steals into the house of which she had but a short time before been the mistress, to have a glimpse of her loved little son, a scene of which Turgenev said that he could never write one like it, and which is considered by the best Russian critics as unsurpassed in any literature. The real undoing of Anna begins when the instincts of motherhood are dulled in her by those of the woman who fears that child-bearing will mar her beauty and thereby endanger her love. But this idea appears even more prominently in "Resurrection."

The victim, Maslova, is allowed to become a mother, but the child perished because of the precarious condition of its mother that makes the crime that Nekhludov committed against Maslova even more enormous, as he not only led astray an innocent young girl, but what was more deplorable, he irreparably killed in her a good mother. And this is necessary in order to make comprehensible and natural the awakening of Nekhludov and his willingness to sacrifice himself and all his interests to make amends for the great wrong he had done the woman. It would almost seem natural -- provided of course that the whole run of the story would be natural that it should end in the marriage of Maslova and Nekhludov. But though the whole trend of the story tends to that end, the author bethought himself at the last moment and made Simonson fall in love with Maslova in order that Nekhludov should not have to marry a woman who could not bear him any children. Notwithstanding Tolstoy's great love and sympathy for Maslova, it was against his grain to allow his most beloved hero to wed a sterile woman- even if that woman had become sterile through his fault and thereby rob him of his right of fatherhood. Before his last meeting with Katia Maslova, Nekhludov is made a witness of a scene of a young mother whose whole life, happiness and pride, is centered in her two little babies, a scene which awakens in Nekhludov a feeling of envy because of the realization that his marriage with Maslova would be deprived of such happiness.

The most beloved feminine characters in Tolstoy's works are Natasha (War and Peace), Kitty (Anna Karenina), Masha (Family Happiness), Liza (Two Generations.) The most

elaborate character of them all is Natasha. The author is never tired of describing her varied moods, of dwelling upon her dreams, hopes, desires, affections, of watching over her every fleeting thought, of counting every pulsation of her heart, the others are there only to emphasize the details of her portrait. They are all pure, innocent girls, full of love and energy of life, and all their natural gifts and talents are instinctively employed to win the love of their mate and fulfil their mission of motherhood.

In this respect Tolstoy shares the opinion of William Makepeace Thackeray. The author of "Vanity Fair" would see in the yearning for some ideal in a woman only a natural desire for getting a husband and having children. Tolstoy fully shares this viewpoint, and if there is any difference between them, it is only in the matter of taste. The ideal woman of Thackeray is Amelia, "a plump girl with cheeks a great deal too round and red, a face flushed with rosy health, a pair of eyes which sparkle with the brightest and honestest good humor, except when they fill with tears and that happened a great deal too often, as the silly thing would cry over a dead canary bird." The ideal woman of Tolstoy is not by far a plump, complaisant female. His ideal is Natasha, a slim, black-eyed slip of a girl with a rather large mouth, a lively, energetic, passionate girl, brimful of life, and the joy and happiness that radiate from her whole being infect everybody who comes into her presence. The cold, egotistic Boris whose only aim is to make a career pauses before proposing to a rich heiress and lingers under the spell of Natasha's charm though he knows that her parents are on the verge of ruin. The valiant soldier Denissov who bravely stood his ground on the battle field under the fire of the enemy could not withstand the witching look of Natasha's eyes and made a fool of himself by proposing to her before she even reached the age of fifteen. The stern, scornful, disappointed, pessimistic Prince Andrei Bolkonsky discovers after a short acquaintance with Natasha that life could after all be very pleasant and begins to see the world in a new light. The Lovelace, Anatole, is ready to brave every danger to elope with her. The Hamletic, absentminded Pierre, the main hero of "War and Peace" falls in love

with her and, being a married man, he tries to avoid her presence, but after the death of Ellen, his wife, he marries her. What was the reason for this wholesale conquest? She was not a great beauty as we have already said. Was she endowed with. an extraordinary mind? When Pierre was asked by Princess Mary what sort of a girl Natasha was, he replied:

"I do not know how to answer your question. I really do not know what kind of a girl she is. I cannot for the life of me analyze her. She is bewitching. And why, I do not know, and that is all that can be said about her."

"Is she sensible?"

"I think not, but perhaps yes. She does not condescend to be sensible. But no, she is bewitching and that is all."

