Memories of Count Fyodor Stepanovich Tolstoy. The adventures of Count Fyodor the American Tolstoy

Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy is called one of the most controversial representatives of the Russian aristocracy of the first half of the 19th century, a real “freak” from high society. Even the classics could not ignore such a bright personality.

Pushkin, Griboedov and, of course, Leo Tolstoy mentioned him in their works, who, despite all the rumors and rumors, was very proud of his famous uncle.

the site recalls the story of the incredible adventures of the legendary count.

Professional buster

Fyodor Tolstoy in his youth. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

The details of his life are indeed so overgrown with all sorts of legends that researchers still cannot figure out how reliable certain events are.

It is known for certain that Fedor studied at the privileged Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. According to the recollections of his contemporaries, even as a child he was strong, agile, an excellent shooter and fencer. After graduating from school, he enlisted in the elite Preobrazhensky Regiment.

Tolstoy had a hot-tempered and unrestrained character, so he earned the reputation of a fighter, a professional duelist, ready to fight for any reason, even the most insignificant. In total, he is credited with up to 70 duels!

They said that the count had a lot of human lives on his conscience, although official reports included only two deaths at his hands.

Because of one such duel, where Fyodor Ivanovich seriously wounded an officer, he, escaping from prison, was forced to go on the first Russian circumnavigation, from where he brought his legendary nickname “American.”

How Tolstoy became an “American”

Like Tolstoy, who served in ground forces, ended up on the sloop “Nadezhda” under the command of Captain Kruzenshtern - this is another mystery from the count’s biography. Marya Kamenskaya, the daughter of his cousin, wrote in her memoirs that here, too, Fyodor Ivanovich’s dexterity and enterprise were not absent. Allegedly, he pretended to be his namesake cousin, who was on the crew, but did not want to go around the world himself.

The fact remains: in August 1803, the first Russian round-the-world expedition set off from Kronstadt, carrying under its flags Count Tolstoy, who had escaped arrest.

However, even during the voyage, the bully did not change his character. He often became the instigator of quarrels and far from innocent fun. For example, he made the priest accompanying the team drunk until he passed out. So that he fell onto the deck in a dead sleep. And then he sealed his beard to the floor with sealing wax.

For the captain, who had long been dissatisfied with the disordered discipline on the ship, this outburst was the last straw. Therefore, they decided to unload the inconvenient passenger along with his pet orangutan during the next stop of the Nadezhda in Kamchatka. From this point on, the testimony of different sources diverges. Some claim that the count miraculously reached the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, where he lived for several months among the local aborigines, who decorated his body with a huge tattoo. According to another, the drawing was made by the natives on the Nadezhda, when the sloop stopped at the Marquises. One way or another, he later proudly showed off his tattoo to those interested. Tolstoy returned home only two years later, making his way to his homeland through the untrodden paths of the Far East, Siberia, the Urals and the Volga region. After this journey, he earned the nickname “American” that went down in history.

The fate of the monkey, by the way, is unknown. But the very fact of its existence gave rise to a lot of rumors in society. They rumored that Tolstoy ate the animal during his stay in Kamchatka.

“And a strong unclean hand”

However, returning to his homeland did not promise anything good for Fyodor Ivanovich. Emperor Alexander I forbade him from entering the capital, so right at the city outpost, Tolstoy was arrested and sent to the guardhouse, and then to serve in the little-known fortress of Neyshlot. The count languished in the provinces and, finally, thanks to his acquaintance with Prince Mikhail Dolgorukov, he became his adjutant. During the war with the Swedes, the count accomplished a feat. He learned that the Swedish garrison was not expecting an attack from the ice-bound sea. The Russian landing force made its way on foot across the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia and attacked the enemy. This contributed to a quick victory for Russia. Therefore, by order of Alexander I, Tolstoy was rehabilitated, and he was again allowed to serve in the Preobrazhensky Regiment with the rank of lieutenant.

The count also distinguished himself in the war of 1812; in the Battle of Borodino he was seriously wounded in the leg. Later, on the recommendation of Kutuzov, Tolstoy will be awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. At the end of the war, the count resigned from the army and settled in Moscow, completely immersing himself in a riotous life.

He turned his house into a real casino, where gigantic sums were lost every day, luxurious balls were held and an atmosphere of carefree living was reigned.

Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Griboedov, and Pushkin often visited Tolstoy.

Later, the peculiar charm of this incredible personality will be reflected in their works.

“But we have a head like no other in Russia,
You don’t need to name it, you’ll recognize it from the portrait:
Night robber, duelist,
To Kamchatka was exiled, returned as an Aleut,
And the hand is unclean;
Yes smart man can’t help but be a rogue.”

This is what Alexander Griboedov will write about “The American” in “Woe from Wit.” Alexander Pushkin will base his Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin and Silvio in The Shot on Fyodor Ivanovich. And Leo Tolstoy, the nephew of the legendary count, will give him the features of his characters Dolokhov and Count Turbin.

Gypsy wife

The Count died a respectable family man. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

To everyone's surprise, Tolstoy ended his life as a meek, pious and exemplary family man.

Fyodor Ivanovich’s wife, despite his title as a count, was not a young lady from high society, but a gypsy dancer, Avdotya Tugaeva. Having once lost to smithereens, the count decided to shoot himself, but his gypsy lover saved him.

Their marriage turned out to be strong. However, unfortunately, of the 12 Tolstoy children, only one daughter, Praskovya Fedorovna, reached adulthood, who later became the wife of Moscow governor Vasily Perfilyev.

Fyodor Ivanovich had a hard time with the death of his children, which is why he became more and more involved in religion.

He died in 1846, having received communion and confessed in his home in Moscow. Buried at Vagankovskoe cemetery, where his grave is still preserved and is an object cultural heritage regional significance.

Preface

Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, nicknamed the American, was an extraordinary man, criminal and attractive; This is what his cousin Leo Tolstoy said about him. He lived a stormy life, often violating the foundations of universal morality and ignoring the criminal code. At the same time, he was a brave, energetic, intelligent, witty man, educated for his time and a devoted friend of his friends.

His life is interesting, firstly, as the life of an extraordinary person, full of interesting incidents, secondly, because it reflects the life of the era in which he lived, thirdly, because he was on friendly terms with some outstanding people of its time, and, fourthly, because it was sharply strong personality served as material for several works by the best Russian writers.

The material for this essay was stories and references to the American Tolstoy, scattered in various memoirs and historical journals, works of literary historians, especially notes by V.I. Saitov to the correspondence of the book. Vyazemsky with A.I. Turgenev, and Lerner’s articles in the collection “Pushkin and His Contemporaries”, as well as the recently found 9 letters of F.I. Tolstoy to the book. V.F. Gagarin and several stories I heard from my father L.N. Tolstoy and others.

From what Fyodor Tolstoy himself wrote, I know only his epigram on Pushkin and his letters to the prince. V.F. Gagarin. There is an indication that he himself wrote his memoirs, but their fate is unknown.

