит на него с той и другой стороны и после того, как
сделал новое топорище, рассматривает их оба, чтобы видеть, насколько они
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 199

сходны; так и мудрый человек, который питает к другим такие же чувства,
как он питает к себе, находит верное правило поведения. Он не делает
другим того, что он не желает, чтобы ему делали.
Китайская мудрость («Чунг-Юнг») (PSS XL: 75)

The direct path or the law of behavior, which must be followed is not far from
people. If people make themselves far from the law of behavior, it is not in
keeping with their nature, and that law should not be taken as the law of behavior.
The carpenter carving the handle of an ax has before him the pattern of that which
he makes. Taking in his hands the handle that he carves, he looks at it from one
side and then the other, and after making the new handle, he looks over them
both, in order to see how similar they are; just so the wise man—he who tries to
have toward others the same feelings that he has toward himself—finds the true
law of behavior. He does not do to others that which he would not want done to
himself.
Chinese wisdom (“Zhongyong”)

This quotation is a retelling of the golden rule (Matthew 7: 12: “[…] do unto others what you
would have them do to you”) by way of another metaphor, on which Tolstoy undoubtedly based
his own metaphor just mentioned. Here, an axe-maker is making an axe-handle with an axe. He
has already in his hands a suitable version of the object he wishes to create. This is compared to
human subjectivity and the self. It is a tool to understand others, so that we may treat them the
way we would like to be treated. Used any other way, the self is immoral.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 200

These examples simply accentuate the importance of this moral message in Tolstoy’s
work at the time he was writing “Fal’shivyi kupon”. He played with many ways of transmitting
this message, which he even removed from the context of Christianity, as in the above Chinese
quotation. This moral formulation is one of the common points of many religious and
philosophical traditions. It closely resembles the second formulation of Kant’s categorical
imperative.
33
Therefore, as Tolstoy gathered “wise thoughts” from many traditions, it is no
surprise he encountered reflections of this idea in them.
If we return to the subtext of Paul Carus’ “Karma,” the Golden Rule also appears in its
Buddhist version. Though less structurally pervasive, the “mantra” is presented as a guiding
principle for the plot of the story. This is not unlike the “turn the other cheek” effect I have just
described, which is set in motion by the nonresistant victim’s rebuke of Stepan. The following
mantra is taught to one character, whose conversion gradually contributes to the good of many
and reverses the initial evil committed at the onset of the story:

Let this motto be your talisman:
‘Who injureth others
34

Himself hurteth sore;
Who others assisteth

33
Tolstoy was very familiar with Kant’s philosophy and wrote about his ideas on both aesthetics
and morality. He especially liked Kant’s ideas on rational religion and morality, and he mentions
this in his essay for youths “Ne ubiy nikogo” (“Do Not Kill Anyone”) around the time he was
preparing his stories for the peasant children in 1906-7 (PSS XXXVII: 50).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 201

Himself helpeth more.
Let th’ illusion of self
From your mind disappear,
And you’ll find the way sure;
The path will be clear’ (Carus 16-17).
35

Пусть следующие слова будут вашим талисманом:
«Тот, кто вредит другим, делает зло себе.
Тот, кто помогает другим, делает добро себе.
Перестаньте считать себя отдельным существом — и вы вступите на путь
истины (PSS XXXI: 51).

Here in the Buddhist mantra, we see the same themes of self-abnegation and of the Golden Rule
as we have seen in the various projects that accompanied “Fal’shivyi kupon.” However,
Tolstoy’s “kupon” adopts the model where a short formula represents a larger structural function
in the plot most successfully. Though Tolstoy’s shorter works on this theme, especially the
metaphor of the axe-maker in his proverb from Mysli mudrykh liudie, also structurally reflect
their content, “Fal’shivyi kupon” does so in the most extensive way. It is like a “частушка
сыгранная на грандиозном органе” (in the words of K. Chukovsky about Blok’s “12”). What
Tolstoy could have done in one parable he stretched out in many and structurally reinforced the
meaning of each on a grand scale.

