Page:Leo Tolstoy - Father Sergius and Other Stories and Plays - ed. Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright (1911).djvu/22

 16 however, it took hold of him, and grew and grew till it became a full-fledged four-act comedy with over thirty speaking characters in it, and with the didactic purpose overwhelmed by the fun, the bustle, and the stage-craft of it.

After many rehearsals this play, Fruits of Culture, was performed at Yásnaya Polyána on December 30, 1889, with immense success. Tanya, Tolstoy's eldest daughter, took the part of her namesake in the play very successfully, and Mary, his second daughter, played the cook most admirably.

Tolstoy himself heartily enjoyed the performance. One greatly respects his thirty-year struggle to live a simple life, consuming little and giving much; but one does not love him the less for the occasional lapses into whole-hearted gaiety which light up the record of his life, and show us how very human was this giant. Yásnaya Polyána on New Year's Eve 1889, crammed with guests all in the highest spirits, the large upstairs room full of spectators laughing till their sides ached at Tolstoy's comedy, is a scene those who would understand Tolstoy should by no means forget or despise. Yet even then the other side of his nature, which never let him rest, caused him to note in his Diary: "I am ashamed of all this expense in the midst of poverty."

The whole company threw themselves into the