Unfortunately, the sources that I had to use, although numerous, are not rich in accurate information and are often of poor quality. A whole series of legendary stories was created around the American Tolstoy, recorded by the authors of various memoirs; There is very little documentary information about his life. Therefore, some circumstances of his life, for example, the question of where and how he left Krusenstern’s expedition, remain unclear.

I consider it my pleasant duty to express my deep gratitude to M.A. Tsyavlovsky, who gave me many valuable instructions and allowed me to use his library, and N.M. Mendelssohn, who provided me with letters from F. Tolstoy to Prince. V.F. Gagarin.

CHAPTER I

Origin. Childhood. Marine Corps. Preobrazhensky Regiment. Duel with Driesen.

Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy on his father’s side comes from the impoverished family of Count Tolstoy. The founder of this family, the famous Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy, reached high positions under Peter I, received the title of count and made a large fortune for himself, but after Peter’s death, for participation in the trial of Alexei Petrovich and intrigues against Menshikov, he was deprived of the title, all ranks and fortune and exiled to Solovki, where he died at the age of 84. In 1760, Elizaveta Petrovna returned the descendants of Pyotr Andreevich from exile, and the title and part of their estates were returned to them, but Andrei Ivanovich Tolstoy, the grandfather of the American, had 4 brothers and 5 sisters, and his father Ivan Andreevich had 5 brothers and 5 sisters , reached adulthood, and the remnants of the Tolstoy fortune were scattered among the numerous descendants of Pyotr Andreevich. Each of them got a little, and the property status of only some of them improved by marrying rich brides.

Fyodor Ivanovich's father, Ivan Andreevich, was born in 1747 (that is, even before the Tolstoy Counts were restored to their rights), served in military service, in 1794 was the Kologriv leader of the nobility, rose to the rank of major general and died in old age after 1811.

Fyodor Ivanovich's mother Anna Fedorovna (1761? -1834), daughter of Sergeant of the Semenovsky Regiment Fyodor Ivanovich Maykov, came from a venerable, but relatively ignorant and poor family of the Maykovs. Saint Nil of Sorsky belonged to this family, "according to Mike's advertisement"(1433-1508). In one of his writings, Nil Sorsky says “I don’t dare do anything about myself, since I’m ignorant and a peasant.” Perhaps he really came from the villagers, but perhaps these words have only a rhetorical meaning. A contemporary of Nil Sorsky was the clerk Vel. book Vasily Vasilievich Andrey Maiko. In 1591, Ivan Maikov was the governor of Ryazan. The Maykovs descend from him. The poet Apollo Maykov and academician Leonid Maykov are his descendants.

The Maykovs owned estates in the Yaroslavl and Kostroma provinces. The Tolstoy estates were located in the same provinces. This explains the acquaintance between these two families, the consequence of which was the marriage of I.A. Tolstoy on A.F. Maykova.

It can be assumed that Ivan Andreevich Tolstoy was a loyal subject of his sovereigns and a convinced nobleman, not a Voltairian or a Freemason, otherwise he would not have been chosen as leader. Anna Fedorovna was probably pious - after all, Saint Nil of Sorsky belonged to the Maykov family. They were relatively poor, respected middle-class landowners who occupied a prominent position only in the wilderness - in the Kologrivsky district. Il n"y a de vrai bonheur, que dans les voies communes*, said some writer, and Fyodor Ivanovich’s parents were probably happy in the everyday sense.

* True happiness only happens when the usual ways (fr.).

* Further fate children of Ivan Andreevich Tolstoy are as follows:

Maria, b. 1779, husband Stepan Abramovich Lopukhin, huntsman.

Fedor (American), b. 1782, d. 1846, def. Colonel, wife of A.M. Tugaeva.

Vera, b. 1783, d. 1879 (96 years old), husband Semyon Antonovich Khlyustin.

Peter, b.1785, d. 1861, def. midshipman; wife Elizaveta Aleksandrovna Ergolskaya (sister of T.A. Ergolskaya, teacher of L.N. Tolstoy, and mother of Valeryan P. Tolstoy, husband of L.N. Tolstoy’s sister M.N. Tolstoy).

Januarius, b. 1792, d. 1835, def. Major, wife of Ek. Dm. Lyapunova (d. 1882).

Ekaterina, husband, Guard Captain Shulinsky. Anna, died before 1832, girl.

He received his education in the Marine Corps. One must assume that there he showed his good abilities, but his behavior was hardly exemplary. For some reason, from the Naval Corps he entered not the sailors, but the guard - the Preobrazhensky Regiment.

Fyodor Ivanovich was of average height, thick-set, strong, handsome and well-built, his face was round, full and dark, his curly hair was black and thick, his black eyes sparkled, and when he was angry, says Bulgarin, it was scary to look into his eyes .

Witty, passionate and lively, he was attractive not only to women, but also to those of his comrades with whom he was friends or whose relationships he valued. On the contrary, people he didn’t like or didn’t need didn’t like him and were afraid of him. Proud, daring and courageous, he not only did not forgive insults, but he himself behaved defiantly. The consequence of this was duels, which were in fashion at that time. And he not only did not avoid duels, but even loved them. F. Bulgarin writes about him:

"He was a dangerous opponent because he shot excellently with a pistol and fenced no worse than Severbek(general teacher fencing of that time) and cut skillfully with sabers. At the same time, he was definitely brave and, despite the ardor of his character, he was cold-blooded both in battle and in duel."

He was prompted to this by his violent temper, as well as a certain kind of vanity, a desire to get ahead, to get people talking about himself. Tolstoy was

"an eccentric person" F. Bulgarin says about him, - i.e. had special character, coming out of ordinary secular forms, and in everything he loved only extremes. Everything that others did, he did ten times stronger. Then youth was in fashion, and gr. Tolstoy drove him to despair. He climbed in a hot air balloon with Garner and volunteered to travel around the world with Krusenstern."

*Here and below, emphasis is made by the author - S.L. Tolstoy - Ed.

CHAPTER II

Travel around the world.

One way or another, in August 1803, Fyodor Ivanovich set off on a circumnavigation of the world. Kruzenshtern's expedition was the first circumnavigation of Russian ships. Two were equipped sailing ship"Nadezhda" and "Nova" under the general command of Lieutenant Commander Ivan Krusenstern.

On the Nadezhda were: commander Ivan Kruzenshtern, 52 crew members, naturalists Tilesius and Lansdorf, astronomer Gorner, painter Stepan Kurlyandtsev, Doctor Brinken, clerk of the American company F. Shemelin, envoy for imprisonment trade agreement with Japan, chamberlain Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov and with him "young well-bred persons as embassy gentlemen": Major of the retinue Ermolai Fridericius, Guard Lieutenant Count F.I. Tolstoy, court adviser F. Nos, as well as artillery sergeant Alexey Raevsky and cadets of the Ground Cadet Corps Otto and Moritz Kotzebue.

From this list it is clear that, ironically, F.I. Tolstoy appeared on the expedition as "a young, well-bred person."

On the Neva were: commander captain-lieutenant Yuri Lisyansky, a team of 45 people, a doctor, hieromonk Gideon and the clerk of the American company Korobitsyn. In addition, several Japanese from Irkutsk, who were shipwrecked off the Russian coast, were taken onto the ships in order to land them in Japan.

