He was a loud, eccentric and legendary personality, always at the center of scandal. The most outlandish representative of the distinguished Tolstoy clan, he was the prototype for many literary characters. He evoked both horror and admiration. An indefatigable duelist and expert shot, he killed eleven men in duels. A heavy drinker and glutton, a cheater at cards, and a dangerous scandalmonger, Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy – dubbed “the American” (1782-1846) – was also a patriot and war hero, a faithful and self-effacing friend, and a man who earned the admiration of many outstanding figures of the Golden Age of Russian culture. All agreed that Fyodor Tolstoy was a startlingly vivid and oversized personality.
Even Tolstoy’s appearance exceeded expectations. “His exterior appearance was striking,” recalled the memoirist Filip Vigel. “Nature had curled thick black hair tightly on his head; his eyes, probably reddened by heat and dust, seemed filled with blood, and his almost melancholy expression and quiet speech seemed to my horrified friends like a threatening abyss.” Tolstoy was of average height, had broad shoulders and a heavy, corpulent trunk, and a round face with “brutal” sideburns the width of a palm. To his enemies, he seemed like an emissary of the devil.
“He was not the best of the Tolstoys,” one of his descendants later wrote, “but I like people who are not susceptible to outside pressures and who can never be yoked by the authorities.”
Indeed, Fyodor possessed a markedly independent character and never tolerated the dictates of others. After graduating from the Naval Cadet Corps, Tolstoy served in the elite Preobrazhensky Regiment, and lived a life full of drinking bouts, gambling, women, and extravagant escapades of all sorts. The military service was not very demanding, and his hot, irrepressible character required activity and constant stimulation. When he learned that someone was constructing a hot air balloon, Count Tolstoy was overcome by a desire to be the first to fly in it. He used all of his charm to make friends with the balloon-maker and then to convince him to take him along. Everything went well, except that the flight took place during a regimental inspection. The pedantic Lieutenant Drizen scolded Tolstoy publicly for his failure to appear. Tolstoy lost his temper and, instead of making excuses, spat in his commander’s face. Drizen called him out for a duel, during which the lieutenant was seriously wounded.
After this bloody outcome, it became dangerous for Tolstoy to remain in St. Petersburg, as he was liable to be demoted to the ranks and jailed (as dueling was forbidden). However, fortune suddenly smiled on him. A cousin, whose name was also Fyodor Tolstoy (Fyodor Petrovich, soon to be a famous painter) was about to undertake a voyage around the world as a member of Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky’s expedition (see Russian Life, July/Aug 2006). The cousin, however, suffered from seasickness, and so, at a family council the Solomonic decision was taken to substitute one Fyodor Tolstoy for the other. And so our count found himself strolling the decks of the ship Nadezhda (“Hope”) in the uniform of a lieutenant of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, accepted as member of the expedition, in which, according to the documents, he was enrolled as one of the “well-mannered young persons.”
However, Tolstoy’s behavior was, to put it mildly, far from well-mannered, and was, indeed, well beyond acceptable norms. The problem was that his responsibilities, something like those of a junior chaperone, left him a great deal of free time. In circumstances of enforced idleness, his ebullient nature demanded action, and he gave himself over to a series of unrestrained, at times wild pranks. The initiator of the expedition, Nikolai Rezanov, characterized Tolstoy as “a person without any rules, who respects neither God nor the authorities to whom he is subordinate. This depraved man causes fights every day, insults everyone, and uses foul language continuously.” Fyodor not only caroused and played cards, but also tried unsuccessfully to convince the crew to stage a mutiny. Neither did he moderate his passion for dueling. It is known that one officer proposed that he and the count throw themselves into the water and fight it out there. Tolstoy refused on the grounds that he didn’t know how to swim, but when the officer accused him of cowardice, Tolstoy grabbed his foe in his arms and took him over the side. The other sailors were barely able to drag them out of the water. The officer was badly wounded, and so traumatized that he died soon after.
Tolstoy cruelly teased the ship’s chaplain, Father Gedeon, who had a weakness for strong drink. Once, he got the priest very drunk and glued his beard to the deck with sealing wax, which he stamped with Kruzenshtern’s seal (which Tolstoy had stolen from the captain’s cabin). When the chaplain woke up, Fyodor warned him not to damage the two-headed eagle on the official seal, on pain of being charged with treason. In the end, the priest was freed by cutting off his beard.