35
Carus writes this particular passage in verse, while the rest of the text is in prose. Tolstoy
translates this section interlinearly though.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 202

“Fal'shivyi kupon” documents an important stage in Tolstoy’s writing where his views
about morality, his critical views about art and his own literary creation merge to generate a
unique and innovative story unlike any he had written before. Not only is “Fal'shivyi kupon” an
example of Tolstoy’s late rejection of individual, psychological fiction, it also pioneers the use of
the parable form in conveying a moral message in short episodes in which good or evil are
demonstrated clearly. In addition to this innovative form, Tolstoy’s views on the process of
“infection” within society both on the level of morality and on the level of aesthetics (both for
good and evil actions, and for good and bad art) are played out in the chains of evil and good in
the story. Finally, with reference to one particular parable (the parable of the unmerciful servant)
and the message of the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew, Tolstoy’s specific
manipulation of biblical and Buddhist content highlights the social elements of the “infections”
that take root in “Fal'shivyi kupon.”
That these moral concerns, and the general message of Tolstoy’s post-conversion
worldview, would commingle with the innovative plot topology of “Fal’shivyi kupon”
shows how connected these two realms are in Tolstoy’s late writings. Just like when the
old man in Voskresen’e refuses money from Nekhliudov but explicitly states that he
would take bread, the simple fact that the coupon in “Fal’shivyi kupon” is not money, but
a banknote, which is twice removed from actual goods, illustrates a central tenet in
Tolstoy’s rejection of society. This falseness and mediation in the world leads to more
falseness. Whereas, Tolstoy’s central positive tenet, that of nonresistance, requires in its
most literal interpretation the forfeit of necessary goods (a cloak, as in the Gospel
imperative) or, in its looser interpretation, the response to evil with kindness, which also
proliferates. Through innovative plot devices like the disappearing object and the
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 203

expanded parable form, the web of linkages similar to the concept of Karma, and the
removal of individual psychology as the vehicle for moral ideas, Tolstoy is able to
construct this late story according to these fundamental values to his late moral vision.
Perhaps due to the span of years in which Tolstoy worked on the story, during which he
formulated his new ideology and appropriated various discourses to express it,
“Fal’shivyi kupon” is such a representative structural experiment of transmuting ideology
into narrative. This story is part of a larger project in Tolstoy’s late prose to harness
impersonal narrative techniques to express ideologies without the help of the deeply
psychologized personal characters so representative of his earlier masterworks.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 204

Conclusion. Assemblage Structure in Tolstoy, Voina i mir (War and Peace) Revisited

In writing his non-novel, Tolstoi, like Charles Darwin a few years earlier in his seminal On the
Origin of Species (1859), was striving to give shape to a radically new type of natural history,
one in which, as Gary Saul Morson puts it, “loose governing principles operate in the
background and contingent events in the foreground” [(Morson 676)]. In searching for a more
natural, supple, and adequately capacious form for this new kind of history writing, Tolstoi
found a potently suggestive live model close at hand: his teeming hive of bees. If Darwin closes
Origin of Species with what is arguably the central metaphor of the book—the “entangled bank”
that embodies in microcosm the vast “web of complex relations” and the ongoing war
(“struggle”) and overarching peace inherent in nature, Tolstoi offers up an equally suggestive
metaphor toward the end of his own extended exercise in “natural” history writing: that
throbbing globe—an infinite universe of moving droplets that expand, shrink, merge, divide,
disappear—that Pierre beholds in his third and final dream. This globe is a microcosmic image
not only of life (“‘This is life,’ said the old teacher”) but also of the analogous ways that the
human mind and history (both human and nonhuman) work. No less important, it is a striking
figuration of War and Peace itself, of its strange, pulsating shape and logic as a work of art.
While abstracted in its final form, the globe image had concrete origins, I would argue, in the
beehives Tolstoi was tending in 1863
36
.

