Chapter 16 one four

The most beautiful theories are only valuable when they are expressed in writing.For Tolstoy, theory and creation are always connected, like belief and action.As he constitutes his art criticism, he at the same time presents the model of the new art he desires.This model includes two art forms, the sublime and the popular, both "religious" in the most human sense of the word--the one striving to unite mankind with love, the other the love of love. The enemy declares war.He wrote the following masterpieces: The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1884-86), Folk Tales and Fairy Tales (1881-86), The Power of Darkness (1886), Kreutzer Sonata (1889), and Master and Servant (1895).There is also a beautiful contemporary novel about a horse, actually written in the blissful years of his betrothal and first years of marriage.This artistic period is like a great temple with two spires, one symbolizing eternal love, the other symbolizing worldly hatred; at this time the ultimate and highest peak was born (1899).

All these works are quite different from the previous ones in terms of new artistic character.Tolstoy changed not only the purpose of art, but also the form of art.In "What Should We Do?" ", or "On Shakespeare," we read with wonder what he says about the principles of taste and representation.Most of them contradict his previous masterpieces. "Clear, simple, implicit", we are in "What should we do?" read about these slogans.He despises all material effects and criticizes fine-grained realism. —In Shakespeare, he again expresses the purely classical ideal of perfection and moderation. "" There is no concept of Jiedu, no real artist. "—and in his new works, the Kreutzer Sonata, the Power of Darkness. Even if the old man could not completely obliterate himself, his analytical genius and natural wildness, (in several respects, These talents are more obvious,) but the lines become more obvious and stronger, the heart and soul harbor more twists and turns, the inner changes are more concentrated, like an imprisoned animal concentrating its strength and preparing to fly, the more general feelings from A kind of inherent realism and short-term details are freed, and finally, his words are more vivid and full of charm, which makes people feel the breath of the earth: in short, his art has changed deeply.

His love for the people had long given him the beauty of popular speech.As a child, he was influenced by stories told by begging storytellers.After becoming an adult and becoming a famous writer, he felt a kind of artistic pleasure in the conversation with the villagers. "These people," he later said to Paul Bouyer, "are masters of creation. When I used to talk to them, or to these tramps with their grain sacks running about our fields, I used to refer to Words I heard for the first time, forgotten by our modern literary language, but always forged by some old Russian country, written down in detail... Yes, the genius of words lies in such people . . . " See Le Times, Paris, August 29, 1901.

His sensibility for this language was all the more acute, not least because his mind was not stifled by literature.His friend Druzhnin said to him in 1856: "In terms of literary style, you are extremely rough, sometimes like an innovator, sometimes like a great poet, sometimes like an officer writing to Letters from his companions. What you write with love is incomparably wonderful. As long as you become indifferent, your style will immediately become blurred and even terrible.” Far from the city, he lived among the villagers. Over time, he thought The way of life gradually became like that of farmers.He, like them, had a long dialectic, a comprehension that progressed very slowly, sometimes mingled with unpleasant excitement, always repeating the well-known, and using the same phrases.

But these are the defects rather than the strengths of folk language.It was only after a long period of time that he realized the genius hidden in it, such as vivid images, wild poetry, and legendary wisdom.He has been affected by it since that time.In March 1872, he wrote to Strakov: "I have changed my language and style. The language of the people has the voice of expressing everything a poet can say. It is the best poetic Regulator. If one were to say exaggerated or exaggerated things, this language could not stand. Unlike our literary language, which has no backbone and can be manipulated as it pleases, it is a matter of pure writing." See Life and Works ". ——In the summer of 1879, Tolstoy had a close relationship with the peasants, and Strakov tells us that besides religion, "he was very interested in words. He began to clearly feel the beauty of the words of the common people. Every day, he discovers new words, and every day, he despises the words of classical Chinese more.

