XXVI TOLSTOY THE MAN

AFTER many painful years I discovered that neither religion nor culture has very materially modified racial antagonisms. The years I spent in the gymnasium, sheltered by the arms of the church with the cross, were bearable, only because neither my face nor speech betrayed my racial origin. They were painful years and as they pass through the channels of my mind I realize that it would add little or nothing to the purpose I have in view, should I give a detailed account of them.

I learned my Latin astonishingly well, excelled in history, and lagged frightfully in mathematics. Science there was none, at least none worth mentioning. There were logic and rhetoric in which I did good work. In religion, which dominated the curriculum, I was a sceptic, demoralizing the classes. On the whole, I fear I was a disturbing element; for when I passed my finals and said good-bye to the rector, he muttered: “Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ!”

At the university, where nationalistic lines were closely drawn, I drifted towards the Slavic groups, forming close and lasting friendships with a number of Russians whose idealism was contagious. They regarded man entirely from the standpoint of humanity, were delightfully impractical, always in debt, smoked cigarettes incessantly, slept until noon, and stayed awake into the morning hours, vehemently discussing everything under the heavens. I owe much to them; above all, my acquaintance with Russian literature and the personal friendship of Tolstoy, who has been the most vital factor in shaping my “Weltanschauung.”

When I started for Russia on my first pilgrimage, I had not much in my pocket besides the letter of introduction they gave me. I went to see the man who taught religion in terms I understood and which I thought I could accept and practice.

Of my journey there is little to say, except that I travelled a great distance on foot, that I was the recipient of much kindness everywhere and that the peasants shared with me their scant crust and cabbage. I have since tried to find the old woman who gave me some cold potatoes, and who in giving them bestowed more than those who now entertain me at their banqueting tables.

As for the many who offered me hot tea and a bed in the true spirit of charity—ah! if I were rich and could find them all! The only time I wish for money is when I try to repay kindness; but as our Slavic poor used to say: “Pan Bogh Zaplatz”—“God repay you.”

So let it be then—God repay you—you Russian sisters who have washed my weary feet and soothed them with mutton tallow; you brother who gave me your place on the cart while you trudged along beside your poor, shaggy horse, as thin and wretched and as kindly looking as yourself.

God repay you, you Jewish innkeeper with whom I pawned my silver watch, who kept it safe for a year or more and would take no usurer’s interest.

God repay you, too, you black-eyed, Jewish maidens who smiled at me. God repay you the smile, which was good stimulus for a lonely lad, to whom a kindly look was more even than bread.

God repay you, you Russian matron who took me into your beautiful home and tried to wean me from my “Tolstoy madness” by offering to keep me as tutor for your half savage children.

God bless them all, even the homely kitchen maid who refused to admit me when I knocked at the Count’s door, and after giving me a huge piece of black bread told me to “go in peace.” I ate the bread but knocked again, and when my letter reached the Countess she came to shield her husband from the intruder.

Yes, God repay you too, you guardian of this genius, standing between him and the world, which, acting upon his word, would have taken all he was willing to give away. I shall never forget your motherly kindness after I kissed your hand in greeting and you discovered my plight, nor the glorious days I spent under your hospitable roof.

Sometimes I thought you sheltered him too much, that wonderful man—your husband; that you slipped silken underwear beneath the hair shirt he wore, and made soft the hard bed on which he wished to sleep. He would have perished long ago had you not loved him so—and yet, what a death it would have been!

It is easy to glorify those who already wear a halo, and I felt all the emotions which one is likely to experience in the presence of one’s ideal; but the final, distinct impression which remained, strengthened rather than weakened by renewed acquaintanceship, was that I had met a man—not a Russian Count or the peasant he tried to be; not a cosmopolitan who has a touch of culture borrowed from the capitals of the world—but a man who had thrown off all antagonisms and prejudices, and was able to meet all human beings upon a high and common level.

It was this rare quality in him which enabled me to tell him frankly and honestly all that brought me to him. I do not remember the words I used, I fear they were not simple enough; but I know that all I told him was absolutely true. That is no credit to me though; for like all truly great personalities he is truth compelling. His remedy for my ills was disappointingly simple; the remedy for the greatest of the world’s ills was “in myself.”

“Do not repay evil for evil.” “Do not hate anybody.” “Maintain the dignity of your own personality.” “Love everybody, even your enemies.” “Give everything and ask nothing in return.”

“Am I to set the world right?” I asked him.

“No, not the world, but yourself.”

“How shall I know that I am right?” I queried again.

“By living in obedience to the law of God,” he answered emphatically.