"Nadezhda" and "Neva" sailed from Kronstadt on August 7, 1803 according to the new style. They stayed in Copenhagen, Falmouth and Santa Cruz off one of the Canary Islands. Kruzenshtern noted the poverty, debauchery and thievery of the population of Santa Cruz, the arbitrariness of the governor and the medieval methods of the Inquisition that was still operating there.

On November 14, for the first time, the Russian flag entered Southern Hemisphere. When passing through the equator, sailor Pavel Kurganov portrayed Neptune with a trident, but there was no real celebration: Kruzenshtern was afraid that the crew would become disobedient.

The next stop was between the island of St. Catherine and the coast of Brazil, in sight of the city of Nostera Senero del Destero. Here they remained at anchor for seven weeks; were making a new mainmast for the Nova and preparing for a difficult passage around South America; here, for some political reasons, Kruzenshtern did not allow anyone ashore.

They set sail on February 2, 1804. Passing by Patagonia, we met more than 20 whales, and so close that Kruzenshtern was afraid that the whales would get under the ship and capsize it. On March 3, we safely rounded Cape Horn.

On March 24, Nadezhda lost sight of the Neva, and on May 7 dropped anchor off Nuka Giwa, the largest island of the Washington archipelago, now better known as the Marquesas Islands.

Several hundred naked islanders swam around the Nadezhda, offering coconuts, breadfruit, bananas, etc. Following them, an Englishman swam up, who, like the natives, had no clothes on except his belt. He was married to a native woman and had been living on the island for 7 years. Through him, as an interpreter, a lively barter trade began; the natives were especially greedy for metal products.

Then the king of Nuka-Giva himself, Tanega Kettonov, arrived on the ship, a man of about 45, dark-skinned, strong and handsome. He also wore nothing but a belt, but he was tattooed from head to toe. Fyodor Ivanovich amused himself by forcing the king to perform the function of a dog: he would spit on a piece of wood, throw it into the sea and shout: “Pil, fetch!” The king swam for a sliver, grabbed it with his teeth and presented it to Tolstoy *.

* Kamenskaya, telling this anecdote, refers him to the king of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, but this cannot be, because “Nadezhda” stood near the Hawaiian Islands very for a long time, and Krusenstern does not mention any king of these islands.

Kruzenshtern went to the island by boat and paid a visit to the king. He was met by the king's uncle, an old man of about 75, but strong and healthy. He led him to a piece of land allotted to the king, where the crowd of curious natives following the Europeans did not dare to enter; This area was reserved - taboo. The king was hospitable, and his daughter was beautiful even from a European point of view.

There was some kind of culture on the island: vegetable gardens, mulberry trees, banana palms, taro, forests of coconut and breadfruit trees. Nevertheless, the Nukagiv people were cannibals. They constantly fought with neighboring islanders and ate the dead and prisoners. The naturalist Tilesius recorded the words and music of one song of the Nukagiv people, glorifying the sadness of the relatives of a eaten man. This song was sung in chromatic glissando up and down within the minor third. In essence it was a dark howl, not a song.

During the entire stay of the Nadezhda near the island, one Nukagivite found a lot of work for himself on the ship. Almost every one of the ship's servants invited him to make some kind of pattern on his body. Fyodor Ivanovich was probably tattooed at the same time.

In addition to the Englishman, a Frenchman also lived on Nuka-Giva for several years; he was at enmity with the Englishman and, according to Krusenstern, became completely wild. He even hunted the enemies of the native community among whom he lived, but assured Krusenstern that he himself did not eat human meat. This "wild Frenchman" as Kruzenshtern calls him, he wanted to return to his homeland and was taken on board the Nadezhda in order to land him in Kamchatka.

At Nuka Giwa, the Neva joined the Nadezhda, and both ships headed for the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. "Nadezhda" stayed near the island of Ovaga for two days and began to drift near one large village. The Hawaiians swam to the ship and here, as in Nuka Giwa, barter trade took place. Here the ships parted, and for a long time *. "Neva" sailed to Karakoa and to the Russian American colonies, and "Nadezhda" went straight to Kamchatka and 35 days later, on June 14, 1804, entered the Kamchatka port of St. Peter and Paul. More than 11 months have passed since the departure from Kronstadt.

* "Neva" joined "Nadezhda" in Macau on November 21, 1805, i.e. in a year and a half.

This is official version. However, it is known that Fyodor Ivanovich did not leave Nadezhda voluntarily, but was removed from it by the commander for his impossible behavior, and according to some data it can be concluded that he was landed not in Kamchatka, but on some island.

From the list of persons who set off on the voyage, it is clear that among them there were several people who had nothing to do on the ships; among these idle people was Tolstoy. Meanwhile, his violent temper required activity, and his activity manifested itself in malicious pranks. There are several stories about his behavior on the ship and his disembarkation. These stories are quite contradictory, and from them it is impossible to reliably conclude by whom and where he was landed on the shore.

This is what his cousin M.F. says. Kamenskaya, who knew him personally.

“On the ship, Fyodor Ivanovich came up with inadmissible pranks. At first Kruzenshtern turned a blind eye to them, but then he had to be put under arrest. But for each punishment he paid his superiors with new pranks, he quarreled with all the officers and sailors, and how he quarreled! At least now knives! A misfortune could happen at any moment, and Fyodor Ivanovich was rubbing his hands. The old ship's priest was weak on wine. Fyodor Ivanovich gave him a drink before folding his vestments and, when the priest lay on the deck like a dead man, sealed his beard with wax to the floor with a stolen government seal. at Krusenstern. He sealed it and sat over it; and when the priest woke up and wanted to get up, Fyodor Ivanovich shouted: “Lie down, don’t you dare!” I had to trim my beard right down to my chin."

“On the ship there was a dexterous, intelligent and captivating orangutan. Once, when Kruzenshtern sailed on a boat somewhere to the shore, Tolstoy dragged the orangutan into his cabin, opened notebooks with his notes, put them on the table, put a sheet of clean paper on top and before his eyes The monkey began to stain and pour ink on the white sheet... The monkey looked attentively. Then Fyodor Ivanovich took the smeared sheet from the notes, put it in his pocket and the Orangutan, left alone, began to imitate Fyodor Ivanovich so diligently that he destroyed all the notes. For this, Kruzenshtern landed Tolstoy on some little-known island and immediately sailed away. Judging by the stories of Fyodor Ivanovich, he continued to smoke on the island, living with the savages, until some beneficent ship picked him up - tattooed from head to toe. ".

“He said that during his stay in America, when he was one step away from the abyss, a radiant vision of a saint appeared to him, besieged him back, and he was saved. Looking at the calendar he himself had created, he saw that it happened on December 12 This means that the saint who saved him was St. Spiridon, the patron of all the Tolstoy counts. From then on, he ordered the image of St. Spyridon, which he constantly wore on his chest.”