Tolstoy has been diagnosed more than once by scholars and philosophers as mentally ill because
of his writing. Max Nordau’s famous chapter on Tolstoy calls him a degenerate for his skaz-like
narrative voice and its message in Kreitserova sonata. Annie Anargyros-Klinger diagnosed
Tolstoy with the psychiatric symptom of “depersonalization” because of his frequent use of
defamiliarizing techniques that reflected a depressive alienation (Robinson 41). Regardless of the
veracity of these claims, they tend to spring up in instances where Tolstoy’s fiction comes close
to delegitimizing the place of human consciousness in the world. For Nordau, the two extremes
of jealously murderous husband and utopian prophet of a future without man showed a sickness
that self-destructs. For Anargyros-Klinger, the refusal to see things as others see things made him

36
Newlin, Thomas. “’Swarm Life’ and the Biology of War and Peace.” Slavic Review. 71.2
(Summber 2012), 361-362.359-384.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 205

less human. This latter “disease” ultimately brought Tolstoy despair and doubts, even as it
produced some of his best writing—that which is written from a point of view of alienation, and
therefore redefines familiar things in a new way. Both of these diagnoses are in response to
Tolstoy’s questioning of a unified narrative about human experience and the human mind—
namely, that is is orderly and social, and has a privileged understanding of the world around it.
When Tolstoy introduced his concept of “roevaia zhizn’” (“swarm life”), he observed the
way animals act according to certain external and internal laws that govern their behavior,
whether or not they are aware of them. He proposed that humans must function the same way,
though we cannot always see it due to all the personal deliberations that obscure the true causes
and circumstances of every choice. By this comparison, he distanced himself somewhat from the
human experience. He placed the traits of bee societies in the context of human society, and he
envisioned the brain and book as “hive” (Newlin 372). In his attempts to find answers to his
questions of meaning by way of the metaphors of science and math—especially with machines
and equations—he distanced himself from the human experience while internalizing the
discourses of machinery, physics, math, etc. to describe this experience.
I propose that Tolstoy’s concerns and methods have much in common with contemporary
movements to define relationships between people, things and other animals. Similarly, images
of machine and body are important metaphors for understanding these linkages. Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari, in building their concept of assemblage, which concerns these very questions,
seize the metaphor of body and machine to talk about the levels and actors at play in the creation
of a book:

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 206

In a book, as in all things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and
territories; but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and
destratification. Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce phenomena of
relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of acceleration and rupture.
All this, lines and measurable speeds, constitutes an assemblage. A book is an
assemblage of this kind, and as such, is unattributable. It is a multiplicity—but we
don’t know yet what the multiple entails when it is no longer attributed, that is,
after it has been elevated to the status of a substantive. One side of a machinic
assemblage faces the strata, which doubtless make it a kind of organism, or a
signifying totality, or a determination attributable to a subject; it also has a side
facing a body without organs, which is continually dismantling the organism,
causing asignifying particles or pure intensities to pass or circulate, and attributing
to itself subjects that it leaves with nothing more than a name as the trace of an
intensity. What is the body without organs of a book? (Deleuze and Guattari 3-4)

Tolstoy transposes the hive onto the mind and book, and thereby he juxtaposes natural chaos
with organic, though artificial, unity. He disrupts the familiar unity of artifice, of the book as an
organism, by injecting it with the chaotic patterns of nature. Furthermore, he projects some of
these processes onto his own mind, and ultimately onto the processes of history. Meanwhile, he
uses images of the machine to mechanize and describe personal feeling as well as social
phenomena, for example the famous example of the “spasitel’nyi klapan” (“safety valve”) in both
Voina i mir and Kreitserova sonata (Newlin 382-383). But, as described by Deleuze and
Guattari, the contrasting metaphors of body and machine are mutually destructive.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 207

