7 March, Yasnaya Polyana Health so-so. This is the third day I’ve held my ground without either relaxing or exerting my will too much. I’m writing and revising.1 Everything is clear, but the amount of work still to do terrifies me. It’s good to set limits to one’s future work. Then, in view of the important things to come, you don’t stop and revise trivial things endlessly. Sonya has been ill. Seryozha is very ill, and is coughing. I’m beginning to love him very much. A completely new feeling. All is well on the estate.
9 March I’ve been writing and revising both days. Today I couldn’t after tea. There’s a certain coolness between Sonya and me. I wait calmly for it to pass. I’ve been reading Goethe’s Faust. Poetry of thought and poetry which has as its object that which can’t be expressed by any other art. But we want to improve it by divorcing it from the reality of the painting, psychology, etc.
17 March Went to Tula. Went to a funeral at Seryozha’s.2 Even for his grief man must have rails laid down to go along – weeping and wailing, requiem masses, etc. Yesterday I saw in the snow the deep footprint of a dog in the shallow footprint of a man. Why does its weight rest on so small a surface? So that it shouldn’t eat up all the hares, but just as many as it needs. That’s the wisdom of God; no it’s not wisdom, not intelligence. It’s the instinct of the deity. We have this instinct in us too. But our intelligence is our ability to deviate from instinct and to understand these deviations. These thoughts came to me with frightening clarity, with force, and with delight. Today I went to the Pashkovs’. The children are ill, and so is Sonya. Haven’t written anything for about four days. I did today. I once got angry with a German, and it took me a long time to forgive him. I’m reading Raguse’s Mémoires.3 Very useful to me.
19 March I’ve become engrossed in the history of Napoleon and Alexander. The idea of writing a psychological history of the romance4 of Alexander and Napoleon has swept over me like a cloud of joy and the awareness of the opportunity to do a great thing. All the baseness, all the empty words, all the folly, all the contradictions of them themselves and of the people round them. Napoleon as a man – mixed up and ready to renounce the 18 Brumaire before the Assembly. De nos jours les peuples sont trop éclairés pour produire quelque chose de grand [In our time the people are too enlightened to produce anything great].5 Alexander of Macedon called himself the son of Jupiter, and people believed him. The whole Egyptian expedition – vainglorious French villainy. The – deliberate – falseness of all the bulletins. The peace of Pressburg escamoté [achieved by fraud]. At the bridge of Arcole he fell into a puddle instead of seizing the standard. A poor rider. Carried off pictures and statues in the Italian war. Loved to ride round the battlefield. Rejoiced in the dead and wounded. Marriage to Josephine – success in society. Three times corrected the bulletin on the battle of Rivoli – lied each time. Still a man at first, and strong in his onesidedness; later indecisive – it must be done! But how? You are ordinary people, but I can see my star in the heavens. He’s not interesting, but the crowds are who surround him, and on whom he makes an impression. At first one-sidedness and beau jeu [favourable conditions] compared with the Marats and the Barras’, then cautiously feeling his way – self-sufficiency and good fortune – and then madness – faire entrer dans son lit la fille des Césars [getting the daughter of Caesars to share his bed]. Complete madness, growing infirmity and insignificance on St Helena. Lies and greatness only because the dimension was great, but when the field of action became small, his insignificance became obvious. And a shameful death!
Alexander, a clever, amiable, sensitive man, seeking from on high greatness of dimension, seeking human heights; renouncing the throne and approving of, or not preventing the murder of Paul (it can’t be). Plans for the renascence of Europe. Austerlitz, tears, the wounded. Naryshkina unfaithful. Speransky, emancipation of the serfs. Tilsit – intoxication with greatness. Erfurt. The period till 1812 I don’t know about. Greatness as a man, vacillations. Victory, triumph, greatness, grandeur, which frightened him, and the search for human greatness – greatness of mind. Confusion over outward things, but lucidity of mind. And a soldierly vein – manoeuvres and stern measures. Outward confusion, but clarity of mind. Death. If it was murder, that would be best.
I must write my novel and do the work for it.
20 March Wonderful weather. I’m well. Rode to Tula on horseback. Great thoughts! The plan for the history of Napoleon and Alexander hasn’t lost its appeal. An epic poem, the hero of which should by rights be a man round whom everything is grouped, and the hero should be that man. Read Marmont. V. A. Perovsky’s captivity.6 Davoût – put him to death.7 Markov’s review8 – poor. He thinks well of the idea, yet is cross. Well, what would you do yourself? But my powers, my powers are frightening! Yazykov said that my speeches are too explicit, too long. He’s right. Shorter, shorter.
21 March Wonderful weather. Sonya is ill. I get annoyed that she’s so weak when she’s ill. Seryozha worries me with his illness. The livestock farming amuses me and it’s going well. I’m still reading Raguse and making notes. In the evening, wrote the bridge scene9 – poor.