“On the ship, Tolstoy’s inclinations were soon revealed, and he got so involved in playing and drinking that Kruzenshtern decided to get rid of him. A stop was made at the Aleutian Islands, everyone disembarked and scattered along the shore. The signal to leave was given somehow unexpectedly; everyone gathered and They sailed away, as if they had not found Tolstoy. He had a monkey with him; he went for a walk with it, and then he told for fun that during the first days of his loneliness he ate his monkey."

* From the stories of D.V. Grudeva // Russian Archive, 1898. No. 2.

“Kruzenshtern landed Tolstoy on the island, leaving him some provisions just in case. When the ship set off, Tolstoy took off his hat and bowed to the commander standing on the deck. The island turned out to be inhabited by savages. Among them, Fyodor Ivanovich lived for quite a long time. When, wandering around seashore, fortunately for him, he saw a ship sailing nearby, he lit a fire. The crew saw the signal, moored and accepted it."

Daughter of Fyodor Ivanovich, P.F. Perfilyeva, in her objections to Novosiltseva’s memoirs, denies that her father came straight from the road to Kruzenshtern’s ball - he could not have done this, because he returned to St. Petersburg before Kruzenshtern - but she does not object to Novosiltseva’s story about his landing on island. Therefore, we can assume that this is true.

Wigel heard that Fyodor Ivanovich was landed in Kamchatka, but he could only know the official version.

Bulgarin writes:

“Having intervened in Kruzenshtern’s dispute with Captain Lisyansky, Tolstoy brought the kind and modest Kruzenshtern to the point that he was forced to leave Tolstoy in our American colonies, and did not take him with him on the way back to Russia. Tolstoy spent some time in America, traveled from boredom, the Aleutian Islands, visited the wild Kolosha tribes, with whom he went hunting, and returned through the Peter and Paul port by land. From then on, he was nicknamed the American. At home, he dressed in the Aleutian style, and his walls were hung with weapons and tools of the savages living there. next door to our American colonies... Tolstoy said that the Koloshes offered him to be their king."

Bulgarin, saying that Tolstoy intervened in the dispute between Kruzenshtern and Lisyansky and brought Kruzenshtern to the need to land him, thereby hints that Tolstoy was on Lisyansky’s side. If this is so, then Lisyansky could easily agree to take him to his place on the Neva. It is possible that on the Neva Tolstoy continued to smoke; perhaps it was then that he sealed the priest's beard to the deck; after all, Father Gideon sailed on the Neva, and not on the Nadezhda. Then Lisyansky, in turn, driven out of patience or simply following Kruzenshtern’s orders, landed Tolstoy on one of the islands of Russian America - on Kodiak or on Sitkha or on some island neighboring Kodiak or Sitkha.

Although Lisyansky does not mention Fyodor Tolstoy in his description of his journey, it seems to me that the assumptions I have made reconcile the contradiction between Krusenstern’s report and the stories of various people about Tolstoy’s landing on the island. Other assumptions are also possible, for example, that Kruzenshtern removed Tolstoy from the Nadezhda in Kamchatka, and from there Tolstoy, on one of the ships of the Russian-American company, or on some other ship, went to the Aleutian Islands and Sitkha. But there is no actual data for such an assumption.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Mendelson, librarian Public library named after Lenin in Moscow, told me that the teacher of law at the Irkutsk gymnasium where he studied, priest Vinogradov, told him about his trip to Sitkha, where the memory of the American Tolstoy’s visit to Sitkha was preserved.

Sitkha is an island located off the Canadian coast of North America, east of the Aleutian Islands. Lisyansky writes that, passing by Sitkha, until he anchored, he did not see either housing or people; forests covered all the banks, and that “No matter how many uninhabited places he happened to see, they could not compare with these in their emptiness and wildness.” Sith was inhabited by a wild tribe called the Koloshes by the Russians. This name comes from the word "thorn". For decoration, women of this tribe wore a bone, piece of wood or shell on their lower lip, which the Russians called koljuzhka. Hence the name of the natives: “Kolyuzhki” or “Koloshi”; They themselves called themselves “Tlingit.”

How long Tolstoy stayed on the island is unknown. From Kamenskaya’s story we can conclude that back on December 12, when the vision appeared to him, he was somewhere in the American or Aleutian Islands. After this, some ship, probably belonging to a Russian-American company, picked him up and, calling at the Aleutian Islands, delivered him to Kamchatka, to the port of Petropavlovsk. From here, already at the beginning of 1805, he went through all of Siberia to Russia. He made this journey partly by water, partly on horseback (maybe on dogs), and partly - for lack of money - on foot. In June he was already in the country of the Votyaks, where Vigel met him.

There is one more ambiguity in the stories about the travel of Fyodor Tolstoy. This is the question of his monkey. What has not been said about this legendary monkey! That she was too close to him, that Kruzenshtern ordered her to be thrown into the sea because she ruined his papers, but that Tolstoy ate her, and if he didn’t eat her, he took her with him to the island, that when he left the island on his boat of the ship that was taking him from the island, the monkey, out of devotion, swam after the boat and he begged the sailors to take “his wife” with him, etc. How much truth there is in these fictions can hardly be determined. The only certainty is that Tolstoy had a large monkey with him during his voyage and that, apparently, she was with him on the island. That he ate it is not true; Vyazemsky says that he always denied this.

When I was nine years old, my mother took me to the daughter of Fyodor Ivanovich, Praskovya Fedorovna Perfileva, an important Moscow lady. Sitting in her living room, I suddenly felt that someone was pulling my hair from behind. It was a small monkey. It turned out that Praskovya Fedorovna, in memory of her father’s monkey, always kept the monkey with her.

CHAPTER III

Return. Swedish war. Duels with Brunov and Naryshkin.
Fortress. Demotion. Borodino. Reinstatement of rights.

Be that as it may, Fyodor Ivanovich returned from Kamchatka to European Russia by land. Vyazemsky conveys the following story about one meeting in Siberia:

"Tolstoy, landed ashore by Kruzenshtern, was returning home as a walking tourist. Somewhere in remote Siberia he attacked an old man, probably exiled. This old man consoled his grief with his family with a fusel and a balalaika. Tolstoy says that he sang well, but even better played on his home-made instrument, his voice, although drunk and somewhat rattling with age, was excellently expressive, by the way, he remembered a verse from one of his songs.

At this “maybe I’ll swallow it,” the old man’s voice broke into sobs, he himself shed tears and said, wiping away his tears: “You see, your Excellency, all the power of this “maybe I’ll swallow it.” Tolstoy added that rarely on stage or in concerts was he more moved than by this absurd song of the Siberian rhapsode."

* In my childhood, I heard this verse from my father, which he heard from someone in his childhood; I don’t know if he knew its origin.

"At one of the stations,- says Wigel, - We were surprised to see an officer in a Preobrazhensky uniform come into our room. It was Count F.I. Tolstoy, hitherto so known under the name of the American. He made a trip around the world with Kruzenshtern and Rezanov, quarreled with everyone, quarreled with everyone, and like a dangerous person he was put ashore in Kamchatka and returned by land to St. Petersburg. What they didn't tell about him..."