Tolstoy most often posits the opposition of the ordered systems of sciences (machines,
physics, math) versus natural forces or linkages (“swarm” life; contiguity, noncausality) which
we attempt to understand through the imposition of the former systems. There is no perfect
system for Tolstoy. Even if one was contrived that accounted for the noncausalities of natural
occurences, its status as a system containing a jargon of labeling and categorizing already makes
it flawed, because it must become conventional and stiff. Instead, Pierre’s throbbing globe is the
best image we are left with for understanding the linkages that make up life. I argue that
Tolstoy’s late work reflects a similarly shifting focus, like the expansion or annihilation of the
drops making up the globe, on naturalized linkages (through impersonalized and depersonalized
forms) and highly theorized systems (discourses of science, philosophy, etc.).
Tolstoy was one of the channels, like Darwin (as Thomas Newlin writes in the epigraph
to this conclusion), of an awareness of the great “webs” of linkages at work in the world and how
easily certain linkages can be elevated above others to create a signifying totality. Tolstoy fought
against this most notably in Voina i mir. Bruno Latour applies the vision from Voina i mir in his
study of Louis Pasteur’s role in French scientific culture. The discourse of microbial war
employed journalistically in the context of Pasteur’s discoveries reveals the actors and linkages
in this new scientific realm. Latour compares his project to Tolstoy’s: “If the whole of Europe
transformed its conditions of existence at the end of the last century, we should not attribute the
efficacy of this extraordinary leap forward to the great genius of a single man. Yet we can
understand how he followed that movement, accompanied it, sometimes preceded it, and then
was offered sole responsibility for it” (Latour 15).
When, in “swarm life,” there is no responsibility or power for the individual, the linkages
between individuals become the more important elements. Tolstoy’s awareness of an impersonal
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 208

reality, which first prompted him to investigate concepts of a network or a web among people
and things, eventually became a force in his extraliterary behavior (his zhinetvorchestvo (“life
art”). His quasi-literary engagement with Biblical scholarship (his translation and unification of
the Gospels), social justice (writing Voskresen’e and using the proceeds to fund religious
refugees’ migration to Canada), and his attempts to educate the peasant children on his estate
(Azbuka and Detskii krug chteniia) were all opportunities to further his project of creating a
network of art which exists outside the self and unites individual minds. Still, the pulsing globe
Pierre saw in his dream in Voina i mir is a haunting image with regard to Tolstoy’s project.
Perpetually afflicted by the alienation which enabled him to see beyond self, Tolstoy remained
powerless to completely transcend it, both in life and in literature.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 209

Appendix I

Similes of Experience from Anna Karenina that adhere strictly to the formula:

1. Vronsky: Увидев Алексея Александровича с его петербургски-свежим лицом и строго
самоуверенною фигурой, в круглой шляпе, с немного-выдающеюся спиной, он
поверил в него и испытал неприятное чувство, подобное тому, какое испытал бы
человек, мучимый жаждою и добравшийся до источника и находящий в этом
источнике собаку, овцу или свинью, которая и выпила и взмутила воду (PSS
XVIII: 112).

When he saw Karenin, with his fresh Petersburg face, his sternly self-confident figure, his
round hat and his slightly rounded back, Vronsky believed in his existence, and had such a
disagreeable sensation as a man tortured by thirst might feel on reaching a spring and
finding a dog, sheep, or pig in it, drinking the water and making it muddy (Tolstoy,
Anna Karenina, 96-97).

2. Karenin: Теперь он испытывал чувство, подобное тому, какое испытал бы
человек, спокойно прошедший над пропастью по мосту и вдруг увидавший, что
этот мост разобран и что там пучина. Пучина эта была — сама жизнь, мост — та
искусственная жизнь, которую прожил Алексей Александрович. Ему в первый раз
пришли вопросы о возможности для его жены полюбить кого-нибудь, и он ужаснулся
пред этим (PSS XVIII: 151).

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 210

He now experienced a sensation such as a man might feel who, while quietly crossing a
bridge over an abyss, suddenly sees that the bridge is falling to pieces and that he is
facing the abyss. The abyss was real life; the bridge was the artificial life Karenin had been
living. It was the first time that the possibility of his wife’s falling in love with anybody had
occurred to him, and he was horrified (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 129-130).