He did not only adopt the model of popular language in style; many of his sensibilities were also shaped by it.In 1877 a wandering storyteller came to Yasnaya Polyana, and Tolstoy recorded several of the stories he told.For example, in the most beautiful "Folk Tales and Fairy Tales" published by Tolstoy a few years later, "What does man live on?" " and "Three Old Men" are derived from this.In his reading notes (1860-1870), Tolstoy wrote: "Bvlines stories... a great impression." A unique work in modern art.A work higher than art: who thinks of literature when reading it?The spirit of the Gospel, the chaste love of fellow human beings, mixed with the smiling joy of folk wisdom, the simplicity, simplicity, clarity, and indelible compassion of the heart—and the supernatural that sometimes so naturally shines through the work. The brilliance!In a ray of golden light, it envelops a central figure, Elder Elise, see "Two Old Men". (1885) Or Martin the shoemaker,--the man who, through the skylight at ground level, sees the feet of passers-by and God visits him pretending to be poor.See Love Is Always Aligned With God. (1885) These stories, in addition to the fables in the Gospels, are also mixed with the fragrance of Eastern legends, such as those in "The Arabian Nights", which he has loved since childhood.See "What Do People Live By?" "(1881); "Three Old Men" (1884); "The Adopted Son" (1886).Sometimes it is a ghastly light that shines, giving the story its frightening grandeur.Like "Bahom the Serf", this story is also known as "Does a Man Need Much Land?" ". (1886) Desperately buying up land, buying up all the land traveled in a day.And he died on the way.

"On the hill, Starshina sat on the ground and watched him run. Bahom fell. --'what!Brave man, strong man, you have gained many lands. ' Starshina got up and threw a shovel at Bahom's servant! These stories, in a poetic atmosphere, almost all contain the moral lessons of the Gospels, about surrender and forgiveness: "Do not take revenge on those who offend you." See "The Burning Fire Never Extinguished". (1885) "Resist no one who hurts you." See The Big Candle (1885); The Tale of Ivan the Fool. "Revenge is mine," said God.See "Yizi". (These short stories are published in the nineteenth volume of the complete works.) No matter where, the conclusion is always love.Tolstoy, who wished to establish an art for all mankind, achieved universality at once.All over the world, his work has an unending success: because it rises from all the decaying atoms of art; there is only eternity.

The book "The Power of Darkness" is not based on serious simplicity of heart; it has no such pretext: that is another aspect.On one side is the dream of fraternity of the gods.On the one hand, it is a cruel reality.In reading this play, we can see whether Tolstoy can debunk the truth by idealizing the masses! Tolstoy, so clumsy in most of his theatrical attempts, here achieves commanding mastery.It was rather late that he took an interest in the theater.This was a discovery in the winter of 1869-1870; in accordance with his usual temper, he immediately developed a drama mania. "This winter, I have devoted myself entirely to the study of drama; it seems that people who until fifty years of age suddenly discover a subject that has been neglected have seen many new things in it... I read Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, Gogol, Mo Lie... I would like to read Sophocles and Euripides... I have been ill for a long time, and the characters in the drama were reflected in my mind one by one..." (see February 17, 1870 ——Twenty-one Letters to Fetter) character and actions are arranged quite naturally: the self-willed Nikita, Anisia's frenzy and lustful passion, old Matriona's shameless simplicity, cultivated her The adultery of the son, the sanctity of old Akim—a man who seemed ridiculous on the outside but was a god on the inside. ——Then came the collapse of Nikita, a weak man who was not vicious. Although he tried his best to rein in the precipice, he was finally lured into depravity and crime by his mother and wife.

"Serfs are worthless. But they are beasts! Afraid of nothing... You, other sisters, you are tens of thousands of Russians, and you are as blind as earth dragons, you know nothing, what They don't know!...Woo-huh? They don't know." See the fourth act. Afterwards is the horrific event of murdering newborn babies, often Nikita refuses to kill.But Anisia, the woman who had murdered her husband for his sake, whose nerves were tormented by the crime, became like a beast, went mad, and threatened to denounce him; she cried : "At least, I am no longer alone. He will also be a murderer. Let him know what a murderer is!"