“He struck us with his appearance. The nature of his thick black hair curled steeply on his head; his eyes, probably reddened from the heat and dust, seemed bloodshot; his almost melancholic look and the quietest speech of his frightened comrades seemed vague. I didn’t I understand how I didn’t feel the slightest fear, but on the contrary, a strong attraction to him. He did not stay with us for long, he spoke the most ordinary things, but he spoke the simplest speech so smartly that I internally felt sorry that he was going away from us, and not with us. Perhaps he noticed this, because he was more kind to me than to others, and on the way he gave me a glass of currant syrup, assuring me that, approaching more inhabited places, he did not need it.”

"When he returned from a trip around the world,- writes Wigel, - he was stopped at the Petersburg outpost, then transported only through the capital and sent to the Neyshlot fortress. By order of the same day he was transferred from the Preobrazhensky regiment to the local garrison with the same rank (lieutenant). The punishment is cruel for a brave man who has never seen battle, and at the very time when war broke out from East to West throughout Europe."

* From the history of the Preobrazhensky regiment it is clear that Tolstoy was discharged from the Preobrazhensky regiment to the Neishlot garrison on August 10, 1805. Probably by this time Kruzenshtern’s report about his behavior on the ship had reached St. Petersburg, as a result of which he "got from the guard to the garrison."

“Alekseev fell in love with his appearance and heart, and Alekseev presented this to St. Petersburg, but was refused with a reprimand. It was a different matter with Dolgorukov; they did not dare refuse him.”

Liprandi, in his comments on Wigel’s notes, talks about Tolstoy’s stay at Dolgorukov’s headquarters and about Dolgorukov’s death:

“The prince had known him for a long time and was with him like an old comrade, loved to listen to his stories, masterfully presented, and called him only Fedya or Fedor. Tolstoy was in charge of the camp farm and poured soup at the table, made envelopes for the prince’s personal use (at that time there were no glued ones yet), etc., and was saved for desperate enterprises.”

On the same day, in the presence of Tolstoy, Dolgorukov was killed. According to Liprandi,

"only he remained with the prince - Liprandi with a plan of the position in his hands and Count Tolstoy with a huge meerschaum pipe. The prince was in an open frock coat, under which there was a spenzer, that is, a uniform without tails. In his right hand he held a pipe on a short chibouk , on the left - a small telescope. It was a beautiful autumn day. The prince was walking down the mountain behind the regiments that had crossed the bridge. Suddenly we heard the impact of a cannonball and at the same time we saw the prince falling into a hole from which we were picking out clay near the road.”

"He was lying on his back. A three-pound cannonball struck him in the elbow of his right arm and pierced his waist. He was lifeless." Tolstoy and others put him on the board and carried him away. “Tolstoy resolutely said that he would not wash away the blood with which he had stained himself, raising his body until it disappeared on its own, and he took the prince’s penzer for himself.”

"But, - writes Wigel , - since the ban on entering the capitals was not lifted from him, he was again stopped at the outpost. He was only ordered to attend the burial ceremony and immediately leave St. Petersburg, only to the Preobrazhensky battalion, located in Abov, where he was transferred in memory of Dolgorukov."

Soon he managed to distinguish himself. By order of Prince Golitsyn, the commander of the corps operating against the Swedes, he was instructed to explore the Ivarken Strait. He and several Cossacks reached the Godden lighthouse and reported that the path, although difficult, was possible, and added that the Swedes did not have large forces. This report made it possible for Barclay de Tolly, who took command of the corps, to cross the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia and occupy Westerbothnia with a detachment of three thousand *.

* Mikhailovsky. Danilevsky. Description of the Swedish War of 1808-1809, p.362.

Three versions of his duel with Naryshkin have been preserved, one by Vigel, another by Liprandi correcting Vigel, and the third by Bulgarin.

Wiegel's version is as follows:

“The wounded Alekseev, who lived for some time in Abo, had a gathering of guards youth every day, among other things, his old acquaintance Tolstoy and the young Naryshkin. Both of them were in love with some Swede, Finnish or Chukhonka and were jealous of her for each other; in one of These evenings they sat side by side at a large card table, quarreled in a whisper, the next morning they fought, and poor Naryshkin fell from the first shot of his opponent.”

“Their clash took place at the Boston table. Alekseev, Stavrakov, Tolstoy and Naryshkin were playing. There was no quarrel between them, much less over jealousy; in this respect they were antipodes. A few days before, Tolstoy shot the captain of the general staff Brunov, who stood up for gossip for his sister, about whom Tolstoy said a little word, which today would not have been paid attention to, or they would have laughed and nothing more, but we must be transported to that time. When this little word reached his brother, he collected information about who it was. pronounced. Tolstoy suspected (reasonably or not, I don’t know) that Naryshkin, among others, allegedly confirmed what was said, and Naryshkin knew that Tolstoy suspected him of this. They played Boston with a buy. He was with Tolstoy. Giving it away, without any heart, in an ordinary friendly, always-on tone, he added - you should have this: referring to a different kind of ace. The next day, Tolstoy used all means for reconciliation, but Naryshkin remained adamant even after a few days. hours later he was mortally wounded in the groin."

"The Preobrazhensky regiment was then stationed in Pargolovo,- writes Bulgarin, - and several officers gathered at the gr. F.I. T. for the evening. They started playing cards. T. kept a bank in Galbe-Zwölf. Ensign of the Life Jaeger Regiment A.I. N., a handsome young man, modest, well-mannered, also became attached to the game. It was hot in the hut, and many guests, following the example of the owner, took off their uniforms. When buying a card, N. said gr. T-mu: “give me an ace.” Gr. T. put down the cards, rolled up his shirt sleeves and, holding out his fists, objected with a smile: “If you please” *. It was a joke, but illegible, and N. was offended by the rude pun, threw down the cards and said: “Wait, I’ll give you an ace!” - left the room. We used all means to calm N. and even convinced F.I. apologize and declare in writing that he had no intention of insulting him, but N. was adamant and wanted to shoot himself, saying that if another had told him this, he would have been the first to laugh, but from a famous duelist who was used to ruling over others through fear , he will not tolerate any indecent word. It was necessary to fight. When the opponents took their place, N. said to T: “Know that if you don’t hit, I will kill you by putting a pistol to your forehead! It's time for you to cum! “When it’s like that, then here it is for you,” answered T., extended his hand, fired and hit Naryshkin in the side. The wound was fatal; N. died on the third day."

* "Give an ace" means to hit, hence the word "ace".

"Following this,- writes Wigel, - The guard set out on a march back to St. Petersburg, from where the order was sent to bring Tolstoy under arrest. At the Vyborg outpost he was stopped again and sent straight to the fortress. For several years he hovered around St. Petersburg and barely managed to get there for the third time.”

