Chapter 5 three

He was studying in Kazan.1842-1847.The grades are mediocre.People say that there are three brothers: "Sergei can do what he wants. Dmitry can't do what he wants. Lev can't do what he doesn't want." The eldest brother Nikolai, five years older than Lev, died in 1844. He completed his studies when he was young. The period he passed was really what he called "the youth in the desert".The desolate desert was swept away by bursts of frantic winds.Regarding this period, the narration of "Youth" and especially "Youth" contains extremely rich and kind confession materials.He is alone.His mind was in a perpetual state of ecstasy.Within a year he had rediscovered and tried various theories which suited him.He loves to talk about metaphysics; he said: "Especially because this kind of talk is so abstract, so dark, people believe that what he said is really what he thinks, but in fact he said something else entirely." The Times, chap. XXVII) the Stoic, who engages in torturing his flesh.Epicurean, and he's an orgy.Later, he believed in the theory of reincarnation again.Finally he descends into a kind of deranged nihilism: he seems to feel that if he turns quickly, he will find nothingness right in front of him.He analyzed and analyzed himself... "I only think about one thing, I think I think about one thing..." Chapter 19 of "Boyhood".

This never-ending self-analysis, this faculty of reasoning, naturally tends to emptiness and becomes for him a dangerous habit which "constantly hampers him in life," according to him, but at the same time is the key to his art. most precious source.Especially in his early works, such as "Sevastopol Miscellaneous Notes". In this mental activity he lost all faith: at least, he thought so.At sixteen, he stopped praying and did not go to church.This was the period when he read Voltaire with great interest. (Chapter 1) But faith is not dead, it is just lurking. "But I believe in something at all. What? I can't say. I still believe in God, or at least I don't deny it. But what kind of God? I don't know. I don't deny Christ and his teaching; position, I cannot say." Chapter 1.

At times, he indulged in pity dreams.He wanted to sell his car and give the proceeds to the poor, and he wanted to sacrifice a tenth of his family wealth for them, so that he would be free from servants... "because they are people like me" . "Youth" Chapter Three.During a certain illness, he wrote "The Rules of Life".Between March and April 1847.In it, he naively pointed out the responsibility of life, "everything must be studied, everything must be deeply discussed: law, medicine, language, agriculture, history, geography, mathematics, and reach the highest culmination in music and painting"... He "Believe that the mission of human beings lies in his unremitting pursuit of perfection."

Unknowingly, however, he is driven by youthful enthusiasm, strong sensuality and exaggerated self-esteem, so that this belief in pursuit of perfection loses the nature of non-utilitarian concepts and becomes practical and material.Nekhludoff said in his "Boyhood": "Everything a person does is entirely for his self-esteem." In 1853, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: "Pride is my great fault. An exaggerated self-esteem, irrational; and my ambition is so strong that, if I had to choose between honor and virtue (which I love), I am sure I shall choose the former." He The reason why he requires perfection of his will, body and spirit is nothing more than to conquer the world and win the love of all mankind. "I want everyone to know me and love me.

I would like everyone to praise me and thank me as soon as they hear my name. "(Chapter Three of The Age of Youth) He wants to please people. This is not an easy task.He was as ugly as an ape: a rough face, long and heavy, with short hair falling over his forehead, small eyes set deep in dark sockets, staring hard, broad nose, protruding Large lips, broad ears.Based on a portrait of him at the age of twenty, 1848.Because he couldn't change this ugly appearance, he had felt the pain of despair many times when he was a child, "I thought to myself, a person like me with such a wide nose, such a large lip, and such small eyes, there is no happiness in the world. "("Childhood" Chapter 17) Besides, he said sadly, "This expressionless face, these weak, uncertain, and unnoble lines, only remind people of those country people, and this Hands and feet that are too big." (Chapter 1 of "Childhood") He pretends to be "a respectable person" to achieve. "I divide human beings into three categories: the decent people, the only ones worthy of respect; This ideal of being like any other "respectable man" leads him to gambling, debt, and outright debauchery.Especially during his stay in St. Petersburg (1547-48) one thing saved him forever: his absolute sincerity.