Nikita crushed the child to death between two planks.In the midst of his crime, he was petrified and fled, he threatened to kill Anisia and his mother, he wailed, he begged: "My little mother, I can't take it any longer!" He thought he heard The cry of the crushed child. "Where am I going to escape?" It's a Shakespearean scene. ——It was not as wild as the previous scene, but what was even more tragic was the dialogue between the little girl and the old servant.They heard it at night and guessed the tragedy unfolding outside. The end is voluntary punishment.Nikita, accompanied by his father Akim, walks barefoot into a wedding ceremony.He knelt, he begged forgiveness from all, he confessed his guilt himself.The old man Akim looked at him with painful eyes and encouraged him: "God! Oh! He is here, God!"

The reason why this play has a special artistic charm is because it uses the language of the villagers. "I searched through my notebooks to write The Power of Darkness." These are the words of Tolstoy and Paul Boyer. These abrupt images emerged entirely from the satirical and lyrical soul of the Russian people, and they have a strong and vivid color, which makes all literary images eclipsed.We feel that the author, as an artist, took pleasure in recording these confessions and thoughts, and the ridiculous things did not escape his tricks; in the first month of 1887, Tolstoy wrote to Teneromo: "I live Well done, and happy. I've been working on my play "Powers of Darkness." It's done." And in the passionate apostleship, lamenting the darkness of the soul. Watching the people and piercing their night with a ray of light from above, Tolstoy wrote two more tragic novels about the darker night of the bourgeoisie and the middle class.We can feel that in this era, the form of drama dominated his artistic thought. Both novels "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and "Kreutzer Sonata" are compact and concentrated inner tragedies; in "Kreutzer Sonata", it is narrated by the protagonist of the tragedy himself. The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1884-86) was one of the Russian works that most excited the French public.At the beginning of this book, I said that I personally saw the middle-class people in the French provinces, who are the least concerned about art on weekdays, and were greatly moved by this work.This is because the work is described, with appalling realism, as a typical example of these middlings, a conscientious civil servant, without religion, without ideals, almost without ideas, buried in his office, in his mechanical life. In the process of life, it was only when he was dying that he suddenly realized that he had wasted his life.Ivan Ilych was a representative of the European middle class of the 1880s, who read Zola and listened to Sarah Bernhardt, who had no faith, and were not even secular: For they neither bother to believe nor to disbelieve—they never think of that. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the beginning of a new group of works, a violent attack and satire on the world, especially on marriage;It describes the wretched emptiness of such a life (of which there are more than ten thousand), its vain ambition, its narrow self-satisfaction,—"at best, sitting face to face with his wife every evening,"—professional troubles, imaginative For true happiness, play Fest.And this ridiculous life was lost for an even more ridiculous reason, when Ivan Ilyich slipped down an escalator one day trying to hang a curtain over the drawing-room window.The hypocrisy of life.The hypocrisy of disease.The hypocrisy of a strong doctor who only cares about himself.The hypocrisy of a family disgusted by disease.The wife's hypocrisy, she only planned how she would live after her husband died.All is hypocrisy, except for the sympathetic servant, who does not hide his sickness from the dying man and watches over him lovingly.Ivan Ilyich "felt infinite pity for himself", weeping for his loneliness and human selfishness; he suffered terribly until the day he realized that his past life was a fraud, but the fraud , he can also remedy.Immediately everything became clear—an hour before his death.He no longer thinks of himself, he thinks of his family, he pities them; he deserves to die, and let them get rid of him. — Pain, where are you? ——Ah, here...then, go on stubbornly. —Death, where is it? —he couldn't find it anymore.There is no death, only light. — "It's over," someone said. —He heard the words and repeated them. — "There is no more death," he said to himself. In the Kreutzer Sonata there is simply no such revelation of light.The first French translation of this work was published in 1912.It is a hideous and horrific work that attacks society, like a wounded beast