FEMININE TYPES IN TOLSTOY'S WORKS

The greatest Russian writers have always striven to create the national Russian feminine type, and the result of that endeavor was what is known in Russian literature as the "Russian woman." The Poet Nekrassov succeeded in his "Russian Women" to give a striking picture of that tpye. Goncharov, one of the best writers of Russia but who is little known outside of his country, gave life and color to that type in Olga. But it was the happy lot of Turgenev to discover the most hidden spiritual treasures of the Russian girl of that type and to immortalize it. And thanks to him the type is familiar to and admired by every reader of Russian literature. The Russian woman as portrayed by this writer is a restless creature with an eternal yearning for the ideal, taking deeply to heart the fate of humanity, craving for great deeds, courageously striding over a thorny path, resignedly and perhaps triumphantly carrying the crown of the martyr, and the great part the Russian girl played in the revolution of later days has proven that the familiar type of the Russian woman in fiction was not the creation of a heated imagination, but taken from real life.

Tolstoy, however, is the exception among the great Russian writers. In his works the familiar type of the Russian woman is nearly absent. Until his very latest work in fiction, "Resurrection," there was not even the slightest hint of its existence. And even in "Resurrection" the reader is allowed to make but a very slight acquaintance with it. Tolstoy devoted his whole genius to the portraying of das ewig Weibliche in his feminine characters. His ideal woman characters bask in the virtues of home life, are devoted wives and mothers and have at heart mainly the happiness of their immediate family. They do not emit brilliant rays of light but radiate a pleasant warmth and diffuse a soft, luminous shimmer like the stars.

Tolstoy has the rare gift of penetrating into the inmost recesses of the soul; the human heart lies bare before him and he reads it like an open book, and he portrays the sweet melancholy of love's awakening, the magic change of sombre colors into the brightest hues at the touch of love, the concen

trated gaze and the gentle meaning smile of a woman who feels the throb of new life under her heart, the blissful state of motherhood, the misery of the deceived wife, the bitter pangs of jealousy, the wonderful transition from the dreamland of girlhood into the world of reality, and many other moods, feelings, passions which are not only inherent in the Rusisan woman but. in the womanhood of every land. Natasha (War and Peace), Masha (Family Happiness), Liza (Two Generations), are daughters of Eve the world over. Any girl or woman, no matter where she may dwell or to what station in life she may belong, will readily recognize in them her sisters. No reader ever finds it difficult to grasp Tolstoy's characters on account of their belonging to a foreign race, a foreign land or a different walk of life. No reader ever stops to think: "How strange that I never felt anything like it myself!" On the contrary, one often exclaims wonderingly: "Great God, I could almost believe that the writer looked into my own heart and read my own thoughts!"

There is a great variety of feminine characters in Tolstoy's works. There is the peasant woman, with plenty of "horsesense," practical, cunning and loyal; there is the wild child of nature, a plant of the Caucasus; there is the well-bred, educated society woman. In fact, there is hardly a station in life the gentle sex of which does not come under his observation, with the exception of that class of society which is next to the peasantry and which consists of artisans, small tradesmen and the like, a class which is almost wholly absent from his works. But in the main Tolstoy knows to perfection and likes to dwell on the society girl and society woman.

There are bad women and good women in Tolstoy's works. It is most surprising that a writer with such a great talent as his, with such deep insight into the human heart and necessarily with an all-forgiving love for human frailties, cannot rise to the point of love and forgiveness towards his erring women, and it is still more surprising when it is taken into consideration that the great writer of the Russian soil, as Tolstoy is called, is at the same time also the great teacher of love and forgiveness to everybody. As a matter of fact, Tolstoy not only has no love

for erring women but is filled with an unconquerable hatred towards them. His hatred is so great that he is almost unable to draw a picture — a human picture of them. With a few exceptions, nearly all his erring women are not living creatures but mummies. Ellen (War and Peace) is one instance. As the wife of Pierre who is the main hero of the novel, Ellen has to be one of the primary characters. Indeed, the author now and then turns to her, but seldom does he allow her to speak for herself and show her feelings. The reader is under so strong an impression that she is not only a heartless, soulless creature, but also speechless, that he is disagreeably surprised to see her entering her husband's room on the morrow after his duel with Dolokhov and address him: "There is another hero for you!"’ The surprise is the same as if a dummy would all of a sudden begin to speak. And this is the impression one forms of a woman who is conducting one of the greatest salons in St. Petersburg and has the reputation of a clever society leader, according to Tolstoy himself. The same thing may be said of Betsy and her circle (Anna Karenina) and it is only on account of the hatred which the author felt towards them that they appear so colorless and inanimate. The same author who could find a human vein in Dolokhov, the heartless rake and cruel bully, and paint him in such warm colors that the reader cannot help admiring his heroic recklessness, shows no such love or sympathy for the woman who has strayed from the path of righteousness.