"You know why I love you more than anyone else," Nekhludoff told him. "You have a surprisingly rare quality: frankness." "Yes, I keep saying things I'm ashamed of myself." Chapter Twenty-Seven of Boyhood. At his most dissolute, he criticized with a sharp, discerning eye. "I live like a brute," he wrote in "I am fallen." Analytically, he jotted down the reasons for his mistakes: "1. Indecision or lack of courage;—2. Self-deception;—3. Worrying;—4. Unnecessary shame;— Five, ill-tempered; - six, confused; - seven, imitative; - eight, impetuous; - nine, inconsiderate."

It is this kind of independent and uninhibited judgment that he has used to criticize the superstition of social legal system and knowledge during his college days.He looked down on university education, was unwilling to do legitimate historical research, and was punished by the school for his arrogance.During this period, he discovered Rousseau, "Emile".For him, it was a bolt from the blue. "I bow to him. I hang his portrait like an icon around my neck." Conversation with Paul Bouyer, see Paris "Times", August 28, 1901. His first philosophical treatises were on Rousseau's Interpretations (1846-47).

However, tired of both the university and the "respectable people," he returned to live on his farm, in the hometown of Yasnaya Polyana (1847-1851); Contacted, he pretended to help them, to be their philanthropist and educator.His experiences during this period are recounted in some of his first works, such as A Gentleman's Morning (1852), an excellent novel in which the protagonist is his favorite pseudonym: Prince Nekhludoff.In Boyhood and Youth (1854), in Encounter in the Detachment (1856), in Lucerne (1857), in ( 1899), Nekhludov was the one who did it. —but notice that this name is for various characters.Tolstoy did not preserve him with the same physical appearance, and Nekhludov committed suicide at the end of The Shooter's Diary.Here are Tolstoy in various incarnations, sometimes at his best, sometimes at his worst.

Nekhludoff was twenty years old.He gave up college to serve farmers.For a year, he worked for the welfare of farmers; secondly, when he visited a village, he suffered indifference that seemed ironic, unbreakable suspicion, conventionality, obscurity, obscenity, unscrupulous...etc.All his efforts were in vain.When he went back, he was disheartened, and he thought of his dream a year ago, his magnanimous enthusiasm, and his ideal at that time, "Love and kindness are happiness and truth, the only possible happiness and truth in the world".He felt himself defeated.He is ashamed and tired.

"Sitting at the piano, his hands unconsciously touched the keys. A chord struck, and then a second, and a third... and he began to play. The chords are not exactly regular; often they are banal to the point of vulgarity , showing no trace of musical genius; but he felt an indeterminate, sad joy in it. Every time the harmony changed, his heart beat, waiting for a new note to come, and he made up all the defects with fantasy. He hears the chorus, he hears the orchestra... and his chief pleasure is due to the forced movements of the phantasy which show him the most variable images and situations of the past and the future, unconnected but quite distinct... ..." He repeated seeing the peasants with whom he had just been talking, vile, suspicious, lying, lazy, obstinate; but what he saw of them at the moment was only their good and not their bad; He penetrated their hearts with the intuition of love; here he glimpsed their attitude of patience and resignation to the fate that oppressed them, their forgiveness of all wrongs, their passion for family, and their love for love. The reason for the conventional and pious fidelity of the past.He invoked their days of labor, weary, but healthy... "It's beautiful," he murmured... "Why shouldn't I be one of them?" A Gentleman's Morning, Volume II .

The whole of Tolstoy is contained in the hero of the first short story, which is contemporaneous with "Childhood": in his clear and persistent vision he observes the characters with an impeccable realism. ; but when he closed his eyes, he sank again into his dream, into his love for men.