After imprisonment in the fortress, Fyodor Ivanovich, according to various memoirs and family traditions, was demoted to the ranks. There is no direct documentary evidence of this. In the history of the Preobrazhensky Regiment it is briefly said that Count F.I. Tolstoy was “dismissed from service” on October 2, 1811, but it is not said by what rank he was dismissed, and the note to his portrait says that he retired as a lieutenant colonel. From this, however, it does not follow that he was not demoted. After being demoted, he could be forgiven and again promoted to officer rank. Then it is known that in 1812 he was no longer a military man, but lived as a private person in his Kaluga village. In 1812, he again entered service as a warrior in the Moscow militia. During the war, he regained his rank and orders and with his insane bravery earned the 4th degree of George. At Borodino he was seriously wounded in the leg.

Liprandi tells the following about his meeting with him near Borodino:

“On the eve of the Battle of Borodino, in the evening, while I was at the central battery under construction, I heard that someone was looking for some colonel, Count Tolstoy. It turned out that this was my old acquaintance, at that time the head of the militia; out of curiosity, he went into the chain to look at the French They soon found him; we only had time to exchange a few words and remember the prince.(Dolgorukova). Having told me where and what he commanded, he galloped to the call on the 28th, before dawn, setting off from Mozhaisk with lodgers to the Crimean Ford and overtaking countless convoys, I heard the count’s voice from one carriage. I drove up to him. He was wounded in the leg and offered me Madeira. I somehow escorted him out of the row of carts, and we parted."

CHAPTER IV

Life in Moscow. Duels again. Card game. Buddies. Marriage.

Fyodor Ivanovich retired as a colonel and settled in Moscow, in Starokonyushenny Lane, occasionally visiting St. Petersburg and spending the summer in his village near Moscow. As an interesting person and as one of the heroes Patriotic War, he took a prominent place in the Moscow secular society. The ladies ran after him. However, his behavior did not change for the better. He started an even wider card game, and again he had duels - with whom and with what result, there is no information. Kamenskaya writes that throughout his entire life he killed eleven people in duels. This number is probably exaggerated. If this is true, then he did not have 11 duels, and it is no longer possible to assume that each of his duels ended in the death of the enemy!

There are several stories, more or less legendary, about one of his duels, when he fought for his friend. Novosiltseva writes that this friend was P.A. Nashchokin, but the daughter of Fyodor Ivanovich Perfilyev claims that her father never fought a duel instead of Nashchokin.

A. A. Stakhovich in his “Shreds of Memories” gives the following story, without vouching for its authenticity:

“Tolstoy was friends with one famous poet, a dashing reveler and a witty man, whose witticisms were too caustic and sarcastic. Once, at a single party, one young man could not bear his ridicule and challenged the wit to a duel. Puzzled and somewhat embarrassed, the poet conveyed about this “unexpected passage” to his friend Tolstoy, who was throwing a bank in the next room. Tolstoy handed the bank to someone to throw, went into another room and, without saying a word, slapped the young man in the face who challenged his friend to a duel. It was decided to fight. immediately; they chose seconds, boarded the troikas that brought the gypsies, and galloped out of the city. An hour later, Tolstoy, having killed his opponent, returned and, whispering to his friend that he would not have to shoot himself, calmly continued to throw the bank."

What's the matter? - Tolstoy asked sleepily.

“Have you forgotten,” the friend timidly asked, that you promised me to be my second?

“This is no longer necessary,” Tolstoy replied. - I killed him.

It turned out that the day before Tolstoy, without saying a word to his friend, called his offender, agreed to shoot at 6 o’clock in the morning, killed him, returned home and went to bed.

“Fyodor Ivanovich constantly won huge sums,” writes Thaddeus Bulgarin, - which he spent on carousing. In those days, a large card game was played everywhere, especially in the army. They usually played games of chance in which the character of the player gives an advantage over the opponent and luck itself wins. Favorite games were: quintich, galbe-zvelve, Russian slide, i.e. those games where you need to buy cards. After playing with a person for some time, Tolstoy figured out his character and game, recognized by his face what suits or cards he was playing with, and he himself was a mystery to everyone here, possessing his physiognomy at will. With such stratagems he defeated his gambling partners."

Novosiltseva conveys the following characteristic but legendary story:

“There was a hellish game going on in the club. Everyone left, only Tolstoy and Nashchokin remained. During the settlement, Fyodor Ivanovich announced that Nashchokin owed him 20,000 rubles.

“I won’t pay,” said Nashchokin, “you recorded them, but I didn’t play them.”

“Maybe,” answered Fyodor Ivanovich, “but I’m used to being guided by my notes and I’ll prove it to you.”

He stood up, locked the door, put the gun on the table and said:

- It's charged, will you pay or not? - No.

- I give you 10 minutes to think. Nashchokin took his watch and wallet out of his pocket and said:

- A watch can cost 500 rubles, in a wallet 25 rubles. That's all you'll get if you kill me, and to cover up the crime, you'll have to pay more than one thousand. What is your reason for killing me?

“Well done,” Tolstoy shouted, “I’ve finally found a man!”

From that day on they became inseparable friends."

I heard, as far as I remember, from my father, this version of this story:

“Count, you’re exaggerating,” someone told him, playing cards with him, “I’m not playing with you anymore.”

Yes, I’m distorting,” said Fyodor Ivanovich, “but I don’t like it when they tell me this.” Keep playing, or I'll crush your head with this shandal.

And his partner continued to play and... lose. M.I. Wolf told something along the same lines. Semevsky *. According to him, Tolstoy, playing with Pushkin, shuddered. Pushkin noticed this to him.

Yes, I know this myself,” Tolstoy answered, “but I don’t like it to be noticed to me.”

Wulf said that for this Pushkin allegedly intended to shoot with Tolstoy.

However, this incident could not happen to Pushkin, as will be clear from what follows; but that it happened to someone else is quite plausible.

* Walk to Trigorskoye // St. Petersburg Gazette. 1866. No. 139 (quoting from Lerner).

“To someone’s question: “You’re playing for sure,” Tolstoy answered: “Only fools play for luck.” He used to say that he had mongrels(people devoted to him), always needed bulldog. Once the mongrels brought a visiting merchant to him. They started playing, at first as if jokingly, for snacks, dinner and punch. This situation did its job: the merchant got drunk, got carried away and lost 17,000 rubles, and when payment was required, he announced that he did not have that kind of money with him.

“Nothing,” they told him, “everything is provided for, there are stamped papers, and you only need to write an obligation.” The merchant flatly refused, but again sat down to play and lost another 12,000. Then they demanded two obligations from him; but when he again refused to issue the obligations, he was put in a cold bath, and now, completely tormented and exhausted from wine, he finally signed the required obligations. They put him to bed, and the next morning he forgot what happened to him. They began to look after him and offer him to try his luck again. They gave him 3,000 to win, paid him in cash, and made him an obligation of 29,000."

Living openly and luxuriously, Fyodor Ivanovich loved to host dinners. Vyazemsky calls him "glutton, ruler, friend and god."

“I don’t know if there is a similar grocery store in Europe!” - Bulgarin exclaims about him. "He did not offer his guests large number dishes, but each of his dishes was the height of culinary art. He always bought the cutlery himself. Several times he took me with him, saying that the first sign of education is the choice of kitchen supplies and that good food ennobles the animal shell of a person, from which the mind evaporates. For example, he bought only those fish in the cage that beat hard, i.e. in which there is more life. He recognized the dignity of meat by color, etc.”

