Page:The life of Tolstoy.djvu/119

Rh most cruel and moral license had attained its greatest height, which specially suited Peter. Thus Tolstoy explained Peter’s friendship with the Kurfürst of Saxony, one of the most immoral amongst the crowned heads of that period. Tolstoy explained Peter’s intimacy with Menshikoff, a former street vendor, and Lefort, a Swiss adventurer, by the contempt in which the old nobility held Peter, and amongst whom he could not find a companion in his gay, depraved life. But Tolstoy was most of all revolted by the assassination of the Tsarevitch Alexis.”

At last Tolstoy’s creative powers found a subject worthy of their application. A comparatively small incident set him writing. Reading aloud the beginning of one of Pushkin’s novels: “The guests arrived at the country house,” etc., Tolstoy observed, “That is the way to begin; Pushkin is our master. He at once brings the reader into the middle of action. Others would first describe the guests, the rooms, but Pushkin starts the business directly.” And going to his study, Tolstoy straightway wrote down the first pages of a novel, the subject of which had already been a long time in his mind. The plot was based on the suicide of a young woman who threw herself under the train near the station Yasenky. Tolstoy knew her, and