In midsummer of 1896 I learned to know Tolstoy. It was at the time of the National Exhibition at Nijni-Novgorod. Cheap excursion tickets on the railroads and river boats were to be had throughout the summer, while correspondents for foreign newspapers were given first-class passes for three months in every rod of railroad trackage in the country. It was an opportunity for exercising Wanderlust in style such as had never before come my way. Baedeker's little book on the Russian language was bought, introductions to friends in St. Petersburg were secured, and away I went to spend preliminarily a week or so as a field-hand, or in any other capacity that I was equal to, on Tolstoy's farm, at Yasnaya Polyana, an estate about one hundred and fifty miles south of Moscow. At that time I was not sure about the railroad pass. In St. Petersburg, friends kindly put me in the way of getting it, and on I went to Moscow, and, before the summer was over, to hundreds of other towns and villages in different parts of the Empire. On two hundred and fifty Russian words, or thereabouts, my passport, free railroad transportation, and perhaps $75, I traveled, before I got back to Berlin, about twenty-five thousand miles. I kept my hotel expenses down by living on trains. First-class railroad accommodations include a bed. So when night came I calmly took my berth in a train bound in any direction long enough to secure me a good rest. In the morning I got out and looked about me, or rode on as I liked. This proceeding also saved me passport dues at hotels, an item of considerable expense in Russia if one does much traveling. My meals were found at the stations, which provide the best railroad restaurant service found anywhere. With all the saving, sight-seeing and riding, however, my vacation over, I was heartily glad to return to Germany, and for months afterwards my Wanderlust was delightfully under control.

By all odds the most interesting national feature that Russia allowed me to see was Count Tolstoy. The Tsar, the museums, the palaces, the large estates, the great unworked Ninghik—these men and things were entertaining, but they did not take my fancy as did the novelist and would-be philanthropist. And yet I had never read any of Tolstoy's novels before meeting him, and my notions of his altruism were vague, indeed—about what the ideas are of people who have never been in Russia or seen Tolstoy, and who, on learning that you have been there and met him ask immediately: "Say, on the level, is he a fakir or not?"

Once and for all, so far as my simple intercourse with him is concerned, it may be most boldly declared that he never was a fakir—no more of one when he was sampling all the vices he could hear of, than he is now in urging others not to follow his examples as an explorer of Vicedom. It is strange, but when a man, who has sampled everything that he could, in the way of deviltry, and then quits such sampling, says that he has enough, and attempts to steer others on a better tack than he took, there is a prodigious amount of doubt in thousands of minds as to whether the man sampled enough cussedness to know what the real article is, or whether others should fight shy of what he saw or not.

The man at Yasnaya Polyana in 1896 was a fairly well preserved old gentleman, with a white beard, sunken gray eyes, overhanging bushy eyebrows, a slight stoop in the shoulders, which were carrying, I think, pretty close to seventy years of age. He wore the simple peasant clothes about which there has been so much nonsensical talk. Every man who lives in the country in Russia, puts on, when summer comes, garments very similar in cut and shape to those worn by the Ninghik. The main difference during the warm months between the Ninghik's outfit and that of his employer's is that the latter's is clean and the Ninghik's isn't.

My purpose in going to Yasnaya Polyana was mainly journalistic, I fear. The entire trip in Russia, indeed, was to find "available" copy for the New York newspaper referred to. The free railroad transportation allowed me to cover "news" stories on very short notice, and also made it easy to get material for "space" articles. Or, rather, on first getting it, I thought that the pass would work wonders along these lines. In other hands it would very possibly have done so, but the "available" matter finally delivered by me proved only moderately successful. Putting aside all questions of ability, reputation and connections, it has been my experience that European "stuff" is not in such demand in the United States that the average writer can make it support him even on a vegetarian diet. Our editors, as a rule, want American "stuff." Only in very recent years have they given much attention even to the foreign news service, leaving the gathering, sifting, and distribution of the day's facts to newsmongers who have often been as unscrupulous as they were incapable.