* V. Zhukovsky. Op. 7th ed. T.6. P.572.

** Batyushkov. Op. T.3. P.37.

Vyazemsky in his "Old notebook" noted many anecdotes about Tolstoy, and in a letter to Turgenev on October 19, 1818, he gives him the following apt description.

*Here and below, numerous inaccuracies were found in the quotations given by the author. - Ed.

Vyazemsky mentions Tolstoy more than once in his letters. So, for example, on December 13, 1825 he writes to A.I. Turgenev: “Yesterday we had Zhikharev, Tolstoy and Denis Davydov in Ostafyevo. The last two made us laugh.”

Tolstoy and Vyazemsky were both “cork makers,” holders of the comic “Order of Cork.” The corkers also included Denis Davydov (a famous partisan in 12), Vasily Lvovich Pushkin (the poet’s uncle), Batyushkov and others.

The following song of the cork makers, probably composed by Bunin, was sung at their meetings:

* Historical Bulletin. 1903. Apr. P.210-211.

The venerable Lafontaine is I.I. Dmitriev, famous fabulist; Vyazemsky - Prince Pyotr Andreevich - poet, friend of Pushkin; Alexey Mikhailovich Pushkin - author of comic poems, translator of Voltaire; Book Shalikov - poet, publisher of Ladies' Magazine.

* Pushkin V.L. Op. Adj. to the journal "North". 1893. Oct.

Sergei Ivanovich Gagarin, married to the sister of Alexei Mikhailovich Pushkin, later a member of the State Council, was known as an agronomist, Pavel Alekseevich Rzhevsky was the son of the famous freemason and writer A.A. Rzhevsky. Ostafevsky boyar is Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, Batyushkov - poet.

In Zhukovsky's letters, Fyodor Tolstoy is mentioned more than once. For example, on April 17, 1818, Zhukovsky wrote to Vyazemsky:

“I am sending you a letter from Meshchevsky (Meshchevsky was a poet exiled to Siberia). He sent me “Maryina Roshcha” in verse, and I sold it for 300 rubles. Send me something too. Tolstoy also promised to help him.” *.

* Zhukovsky V. Op. 10th ed. T.6. P.572.

In 1821 F.I. got married. It happened like this. Gypsies played a large role in the revelry of that era. At that time, gypsies had not yet sung in restaurants like Yar and Strelna. The gentlemen who partied either invited them to their place or themselves went to their camps, where they sometimes spent several days. During his carousings with the gypsies, F.I. became interested in a gypsy woman - a lovely singer according to her contemporaries - Avdotya Maksimovna Tugaeva, captivated her and took her to his place.

Kamenskaya says that he

"he lived with her for a long time without getting married. Once, having lost a large sum in the English club, he had to be put on the black board for failure to pay the loss on time. He did not want to survive this shame and decided to shoot himself. His gypsy, seeing his excited state, began question him.

“Why are you bothering me,” said F.I., “how can you help me?” They will put me on the black board, and I will not survive it. Get out.

Avdotya Maksimovna did not leave him behind, found out how much money he needed, and the next morning brought him the required amount.

-Where did you get the money? - Fyodor Ivanovich was surprised.

- From you. You didn't give me enough. I hid everything. Now take them, they are yours.

F.I. got emotional and got married to his gypsy."

Leo Tolstoy, who visited Avdotya Maksimovna more than once in the 40s and 50s, when she was already a widow, and who knew F.I.’s daughter well. Praskovya Fedorovna, said that, having gotten married, F.I. went with his young wife on visits to all the houses he knew. In some arrogant families, where previously, despite his vicious life, he was willingly accepted as a single man, now that he arrived with a gypsy wife, they did not accept him. Then he, as a proud man and with feeling self-esteem, I never went to see these friends again.

Avdotya Maksimovna turned out to be an energetic woman and devoted to her husband. Obviously, only such a wife could get along with him; It is unlikely that a woman of his own circle could bear his harsh and willful disposition.

CHAPTER V

Quarrel and reconciliation with Pushkin.

According to Lerner's research, the initial reason for the quarrel between Fyodor Tolstoy and A.S. Pushkin was inspired by one letter from Tolstoy to his comrade in the Preobrazhensky regiment, Prince A.A. Shakhovsky (author of well-known comedies in his time). In this letter, Tolstoy wrote something offensive to Pushkin, and Shakhovskoy did not hesitate to show this letter to mutual acquaintances. What exactly Tolstoy wrote remains, unfortunately, unknown. Pushkin, leaving for exile south, did not know about this letter and parted with Tolstoy on friendly terms. The offensive review reached him already in exile. Then he wrote the following epigram on Tolstoy (attributed by literary historians to 1820):

This epigram was not published at that time, but, of course, it was reported to Tolstoy. Pushkin, however, was not satisfied with this.

"Pushkin,- writes Vyazemsky, - in everyday life, in everyday relationships, he was excessively kind-hearted and simple-hearted, but under certain circumstances he was vindictive not only in relation to ill-wishers, but also towards strangers and even his friends. He, so to speak, strictly kept a ledger in his memory, in which he entered scratches inflicted on him with intent, and materially wrote down the names of his debtors on scraps of paper, which I myself saw with him. This amused him. Sooner or later, sometimes quite by accident, he collected the debt and collected it with interest. In his writings you will find many traces and evidence of such penalties. Scratches inflicted on him with or without intent did not heal quickly." *

* Vyazemsky P.A. Op. T.1.S.159. -There may be distortions caused by typing errors in the brochure - V.V.

However, these poems were not published in the form in which Pushkin wrote them; censorship crossed out the second verse. Then the publisher of “Son of the Fatherland” N. Grech, in order to preserve the meaning and size of the third verse, replaced the conjunction in it "or" in a word "fool". Printed

Seeing the distortion of his poems in print, Pushkin wrote to Grech (September 21, 1821): “Why a fool? The poems refer to the American Tolstoy, who is not a fool at all, but unnecessary abuse is not a problem.” That Pushkin did not consider Tolstoy a fool is also clear from his letter to Vyazemsky (January 2, 1822), where he says that if he offended Kachenovsky in his letter to Chaadaev, then “not at all out of hatred for him, but in order to put Tolstoy on the same level with him, whom it is wiser to despise.”

When publishing " Caucasian prisoner"Pushkin wanted to take as an epigraph Vyazemsky's poems related to Tolstoy:

but he abandoned this intention due to a quarrel with Tolstoy. “Do you understand why I didn’t leave him?” - he asks Vyazemsky in a letter to him (dated October 14, 1821).

