We did not say, as do the critics of to-day, that there were two Tolstoys: the Tolstoy of the period before the crisis and he of the period after the crisis; that the one was the great artist, while the other was not an artist at all. For us there was only one Tolstoy, and we loved the whole of him; for we felt, instinctively, that in such souls as his all things are bound together and each has its integral place. [1] _Le Roman russe._ CONTENTS PREFACE I. CHILDHOOD II. BOYHOOD AND YOUTH III. YOUTH: THE ARMY IV. EARLY WORK: TALES OF THE CAUCASUS V. SEBASTOPOL: WAR AND RELIGION VI. ST. PETERSBURG VII. "FAMILY HAPPINESS" VIII. MARRIAGE IX. "ANNA KARENIN" X. THE CRISIS XI. REALITY XII. ART AND CONSCIENCE XIII. SCIENCE AND ART XIV. THEORIES OF ART: MUSIC XV. "RESURRECTION" XVI. RELIGION AND POLITICS XVII. OLD AGE XVIII. CONCLUSION INDEX TOLSTOY CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD Our instinct was conscious then of that which reason must prove to-day. The task is possible now, for the long life has attained its term; revealing itself, unveiled, to the eyes of all, with unequalled candour, unexampled sincerity. To-day we are at once arrested by the degree in which that life has always remained the same, from the beginning to the end, in spite of all the barriers which critics have sought to erect here and there along its course; in spite of Tolstoy himself, who, like every impassioned mind, was inclined to the belief, when he loved, or conceived a faith, that he loved or believed for the first time; that the commencement of his true life dated from that moment. Commencement--recommencement!' How often his mind was the theatre of the same struggles, the same crises I We cannot speak of the unity of his ideas, for no such unity existed; we can only speak of the persistence among them of the same diverse elements; sometimes allied, sometimes inimical; more often enemies than allies. Unity is to be found neither in the spirit nor the mind of a Tolstoy; it exists only in the internal conflict of his passions, in the tragedy of his art and his life. In him life and art are one. Never was work more intimately mingled with the artist's life; it has, almost constantly, the value of autobiography; it enables us to follow the writer, step by step, from the time when he was twenty-five years of age, throughout all the contradictory experiences of his adventurous career. His _Journal_, which he commenced before the completion of his twentieth year, and continued until his death,[1] together with the notes furnished by M. Birukov,[2] completes this knowledge, and enable us not only to read almost day by day in the history of Tolstoy's conscience, but also to reconstitute the world in which his genius struck root, and the minds from which his own drew sustenance.