In May 1804, the Nadezhda made anchor at the island of Nukuhiva in French Polynesia. There, Tolstoy and several sailors took full advantage of the beautiful local women, who were devoid of European social inhibitions. The count also employed the services of a local tattoo-artist, at the time extremely unusual for a high-born westerner, if not the first instance of its kind – he had his chest adorned with a huge, multi-colored bird, surrounded with snakes and other exotic animals. Notably, one contemporary author titled his biography of Tolstoy, The Tattooed Count (later in life, Tolstoy often showed off his tattooed body in society). While on the island, Tolstoy also revealed a special gift for hypnosis, which he demonstrated on the native king of the island. He made the respected man prance in front of him on all fours, like a dog, and chase a stick into the sea, retrieving it with his teeth.
At the port of Santa Cruz, in the Canary Islands, the count acquired a female orangutan. Kruzenshtern was unhappy with this, but allowed Tolstoy to bring the animal on board, requiring only that he promise not to let it out of his cabin. The count agreed. But how could anyone trust the promises of such a “well-mannered young man”? Fyodor dressed the orangutan in a captain’s three-cornered hat and taught it to walk with a cane. The sailors had a hearty laugh at its resemblance to Kruzenshtern, and the orangutan became the talk of the town. Maria Kamenskaya, Tolstoy’s niece, later wrote that the animal was “intelligent, dexterous, and able to imitate a human being.” It was even rumored that the orangutan was one of Tolstoy’s innumerable mistresses. This legend was echoed in one of the drafts of War and Peace, whose author, Lev Tolstoy, was Fyodor Tolstoy’s cousin once removed. The character Dolokhov, who is believed to have been based on Fyodor Tolstoy, confides in Anatole Kuragin that “I, brother, once loved a monkey… Now it’s beautiful women.”
In any case, the orangutan was the last straw for Captain Kruzenshtern. While the captain was away, Tolstoy and his pet broke into Kruzenshtern’s cabin. Tolstoy pulled out Kruzenshtern’s diaries, put them on the table, and placed a clean piece of paper on top of them. This he blotched and soiled with ink. The monkey watched carefully, and, after the count left the cabin, went to work on the remaining papers. By the time Kruzenshtern returned to his cabin, most of his valuable papers had been destroyed.
As a result, Fyodor and his pet were expelled from the expedition and forced to disembark in the Aleutian Islands of Russian America. This is how Tolstoy got his curious nickname, “the American.” He sojourned among the Aleuts for many long months and lived as they did: he went on hunting expeditions and became just as adept with harpoon and bow as he was with saber and pistol. He built himself a wooden hut and learned from the local shaman how to relieve pain through the laying on of hands. The Aleuts proposed that he become their king and gave him their most beautiful woman to marry. One tribe even made obeisance to him, as if he were an idol, because of his “beautiful white legs.” It is not known what became of the orangutan; some said that Tolstoy ate her in order to save himself from starvation.
One legend survives that, while walking along the cliffs, the count was about to fall into a chasm when a luminous vision of St. Spiridon appeared to him. St. Spiridon, patron saint of the Tolstoy clan, reportedly warned Fyodor of the impending danger and thus saved his life. Shortly after that, a bonfire Tolstoy made on the shore was seen by a passing ship, and he was picked up and given passage to the port of Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka. From that time forward, Tolstoy wore a small icon of St. Spiridon around his neck.
The count then set off across Siberia and the Urals toward St. Petersburg. He walked through impassable taiga with those he happened to meet along the way, although he also went for weeks at a time without meeting other people. It took two years for him to make it to the outskirts of the capital. Yet by order of Alexander I, he was not allowed to enter the city. He only dared violate the emperor’s order once. Having learned that Kruzenshtern had returned to the city and was giving a ball in honor of the successful completion of his voyage around the world, Fyodor showed up and, in full public view, thanked the captain for having given him the happy opportunity of spending time in the Aleutian Islands.
“I also completed a voyage around the world, but via a different route,” the count added, explaining his appearance at the ball.
Tolstoy was immediately sent out of the city to serve at the second-rate provincial garrison at Neishlot Fortress, where he suffered agonies of boredom. To earn a pardon, he asked to be assigned to the active army. When he was finally appointed an adjutant to Prince Pyotr M. Dolgorukov, he performed miracles of heroism in the war against the Swedes (1808-1809). During the battle near Idensalmi (present day Finland), he and several Cossacks held up the retreat of an entire Swedish regiment.