Americans flock to Europe in thousands, going feverishly from place to place as if their very lives depended on seeing such trifles as the old snuff-boxes of ancient celebrities. Nothing must escape them. They want their money's worth at every turn. A few tarry longer than the rest and try to acquire some knowledge of the present condition of the countries and people they see. But the vast majority push on hurriedly, elbowing their way into nooks and crannies of alleged historical interest, until Europe becomes for many of them, probably most of them, a mere museum of things "starred" or not "starred" as the guidebook man saw fit to make them. The life of the people, their contemporaries, is looked into only incidentally; "anteeks" are what the mob is after and look for. This indifference to present-day Europe, its politics, social customs and institutions, has in the past been largely to blame for the inefficiency of our foreign news service. What was the use of going to heavy expense to inform Americans about things abroad which they would pay no attention to when they were abroad themselves? The publishers and editors reasoned that there was no use, and even at this late day many of them prefer a news item from Yankton, Dakota, to one from London. Their readers may know very little more about Yankton than about London, but that does not matter. Perhaps they have relatives in Dakota, or formerly loaned money to farmers out there at three per cent. a month. That settles the matter for the newsmongers. The Yankton dispatch is given prominence, although it refers to nothing of more importance than a divorce. Its provinciality is of greater cash value to the newspaper than the cosmopolitan significance of the message from London. This, and more that might be said, has made a foreign correspondent's life in Europe unattractive, to say the least. At one time, however, I seriously considered preparing myself for such a career. The trip to Russia was meant as a trying-out of my qualifications. It seemed to me then, and, if our newspapers, or, rather the newspaper readers, would take more interest in other things than massacres, notable suicides and fashionable scandals, it would seem to me now, that such a calling ought to be useful as well as profitable. Until our people care more, however, for a well-considered article from London or Berlin than they do for a hasty "wire" from Wilkesbarre concerning the mobbing of an Italian, the usefulness and commercial value of the foreign correspondent's efforts do not appear very evident. At any rate, the time came when I decided that my foreign "stuff" was not of the bread-winning kind, and I threw overboard the dream of becoming a writer on such lines. To this hour, however, I regret that some good opening in the foreign service did not show up at the time the dream was so present.

But to return to Tolstoy and Yasnaya Polyana. All told, I was in and about this place for ten days, seeing Tolstoy and his family practically every day; even when I did not stop in the house overnight I divided my time between Yasnaya Polyana and the home of a neighbor of the Tolstoys. When staying at Yasnaya Polyana I slept in what was called the Count's library, but it was evidently a bedroom as well. At the neighbor's home I had a cot in the barn where two young Russians, friends of the Count, also slept. They were helping Tolstoy "re-edit" the Four Gospels, omitting in their edition such verses as Tolstoy found confusing or non-essential. The life on the old estate at Yasnaya Polyana has been described so often by both English and American visitors, that there is very little that I can add to the known description of the grounds and daily routine. The place looks neglected and unkempt in many respects, but the two remaining wings of the old mansion are roomy and comfortable. Eight children of the original sixteen were living at the time of my visit, ranging in years from fourteen to thirty and over. The Countess was the "boss" of the establishment in and out of the house. What she said of a morning constituted the law for the day, so far as work was concerned. She had assistants, and I think a superintendent, to help her, but she was the final authority in matters of management. The Count did not appear to take any active part in the direction of affairs. He spent his time writing, riding, walking and visiting with the guests, of whom there were a goodly number. At one time he may have worked in the fields with the peasants, but in July of 1896 he did not share any of their toil—at least I personally did not see him at work among them. His second daughter, Maria Lvovna, however, the one child that in those days was trying to put her father's theories to a practical test, was a field worker of no mean importance, certainly to the peasants, if not to her mother. Trained as a nurse she was also the neighborhood physician, having a little pharmacy in the straggling, dirty village outside the lodge gates. It was through her kindness that I was permitted to join the peasants in the hayfield, and to get acquainted with them in their dingy cabins. Although it was pleasanter to gather with the other children on the tennis court, the haying experience was at any rate healthy and, to some extent, instructive. I noticed, however, that my presence caused considerable merriment among the peasants. They had grown accustomed to Maria Lvovna, indeed she had grown up among them, whereas I was a stranger of whom they knew nothing beyond the little that Maria had told them. Some of them no doubt thought it very foolish of me to prefer haying to tennis and refreshments, while others probably doubted the sincerity of my purpose—viz.: to get acquainted with their conditions and to see what effect Maria Lvovna's would-be altruism was having upon them. I might as well state immediately that at no time did I succeed in finding out satisfactorily what this effect was, if it existed at all. That she was a very welcome companion in the fields and cabins there could be no doubt, but was this due to the peasant's correct interpretation of her intentions or to her commercial value to them as a voluntary, wageless helper? Maria herself thought that some of the peasants understood her position as well as her father's teachings. Not being able to converse with the peasants privately I cannot say whether she was deceived or not.