True, there is Anna (Anna Karenina) who, notwithstanding the fact of her being a faithless wife, came out one of the most lovable sympathetic characters in the whole novel - but this happened against the intention and will of the author The motto of the novel, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," plainly shows what was the tendency of the author. It was to serve as a kind of warning Tolstoy the moralist intended to give to woman. But it was all right for Tolstoy the artist to obey the dictates of Tolstoy the moralist and deny pity and sympathy to his erring woman as long as he kept her at a respectful distance with an averted gaze, but as soon as the artist had to look at her at close range and watch intently the effects that her transgressions had upon her and the partner of her sin, he was so carried away by

his work that he wholly forgot his mission and instead of impressing the reader with vivid pictures of well-deserved punishment for committed wickedness, he wrung from him tears of sympathy and commiseration for the fate of an unhappy woman who was mercilessly crushed by a hypocritical society only because she was swayed by a strong, genuine passion and was too honest to hide it and to play before the world the virtuous matron, and of an unhappy mother who being attached with the strongest ties of love to her little son, is compelled to part with him because she can no longer bear her cold pedantic husband. But this is not the first time that the muses played tricks upon great authors. The very same fate on a lower scale also overtook Alphonse Daudet when he undertook to write "Sappho," intending it as a warning to his son.

There is one fallen woman among Tolstoy's heroines to whom he showed the greatest sympathy and love, that is Maslova (Resurrection), but there is an especial reason for this -- Maslova is the victim of one belonging to the higher class, she was more sinned against than she had sinned, and besides, she was a child of the people and the author could forgive her much that he could not forgive a woman of his own class.

The other feminine characters may be roughly divided into four classes. On the very lowest plane there are such as Viera Rostova. She is one of those characters that can boast: "Idid-not-do-any-wrong-to-anybody," but at the same time one would in vain look for any good they ever did to anyone. Calm, punctual, prudent, cold as Viera was, she could not understand why her relatives and acquaintances did not appreciate her good qualities. As a matter of fact, her nearest relations such as her mother, sister, and brothers had no liking for her. The remarks she made were clever and went straight home, but as they were lacking in love and good-heartedness, they only worked on the nerves of those present and augmented their enmity for her. She would not touch a thing which belonged to her sister and brothers because it was theirs and heaven forbid that they touch a thing of hers on the same principle that it was hers. The younger children always felt stiff and uncomfortable in the presence of this, their eldest sister and were

often brought to the verge of tears because of her hardness and lack of sympathy with their childish pranks and follies. The blessing of a warm, tender love was denied her cold nature; she married an insignificant little-hearted, narrow-minded egotist and was happy in her married life - but no one feels any better or happier on account of it because she does not feel any interest in the happiness or unhappiness of others.

A higher type is Sonia (War and Peace). She is beautiful, devoted, constant in her love and knows how to sacrifice her happiness for the sake of her beloved one. When still in her teens she falls in love with her cousin, Nikolai Rostov, and remains true to this attachment through her whole life; even when he marries another girl she still remains devoted to him, his wife and his children, just as if nothing had happened between them. It is significant that Tolstoy does not appreciate her sterling qualities and lets one of his main heroines define her as a "sterile flower." But there is no prejudice in the heart of the great writer against poor Sonia, his estimate of her is in accordance with his viewpoint of the ideal woman. The greatest virtue of a girl is to love and to be loved, but love is not the end in itself, it is only a means to the highest mission of a woman, to bear and rear children. When a woman is not fulfilling this mission, she fails in her highest duty to humanity. This idea can be clearly traced through all his works. The woman he seems to dislike most of all of his feminine characters is Ellen (War and Peace), and we are told that she did not want to have children. Even her early death was the result of the crime against this, her mission. Betsy, Liza Merkalova, Sappho (Anna Karenina) are also childless, or at least we don't know whether they are blessed with the happiness of motherhood or not. Viera Rostova, who is not liked by the author, vanishes from the novel soon after her marriage and the author does not again return to her as if afraid to meet then a child and necessarily to give her such a redeeming point. The dry, malignant, spiteful, hypocritical Lydia (Anna Karenina) is also denied the happiness of being a mother. Anna Karenina, contrary to the intention and wish of the author, elicited his sympathy, and pity is awakened in the heart of the reader for Anna in the scene where she