3. Karenin: Она смотрела так просто, так весело, что кто не знал ее, как знал муж, не мог
бы заметить ничего неестественного ни в звуках, ни в смысле ее слов. Но для него,
знавшего ее, знавшего, что, когда он ложился пятью минутами позже, она замечала и
спрашивала о причине, для него, знавшего, что всякие свои радости, веселье, горе, она
тотчас сообщала ему, — для него теперь видеть, что она не хотела замечать его
состояние, что не хотела ни слова сказать о себе, означало многое. Он видел, что
глубина ее души, всегда прежде открытая пред ним, была закрыта от него. Мало того,
по тону ее он видел, что она и не смущалась этим, а прямо как бы говорила ему: да,
закрыта, и это так должно быть и будет вперед. Теперь он испытывал чувство,
подобное тому, какое испытал бы человек, возвратившийся домой и находящий
дом свой запертым. «Но может быть, ключ еще найдется», думал Алексей
Александрович (PSS XVIII: 153-154).

She looked so naturally and gaily at him, that one who did not know her as her husband did
could not have noticed anything strange either in the intonation or the meaning of her words.
But for him, who knew her—knew that when he went to bed five minutes late she noticed it
and asked the reason—knew that she had always immediately told him all her joys, pleasures
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 211

and sorrows—for him, her reluctance to notice his state of mind, or to say a word about
herself, meant much. He saw that the depths of her soul, till now always open, were closed to
him. More than that, he knew from her tone that she was not ashamed of this, but seemed to
be saying frankly: ‘Yes, it is closed, and so it should be and will be in the future.’ He now
felt like a man who on coming home finds his house locked against him. ‘But perhaps the
key can still be found,’ thought Karenin (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 132).

4. Vronsky: Он всю эту неделю не переставая испытывал чувство, подобное чувству
человека, который был бы приставлен к опасному сумасшедшему, боялся бы
сумасшедшего и вместе, по близости к нему, боялся бы и за свой ум.
37
Вронский
постоянно чувствовал необходимость ни на секунду не ослаблять тона строгой
официальной почтительности, чтобы не быть оскорбленным. Манера
обращения принца с теми самыми лицами, которые, к удивлению Вронского, из кожи
вон лезли, чтобы доставлять ему русские удовольствия, была презрительна. Его
суждения о русских женщинах, которых он желал изучать, не раз заставляли
Вронского краснеть от негодования. Главная же причина, почему принц был особенно
тяжел Вронскому, была та, что он невольно видел в нем себя самого. И то, что он
видел в этом зеркале, не льстило его самолюбию (PSS XVIII: 373-374).

37
Tolstoy economizes in this example, giving a slightly shortened version of the formula, and in
so doing, does not distance the feeler from his feeling quite as much as the others. I decided
nonetheless to include it in the list of purest examples.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 212

All that week he felt like a man attending a lunatic and afraid for his own reason too. He was
obliged to be on his guard the whole time not to deviate from the path of severe official
respect, for fear of being insulted. The Prince’s manner toward the very people who, to
Vronsky’s astonishment, were ready to go through fire and water to provide Russian
amusements for him, was contemptuous. His opinion of Russian women, whom he wanted to
study, more than once made Vronsky flush with indignation. But the chief reason why the
Prince’s presence oppressed Vronsky was that he saw himself reflected in the Prince, and
what he saw in that mirror was not flattering to his vanity (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 323).

5. Anna: Воспоминание о зле, причиненном мужу, возбуждало в ней
38
чувство,
похожее на отвращение и подобное тому, какое испытывал бы тонувший человек,
оторвавший от себя вцепившегося в него человека. Человек этот утонул.
Разумеется, это было дурно, но это было единственное спасенье, и лучше не
вспоминать об этих страшных подробностях (PSS XIX: 29-30).

The memory of the evil done to her husband aroused in her a feeling akin to repulsion,
such as a man might feel who when in danger of drowning had shaken off another who
clung to him. That other was drowned; of course it was wrong, but it had been the only way
of escape and it was better not to recall such terrible details (Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 421).

