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Untitled Anarchism
The Invaders, and Other Stories
Part 2, Chapter 7
Father of Christian Anarchism
: In 1861, during the second of his European tours, Tolstoy met with Proudhon, with whom he exchanged ideas. Inspired by the encounter, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana to found thirteen schools that were the first attempt to implement a practical model of libertarian education. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "The Government and all those of the upper classes near the Government who live by other people's work, need some means of dominating the workers, and find this means in the control of the army. Defense against foreign enemies is only an excuse. The German Government frightens its subjects about the Russians and the French; the French Government, frightens its people about the Germans; the Russian Government frightens its people about the French and the Germans; and that is the way with all Governments. But neither Germans nor Russians nor Frenchmen desire to fight their neighbors or other people; but, living in peace, they dread war more than anything else in the world." (From: "Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer," by Leo Tol....)
• "It usually happens that when an idea which has been useful and even necessary in the past becomes superfluous, that idea, after a more or less prolonged struggle, yields its place to a new idea which was till then an ideal, but which thus becomes a present idea." (From: "Patriotism and Government," by Leo Tolstoy, May 1....)
• "You are surprised that soldiers are taught that it is right to kill people in certain cases and in war, while in the books admitted to be holy by those who so teach, there is nothing like such a permission..." (From: "Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer," by Leo Tol....)
Part 2, Chapter 7
"If you please: all ready!" shouted Alyoshka from the front sledge.
The storm was so violent that only by violent exertion, leaning far forward and holding down the folds of my cloak with both hands, was I able to make my way through the whirling snow, drifting before the wind under my very feet, over the short distance between me and the sledge. My former driver was still on his knees in the middle of the empty sledge; but when he saw me going he took off his big cap, the wind angrily tossing up his hair, and asked me for a fee. Apparently he did not expect me to give it to him, because my refusal did not affront him in the least. He even thanked me, waved his cap, and said, "Well, good luck to you, sir!"[17] and picking up the reins, and clucking to the horses, turned from us.
Immediately Ignashka straightened his back, and shouted to his horses. Again the sound of crunching hoofs, voices, bells, took the place of the howling wind which was chiefly audible when we stood still. For a quarter of an hour after my transfer I did not sleep, and I diverted my mind by contemplating the form of my new driver and horses. Ignashka was youthful in appearance, was constantly jumping up, cracking his whip over the horses, shouting out, changing from one leg to the other, and leaning * forward to fix the breeching for the shaft-horse, which was always slipping to one side. The man was not tall in stature, but well built as it seemed. Over his unlined sheepskin coat[18] he wore an ungirdled cloak, the collar of which was turned back, leaving his neck perfectly bare; his boots were of leather, not felt; and he wore a small cap which he constantly took off and straightened. In all his motions was manifest not only energy, but much more, as it seemed to me, the desire to keep his energy alive. Moreover, the farther we went, the more frequently he settled himself on his seat, changed the position of his legs, and addressed himself to Alyoshka and me: it seemed to me that he was afraid of losing his spirits. And there was good reason: though the horses were excellent, the road at each step grew heavier and heavier, and it was noticeable that the horses' strength was flagging. It was already necessary to use the whip; and the shaft-horse, a good big, shaggy animal, stumbled once or twice, though immediately, as if frightened, it sprang forward and tossed up its shaggy head almost to the bell itself. The right off-horse, which I could not help watching, had a long leather breeching adorned with tassels, slipping and sliding to the left, and kept dropping the traces, and required the whip; but, being naturally a good and even zealous horse, seemed to be vexed at his own weakness, and angrily tossed his head, as if asking to be driven. Indeed, it was terrible to see how, as the storm and cold increased, the horses grew weak, the road became worse; and we really did not know where we were, or where we were going, whether to a station or to any shelter whatsoever. And strange and* ridiculous it was to hear the bells jingling so merrily and carelessly, and Ignatka shouting so energetically and delightfully as though it were a sunny Christmas noon, and we were hurrying to a festival along the village street; and stranger than all it was to think that we were always riding and riding rapidly away from the place where we had been.
Ignat began to sing some song in a horrible falsetto, but so loud and with such stops, during which he whistled, that it was weird to listen to, and made one melancholy.
"Hey-y-y! Why are you splitting your throat, Ignat? Hold on a bit!" said the voice of the mentor.