23 March Wonderful weather. […] Only wrote a little in the evening, but quite well. I can. Apart from that there have been thoughts all this time about something new and more important, and a feeling of dissatisfaction with the old. I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine. I must leave out more. Tomorrow I’ll try a description of Bilibin.10 […] One of the most important points about writing is the contrast between the person who feels poetry and the one who doesn’t.
25 March Seryozha is with us. I’m unwell – biliousness. Told Seryozha about Napoleon. Did no writing. Read Raguse. Just like Faust – builds factories after battles and is content. The poetry of an old man’s labours. I must do it.11
13 August12 Russia’s national and international task is to introduce to the world the idea of a social structure without landed property.
La propriété c’est le vol [Property is theft] will remain truer than the truth of the British constitution as long as mankind exists. This is an absolute truth, but there are also relative truths – supplementary ones – which stem from it. The first of these relative truths is the Russian people’s attitude to property. The Russian people rejects that form of property which is the most deeply rooted, depends least on hard work, and inhibits more than any other form the right of other people to acquire property – namely landed property. This truth is not a dream – it is a fact expressed in the communes of the peasants and the Cossacks. This truth is understood alike by the Russian intellectual and the peasant who says: ‘register us as Cossacks and the land will be free.’ This idea has a future. On it alone can the Russian revolution be based. The Russian revolution will not be against the Tsar and despotism, but against landed property. It will say: ‘Rob and steal from me – the man – anything you like, but leave us the land.’ Autocracy cannot prevent this order of things, but is actually helping it to come about. (I dreamed all this on 13 August.)
19 September, Nikolskoye-Vyazemskoye13 I’m restless. I don’t know whether I’m ill and because of illness can’t think properly and work, or whether I’ve let myself go to such an extent that I can’t work. If only I could work properly, how happy I could be. […]
20 September Couldn’t write in the morning. Slept badly. Walked a bit. Still the same feverish condition. Read Merimée’s Chronique de Charles IX.14 Strange, his intellectual link with Pushkin. Very clever and sensitive, but no talent. […]
23 September, Cheryomoshnya In bed all day. A bath revived me. Read Consuelo.15 What perverse nonsense, full of phrases from science, philosophy, art and morals. A pie made of stale dough and rancid butter with truffles, sterlets and pineapples.
24 September Better. Read my novel aloud.16 They weren’t interested. But it seemed to me good enough not to be worth revising. Must impart to Nicolas more love of life and fear of death on the bridge. And to Andrey – memories of the battle of Brünn.
26 September, Yasnaya Polyana I’ve begun to do gymnastics. I feel very good. Sonya and I are back home. There probably isn’t more than one person in a million as happy as the two of us are together. Apropos of the schooling of dear Masha,17 I thought a lot about my pedagogical principles. It’s my duty to write down everything I know about the matter.
27 September […] Read the stupid Julia Kavanagh18 and went for a walk. […]
29 September Health not good – lumbago. Wrote to Seryozha and the Dyakovs. Spent all day writing ‘the battle’19 – poor. It won’t do – it’s not right. Read Trollope.20 Good, if it weren’t for the diffuseness.
30 September Went out hunting early in the new snow, enjoyed myself and killed a hare. Wrote to Andrey Yevstafyevich.21 Read Trollope, good. A novelist’s poetry is contained (1) in the interest of the combination of events – Braddon,22 my Cossacks, my future work; (2) in the picture of manners and customs based on a historical event – The Odyssey, The Iliad, 1805; (3) in the beauty and cheerfulness of the situations – Pickwick, The Hunting Ground, and (4) in the characters of the people – Hamlet, my future works; Apollon Grigoryev – dissoluteness, Chicherin – an obtuse mind, Sukhotin – the narrow-mindedness of success, Nikolenka23 – laziness and Stolypin, Lanskoy and Stroganov – the honesty of dullness.
1 October Still doing gymnastics, copying up the days and not writing. Went hunting – nothing. The poetry of work and success hasn’t been tackled by anybody anywhere. Reading The Bertrams – wonderful.
2 October Health good. Went hunting in vain. Did some writing. But I despair for myself. Trollope overwhelms me with his skill. I console myself that he has his skill and I have mine. To know what is mine – or rather what isn’t mine – that’s the main thing about art. I must work like a pianist.
3 October Yesterday and today I worked intensively, though fruitlessly, and now today I’m liverish and feel gloomy. It disheartens me. I must curb my volupté [passion] for reading and day-dreaming. I must use these powers for writing, alternating it with physical work. Rode round my woods again, and found nothing. Finished Trollope. Too much that is conventional.
4 October Rode to Kamenny and Trubitsynsky. Shot at a fox and missed. Sonya is pregnant. Seryozha still has diarrhoea. Health not quite recovered. Did no writing.
15 October In a bilious mood; was angry with a huntsman. The hunting is awful. Thought out two chapters in full. No success with Brykov and Dolokhov.24 Not working much. Had words with Sonya yesterday. It’s no use – she’s pregnant.