seeking vengeance on its wrongdoers.Let us not forget that this is the confession of a savage human being who has murdered and is tainted by the poison of envy.Tolstoy hides behind his characters.Doubtless we find his thought, his tone, his abhorrence in attacks on hypocrisy in general: education of girls, love, marriage—"this everyday prostitution"; society, science, doctors— — the hypocrisy of these "sowers of evil" ... and so on.But the protagonist in the book drives the author to use rough expressions and strong sensual descriptions - to draw all the fanaticism of a lewd person - and because of the reactionary reason, it also expresses extreme abstinence and hatred for lust. and dread, and curse life like a medieval monk tormented by carnality.After finishing writing, Tolstoy himself was astonished: "I absolutely did not expect," he said in the postscript of "Kreutzer Sonata", "a kind of strict reasoning would make me write this novel. , led me to where I am now. My own conclusions terrified me at first, and I would like to believe them or not, but I cannot...I have to accept them." He uttered fierce words attacking love and marriage in the mouth of the murderer Posdenishev: "When a man looks at a woman with sensual eyes—especially his own wife, he has already committed adultery with her." "When the passions are extinguished, man will have no reason to exist, he has fulfilled the laws of nature; the unity of the living will be attained." He also based on the argument of St. Matthew's Gospel, saying: "The ideal of Christianity is not marriage, and there is no such thing as Christian marriage. From the Christian point of view, marriage is not a kind of progress, but a kind of degeneration. Love and love are back and forth. The procedures undergone are an obstacle to the true ideals of man".Note that Tolstoy never naively believed that the ideals of celibacy and chastity were achievable for human beings today.But in his sense, an ideal is by definition unattainable, but it is a lesson in the power to call forth the hero of mankind. But these ideas had never been so clear and definite in Tolstoy's mind before Posdniche's mouth had not expressed these arguments.Like the great creator, the work advances the writer; the artist precedes the thinker. —but art has lost nothing in it.In power of effect, in concentration of enthusiasm, in vividness and wildness of vision, in fullness and maturity of form, no Tolstoy can compare with the Kreutzer Sonata. Now I have to explain its title. —In fact, it is inaccurate.This is misleading about the content of the work.Music has only one side effect here.Cancel the Sonata and nothing will change.Tolstoy was wrong to conflate the two obsessions with which he was obsessed—that both music and love had corrupting powers.The magic of music is to be dealt with in another book; Tolstoy gives it the place here, not to confirm the dangers he judges.I am compelled to say a few words on this subject: because I do not believe that anyone fully understands Tolstoy's attitude to music. It is absolutely impossible to say that he does not love music.A man is only afraid of what he loves.We should be able to remember the place played by musical memories in "Childhood", especially in "Conjugal Happiness", in which the circle of love described, from spring to autumn, is entirely in Beethoven's Quasiunafantasia. Sonata A is performed in various stages commonly known as Moonlight Song.We can also remember Nekhludoff's meeting with little Petya at the end of "A Gentleman's Morning". —I will not mention here that "Albert" (1857) tells the story of a genius musician;See the passage in "Youth" in which he learns the piano. ——"The piano is a tool for me to fascinate the ladies with sentimentality." The music Tolstoy learned may not be sublime, but the music did move him to tears; 1876-77 age.And at certain times in his life, he indulged in music.In 1858, he organized a concert in Moscow, which became the predecessor of the Moscow Conservatory.His sister Biels wrote in "Reminiscences of Tolstoy": "He is very fond of music. He can play the piano and loves the classical masters. He often plays the piano for a while before working. Probably He seeks inspiration in music. He always accompanies his youngest sister because he likes her voice. I noticed that he was moved by the music, his face was slightly pale, and he had an indiscernible grotesque , seems to show his terror." This is indeed the horror after contact with this nameless force that shakes the depths of his heart!In this world of music, it seems that his will, reason, and all the realities of life are dissolved.We need only read the passage in which Nikolai Rostov returns home in despair after losing his bet.He heard his sister Natasha singing.He