Бесплатный фрагмент - Leo Tolstoy: Words of Discovery

Instead of a Preface

Leo Tolstoy has long been regarded as one of the world’s great moralists. Perhaps for this reason, many readers open his books with a ready expectation: once again, they will be told how one ought to live, what is good and what is bad.

Yet each time I returned to Tolstoy, I became convinced of something quite different. What matters most in his writings is born not of moral instruction but of lived experience. His words reveal their true meaning only when, behind the thought, one begins to discern the path of life from which it arose.

This is how the present book came into being. At first, I wished only to explain a few of Tolstoy’s words which, it seemed to me, are difficult for the modern reader to understand without commentary. They were meant to be brief notes — a kind of small glossary.

Soon, however, it became clear that none of these words could be understood in isolation. No sooner had I begun to speak of Truth (Pravda) than Joy (Radost’) appeared beside it. From Joy emerged Conscience (Sovest’), and after Conscience came Longing (Toska). Then came Nothingness (Nichto), Awakening (Probuzhdenie), Loving Wonder (Umilenie), and Fulfilment (Ispolnenie) … One word led to another, until I realized that what lay before me was no longer a glossary, but a path.

I did not seek this path intentionally. I simply noticed that, each time I reread Tolstoy, I heard the same words differently. They ceased to be familiar concepts or beautiful thoughts — they became discoveries. Gradually, I came to understand that these words cannot be revealed one by one, for each illuminates the others. Only together do they become the story of an inner journey — a journey that Tolstoy himself once travelled.

For this reason, this book does not seek to explain Tolstoy. It merely invites the reader to walk beside him for a few steps. Each chapter begins with a question that once arose in my own heart. And if, in that question, you recognize something of your own wonder, then the first door has already been opened.

Perhaps some readers will hear Tolstoy’s words differently, or discover others of their own — and that would be the most natural continuation of our conversation.

This book may be read on its own. Yet it may prove even more rewarding when read alongside On Love — the book from which it grew. Then these notions cease to be mere words. They come alive in the destinies of Tolstoy’s characters, in his diaries and letters, and gradually — in one’s own life. And On Love itself reveals another dimension: not simply as a book about love, but as a path quietly unfolding through these seemingly simple words.

And if, one day, they begin to open themselves to you as well, then this little book will not have appeared in vain.

Words of Discovery

• Pravda (Truth)

There are words that can be translated without much difficulty. And there are words that must be lived through more than once.

For me, the first such word in Tolstoy was Pravda.

It is a simple word, almost an everyday one, yet as layered as life itself. And the further I followed Tolstoy, the more clearly I felt that his Pravda is neither a familiar moral formula nor a philosophical truth. It is always something lived by a human being. It either brings one closer to Love or turns into its opposite.

At the beginning of Tolstoy’s own journey, Pravda appears in an almost merciless form. After the death of his brother Nikolai, he wrote in his diary:

He used to say truly that there is nothing worse than death…

And almost immediately he continues:

…if nothing remained for him from having been Nikolai Nikolaevich Tolstoy?… And if he found nothing to hold on to, what shall I find? Even less…

This is Pravda as a sentence passed upon life itself — perfectly honest, yet leaving behind nothing but emptiness.

I saw this most clearly in Anna Karenina’s final thoughts:

Everything is not-Pravda, everything is falsehood, everything is deception, everything is evil…

This short but precipitous descent of the soul has always astonished me by its inner precision.

First comes untruth. Not falsehood, not deception — but the loss of Truth itself. Then falsehood is born. Falsehood inevitably gives rise to deception. And only then does evil enter the world. Each step grows out of the one before it: a person ceases to see Truth, begins to live in falsehood, deceives both others and himself, and only then does evil appear.

In this sequence lies an entire philosophy of Tolstoy.

Yet here we encounter the most important question: Anna Karenina had already seen the falsehood of the world. She felt that everything around her had become untruth. It was almost a revelation. And yet it did not save her. Why? Because she saw only where Love was absent, but had not yet seen where it was present.

