The Awakening — Book 2, Chapter 16

By Leo Tolstoy (1899)

Entry 2101

Public

From: holdoffhunger [id: 1]
(holdoffhunger@gmail.com)

../ggcms/src/templates/revoltlib/view/display_grandchildof_anarchism.php

Untitled Anarchism The Awakening Book 2, Chapter 16

Not Logged In: Login?

0
0
Comments (0)
Permalink
(1828 - 1910)

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.)
• "It is necessary that men should understand things as they are, should call them by their right names, and should know that an army is an instrument for killing, and that the enrollment and management of an army -- the very things which Kings, Emperors, and Presidents occupy themselves with so self-confidently -- is a preparation for murder." (From: "'Thou Shalt Not Kill'," by Leo Tolstoy, August 8,....)
• "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 dissemination of the truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and the same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition of this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign to it, and also opposed it by open violence." (From: "A Letter to a Hindu: The Subjection of India- Its....)


On : of 0 Words

Book 2, Chapter 16

Nekhludoff's first feeling on rising the following morning was that he had committed something abominable the preceding evening.

He began to recall what had happened. There was nothing abominable; he had done nothing wrong. He had only thought that all his present intentions—that of marrying Katiousha, giving the land to the peasants—artificial, unnatural, and that he must continued to live as he had lived before.

He could recall no wrong act, but he remembered what was worse than a wrong act—there were the bad thoughts in which all bad acts have their origin. Bad acts may not be repeated; one may repent of them, while bad thoughts give birth to bad acts.

A bad act only smooths the way to other bad acts, while bad thoughts irresistibly lead toward them.

Recalling his thoughts of the day before, Nekhludoff wondered how he could have believed them. How so novel and difficult might be that which he intended to do, he knew that it was the only life possible to him now, and that, however easy it might be for him to return to his old mode of life, he knew that that was death, not life. This temptation of the day before was similar to that of a man who, after a night's sound sleep, feels like taking his ease on the soft mattress for a while, although he knows that it is time to be up and away on an important affair.


Nekhludoff would have left the same evening but for his promise to Mariette to visit her at the theater. Though he knew that it was wrong to do it, he went there, contrary to the dictates of his own conscience, considering himself bound to keep his word. Besides his wish to see Mariette again, he also wished, as he thought, to measure himself against that world lately so near, but now so strange to him.

"Could I withstand these temptations?" he thought, but not with entire sincerity. "I will try it for the last time."

Attired in a dress-coat, he arrived in the theater where the eternal "Dame aux Camelias" was being played. A French actress was showing in a novel way how consumptive women die.

Nekhludoff was shown to the box occupied by Mariette. In the corridor a liveried servant bowed and opened the door for him.

All the spectators in the circle of boxes—sitting and standing, gray-haired, bald and pomaded heads—were intently following the movements of a slim actress making wry faces and in an unnatural voice reading a monologue. Some one hissed when the door was opened, and two streams of cold and warm air were wafted on Nekhludoff's face.

In the box he found Mariette and a strange lady with a red mantle over her shoulders and high head-dress, and two men—a general, Mariette's husband, a handsome, tall man with a high, artificial, military breast, and a flaxen haired, bald-headed man with shaved chin and solemn side-whiskers. Mariette, graceful, slim, elegant, decolette, with her strong, muscular shoulders sloping down from the neck, at the jointure of which was a darkening little mole, immediately turned around, and, pointing with her fan to a chair behind her, greeted him with a welcome, grateful, and, as it seemed to Nekhludoff, significant smile. Her husband calmly, as was his wont, looked at Nekhludoff and bowed his head. In the glance which he exchanged with his wife, as in everything else, he looked the master, the owner, of a beautiful woman.

There was a thunder of applause when the monologue ended. Mariette rose, and, holding in one hand her rustling silk skirt, walked to the rear of the box and introduced Nekhludoff to her husband. The general incessantly smiled with his eyes, said he was glad, and remained calm and mute.

"I had to leave to-day, but I promised you," said Nekhludoff, turning to Mariette.

"If you don't wish to see me, you will see a remarkable actress," Mariette said, answering the meaning of his words. "Wasn't she great in the last scene?" she turned to her husband.

The general bowed his head.

"That does not affect me," said Nekhludoff. "I have seen so much real misfortune to-day that——"

"Sit down and tell us what you have seen."

