Note 176 — 1897

Countess Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoi (1817–1904), a second cousin of Tolstoi, lady-in-waiting to the Empress. Tolstoi in his youth was on friendly terms with her. His correspondence with the Countess A. A. Tolstoi, with the addition of a memoir by her, was published by the Tolstoi Museum Society, Petrograd, 1911. In reference to this meeting with her, mentioned by Tolstoi in the Journal, see the memoirs (pages 71, 72 of the above mentioned publication). About this same meeting and about the visit to Petrograd in general, Tolstoi wrote to V. G. Chertkov the following (February 15, 1897): “St. Petersburg gave me a most joyous impression. Of course the principal thing was the meeting at your house. The depressing impression was my conversation with A. A. Tolstoi. The terrible thing was not only the coldness, but the cruelty and the forcing oneself into one’s soul and the violence, the very same which had estranged us. What a bad belief it is, which makes good people so cruel and therefore so insensible to the spiritual condition of others. Believe word for word as I do, otherwise if you are not exactly my enemy, still you are a stranger.” It should be noted that from the autumn of 1895, for the course of several years, Tolstoi did not write at all to the Countess A. A. Tolstoi.