38
In this example, the verb of experience is swapped for an even less personal verb. Here, an
emotion is “excited” in Anna, in place of her “experiencing” it herself.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 213

6. Levin: Левин был счастлив, но, вступив в семейную жизнь, он на каждом шагу видел,
что это было совсем не то, что он воображал. На каждом шагу он испытывал то, что
испытывал бы человек, любовавшийся плавным, счастливым ходом лодочки по
озеру, после того как он бы сам сел в эту лодочку. Он видел, что мало того, чтобы
сидеть ровно, не качаясь, — надо еще соображаться, ни на минуту не забывая,
куда плыть, что под ногами вода, и надо грести, и что непривычным рукам
больно, что только смотреть на это легко, а что делать это, хотя и очень радостно,
но очень трудно (PSS XIX: 47-48)
39
.

[Levin] was happy, but having embarked on family life he saw at every step that it was not at
all what he had anticipated. At every step he took he felt as a man would feel who, after
admiring the smooth happy motion of a little boat upon the water, had himself got into
the boat. He found that besides sitting quietly without rocking he had to keep a lookout,
not for a moment forget where he was going, or that there was water under his feet,
and that he had to row, although it hurt his unaccustomed hands; in short, that it only
looked easy, but to do it, though very delightful, was very difficult (Tolstoy, Anna
Karenina, 436).

7. Levin: Тут только в первый раз он ясно понял то, чего он не понимал, когда после
венца повел ее из церкви. Он понял, что она не только близка ему, но что он теперь не

39
Tolstoy again economizes here, replacing “чувство” with “то.” Nonetheless, I decided to
include it in the list of purest examples.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 214

знает, где кончается она и начинается он. Он понял это по тому мучительному чувству
раздвоения, которое он испытывал в эту минуту. Он оскорбился в первую минуту, но в
ту же секунду он почувствовал, что он не может быть оскорблен ею, что она была он
сам. Он испытывал в первую минуту чувство подобное тому, какое испытывает
человек, когда, получив вдруг сильный удар сзади, с досадой и желанием мести
оборачивается, чтобы найти виновного, и убеждается, что это он сам нечаянно
ударил себя, что сердиться не на кого и надо перенести и утишить боль (PSS XIX:
49).

Then it was that he first clearly understood what he did not realize when leading her out of
church after the wedding: that she was not only very close to him but that he could not now
tell where she ended and he began. He understood this by a tormenting sensation of cleavage
which he experienced at that moment. For an instant he was offended, but immediately knew
he could not be offended with her because she was himself. For a moment he felt like a
man who, receiving a blow from behind, angrily and revengefully turns round to find
his assailant and realizes that he has accidentally knocked himself, that there is no one
to be angry with and that he must endure and try to still the pain (Tolstoy, Anna
Karenina, 438).

8. Gagin: Гагинъ видѣлъ, что она перемѣнилась для него, тоже испытывалъ чувство
подобное тому, которое испытываетъ человѣкъ, глядя на измѣнившійся,
завядшій цвѣтокъ въ рукѣ, съ тѣхъ поръ какъ онъ сорвалъ его, тотъ самый
цвѣтокъ, который былъ такъ хорошъ, пока онъ былъ въ рукѣ. Онъ чуялъ, что она
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 215

была несчастлива; но не имѣлъ права сказать ей это (Draft of Anna Karenina: PSS XX:
256).

Gagin saw that she had changed for him, and also experienced a feeling similar to that,
which one would experience when looking at a changed, wilted flower in his hand, from
the moment he picked it, that very flower, which had been so beautiful, while in his
hand. He sensed that she was unhappy; but he did not have the right to say that to her.

9. Karenin: Входя въ свою переднюю, послѣ душевной тишины, которую давала ему
работа въ Министерствѣ, онъ испытывалъ чувство подобное человѣку, который
входилъ въ застѣнокъ пытки (Draft of Anna Karenina: PSS XX: 357)
40
.

Entering his foyer, after the spiritual calm he received from his work at the ministry, he
experienced a feeling similar to a man, who had entered a torture chamber.