But probably Tolstoy’s main feat in this war was scouting the straits of Ivarken (between Sweden and Finland). He reported back to General Barclay de Tolly on the state of the Swedish garrison there, after which the general led a detachment of 3000 across the ice of the Bay of Bothnia, attacking the enemy in the rear and taking the town of Grisselhamn, an action which determined the outcome of the Russo-Swedish War. According to contemporaries, Tolstoy was incredibly brave, and personified the genuine Russian character: “making mischief to the point of insanity, fighting the enemy to the point of oblivion.” He was awarded a medal for bravery and reinstated in the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He did not last long, however. After his first duel, in which one of his fellow regimental soldiers fell by his hand, the count was demoted to the ranks and forced to retire.
During the War of 1812 (in Russian, the Fatherland War), Tolstoy reentered military service as a simple soldier. He served in the infantry from Borodino to Paris, and finished the war as a colonel with the order of St. George, fourth degree. In his Diary of Partisan Actions of 1812, Denis Davydov described a serious wound Tolstoy received in battle, and reported that General Alexander Yermolov himself petitioned that Tolstoy be promoted to the rank of colonel, at which rank Tolstoy finished his military service.
After the war, the count settled in Moscow, where he became a professional card-player. He was not simply a card-sharp, but had a real gift as a psychologist and strategist. He also possessed great mathematical aptitude and a willingness to take risks. He would spend time getting to know a new player and learning his strategy. This allowed the count to get into the mind of his opponent and win even by honest methods. But this was only half of the story, as he was known as a sharper. He would sit playing cards all night. It may have been about him that Pushkin wrote:
Passion for the bank! Not gifts of freedom
Not Phoebus, nor fame, nor feasts
Would have distracted him in years past
From card-playing.
Deep in thought, he was ready
At that time all night, ‘til dawn
To question fate’s decree:
Shall I play the jack on the left?
The bell is already sounding for matins,
Among the unsealed decks
The tired croupier dozes;
But he, frowning, bold and pale
Full of hope, closing his eyes,
Throws down a third ace.
Once, at the end of a night’s play, Tolstoy was alone with Count Gagarin in the English Club and he announced that Gagarin owed him twenty thousand rubles. Gagarin refused to pay. Tolstoy then locked the door, placed a pistol on the table, and said:
“This is loaded, by the way, so you will have to pay me one way or another. I give you ten minutes to think it over.”
Gagarin pulled out his watch and wallet, placed them on the table, and replied, “Here is all of my property. The watch might be worth 500 rubles, and there are 25 more in the wallet. That’s all you’ll get. If you kill me, you will have to pay many thousands to cover up the crime. Will you shoot me? I give you ten minutes to think it over.”
“My dear boy,” Tolstoy exclaimed in ecstasy. “You are a real man!”
They became fast friends, and Gagarin once even asked Tolstoy to be his second. The duel was set for 11 a.m., but when Gagarin arrived to pick up Tolstoy at the agreed time, Tolstoy was still asleep. After waking the American, Gagarin asked with irritation, “How could you have forgotten? We had agreed…”
“Don’t worry,” interrupted Tolstoy. “I already killed your friend.”
It turned out that, the day before, Tolstoy had made a special trip to Gagarin’s opponent, got into an argument with him, and called him out for a duel at 6 a.m. Having killed him, Tolstoy returned home and went back to sleep.
Tolstoy spent the huge sums he won at cards on raucous dinner parties. He lived life on a large scale and was a great epicure. He believed that buying food for the table was an exclusively male pursuit. He prided himself on having figured out that oysters are better if soaked in saltwater for a half hour before eating. In choosing fish, he always picked the one that was thrashing about most in the tank, on the theory that it had a greater life force. He chose meat according to its color. “Well prepared food,” he used to say, “helps make one’s thoughts soar.”
Fyodor would often invite musicians to his house, and loved to direct the orchestra. Once, overcome by the music, he grabbed hold of a huge, bronze candelabra and started to beat time with it.
The count’s feasts usually ended with wild nights spent with gypsies, which was at that time a typical way Russian (male) aristocrats caroused. He attracted the affections of a beautiful gypsy, who, unlike Pushkin’s Zemfira, in The Gypsies, remained faithful to Tolstoy for the rest of her life. In general, Tolstoy had great success with women. A friend explained Fyodor’s character in a conversation with a young woman: “There are no such men anymore. If he fell in love with you, and you wanted a star from the sky for your bracelet, he would get it for you. Nothing was impossible for him, everyone gave way before him. I swear to you that in his presence you wouldn’t be afraid even if a lion showed up. By comparison, people today are old rags!”