Some years previous she had also tried to conduct a village school independent of the priest's, but she was finally forced to give it up on account of clerical opposition. As neighborhood physician and nurse, however, she had ample opportunity to teach the peasants what she believed, and to reason with them about following the dictates of their own consciences rather than the behests of the clergy and the orders of the military. At the time of my visit I think she had made most headway among the men, unwilling taxpayers in Russia at all times. To be told that the priests and military should support themselves without assistance from the peasantry was sweet music indeed. "Think how much more money we can have for vodka!" many an Ivan must have whispered when Maria was exhorting them not to be soldiers, and to refuse their financial support of the church.

In one cabin we visited together Maria noticed several colored portraits of the Imperial family hanging on the wall. They were set in metal frames.

"How comes it," Maria exclaimed, "that I see so many emperors this morning?"

The big, burly peasant looked sheepishly at her, and then, mumbling that his wife was to blame, swept the pictures into his hands and threw them into a cupboard.

"The woman likes such things," the man explained. "I put them away, but she gets them out again."

Maria thought that the peasant was sincere in his renunciation of Tsar worship, and perhaps he was. I think, however, that, like many of the other peasants on the estate, he found it financially profitable rather than spiritually consoling to have Maria think him one of her converts.

Only two days before our call at this cabin, for instance, he had stolen some wood from the Countess. I believe that it was a log "which he thought the Countess would not need." The superintendent had discovered the theft, and the peasant had been, or was to be, reported.

"But, Maria," he said, when begging Maria to intercede for him with her mother, "tell the Countess how much more I could have taken. Just a log like that—that is no crime, is it?" Maria told him that she would do what she could, and we left the man happy, Maria's promise of intercession seeming to be as good to him as the forgiveness of the Countess. Nothing was said about the return of the log.

In this, as in many other cases, Maria was doubtless exploited by the cunning peasants—the Ninghik can be uncommonly cunning in small things—but she said in reply to my suspicion in this regard: "Even so. Who could expect such people to be upright in everything? Besides the man confessed his offense. He is a good fellow in his way. Seldom beats his wife and does not drink overmuch. I believe in building all that one can on such good qualities as he shows, and if I intercede for him it may increase my influence for good in his family."

"It may also confirm him in his pilfering habits," I interposed. "He will learn to expect friendly interference on your part on such occasions."

"Perhaps so, but I prefer to think not," and that ended Maria's argument in the matter, as it did in many other talks I had with her, the Count and those neighbors who could be called his "disciples."

Their principles and religious beliefs were never given prominence in general conversation unless they were directly asked about them. They chose by preference to live them as best they could, rather than polemicize about them. Only on two or three occasions did Maria, for instance, advance any of the ideas about how the world was to be made better, and then only because I had quizzed her point-blank. Day after day she went her quiet way, haying, nursing, doctoring, and when she could spare the time, enjoying herself on the tennis court.