10. Karenin: Обстановка дома — того же самаго дома (Алексѣй Александровичъ считалъ
мелочностью убѣгать воспоминаній и остался на той же 17-лѣтней квартирѣ),
обстановка дома была таже: была женщина-хозяйка, былъ сынъ, была какъ будто
семейная жизнь; но Алексѣй Александровичъ, глядя на свою теперешнюю

40
This example diverges from the formula slightly, only because it is ungrammatical. The clear
intended meaning would, if expressed correctly, result in a sentence adhering exactly to the
formula.
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 216

семейную жизнь и вспоминая прежнюю, испытывалъ чувство подобное тому,
которое испытывалъ бы человѣкъ, глядя на тот же фонарь съ потушенной
всерединѣ свѣчой, который онъ зналъ и видѣлъ зажженнымъ. Недоставало свѣта,
освѣщавшаго все (Draft of Anna Karenina: PSS XX: 369).

The layout of the house—the very same house (Aleksei Alexandrovich considered it petty to
run away from memories and stayed in the same apartment of seventeen years), the layout of
the house was the same: there was a woman of the house, there was a son, it was almost like
family life; but Alexei Alexandrovich, looking at his current family life and
remembering his previous one, experienced a feeling similar to that which a person
would feel when looking at a lamp with an extinguished candle inside it that he knew
and had seen lit.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 217

Appendix II

Detskii krug chteniia Stories:

• “Bednye liudi” (“Poor People”; translation of Hugo’s “Les pauvres gens”): A poor
fisherman’s wife awaits her husband’s return from a day working at sea. Zhanna, the wife,
worries about her husband’s safety and imagines her demise if he were no longer around to
feed her and her children. Because of her anxiety for her own family, she is reminded of her
neighbor, a widow whose husband had died at sea. She goes to check on the woman, and finds
her dead in bed with her orphans. Zhanna does not hesitate to take both of the dead woman’s
children to her own house and feeds them along with her own. She then worries her husband
will be angry with her if he returns. When Pavel, her husband, does return, she does not
immediately tell him what she has done. Instead, she tells him about the neighbor’s death,
whereupon he declares that the children must be rescued through adoption. Zhanna shows him
that she has already done so, and he approves of her action by stating, “All must live.”

• “Tsarkoe novoe plat’e” (“The King’s New Clothes”): A vain king, who is always buying new
clothes, is approached by tailors who claim they can make him an outfit that “no one has ever
seen.” The king is delighted and enlists their services, and orders that they be given everything
they need to make the clothes. They, however, say that they need nothing to make them. After
the tailors begin work, the king sends a minister to observe them. He finds a sign on the door
of their room, which says that anyone who is not worthy of their position will not be able to
see the clothes. When he sees the tailors working with nothing in their hands, he nonetheless
tells them how good it looks so that he will not be found out as unworthy. When the tsar is
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 218

fitted with the outfit, he also pretends to see it so that no one will think him unworthy of his
crown. Finally, when he parades through the town in his invisible attire, the townspeople also
pretend to see the clothes. Only one small child, upon seeing the unclothed tsar, cries out “He
is naked!” Suddenly, everyone realizes that this is true, and the tsar and all the townspeople
become ashamed of themselves.

• “Fedotka”: A small boy grows up without education or good moral influence. After being
abandoned by his family, he falls into a group of bad people, who teach him to drink and steal.
He spends time in prison, and then escapes, after which he continues to steal cows, horses and
money. He is convicted again for his crimes and sentenced to go to Siberia, but he again
escapes, and this time he begins to burglarize. When he breaks into a rich Siberian’s house and
ties the man up, he is encountered by the man’s wife, and she begins to scream. Afraid that
someone will hear, he hits her over the head with an axe. She cries, “what have you, evildoer,
done?” and dies. Her words haunt Fedotka until he remembers God and converts. He turns
himself in to the authorities for his crime, and he is sentenced to ten years in Siberia. The
physical hardship he experiences only eases his spiritual suffering, and he becomes a different
person.