The same characteristic can be made of Kitty and of Masha and of all the other ideal women of Tolstoy. Of Liza (Two Generations) the author says himself: "The best things always come unexpectedly. In the villages they seldom give themselves much pain in bringing up their children, and therefore in most cases they turn out most excellently. This is how it happened with Liza: Her foolish mother did not give her any education; she did not teach her any music, nor the so necessary French language, but taught her to read and write and arithmetic, sent her to walk and gather mushrooms and berries, and unexpectedly Liza developed into an active, good-natured, gay, independent, pure and deeply-religious woman."

Natasha considers that the world, if not purposely created for her, at least is there to furnish her with as much pleasure and happiness as possible. The dark side of life she does not know and does not want to know, but when the misery of others comes under her observation she cannot understand how, under such circumstances, one can have his own interest at heart and not do everything possible to alleviate the suffering of others. Such is her action on the eve of the invasion of Moscow by the French Army, when she hotly upbraids her mother for refusing their wagons to wounded soldiers and orders the valuables with which they are loaded thrown out of them to make room for the wounded, thereby abandoning their possessions for the spoil of the invading army.

Tolstoy has so much trust in his ideal that he even allows Natasha to fall in love with Boris Kuragin at the age of thirteen and to become engaged to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky at seventeen, to plan an elopement with the rake Anatole and to marry in the end Pierre Besukhov. Such flighty behavior and inconstancy would tend to show her in the light of a frivolous girl and one would think that it would not be very safe for a man to entrust his honor into the hands of such a butterfly. But nothing can be farther from truth than such an inference. It is the yearning after the ideal, as Thackeray puts it in his prosaic way, that makes such a strong character as Natasha's inconstant in her girlhood. As wives they are unequalled for devotion to their homes and are the best of mothers; the inexhaustible love of their rich natures is lavished upon their beloved husbands and children. The same inconstancy is also noticed in Kitty (Anna Karenina) who first falls in love with Levin, then with Vronsky. When jilted by the latter her old love for Levin returns and she makes the best of wives and the best of mothers for his children. Masha (Family Happiness), who had not met any other young men before her marriage apart from her fiancé, shows a tendency to flirtations after she has become a mother but it is only a passing weakness. Mariana (Cossacks), the wild child of the Caucasus, who is deeply in love with the illiterate but valiant horse-thief Lukashka, encourages the advances of the rich officer Olenin, but when Lukashka is mortally wounded Olenin finds that all his wealth cannot buy her love and that she will never consent to marry him.

But if Natasha, Kitty, Masha, Liza are his ideals and Mariana is the subject of his admiration, there is another tpye in his works, a type which he regards with a feeling short of worship, and, in fact, it is the best type of humanity. This is Princess Mary Bolonsky (War and Peace). She is one of those rare women from whom saints are recruited. Her inquisitive mind is searching for the eternal truth and finds it in religion. Her beloved dream is to become a pilgrim to holy places and exchange the life of wealth and plenty for one of want and suffering in order to be more imbued with the love of God. Her mind is so chaste, her soul so pure that she cannot imagine other people

doing any wrong even when it is committed before her very eyes. When Anatole, who had been courting her, is accidentally encountered by her in the garden with her French governess clasped in his arms, the feeling which that scene awakens in her heart is one of great pity for the poor French girl whom she believes to have fallen in love with him and she thinks it her duty to help her with a dowery. And when the wrong-doings of others are so obvious that there can be no other explanation for them she does not find any blame for them in her heart as she considers them only as frail instruments in the hands of God.

But even such an ideal specimen of femininity would be blighted if she would not fulfill her highest mission — i. e., get married and become a mother. Though resigned to the fate of an old maid, because she was very homely, she now and then returns to the dream of family happiness, and it is most significant that at the death-bed of her father the first thought that strikes her is that now she will be free to marry, and the latent instinct of motherhood stifles all other thoughts.

According to Tolstoy a rich, spiritual life is not sufficient for a woman to place her on the height of her calling-she must also have a husband and have children. And because of this idea about women, Tolstoy could not look for his positive feminine characters in that sphere which inspired Turgenev and the other best Russian writers. He had no sympathy nor love in his heart for the typical Russian girl who neglected her greatest mission for an activity for which she was not created. Tolstoy is not wholly satisfied with das ewig Weibliche in woman; what appeals most to him and is of the greatest, vital consequence is the mother in the woman. In speaking of Levin (Anna Karenina) who is the personification of himself, he says: "He [Levin] not only could not imagine love for a woman outside of marriage, but he pictured to himself first the family and then only the woman who would give him that family."

BERNARD GORIN.

New York City.