forgot everything: he waited impatiently for the note that should continue, and for a moment there was only that three-time rhythm in the world: Ohmiocrude leaffetto! ! —"How boring our lives are," thought he, "disasters, money, hate, honor, all this is empty.... See, this is real! He, without knowing it, began to sing, and in order to enhance the B sound, he sang to her third interval. —"Oh! my lord, how beautiful it is! Did I give it to her? What happiness!" he thought; and the trembling of the thirds awakened all the purity and goodness in him.Next to this superhuman feeling, what did his lost money and his promised words count for? In fact, Nicholas neither kills nor steals, and music is only a temporary excitement for him; but Natasha has reached the peak of complete loss.It was after a night at the opera, "in this strange, frenzied world of art, far removed from reality, where all good and evil, seduction and reason mingled," she heard Anatole Kuragin confides and agrees to take her away. The older Tolstoy grew, the more afraid he became of music.But he never stopped his love for music.One of his old friends, the musician Gordon Weiser, spent the summer in Yasnaya in 1910.During Tolstoy's last illness, he came to make music for him almost every day.Auerbach, who had met him in Dresden in 1860 and had an influence on him, must have increased his musical defenses. "He speaks of music as if it were a decadent pleasure. According to him, music is a vortex that tends to degenerate." April 21, 1861. Camille Beleg asked: Among so many decadent musicians, why choose the purest and most chaste Beethoven?See Camille Beleg: Tolstoy and Music. (Journal of the Gauls, January 4, 1911)——Because he is the strongest.Tolstoy loved him once and he always loved him.His most distant childhood memories are associated with the "Pathetic Sonata"; in the finale, when Nekhludoff heard the Andante of the symphony in C minor, he could not help crying; "He pitied himself, "—However, in "On Art", Tolstoy expressed his fierce resentment when he talked about "the morbid works of the deaf Beethoven"; not only the later works of Beethoven.Even some of the early works, which he considers "artistic," Tolstoy denounces "their artificial form." ——In a letter to Tchaikovsky he also contrasts Mozart with Haydn and "the calculated and artificial forms of Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, etc."Already in 1876 he had endeavored to "destroy Beethoven and cast doubt on his genius," infuriating Tchaikovsky and cooling his admiration for Tolstoy . "Kreutzer Sonata" makes us see the unfairness of this enthusiasm thoroughly.What does Tolstoy blame Beethoven for?His strength is strong.Like Goethe, he listened to the symphony in C minor, was shocked by it, and reacted angrily to this authoritative master. "This music," said Tolstoy, "transferred me at once to the same mental state as the man who wrote it...Music should be a national business, as it is in China. We cannot allow anyone who has this Magical and terrible functions.... These things, (the first presto in the Kreutzer Sonata,) can only be allowed to play on certain important occasions..." But after this reaction, We see him succumbed to Beethoven's power, and he admits that it inspires nobility and purity!While listening to this piece, Posdenishev fell into an indeterminate and unanalyzable situation, the awareness of which made him happy; jealousy vanished.Women are similarly influenced.She had "a majestic expression" as she played, followed by "a faint, loving, happy smile when she was done"... What corruption in all this Where--only the spirit is imprisoned, subject to the nameless power of the voice.The spirit can literally be destroyed by it, if it chooses. This is true; but Tolstoy forgot one thing: most people who listen to music or play music are devoid of life or very vulgar in life.Music does not become dangerous to the generally insensitive.The generally insensate masses are by no means agitated by the morbid sensibilities expressed in the opera house.People who have to live a prosperous life, like Tolstoy, have the possibility of suffering for this emotion.According to Paul Boyer: "Tolstoy had Chopin played for him. At the end of the Fourth Ballade his eyes were saturated with tears."—"Ah! Beast!" he cried.He stood up suddenly and left. (Paris Le Times, November 2, 1902)—The fact is that, as unfair as he was to Beethoven, Tolstoy felt more deeply about Beethoven than most of today's Beethoven admirers. Fern's music.At least he is acquainted with the frenzied enthusiasm and wild violence that fill the works of "Old Deaf Man", which is at a loss for today's performers and orchestras.Beethoven was probably more satisfied with his hatred than with the love of others.