• “Starik v tserkvi” (“The Old Man in the Church”): A meek, righteous old man lives in a small
village beside a lake. He spent his whole life fishing and living austerely, and he never treated
his family or servants badly, and always gave to the poor. One Sunday, his sons ask him to go
across the lake with them to church. He tries to refuse, saying that he has not been in a long
time and has no desire to go. They insist, and he consents. When the sons get into their boat to
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 219

go across the lake, their father instead walks on the water, and it holds him as if on dry land. At
the church, the old man stands to the side and watches as the parishioners look at one another
continually, and he thinks to himself that they are not praying correctly. He then notices four
devils, who have a leather scroll on which they are writing the names of anyone who laughs,
yawns or whispers. They fill the whole scroll and attempt to stretch it, but they tear it with their
claws. At this, the old man bursts into laughter, and they see him and also record his name.
After the service, the sons get back in their boat, expecting that their father will once again
walk across the water. The old man also thinks this, but when he tries, he sinks. His sons pull
him into the boat wet, and they return home.

• “G. S. Skovoroda”: The teachings of G. S. Skovoroda on how to live a moral life are recorded
here. He teaches that in order to live a good life, one must know God, and by knowing God,
one’s own will may become inseparable from God’s will. Only then can one join in the
communal task of building God’s kingdom on earth. One must also love his/her neighbor,
instead of living by the passions of the body. G. S. Skovoroda’s life was as follows: Having a
gift for singing, he was sent to St. Petersburg as a youth to sing in a choir for two years. Then,
he went to Kiev to study, after which he no longer wanted to join the priesthood (his father’s
desire for him), and he went to Hungary in order to see how people live outside of Russia.
After this, he returned to Russia and taught in various places and then went to live with a
friend in a village. While there, he began to write down his thoughts about life, quotations of
which are included in the story. Skovoroda was happy, because he was satisfied with very little
and lived an austere life. He was asked to join a monastery and refused, despite the father
superior’s insistence. He instead took a teaching job, where he taught how to live a moral life
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 220

for twenty years. Finally, he was fired, because the authorities did not like his teachings, and
he went to live with a friend. As he approached death, he became more and more detached
from life, and finally he dug his own grave. That night at dinner, he told his friends that his
journey was ending, and they rebuked him for this. Nonetheless, he went back to his room and
died that same evening.

• “Shut Palachek” (“The Jester Palachek”): There was a Czech man, who was wise and good
named Khel’chitskii. He lived by Christ’s law to love one’s neighbor and God, to reject pride
and endure persecution, and to serve everyone. He taught people how to live this way, and of
his disciples, there was one good, smart and joyful man named Ivan Palachek. He at first
worked for his family, and when they no longer needed him, he wandered the villages,
teaching a Christlike way of life and working among the poor. In Prague, he began to care for
children, and he became known for his skill at caring for them and playing with them. When
asked to do anything, he would say, “let me go ask the teachers,” and he would point to the
children. When asked what he meant, he referred to the Gospel, which says we should learn
from the children. He became more and more famous in the town, and the king became aware
of him and wanted to know him. When the king’s messengers called him to the king, Palachek
asked a little girl to make his decision to go or not go. She made a sign that commanded him to
go, and he dressed up as a jester and went off to serve the king. In this position, he gained the
trust of the king, and rebuked him in several cases of injustice. He convinced the king to
pardon a man condemned to death and to let the peasant children play with the royal children,
to nurse the poor and sick, and to speak truthfully instead of diplomatically; and he revealed to
the king when he was acting selfishly. He also rebuked the queen for her showy displays of
The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 221

religiosity. All of this only caused the king to love and trust Ivan more. Palachek lived with the
king into his old age, and when he died, the people realized that he was a wise and holy man.

The ‘Impersonal Project’ in Lev Tolstoy’s Prose Schmuck 222

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Creator Schmuck, Laurel Linda (author)

Core Title The 'impersonal project' in Lev Tolstoy's prose

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture (Slavic Languages and Literatures)

Publication Date 08/06/2018

Defense Date 04/13/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag 19th century,Anna Karenina,defamiliarization,estrangement,impersonal,modernism,OAI-PMH Harvest,personalism,realism,Russian literature,The Forged Coupon,Tolstoy,War and Peace

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Language English

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Advisor Zholkovsky, Alexander (committee chair), Matzner-Gore, Greta (committee member), Pratt, Sarah (committee member), Szabari, Antonia (committee member)

Creator Email laurelschmuck@gmail.com,schmuck@usc.edu

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