Abroad with the Jimmies Part 19

In all Russian houses, as, doubtless, everybody knows, the first floor is given up to an _antechambre_, where guests remove their wraps and goloshes, and behind this room are the kitchen and servants' quarters.

All the living-rooms of the family are generally on the floor above.

Having once entered this _antechambre_, my Bob Acres courage began to ooze.

"Now, I am not going to be rude," I said. "We'll just pretend to be taking off our wraps until we find whether we can be received. I don't mind forcing myself on a servant, but I do object to inconveniencing the master of the house.

"You're weakening," said Jimmie, derisively. "You're scared!"

"I am not," I declared, indignantly. "I am only trying to be polite, and it's a hard pull, I can tell you, when I want anything as much as I want to see Tolstoy. If he won't see us after he reads that letter, I can at least go away knowing that I put forth my best efforts to see him, but if I had taken a servant's refusal, I should feel myself a coward."

I looked anxiously at my friends for approval. Jimmie and the consul looked dubious, but Bee and Mrs. Jimmie patted me on the back and said I had done just right.

While we were engaged in this conversation, and while the man was still up-stairs, the door from the kitchen burst open, and in came a handsome young fellow of about eighteen, whistling. Now my brother whistles and slams doors just like this young Russian. So my understanding of boys made me feel friendly with this one at once. Seeing us, he stopped and bowed politely.

"Good morning," I said, cheerfully. "We are Americans, and we have travelled five thousand miles for the purpose of seeing Count Tolstoy, and when we got here this morning the servant wouldn't even let us in until I made him, and we are waiting to see if the count will receive us."

"Why, I am just sure papa will see you," said the boy in perfect English. "How disgusting of Dmitri. He is a blockhead, that Dmitri. I shall tell mamma how he treated you. The idea of leaving you standing down here while he took your cards up."

"It is partly our fault," I said, defending Dmitri. "We sent him up to ask."

"Nevertheless, he should have had you wait in the salon. Dmitri is a fool."

"His manner wasn't very cordial," I admitted, as we followed him up-stairs and into a large well-furnished, but rather plain, room containing no ornaments.

"But as I had a letter from the amba.s.sador," I went on, "I felt that I must at least present it."

The boy turned back, as he started to leave the room, and said:

"Oh! From Mr. White? Your amba.s.sador wrote about you, and also some friends of ours from Petersburg. Papa has been expecting you this long time. He would have been so annoyed if he had failed to see you. I'll tell him how badly Dmitri treated you. What must you think of the Russians?"

He said all this hurrying to the door to find his father. We sat down and regarded each other in silence. Jimmie and the consul looked into their hats with a somewhat sheepish countenance. Bee cleared her throat with pleasure, and Mrs. Jimmie carefully a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of unstudied grace, smoothing her silk dress over her knee with her gloved hand, and involuntarily looking at her glove the way we do in America.

Then the door opened and Count Tolstoy came in.

To begin with, he speaks perfect English, and his cordial welcome, beginning as he entered the door, continued while he traversed the length of the long room, holding out both hands to me, in one of which was my letter from the amba.s.sador. He examined our party with as much curiosity and interest as we studied him. He wore the ordinary peasant's costume. His blue blouse and white under-garment, which showed around the neck, had brown stains on it which might be from either coffee or tobacco. His eyes were set widely apart and were benignant and kind in expression. His brow was benevolent, and counteracted the lower part of his face, which in itself would be pugnacious. His nose was short, broad, and thick. His jaw betrayed the determination of the bulldog. The combination made an exceedingly interesting study. His coa.r.s.e clothes formed a curious contrast to the elegance of his speech and the grace of his manner. He was simple, unaffected, gentle, and possessed, in common with all his race, the trait upon which I have remarked before, a keen, intelligent interest in America and Americans.

While he was still welcoming us and apologising for the behaviour of his servant, the countess came in, followed by the young countess, their daughter. The Countess Tolstoy has one of the sweetest faces I ever saw, and, although she has had thirteen children, she looks as if she were not over forty-three years old. Her smooth brown hair had not one silver thread, and its gloss might be envied by many a girl of eighteen. Her eyes were brown, alert, and fun-loving, her manner quick, and her speech enthusiastic. Her plain silk gown was well made, and its richness was in strange contrast to the peasant's costume of her ill.u.s.trious husband.

The little countess had short red brown hair parted on the side like a boy's and softly waving about her face, red brown eyes, and a skin so delicate that little freckles showed against its clearness. Her modest, quiet manner gave her at once an air of breeding. Her manner was older and more subdued than that of her mother, from whom the cares and anxieties of her large family and varied interests had evidently rolled softly and easily, leaving no trace behind.

All three of them began questioning us about our plans, our homes, our families, wondering at the ease with which we took long journeys, envying our leisure to enjoy ourselves, and constantly interrupting themselves with true expressions of welcome.