Tolstoy almost never met card-sharpers who were sharper than he, although it did happen. Once, a man named Ogon-Doganovsky set him up by purposefully losing to him several times, and then cleaned him out so thoroughly that Tolstoy arose from the table completely bankrupt. His aristocratic honor was at stake, because at the English Club the names of those who failed to pay their debts were publicly listed on a black slate. Despairing from his inability to raise the necessary sum, Tolstoy decided on suicide. Salvation came from an unexpected but familiar quarter – from his gypsy-love Avdotiya Tugayeva, with whom he had been living for five years.
“Where did you come by this much money?” the count asked, not believing his luck.
“From you,” the gypsy answered. “You have given me many presents. I saved them, and just went and sold them. So this is your own money!”
Soon after paying off the debt, in January 1821, Fyodor married Avdotiya. That same year, their first child, Sara, was born. The union of a count and a gypsy was looked down upon in society as an unpardonable mesalliance, but Tolstoy cared little that the doors of many fashionable homes were now closed to him. Instead, he was upset by the fact that all the children he fathered with Avdotiya – aside from Sara – had died in infancy or at birth.
Tolstoy came to be convinced that God was punishing him for the sins of his wayward youth. After the first child’s death, he set a penance on himself – not to drink for half a year. No use! Subsequent offspring also died. Then a terrible truth revealed itself to Tolstoy: the death of his children was the direct result of the men he had killed in duels! It was God’s retribution. The American then had a special prayer book, a sinodik, made, in which he wrote the names of those whose lives he had taken in duels. After the death of each child he crossed out a name, and noted in the margin “quit.” It was only after eleven had died – corresponding to the eleven men killed in duels – that he felt relieved of the curse, exclaiming, “Thank God, now my little gypsy will live.” And indeed, his twelfth child – a daughter named Praskoviya (whose married name was Perfileva) – lived to a ripe old age.
But the eleventh death was the painful passing of his beloved Sara, at the age of 17, after a prolonged struggle with tuberculosis. Despite being mentally impaired from her sickness, Sara showed great talent in music, writing and painting. The great poet Alexander Pushkin wrote of her: “His [Tolstoy’s] daughter is almost insane, as he is, and lives in an imaginary world, surrounded by visions, she translates Anacreon from the Greek and takes homeopathic cures.” In 1839, a year after her death, Tolstoy published – with all of his characteristic taste and elegance – a collection of her work entitled Poems in Prose and Verse by Sara Tolstoy. The famous critic Vissarion Belinsky greeted its appearance with the words: “This is a book by one of the most original, strange, romantic beings that ever existed, if we judge by her character, destiny, talent, and way of thinking. This miraculous phenomenon was short-lived, like a flash of lightning.” Alexander Herzen called Sara “an exceptional young girl with a great poetic gift.” Alexander Alyabiyev’s romantic song, “The Rose,” written to the words of her poem of that name, became quite popular.
Tolstoy himself had a subtle understanding of literature. The count was extremely sharp-tongued, and contemporaries admired his faultless command of Russian. Even Nikolai Gogol, about whom Tolstoy once remarked that he should have been sent to Siberia in irons for his Inspector General, himself commented on the American’s impeccable Russian. In an October 22, 1846, letter to the actor Mikhail Shchepkin, Gogol included instructions on how to perform the denouement of that play: “The one who plays the part of Pyotr Petrovich must pronounce his words especially importantly, distinctly, as if they were pearls. He should copy someone who speaks Russian better than anyone else. It would be good if he could imitate Tolstoy the American.”
“He was clever as a demon. And utterly eloquent,” wrote journalist and author Faddei Bulgarin. “He loved sophisms and paradoxes, and it was hard to argue with him.” The memoirist Filip Vigel recalled of their short meeting in Udmurtia: “He was only with us for a short time, and did not say anything out of the ordinary, but he was such an intelligent speaker that I was sorry that he was not traveling our way.” His friend, the poet Denis Davydov, once referred to him as “an eloquent chatterbox, a dear rake.”