Prince Andrei travels the second half of this path. He too sees the deception and emptiness of the world, but his gaze is directed upward — toward the «infinite sky.» In forgiving Natasha Rostova, he makes his greatest discovery: forgiveness gives birth to Love, and Love conquers the fear of death. His Truth is no longer a sentence — it is liberation.

Yes! All is vanity, all is deception, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing but it. And even that is not — it is nothing but stillness and peace. And thank God!…

Then one begins to understand that Tolstoy speaks, as it were, of two kinds of Truth.

One is the Truth of the mind that judges the world. It is cold, precise, and almost always destructive. The other is the Truth of the heart that loves the world. It ceases to be merely Truth. It becomes life itself.

This is why, in Tolstoy’s later writings, the word Pravda gradually gives way to others: Love, Goodness, the Good, and God. They require no proof and have no need to be right.

Love simply is.

When I first began reading Tolstoy, I thought that Truth was the central word of his world. Now I think otherwise. Pravda turned out to be only a door. And beyond that door I discovered neither the kingdom of severe morality nor that of abstract truth.

I discovered the world of Love.

• Radost’ (Joy)

Reading the «springtime» Tolstoy, I was struck by one curious thing. Again and again, he returns to simple, almost childlike words:

I feel so happy… so happy…

At first, this seems no more than the reflection of a happy mood: youth, spring, being in love, the beauty of the world. Yet gradually one notices that Tolstoy almost never explains why he is happy. This joy is not born of victory, fulfilled desires, or an easier life. It seems to come of its own accord.

It was this causelessness that once made me stop and wonder. Then I understood that, for Tolstoy, joy is not a reward. Indeed, it does not belong to ordinary human psychology at all. It is like a sudden ray of light that, for a brief moment, illuminates one’s true home.

It is no accident that, after the harsh roads of the Caucasus and the bloodshed of the Crimean War, the pages of the young officer Tolstoy’s life are filled with this feeling. He seems to become a child once more — not in age, but in his capacity to marvel at the simple fact of being alive. One cannot help recalling the words from the Book of Genesis:

And God saw that it was good.

This is not yet Tolstoy’s theology. Rather, it is the language that most faithfully conveys his experience: suddenly, the world reveals itself to be good in itself. Not because it is convenient or just, but because, for one fleeting moment, man finds himself in harmony with life itself.

Yet it is precisely here that the most unexpected thing begins. Almost immediately, Tolstoy asks: «What have I done to deserve such joy?» Not «How can I keep it?» and not «How can I bring it back?» but simply: «What have I done to deserve it?» It is as though he senses that he has been given something undeserved.

Then one begins to understand that this «springtime» joy is not the destination of the journey. It is only a gift. Only a seed. The first remembrance of a home one does not yet know, but has already begun to seek.

Later will come Longing (Toska), Conscience (Sovest’), despair, and the fear of death. It seems almost impossible that all of this could grow from that first happy spring. Yet this is precisely what happens in Tolstoy. Joy does not disappear — it becomes deeper. Gradually, it ceases to depend upon outward things: spring, love, or the beauty of nature. It begins to live from within.

Then other words begin to appear beside it: Goodness, Beauty, Loving Wonder (Umilenie), and later Fulfilment (Ispolnenie). All of them prove to be the continuation of that same first, causeless joy. They spring from a single source.

Joy turns out to be not the reward of Love, but its first, still scarcely conscious, glimmer.

And perhaps this is why, at the end of his life, Tolstoy repeats almost the very words he spoke at its beginning:

What happiness — to be alive!

The circle has closed. Yet this is an altogether different joy. No longer the joy of youth, but the Joy of a man who has finally understood where it comes from.

• Sovest’ (Conscience)

There are things that do not ask for our consent. Conscience is one of them. It appears before we have found the words for it. Before any convictions. Before morality itself.

Once I caught myself thinking that it was Tolstoy — whom we are accustomed to calling a moralist — who first taught me to see conscience not as an inner judge, not as a voice telling us what is right and what is wrong, but as a quiet companion that has never ceased to wait for us.