"What?"
"Hold o-o-o-o-n!"
Ignat reined up. Again silence only broken by the wailing and whistling of the wind, while the snow began to pile up, rustling on the sledge. The mentor drove up to us.
"Well, what is it?"
"Say![19] where are you going?"
"Who knows?"
"Are your feet frozen, that you stamp so?"
"They're frozen off."
"Well, you ought to go this way. The way you were going means starvation,—not even a Kalmuck there. Get out, and it will warm your legs."
"All right. Hold the horses—there."
And Ignat stumped off in the direction indicated.
"Have to keep looking all the time, have to get out and hunt; then you find the way. But this way's a crazy way to go," said the mentor. "See how tired the horses are."
*
All the time that Ignat was gone, and it was so long that I actually began to be afraid that he had lost his way, the mentor kept talking to me in a self-confident, easy tone, telling me how it was necessary to behave in a snowstorm; how much better it was to unhitch one of the horses, and let her go as God Almighty should direct; how sometimes you can see the stars occasionally; and how, if he had taken the front place, we should have been at the station long before.
"Well, how is it?" he asked, as Ignat came back, plowing with difficulty knee-deep in snow.
"Not so bad. I found a Kalmuck camp," replied the driver, out of breath. "Still I don't know where we are. It must be that we have been going toward Prolgovsky forest. We must turn to the left."
"Why worry? It must be the camp just behind our station," replied the mentor.
"I tell you it isn't."
"Well, I've seen it, and so I know. If it isn't that, then it's Tamuishevskoé. You must turn to the right; and soon we'll be on the big bridge,—eight versts."
"Say what you will, 'tain't so. I have seen it," said Ignat angrily.
"Eh! what's that? I am a yamshchík as much as you are."
"Fine yamshchík! you go ahead, then."
"Why should I go ahead? But I know."
Ignat was evidently angry. Without replying, he climbed to his seat, and drove on.
"You see how cold one's feet get. No way to warm them," said he to Alyoshka, pounding his feet more and more frequently, and brushing and shaking off the snow which had got into his boot-legs.
I felt an uncontrollable desire to sleep.
[17] Nu, daï Bog vam, bárin.
Father of Christian Anarchism
: In 1861, during the second of his European tours, Tolstoy met with Proudhon, with whom he exchanged ideas. Inspired by the encounter, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana to found thirteen schools that were the first attempt to implement a practical model of libertarian education. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "There are people (we ourselves are such) who realize that our Government is very bad, and who struggle against it." (From: "A Letter to Russian Liberals," by Leo Tolstoy, Au....)
• "The Government and all those of the upper classes near the Government who live by other people's work, need some means of dominating the workers, and find this means in the control of the army. Defense against foreign enemies is only an excuse. The German Government frightens its subjects about the Russians and the French; the French Government, frightens its people about the Germans; the Russian Government frightens its people about the French and the Germans; and that is the way with all Governments. But neither Germans nor Russians nor Frenchmen desire to fight their neighbors or other people; but, living in peace, they dread war more than anything else in the world." (From: "Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer," by Leo Tol....)
• "It usually happens that when an idea which has been useful and even necessary in the past becomes superfluous, that idea, after a more or less prolonged struggle, yields its place to a new idea which was till then an ideal, but which thus becomes a present idea." (From: "Patriotism and Government," by Leo Tolstoy, May 1....)
Nathan Haskell Dole (August 31, 1852 – May 9, 1935) was an American editor, translator, and author. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover, and graduated from Harvard University in 1874. He was a writer and journalist in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. He translated many works of Leo Tolstoy, and books of other Russians; novels of the Spaniard Armando Palacio Valdés (1886–90); a variety of works from the French and Italian. Nathan Haskell Dole was born August 31, 1852, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He was the second son of his father Reverend Nathan Dole (1811–1855) and mother Caroline (Fletcher) Dole. Dole grew up in the Fletcher homestead, a strict Puritan home, in Norridgewock, Maine, where his grandmother lived and where his mother moved with her two boys after his father died of tuberculosis. Sophie May wrote her Prudy Books in Norridgewock, which probably showed the sort of life Nathan and his older brother Charles Fletcher Dole (1845... (From: Wikipedia.org.)
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