As a well known Pushkin scholar has noted, the outstanding men who knew Tolstoy – Davydov, Pushkin, Vyazemsky – “used to repeat his witty sayings at every appropriate opportunity.” Indeed, some of these became part of literary tradition and anecdote. For example, there was his pronouncement about the well-known memoirist Sergei Zhikharev: “It would seem that he is rather swarthy and dark-haired, but, in comparison with his soul, he is a pure blonde.” Or the letter in which he used a malevolent parody of chancellery style to address a prince who owed him money, but did not want to pay up: “If by the aforementioned date you do not pay the debt in full, then I will seek recompense not in the halls of justice, but will address myself directly to the person of Your Excellency.”
Tolstoy’s education, knowledge of various languages, love for music and literature, his close acquaintance with actors, writers, and lovers of art, it would seem, would have honed his aesthetic taste. Nevertheless, memoirists testify that at times the American took pleasure in the kind of things that suggest a Russian absurdism avant la lettre. Judge for yourself. According to Vyazemsky, in one God-forsaken corner of the Siberian provinces, Tolstoy ran into an old man with a balalaika, who wheezed out the following verse:
Don’t fret, don’t cry, little babe,
A coffee bean popped into my mouth,
What if I swallow it?
The old man then broke into sobs. He wept so bitterly and for so long, that one might have thought that someone had died.
“Why are you crying?” asked the count. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you understand, Your Excellency, the power of that ‘What if I swallow it’?”
Tolstoy told Vyazemsky that he had never been as moved by any performance on the stage or in concert halls, as he was by this old man and his song.
In this reverence for such a guileless tune, Tolstoy was certainly not the first; recall that the legislator of Russian classicism, Alexander Sumarokov, wrote an article “On the Versification of the Kamchadals,” in which he had high praise for the “simple” and “natural” singing performed by aborigines.
A fine performer and talented improviser, Tolstoy told stories not only about his own adventures (which would have been more than enough to fill several novels), but also gave free reign to his irrepressible fantasy. Contemporary writers made use both of these improbable tales in their works, and of the image of the American himself. It was under the impression of Tolstoy and his stories that Griboyedov wrote in his famous play, Woe from Wit:
This is the kind of man which doesn’t exist in Russia.
I don’t need to name it, you’ll recognize the portrait.
Nocturnal bandit, duelist,
Exiled to Kamchatka, he returned an Aleut,
And committed to dishonesty;
But can a clever man really not be a rogue?
When he speaks of lofty honor,
Inspired by some sort of demon,
His eyes shining, face burning,
He cries, and we all break into sobs as well.
Tolstoy immediately recognized himself, crossed out the fourth line and wrote in: “The devil landed him in Kamchatka,” adding in parentheses “because he was never sent into exile.” Not satisfied with this, he asked Griboyedov:
“Why did you write that I am committed to dishonesty?”
“It’s no secret that you cheat at cards.”
“Only that?” Tolstoy asked with real surprise. “You might have written then that I steal snuffboxes off people’s tables.” The American’s surprise becomes more understandable when seen in context of his day. As the critic Yuri Lotman showed, “the border separating large-scale professional ‘honest’ play from play of questionable honesty was rather blurred. While a man who stole official funds, forged a will, refused a duel or showed cowardice in battle would not have been allowed in polite society, this was not true of dishonest card-players.” This is why, when Griboyedov’s comedy was published, after the line “And committed to dishonesty,” there was a note that explained: “F.T. cheats at cards, but does not steal snuff-boxes.”
However, the count was not pleased when he was accused of card-sharping. It once happened that Alexander Pushkin became convinced of Tolstoy’s cheating and refused to pay up on his debt at the end of the game.
“Well, count, you know that one mustn’t pay that kind of debt,” said the poet with a laugh. “We were only playing unseriously.”
Tolstoy would have responded to that kind of reply with a challenge to a duel, but he knew that those in attendance considered Pushkin the rising star of Russian poetry, and he did not want to quarrel with his guests.
“Only fools trust to luck,” said the American, laughing off the insult. “And I don’t wish to depend on accidents, so I rectify the errors of fortune.”
It seemed that everything had been resolved amicably, but deep down Tolstoy nurtured anger at the poet. When Pushkin was sent away from Petersburg, he secretly began to spread the rumor that the poet had been summoned to the secret chancellery and been given a whipping. This was a favorite device of Tolstoy’s – to spread a slander and observe his victim’s behavior, which inexorably led to pistols.