He read to me the words of Jesus, and for the first time I heard them without theological arrogance or ecclesiastical intonation. He read them, not with the tenderness one associates with the speech of Jesus, but as Moses might have read them from the tablets of stone, or John the Baptist might have preached them before he met Jesus by the Jordan. As a dictator might read the law, so he read the Beatitudes and he laid the same stress upon “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor,” as filled his commanding voice when he read those words of Jesus: “But I say unto you love your enemies.”

Very decidedly he pressed upon me the necessity of changing my whole attitude towards life, and it was not difficult in that atmosphere to persuade myself that I had changed it. I soon discovered, however, that for me, at least, this was no “once for all” task, but a continual struggle. I found the world always with me, my temper strong, and my passions stronger still; yet I am sure that my view-point had been modified at least, if not changed. I certainly felt my transgressions keenly, my repentance sincere and my conscience more sensitive.

I have tried since under different conditions to work for a permanent change, to reach some high level in which obedience might come without struggle; but that exalted plane I have never reached. The best I can say for myself is, that I left Tolstoy with less faith in the materialistic philosophy with which I had become inoculated, that I trusted less the things which can be demonstrated by touch or sight and that I felt a faint touch of the power of the spiritual.

This early acquaintance with Tolstoy helped me to understand rationally the doctrine of the New Birth which I have so often heard expounded since.

While Tolstoy’s rationalism forbade him to speak of his experience in terms of mysticism, the change which had taken place in him was fundamental, and Lyoff Tolstoy, the follower of the Man of Nazareth, was a totally different man from Count Tolstoy; nobleman, soldier, courtier and author.

I coveted the experience which brings about such results and I believe that it is not only rational but essential to an entrance into true discipleship with the Master. I know something of the pangs and pains of this new birth, this attempt to like the unlike, to love the unlovely, to regard wealth, place, honour, of no import, and to believe that the purpose of life is to do God’s will.

This conscious substitution of the “Alter” for the “Ego” is no light achievement, and but few men win victory in the struggle as calmly and serenely as did my host and teacher. Yet I am sure that the most valuable lesson I learned then and have since relearned from the same teacher is, that national and racial divisions are much more superficial than my professors in the university led me to believe.

“Alles ist Rasse” was the note which dominated the teaching of History in all its multitudinous divisions. I sometimes think that the opposite is true and that there is nothing in race; for I have experienced oneness with all sorts of people, both in the lower and the higher spheres of our nature.

This latter theory Tolstoy dogmatically affirmed. “You are a Jew, you say,” and he would grasp my arm so tightly that I could feel the pulsing blood in his sensitive hands. “I am a Russian; yet I feel no difference in the touch of your hands, in the look of your eyes, and hear none as you speak to me. There are differences in the colour of the skin, the shape of the nose and eyes, but beneath the surface we are all alike.”

So far as I know, Tolstoy has not changed these views, but I doubt that even the man who alters his view-point often has changed in that one fundamental belief.

To me this oneness of all men has become a conviction, the one religious doctrine which I hold with a scientific dogmatism; for I know Chinamen, whose slanting eyes do not prevent them from seeing the world just as I see it; Hindoos who, removed from their imprisoning system of caste, take this human view of man. I have met Japanese the travail of whose soul is akin to mine, and Negroes whose souls are so white that one might envy them their purity.

Knowing every shade of Slav, Teuton and Latin, the Aryan and Semitic peoples, I have found them all alike at their best and at their worst. Dissimilar they are in their various environments, reflecting all the differences of climate, food, religion and government; but let them climb the heights to which the soul aspires or let them sink to the level to which fleshly lust drags them, and they are brother angels or brother brutes.

Yes, one other thing I learned from Tolstoy and learned repeatedly; it is, perhaps, of more value than all the other things he taught me. It was the initial lesson and the hardest. “Give everything and ask nothing in return.”

I have ceased to demand brotherhood or even to expect it. I am giving it, and that is often hard. To yield to every man the fraternal feeling is even harder, I think, than it is not to feel slighted or hurt when one is left out; but even that is difficult enough. When one has finally yielded himself to all men of all races and classes, when one can be unconscious of hampering barriers between, when one does not feel anything but pity for the tainted, a desire to include the halt and the halting rather than to exclude them, then one has reached the highest point of spiritual experience. Towards that point I am travelling, and repeatedly that which has buoyed me has been Tolstoy’s words as he pressed my hand at every good-bye.

“Young man, you can’t make this world right unless you are right.” “The kingdom of God must be within you, if you want to hasten its coming into the world.” “Give everything and ask nothing in return.”