Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/331

Rh for this, for in the writing of this chapter I could not refrain from making suggestions to him, and from telling it as if I were writing it.

If there is any error in the introduction of persons and dwellings into the description, I am the only person to blame. If I had left him alone, then I am convinced he would have written the same thing in the tenor of the action, instinctively with greater artistic skill, without borrowing anything from us, without any mannerisms of description logically disposed: first the description of the principal actors—even their biographies, then the description of the scene and environment, and then the action taking place.

And, strangely enough, all these descriptions, sometimes covering dozens of pages, make the reader less acquainted with the actors than a single carelessly introduced artistic stroke at the beginning of the action, when the characters have not as yet been described. Thus in this first chapter a single phrase spoken by Gordyeï: "This is just what I need," when he, waving his hand, makes his mind up to serve his time as a soldier, and only asks the assembly not to abandon his son—this phrase makes the reader better acquainted with the character than my manifold and obtrusive description of his dress, his figure, and his habit of frequenting the village kabak! In exactly the same way far more impression is produced by the old woman who is always scolding her son, when at the time of her tribulation she is talking with her sister-in-law:—

"You'll smart for it, Matriona! What is to be done? Evidently it's God's will. You see you are young still. Maybe God will bring you also to see. But I am so full of years now—I am always ailing. … I fear I am going to die!"

In the second chapter my influence in the way of insipidity and depravation is still to be seen, but again profoundly artistic touches in the description of the paintings and the boy's death redeem the whole. I suggested that the boy should have slender legs; I suggested the sentimental detail of the Uncle Nefeda, the grave