The gossip spread quickly, but Pushkin learned about it only after several months, in Yekaterinoslavl. He was enraged, and wanted to challenge Tolstoy to a duel immediately. His friends restrained him, however, and the poet poured out his anger in verse:
Into a gloomy and miserable life
He was long plunged.
For long he defiled the ends of the earth
With his debauchery.
But, turning over a new leaf,
He tried to lessen his shame,
And now, thank goodness,
He is only a thief at cards.
In the epistle “To Chaadaev” (1821), published in the journal Son of the Fatherland, the poet included a paraphrase of the earlier epigram:
What need have I of the solemn pronouncements
Of a well-born lackey, a decorated ignoramus
Or philosopher, who in former years
Amazed the four corners of the earth with his debauchery,
But, enlightening himself, corrected his shame,
And gave up wine but became a thief at cards?
The references to Tolstoy’s biography are clear enough. The mention of debauchery that amazes the world returns us to Tolstoy’s early years, to his contacts with islanders during Kruzenshtern’s expedition, and especially to his connection with the orangutan. The American “corrected his shame” by marrying Avdotiya Tugayeva in 1821, with whom he’d lived in sin for several years. And he had “given up wine” for six months as a penance after the death of his first born son.
“My intention was not to initiate a literary battle of wits,” Pushkin wrote to Pyotr Vyazemsky in September, 1822, when his friend took him to task for his overly sharp attack on Tolstoy, “but rather to pay him back with a sharp insult for the ones he made in secret, against a person who had parted from him as a friend, and one who had defended him whenever the occasion presented itself. It amused him to turn me into an enemy… I learned about everything after I was exiled, and, considering revenge one of the first Christian virtues, in the impotence of my rage I threw some journalistic mud at him from afar... There where law does not reach, the lash of satire does.”
Pushkin’s verses, however, were not merely a conscious affront to Tolstoy. In the context of society’s condescending attitude toward card-sharping, the phrase “thief of cards” took on an especially caustic character, as a commentary on those who tolerated dishonest play at all. This was all the more effective criticism insofar as Tolstoy was a professional sharper, whose “thievery at cards” was a basic source of livelihood.
Tolstoy did not want to remain unavenged and started writing his own doggerel. And even though its artistic weakness was obvious to all and no one would have thought of publishing it, his verse achieved its goal of wounding Pushkin:
The caustic bite of moral satire
Has no likeness to slanderous libel.
In an ecstasy of base emotions, you forgot that, Chushkin,
And I consider you as contemptible now as I once considered you insignificant.
Impress others with your example, and not the vice of verse,
And beware, dear friend, because you too have cheeks.
The nasty pun on his name [from “chushka’”- pig] increased the insult, and the last line promised that on meeting the American, Pushkin could expect a heavy slap, calling him out to a duel.
During the entire course of his six-year exile, Pushkin readied himself for this duel. He was often seen out for a stroll with an iron stick in his hand. He would throw it high up in the air and then catch it, and when he was asked why he did this, Pushkin replied, “So that my arm will be stronger, and if I need to shoot it out, my hand won’t tremble.” There are reports that while he lived at Mikhailovskoye, Pushkin spent several hours a day shooting at a star drawn on the gate to his bathhouse.
As soon as Pushkin returned to Moscow in 1826, he sent his second to Count Tolstoy. Fortunately, Tolstoy was not in town at the time, and later it was possible to prevent the duel. The former enemies resumed friendly relations, and it was Tolstoy who introduced Pushkin to the Goncharov family and subsequently played the role of his marital go-between. In the poet’s letters to his future wife, Natalia Goncharova, he often referred tenderly to the American as “our matchmaker.” It is also known that Tolstoy was present in that narrow circle of friends to whom Pushkin read his verse narrative, Poltava, in December, 1828.
However, even after his reconciliation with Tolstoy, Pushkin did not varnish reality in creating a literary image of the count. His Zaretsky, in Eugene Onegin, the “expert and pedant in duels,” is widely considered to be based on the American. As the organizer of the duel between Lensky and Onegin, Zaretsky purposefully ignores everything that might prevent a fatal outcome. Even though it was his explicit responsibility, Zaretsky does not attempt a reconciliation, neither when he delivers the challenge, nor when he initiates the duel itself. Zaretsky could also have stopped the duel when Onegin appeared with his servant as his second, which was both an insult to Lensky and a violation of the rules. Finally, Zaretsky had every right to prevent a bloody result by declaring Onegin in default, as he arrived for the duel almost an hour late. Thus Zaretsky, like Tolstoy, considered duels an entertaining pastime, an opportunity for gossip and sport. For him, dueling was primarily a pleasant recreation, however bloody. Once, when he was already elderly and wanted to prove to his guests that his hand was still steady, Tolstoy ordered his wife to climb up on the table and shot through the heel of her shoe.
