lETIERS ABOUT WRITING
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you now write me it is impossible to draw any conclusion. Stomach
or intestinal ulcers would have been otherwise indicated; there is no
ulcerous condition present, nothing but bleeding scratches caused by
gallstones passing through and making lacerations. He doesn't have
a cancer, either, which would be immediately reflected in lack of
appetite, general condition and above all in his face. Most likely
Tolstoy is in good health (apart from the stones) and will live another
twenty years or so. His illness frightened me and kept me in a state
of tension. I dread Tolstoy's death. His death would create a vacuum
in my life. To begin with, I have never loved anyone as much as
him; I am an unbeliever, but of all the faiths I consider his the
nearest to my heart and most suited to me. Then again, as long as
there is a Tolstoy in literature it is simple and gratifying to be a
literary figure; even the awareness of not having accomplished any–
thing and not expecting to accomplish anything in the future is not
so terrible, because Tolstoy makes up for all of us. His career is
justification for all the hopes and expectations reposed in literature.
In the third place, Tolstoy stands solid as a rock with his immense
authority, and as long as he remains alive bad taste in literature, all
vulgarity, be it insolent or tearful, all coarse, irascible vanities will
be held at a distance, deep in the shadows. His moral authority alone
is capable of keeping so-called literary moods and trends at a certain
high level. Without him the literary world would be a flock without
a shepherd or a hopeless mess.
To wind up the subject of Tolstoy, I have something to say
about
Resurrection,
which I did not read in fits and starts but all at
one gulp. It is a remarkable work of art. The most uninteresting
section
is
that concerned with the relations of Nekhludov and Ka–
tusha; the most interesting characters are the princes, generals, old
ladies, peasants, prisoners and overseers.
As
I read the scene at the
general's, the commandant of the Peter and Paul Prison, and a spir–
itualist, my heart beat furiously, it w,as so good! And Mme. Kor–
chagina in her armchair, and the peasant, Feodosia's husband! This
peasant calls his old lady a "crafty character." So it is with Tolstoy;
he has a crafty pen. The novel has no end; what there
is
can hardly
be called one. Certainly it is using a theological device when he writes
on and on and then proceeds to resolve the problems raised on the
basis of a Gospel text. It is as arbitrary to use such a solution as
it
