Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/25

Biography were Germans. Finally, he attached himself to the Faculty of Oriental Tongues, one of the special features of the University of Kazan, but despite the extra aid of private instruction, was duly plucked at his examination. Finally, in 1847, he quitted Kazan and returned to the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana, where he resided for the next four years.

Even now young Tolstoi was painfully impressed by the wretched condition of the Russian muzhik, and anxious to ameliorate his lot. "Was it not my sacred and obvious duty," he cries, "to have a care for these 700 men, for whom I was responsible to God? "His earlier efforts in this direction, however, were defeated by the invincible laziness of the peasants and his own inexperience. It was about this time, moreover, that his humanitarian theories received a powerful impetus from a diligent study of Rousseau.

In 1851, Tolstoi received fresh impressions from a visit to the Caucasus with his brother Nicholas. After sailing down the Volga through the country of the Calmucks, who then were still fire-worshippers, they settled down on the left bank of the Terek, not far from Kizlyar, in the midst of a simple unaffected people, spending most of their time in shooting pheasants, hunting wild boars, and wandering through fen and forest. The beauty and variety of the Caucasian scenery, where, in a few hours, one passes from the realm of eagles and snow-storms to emerald-green valleys where the dense oak forests xvii.