Cruelty, however, was not necessarily part of Tolstoy’s nature, but was manifested in the heat of great passion or anger. Far more often, he demonstrated outpourings of magnanimity. Leo Tolstoy depicted the American as a “Muscovite Robin Hood” in the story “Two Hussars,” where he appears as Count Fyodor Ivanovich Turbin, the elder. “Is that him, the famous hussar-duelist? – Card sharper, duelist, seducer; but a hussar, the soul of a genuine a hussar.” In the story, Turbin the elder displays disinterested nobility, defending the young officer Ilyin, who, taken to the cleaners by the cheating Lukhnov, is on the verge of committing suicide. Returning to Lukhnov’s room, Turbin demands that the swindler play cards with him for money. When Lukhnov refuses point blank, the count gives him a resounding punch in the face, and then gathers up all of the money he can find in the room and gives it to Ilyin. Other works that depict Tolstoy, with varying degrees of resemblance, include Pushkin’s “The Shot,” and Turgenev’s “Duelist” and “Three Portraits.”
“An attractive criminal type” it was said of him, without consideration of the oxymoronic quality of this characterization. “His outrageous pranks are colored by his unusual attractiveness, a kind of naïve and spontaneous egoism, and a hypnotic ability to make people admire and even love him,” explained Sergei Tolstoy, a 20th century descendant of the American. As one recent scholar put it, “He doesn’t seek out events – they find him. He doesn’t take consequences into account, doesn’t calculate profit or loss, doesn’t consider the danger – he simply enters into a situation and makes the most of it, freely and easily, like a king in an armchair. It’s all the same to him wherever he is, in what country, in what social setting, in what circumstances – everywhere he is self-assured and everywhere the master of the situation.”
The American exuded a special energy, known at the time by the name of mesmerism or animal magnetism. Leo Tolstoy recalled: “My brother Sergei had a toothache. He [Fyodor Tolstoy] asked him what was the matter, and, when he found out, said that he could end the pain using magnetism. He went into the study and locked the door behind him. After several minutes he came out with two batiste handkerchiefs… He gave them to our auntie, and said, ‘When he puts this on, the pain will pass, and the other will help him sleep.’”
Elsewhere the novelist described the pangs of conscience that weighed Fyodor Tolstoy down in his old age. Indeed, in his later years the great eccentric turned pious. He went to church, performed obeisance, and repented of his past, trying as he could to make up for his acts of cruelty and the crimes of his youth. In this, perhaps, he felt the legacy not only of the Tolstoy clan, with its passions, egocentrism and wildness, but also that of his mother, Anna Fyodorovna Maykova, who was a descendant of St. Nilus Sorsky, a legendary 15th century reformist monk, known for his asceticism.
Count Tolstoy died peacefully at 65, having taken the final sacrament. The priest who ministered to him before his death said that he had rarely encountered such sincere repentance and faith in divine charity. The American’s final confession lasted several hours.
His contemporary Alexei Stakhovich said of him: “Although he was without question one of the most intelligent people in an age of such giants as Pushkin and Griboyedov, few intelligent and gifted people have led a life as wild, useless, and at times, as criminal, as did Tolstoy the American.”
Others were of a more positive opinion. Upon learning of Tolstoy’s death, Vasily Zhukovsky wrote to Alexander Bulgakov: “He had many good qualities. Personally, I only knew his good ones. All the rest is known only from hearsay, and I was always sympathetic to him; he was a good friend to his friends.”
Perhaps the most dramatic portrait of his character may be found in Vyazemsky’s verse:
American and gypsy,
A riddle in the moral universe,
Which, like a fever,
An addict to rebellious inclinations
Or a clash of boiling passions
He always pitches from extreme to extreme
From heaven to hell and hell to heaven
Whose soul is on fire
But whose mind is cold ego,
A firm rock against the storms of fate,
A fragile leaf in passion’s uproar.
RL
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