TOLSTOY
BY
ROMAIN ROLLAND
AUTHOR OF "JEAN CHRISTOPHE"
TRANSLATED BY
BERNARD MIALL
T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
1911
PREFACE
To those of my own generation, the light that has but lately failedwas the purest that illumined their youth. In the gloomy twilight ofthe later nineteenth century it shone as a star of consolation, whoseradiance attracted and appeased our awakening spirits. As one of themany—for there are many in France—to whom Tolstoy was very much morethan an admired artist: for whom he was a friend, the best of friends,the one true friend in the whole of European art—I wish to lay beforethis sacred memory my tribute of gratitude and of love.
The days when I learned to know him are days that I shall neverforget. It was in 1886. After some years of silent germination themarvellous flowers of Russian art began to blossom on the soil ofFrance. Translations of Tolstoy and of Dostoyevsky were being issued infeverish haste by all the publishing houses of Paris. Between the years'85 and '87 came War and Peace, Anna Karenin, Childhood and Youth,Polikushka, The Death of Ivan Ilyitch, the novels of the Caucasus, andthe Tales for the People. In the space of a few months, almost of afew weeks, there was[Pg 6] revealed to our eager eyes the presentment of avast, unfamiliar life, in which was reflected a new people, a new world.
I had but newly entered the Normal College. My fellow-scholars were ofwidely divergent opinions. In our little world were such realistic andironical spirits as the philosopher Georges Dumas; poets, like Suarès,burning with love of the Italian Renaissance; faithful disciples ofclassic tradition; Stendhalians, Wagnerians, atheists and mystics. Itwas a world of plentiful discussion, plentiful disagreement; but fora period of some months we were nearly all united by a common loveof Tolstoy. It is true that each loved him for different reasons,for each discovered in him himself; but this love was a love thatopened the door to a revelation of life; to the wide world itself. Onevery side—in our families, in our country homes—this mighty voice,which spoke from the confines of Europe, awakened the same emotions,unexpected as they often were. I remember my amazement upon hearingsome middle-class people of Nivernais, my native province—peoplewho felt no interest whatever in art, people who read practicallynothing—speak with the most intense feeling of The Death of IvanIlyitch.
I have read, in the writings of distinguished critics, the theorythat Tolstoy owed the best of his ideas to the French romantics: toGeorge Sand, to Victor Hugo. We may ignore the absurdity of supposingthat Tolstoy, who could not endure her, could ever have been subject[Pg 7]to the influence of George Sand; but we cannot deny the influence ofJean-Jacques Rousseau and of Stendhal; nevertheless, we belittle thegreatness of Tolstoy, and the power of his fascination, if we attributethem to his ideas. The circle of ideas in which art moves and has itsbeing is a narrow one. It is not in those ideas that his might resides,but in his expression of them; in the personal accent, the imprint ofthe artist, the colour and savour of his life.
Whether Tolstoy's ideas were or were not borrowed—a matter to bepre