It is, perhaps, only a fair example of the bountiful hospitality we received all through Poland and Russia to chronicle here that Count Tolstoy invited us to his house in the country, whither they expected to go shortly, to remain several months, and, as he afterward explained it, "for as long as you can be happy with us."

His book on "What is Art?" was then attracting a great deal of attention, but he was deeply engaged in the one which has since appeared, first under the t.i.tle of "The Awakening," and afterward called "Resurrection." It is said that he wrote this book twelve years ago, and only rewrote it at the instance of the publishers, but no one who has met Tolstoy and become acquainted with him can doubt that he has been collecting material, thinking, planning, and writing on that book for a lifetime.

Many consider Tolstoy a _poseur_, but he sincerely believes in himself.

He had only the day before worked all day in the shop of a peasant, making shoes for which he had been paid fifty copecks, and we were told that not infrequently he might be seen working in the forest or field, bending his back to the same burdens as his peasants, sharing their hards.h.i.+ps, and receiving no more pay than they.

It was a wonderful experience to sit opposite him, to look into his eyes, and to hear him talk.

"It is a great country, yours," he said. "To me the most interesting in the world just at present. What are you going to do with your problems?

How are you going to deal with anarchy and the Indian and negro questions? You have a blessed liberty in your country."

"If you will excuse me for saying so, I think we have a very _un_blessed liberty in our country! Too much liberty is what has brought about the very conditions of anarchy and the race problem which now threaten us."

"Do you think the negroes ought not to have been given the franchise?"

"That is a difficult question," I said. "Let me answer it by giving you another. Is it a good thing to turn loose on a young republic a ma.s.s of consolidated ignorance, such as the average negro represented at the close of the war, and put votes into their hands with not one restraining influence to counteract it? You continentals can form no idea of the Southern negro. The case of your serfs is by no means a parallel. But it is too late now. You cannot take the franchise away from them. They must work out their own salvation."

"Would you take it away from them, if you could?" asked Tolstoy.

"Most certainly I would," I answered, "although my opinion is of no value, and I am only wasting your time by expressing it. I would take away the franchise from the negroes and from all foreigners until they had lived in our country twenty-one years, as our American men must do, and I would establish a property and educational qualification for every voter. I would not permit a man to vote upon property issues unless he were a property owner."

"Would you enfranchise the women?" asked the countess.

"I would, but under the same conditions."

"But would your best element of women exercise the privilege?" asked the little countess.

"Not all of them at first, and some of them never, I suppose; but when once our country awakens to the meaning of patriotism, and our women understand that they are citizens exactly as the men are citizens, they will do their duty, and do it more conscientiously than the men."

"It is a very interesting subject," said the count; "and your suggestions open up many possibilities. Women do vote in several of your States, I am told."

"How I would love to see a woman who had voted," cried the countess, clasping her hands with all the vivacity of a French woman.

"Why, I have voted," said Bee, laughing. "I voted for President McKinley in the State of Colorado, and my sister and Mrs. Jimmie voted for school trustee in Illinois." All three of the Tolstoys turned eagerly toward Bee.

"Do tell me about it," said the count.

"There is very little to tell. I simply went and stood in line and cast my ballot."

"But was there no shooting, no bribery, no excitement?" cried the countess. "Do they go dressed as you are now?"

"No, I dressed much better. I wore my best Paris gown, and drove down in my victoria. While I was in the line half a dozen gentlemen, who attended my receptions, came up and chatted with me, showed me how to fold my ballot, and attended me as if we were at a concert. When I came away, I took a street-car home, and sent my carriage for several ladies who otherwise would not have come."

"And you," said the countess, turning to Mrs. Jimmie.

"It was in a barber shop," she said, laughing. "When I went in, the men had their feet on the table, their hats on their heads, and they were all smoking, but at my entrance all these things changed. Hats came off, cigars were laid down, and feet disappeared. I was politely treated, and enjoyed it immensely."

"How very interesting," said Tolstoy. "But are there not societies for and against suffrage? Why do your women combine against it?"

"Because American women have not awakened to the meaning of good citizens.h.i.+p, and they prefer chivalry to justice, regardless of the love of country. I never belonged to any suffrage society, never wrote or spoke or talked about it. I think the responsibility of voting would be heavy and often disagreeable, but, if the women were enfranchised, I would vote from a sense of duty, just as I think many others would; and, as to the good which might accrue, I think you will agree with me that women's standards are higher than men's. There would be far less bribery in politics than there is now."

"Is there much bribery?" asked Tolstoy.

"Unfortunately, I suppose there is. Have you heard how the ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tom Reed, defines an honest man in politics? 'An honest man is a man that will stay bought!'"

There is no use in denying the truth. Tolstoy is always the teacher and the author. I could not imagine him the husband and the father. He seemed in the act of getting copy, and had a way of asking a question, and then scrutinising both the question and the answer as one who had set a mechanical toy in motion by winding it up. Tolstoy would make an excellent reporter for an American newspaper. He could obtain an interview with the most reticent politician. But I had a feeling that his methods were as the methods of Goethe.