Her older sister, Totyana, was by no means so active in her acceptation of her father's teachings. Indeed, in 1896 she was still very undecided about them. She told me, one day, laughingly, that for the present she was only half won over; "perhaps when I am as old as my father I shall be wholly won over." In her way she seemed quite as happy as Maria; all of the children, in fact, saw life on its brighter side, even to one of the older boys, who was a soldier, and put much store on multi-colored uniforms and ornamented cigarette cases. What the Countess really thought about the whole business I never found out. We had one short conversation about the Count and his work, during which she delivered herself of these remarks: "You will hear many things here that I do not agree with—I believe it is better to be and do than to preach." I judged from these sentiments that Tolstoyism as a cult had not captured her. That she thought much of the Count as a man and husband was evident from her solicitous care of him.

The Count himself, although very approachable, was so busy with one thing and another during my stay, that only on two occasions did we have anything like a satisfactory conversation. And these two opportunities could be only partially improved by me because I honestly did not know what to talk about with the old gentleman—or rather there was so much that I wanted to ask him, but did not know how to formulate in the way that I fancied such a great man would expect questions to be put, that the time went by and I had done but little more than observe the man's manners, and listen to what he volunteered to say without being questioned. We spoke in English and German, as it happened to suit.

Now, that I look back over the experience and recall the old gentleman's willingness to talk on any subject, I regret exceedingly that I did not quiz him about literary contemporaries and affairs. The principal thing he said along these lines that comes to mind now concerned poetry and how it impressed him. We were sitting in the music room, and some one had said something about the relative values of prose and poetry as methods of expression. Tolstoy preferred prose.

"Poetry," he said, pointing to the parquet floor, "reminds me of a man trying to walk zigzag across the room on those squares. It twists and turns in all directions before it can arrive anywhere. Prose, on the other hand, is direct; it goes straight at the mark."

Talking about America and Americans, one afternoon, he was much interested in William Dean Howells, Henry George and the late Henry Demarest Lloyd. He told me that there were four men in the world that he was very anxious to bring together; he believed that a conference between them would throw much light on the world's needs. Two of the men, if my memory is correct, were Mr. Howells and Mr. Lloyd.

Only one strictly theological, or rather religious bit of conversation occurs to me now. We were walking in the fields, the Count having spent the day at his friend's house where the Four Gospels were being overhauled. The talk wandered along in a rather loose fashion until we came to the subject of miracles—we also tackled parables before we got through.

I had become a little mixed in understanding the Count, and said something like this: "And the miracles you consider so illuminating?"

"No, no, no," he returned, "anything but illuminating; they are befogging. It is the parables that I find so clear and instructive. The miracles will have to go, but the parables we could not possibly spare."

On no occasion did the Count ask me what I believed. The matter seemed to make very little difference to him, or, at any rate, if I believed anything and was made happy thereby, he did not see the use in taking it up in conversation.

In the dining room, one noon, he said to me: "I see that you like tobacco." There was no critical or reproachful accent in the remark; he merely noted what was a fact.

"I used to be fond of it," he went on, looking down at the floor, "and I used a good deal of it. I finally thought that it was doing me harm and let it go." Other things that had been "let go," liquor and meat, for instance, had apparently been given up on the same simple ground—they were injurious to his health. Religion, self-denial for self-denial's sake, "setting a good example," etc., these matters did not appear to have influenced him. At any rate, he did not speak of them when talking about his renunciations, and, in the case of tobacco, frankly said that if he were young again, "no doubt it would be pleasant to use it again." In a word, his vegetarianism and self-service, so far as anything that he said to me is concerned, were due as much to hygienic notions as to religious scruples. And yet I was told by a very trustworthy person that the old gentleman regrets very much that the simple life, as he sees it, cannot prevail throughout his home. At table, for instance, he would prefer that all hands should help one another, and that the Countess' white-gloved servants be dispensed with. In his personal life he seemed to be trying to be his own servant as much as possible.