Page:Leo Tolstoy - Father Sergius and Other Stories and Plays - ed. Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright (1911).djvu/17

 Rh tone for those who have the Tolstoy feeling in them.

From the poisoning of Peter, the husband, in the beginning, to the murder of the baby in the middle, and Nikita's arrest at the end, the piece is full of horrors which most people, who do not look at things from Tolstoy's point of view, find it wellnigh impossible to endure. To them the play appears to be one of unmitigated blackness. To Tolstoyans it is not so. The lies, the crimes, the horrors are there, as in real life; but in the play one sees more clearly than in common life the clue to the meaning of it all. When Nikita's conscience begins to be touched; when Mitritch, the old soldier, teaches him not to be afraid of men; and finally, when Akim, the old father, rejoices that his son has confessed, the heavens open and the purpose of life—the preparing for what is yet to come by getting things straight here and now—is revealed, and the effect of the play, instead of being sordid or painful, becomes inspiring.

The play was founded on fact, though what happened in real life was even more gruesome, for in actual fact Nikita's prototype, when on the point of driving off to Akulina's wedding, suddenly seized a large wooden wedge and aimed a tremendous blow at her younger sister; and he