16 October Killed two white hares. Read Guizot-Witt’s25 arguments for religion and wrote a first article about an idea given to me by Montaigne.26
17 October Before dinner an unsuccessful hunt. Didn’t much want to write. And don’t want to se battre les flancs [drive myself hard] for nothing. Out hunting I saw a place for Dolokhov, and now it’s clear.
20 October I’m exhausting my strength hunting. I’ve been re-reading and revising. Things are getting on. I’ve sketched out the Dolokhov scene. Sonya and I are very friendly.
21 October The same as yesterday. Towards evening I thought about Dolokhov. Read Dickens. Bella is Tanya.27
1 November The same strict hygiene. Completely fit, as I seldom am. Wrote quite a lot. Put the finishing touches to Bilibin, and am satisfied. Reading de Maistre.28 The idea of a free surrender of power.
2 November Same hygiene. At night, heavy breathing and a dry mouth and by morning a rough tongue. Very well during the day – a good selle [stool] in the evening. Had a modest supper today. Finished writing Bilibin. The Islenyevs have gone. Re-read The Cossacks and Yasnaya Polyana with pleasure.
5 November […] Wrote in a new way – so as not to have to revise. I’m thinking about a comedy.29 As a general rule I must try the new way, without revisions. Had supper – to no purpose, it seems.
8, 9 November A milder diet yesterday. Strict again today. Health good, especially my head. Good thoughts in profusion yesterday. Wrote the part before the battle30 and got a clear idea of all that is to come. Took the important decision today not to publish before finishing the whole novel.
10, 11, 12 November I’m writing; health good, and I’m no longer watching myself. Nearly finished the third part. Much is becoming quite clear. Killed two hares in half an hour.
1 The first three chapters of Part 2 of 1805.
2 Of Seryozha’s son, Tolstoy’s nephew.
3 Mémoires du maréchal Marmont, duc de Raguse, published in Paris 1856–7 after his death. A marshal in Napoleon’s army, he had been jointly responsible for surrendering Paris to the allies in 1814, and in his memoirs he attempted to justify his conduct which had made Napoleon’s abdication inevitable. These memoirs provided Tolstoy with several of the details about Napoleon and Alexander in the next entry for 19 March (e.g. that he was a poor rider).
4 The meaning is not entirely clear; the Russian word roman can mean both ‘novel’ and ‘romance’.
5 These words were spoken by Napoleon on the day after his coronation, as recounted by Raguse.
6 V. A. Perovsky was captured at the Battle of Borodino and taken to France where he remained until the allies took Paris in 1814. His memoirs of 1812 were published in Russian Archives, No. 3, 1865.
7 Perovsky’s account of his interrogation by Davoût and his last-minute reprieve form the gist of the scene in War and Peace where Pierre is similarly interrogated. See 1857, Note 107.
8 Of The Cossack (Notes of the Fatherland, 1865). Markov reproached Tolstoy for his allegedly inaccurate picture of the life of the people of the Caucasus.
9 Crossing the bridge at Enns.
10 The witty Russian diplomat in post in Vienna in 1805.
11 Tolstoy’s intention of comparing Napoleon and Faust towards the end of their lives was never realised.
12 This entry is not from the diary proper, but from one of Tolstoy’s notebooks.
13 The Tolstoys moved to the estate of the late Nikolay Tolstoy on 26 June and stayed there until October, with short visits to his sister at Pokrovskoye and to his friend Dyakov at Cheryomoshnya.
14 Mérimée’s historical novel about the persecution of the Huguenots in France.
15 George Sand’s long novel of musical life in eighteenth-century Austria and Bohemia.
16 To the Dyakovs’, with whom Tolstoy was staying.
17 The Dyakovs’ daughter.
18 An English authoress (1824–77) of novels and stories, especially of French society life.
19 Schöngraben (Chapters 17–21 of Part 2 of the first volume of War and Peace).
20 The Bertrams. ‘Diffuseness’ (misspelt) is in English in the original.
21 Tolstoy’s father-in-law.
22 Tolstoy had two of Mrs Braddon’s novels in his library at Yasnaya Polyana, including Lady Audley’s Secret and apparently had a high opinion of them.
23 Tolstoy’s late brother.
24 A scene from the draft versions of the description of the Battle of Schöngraben which was transformed in the final version into the episode of Captain Timokhin’s attack.
25 The historian Guizot’s daughter, Henriette de Witt, who wrote religious works and books for children.
26 A short fragment entitled On Religion, which was Tolstoy’s first attempt to formulate his religious views coherently.
27 The heroine of Our Mutual Friend, whom Tolstoy compares to his sister-in-law.
28 Tolstoy was reading de Maistre’s Correspondance diplomatique 1811–1817 (Paris, 1861), and also a book by Albert Blanc on the political memoirs and diplomatic correspondence of de Maistre. For a full account of de Maistre’s influence on Tolstoy see Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox, 1953.
29 His thoughts evidently came to nothing.
30 The camp scenes before Schöngraben.