The husband listened, and ironically smiled with his eyes.

"I went to see that woman who has been released. She is entirely broken down."

"That is the woman of whom I have spoken to you," Mariette said to her husband.

"Yes; I was very glad that she could be released," he calmly said, nodding his head and smiling ironically, as it seemed to Nekhludoff, under his mustache. "I will go to the smoking-room."

Nekhludoff waited, expecting that Mariette would tell him that something which she said she had to tell him, but instead she only jested and talked of the performance, which, she thought, ought to affect him particularly.

Nekhludoff understood that the only purpose for which she had brought him to the theater was to display her evening toilet with her shoulders and mole, and he was both pleased and disgusted. Now he saw what was under the veil of the charm that at first attracted him. Looking on Mariette, he admired her, but he knew that she was a prevaricator who was living with her career-making husband; that what she had said the other day was untrue, and that she only wished—and neither knew why—to make him love her. And, as has been said, he was both pleased and disgusted. Several times he attempted to leave, took his hat but still remained. But finally, when the general, his thick mustache reeking with tobacco, returned to the box and glanced at Nekhludoff patronizingly disdainful, as if he did not recognize him, Nekhludoff walked out before the door closed behind the general, and, finding his overcoat, left the theater.

On his way home he suddenly noticed before him a tall, well-built, loudly-dressed woman. Every passerby turned to look at her. Nekhludoff walked quicker than the woman, and also involuntarily looked her in the face. Her face, probably rouged, was pretty; her eyes flashed at him, and she smiled. Nekhludoff involuntarily thought of Mariette, for he experienced the same feeling of attraction and disgust which took hold of him in the theater. Passing her hastily, Nekhludoff turned the corner of the street, and, to the surprise of the policeman, began to walk up and down the water-front.

"That one in the theater also smiled that way when I entered," he thought, "and the smile of the former conveyed the same meaning as that of the latter. The only difference between them is that this one speaks openly and plainly, while the other pretends to be exercising higher and refined feelings. But in reality they are alike. This one is at least truthful, while the other is lying." Nekhludoff recalled his relations with the wife of the district commander, and a flood of shameful recollections came upon him. "There is a disgusting bestiality in man," he thought; "but when it is in a primitive state, one looks down upon and despises it, whether he is carried away with or withstands it. But when this same bestiality hides itself under a so-called esthetic, poetic cover, and demands to be worshiped, then, deifying the beast, one gives himself up to it, without distinguishing between the good and the bad. Then it is horrible."

As there was no soothing, rest-giving darkness that night, but instead there was a hazy, cheerless, unnatural light, so even was there no rest-giving darkness—ignorance—for Nekhludoff's soul. Everything was clear. It was plain that all that is considered important and useful is really insignificant and wicked, and that all that splendor and luxury were hiding old crimes, familiar to every one, and not only stalking unpunished, but triumphing and adorned with all the allurements man is capable of conceiving.

Nekhludoff wished to forget it, not to see it, but he could no longer help seeing it. Although he did not see the source of the light which revealed these things to him, as he did not see the source of the light which spread over St. Petersburg, and though this light seemed to him hazy, cheerless and unnatural, he could not help seeing that which the light revealed to him, and he felt at the same time both joy and alarm.

(Source: The Awakening by graf Leo Tolstoy, Translated by Smith, William E., AKA: The Resurrection. Text from Gutenberg.org.)

From : Gutenberg.org

(1828 - 1910)

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.)
• "People who take part in Government, or work under its direction, may deceive themselves or their sympathizers by making a show of struggling; but those against whom they struggle (the Government) know quite well, by the strength of the resistance experienced, that these people are not really pulling, but are only pretending to." (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....)
• "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....)

Chronology

Back to Top
An icon of a book resting on its back.
1899
Book 2, Chapter 16 — Publication.

An icon of a news paper.
February 13, 2017; 7:11:57 PM (UTC)
Added to http://revoltlib.com.

An icon of a red pin for a bulletin board.
January 13, 2022; 2:54:57 PM (UTC)
Updated on http://revoltlib.com.

Comments

Back to Top

Login to Comment

0 Likes
0 Dislikes

No comments so far. You can be the first!

Navigation

Back to Top
<< Last Entry in The Awakening
Current Entry in The Awakening
Book 2, Chapter 16
Next Entry in The Awakening >>
All Nearby Items in The Awakening
Home|About|Contact|Privacy Policy