Vyazemsky wrote to Pushkin that he did not approve of his attack against the American. Pushkin answered him as follows:

"...Forgive me if I talk to you about Tolstoy. Your opinion is precious to me. You say that my poems are no good, I know, but my intention was not to start a witty literary war, but to repay a person’s secret insults with a sharp insult , with whom I parted as a friend and whom I defended with fervor every time the opportunity presented itself. It seemed funny to him to make an enemy out of me and to make Prince Shakhovsky’s attic funny at my expense. I found out about him, having already been exiled, and, out of revenge. one of the first Christian virtues - in the powerlessness of his rage, he threw magazine mud at Tolstoy from afar. The criminal accusation, in your words, goes beyond the limits of poetry; cannot resist the gloomy anger of a heavy libel. Voltaire himself felt this. You reproach me for publishing curses from Chisinau, under the auspices of exile, against a person living in Moscow. But then I had no doubt about my return. My intention was to go to Moscow, where only I could completely cleanse myself. Such an obvious attack on the city. Tolstoy is not cowardice. They say he wrote something terrible on me. Journalists had to accept the review of a person who was cursed in their magazine. You'd think I'm at one with them, and that infuriates me. However, I want to deal with Tolstoy alone, I don’t want to get involved on paper anymore. I could justify myself to you stronger and more clearly, but I respect your connections with a person who is so little like you.”

"Terrible" written by Tolstoy is the following crude and ponderous epigram:

* Alm. "Literary Thought". Pg., 1923. Issue. 2.S. 237-238.

Pushkin had no doubt that his quarrel with Tolstoy should end in a duel; he thought he should "cleanse" as he wrote to Vyazemsky. Therefore, while living in Mikhailovskoye, he practiced pistol shooting; At the same time, he told Wulf, believing in the fortune teller’s prediction: “This one won’t kill me, but the blond one will, that’s what the witch prophesied.”

In 1825, while preparing the first collection of his poems, Pushkin excluded poems related to Tolstoy from his letter to Chaadaev, but not at all in order to take a step towards reconciliation with him. "I blotted out these verses,- he wrote to Vyazemsky in April 1825, - only for you, and not because others don’t like them.” He wrote to his brother, who together with Pletnev was working on the publication, on July 12, 1824: “About the message to Chaadaev, I will tell you that there is no need to repeat the slap in the face. Tolstoy will appear to me in all his splendor in the 4th book of Onegin, if his libel is worth it, and therefore ask for his epigram from Vyazemsky (by all means)"Whether Lev Sergeevich took Tolstoy's epigram from Vyazemsky and sent it to Alexander Sergeevich is unknown.

In 1826, Pushkin received the opportunity to live in the capitals; now he could "cleanse" those. end his quarrel with Tolstoy with a duel. P. Bartenev reports * that S.A. Sobolevsky, upon Pushkin’s arrival in Moscow, went to see him and found him at dinner. Immediately, while still in his traveling dress, Pushkin instructed him to go to F.I. the next day. Tolstoy and challenge him to a duel; fortunately, Tolstoy was not in Moscow at that time.

* Russian archive. 1865. No. 2.S. 39.

The reconciliation turned out to be lasting, and Tolstoy continued to move among Pushkin's literary friends. So, for example, Pushkin read “Poltava” for the first time in Moscow with S.D. Kiselev, and Fyodor Tolstoy and Vyazemsky * were present. The following note from 1828, inviting Tolstoy to a friendly party, was written by Prince Vyazemsky and signed by S.D. Kiselev, D.N. Bologovsky and Pushkin**:

“Now we find out that you are here, do me a favor, come. Drunk with wine, we thirst for you alone. Bologovsky, Pushkin, Kiselev.”

“Oh, most holy and life-giving Trinity, I will appear to you, but half-drunk, not with wine, but with liqueur, which you accept as the forerunner of Tolstoy.”

* Vyazemsky P.A.. Op. 1886. T.10. C.3.

** Pushkin. Academician ed. Correspondence III. P.456 - 457

"C"est a genoux, c"est en versant des larmes de reconnaissance, que j"aurais du Vous ecrire a present, que ie comte Tolstoy m"a rapporte Votre reponse: cette reponse n"est pas un refus, Vous permettez l "esperance. Si vous avez quelques ordres a me donner veuillez les ardesser au comte Tolstoy, qui me les fera parvenir."

CHAPTER VI

Letters from F.I. Tolstoy to Prince V.F. Gagarin.

In 1923, nine letters from F.I. were found in the archives of Rimsky-Korsakov and are currently stored in the Lenin Library (Rumyantsev Museum). Tolstoy to Prince Vasily Fedorovich Gagarin. These letters are written on large format notepaper, in legible handwriting without any blots. The spelling is fantastic, for example, the word "do" written with the letter "z", the letter "yat" is placed haphazardly. Six letters bear the month and date, but not the year; the remaining letters are undated. The year is determined by a letter dated April 19, in which Tolstoy, complaining about his poor finances, writes; "This year I can like the Jews(after two "yat") call it a great year; Unfortunately, it’s a leap year.” Since it is clear from the letters that by this time Tolstoy’s wife had given birth at least four times, and his daughter Sarah, born in 1821, was a child and her father was writing out the alphabet for her, it can be reliably concluded that the leap year mentioned was 1828 year.

The letters were written: four letters from Moscow, two from Tolstoy's estate near Moscow - Glebov, one from some village of Troitsky, three letters from unknown sources. The letters were addressed: six to Paris, two to the Tambov province, one to an unknown location.

All that is known about the addressee of Tolstoy’s letters, Vasily Fedorovich Gagarin, is that in 1827 he was treated in Paris, where he underwent surgery, that at the end of the year he returned to his Tambov estate and died in 1829. He was the son of General Prince Fyodor Sergeevich Gagarin (b. 1757), who was killed in 1791 in Warsaw during the indignation of the Poles, and Princess Praskovya Yuryevna, born Princess Trubetskoy (1762-1848).

Vasily Fedorovich had a sister, Princess Vera Fedorovna Vyazemskaya, and a brother, Fyodor Fedorovich, who are mentioned more than once in Tolstoy’s letters. Princess V.F. Vyazemskaya was the wife of Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, poet and friend of Fyodor Tolstoy. Pushkin in one of his letters calls her a kind and sweet woman, and in another letter he writes to Vyazemsky and his wife: "Adieu, Prince Vertoprah and Princess Vertoprahina."

Brother of Vasily Gagarin, Prince Fyodor Fedorovich Gagarin (b. 1786, died in 1863), nicknamed "tete de mort" or “Adam’s Head,” was at one time, just like the American Tolstoy, known as a rake, a gambler and a reveler, with the difference, however, that Tolstoy was essentially a calculating man, which cannot be said about Gagarin. It was said about Gagarin that in 12, while serving as an adjutant under Bennigsen, he bet with the officers that he would deliver two pounds of tea to Napoleon, and he delivered; It was only thanks to Napoleon's favor that he returned safely to the Russian camp.

Count M.D. Buturlin writes in his notes that “his shortcomings lay in human weakness to be in the foreground everywhere, in eccentric antics or habits of appearing young, despite his age” *.

* Russian archive. 1897. No. 7. P. 435.

Two years later, after the capture of Warsaw, he was fired without a request for allegedly being seen at Warsaw festivities in the company of women of the lowest class. He was soon re-enlisted and appointed brigadier general. As a boss, he was loved because he treated the officers in a friendly manner. One day the officers were throwing a can in a tent on a carpet late at night. Suddenly the floor of the tent rises and a hand with a map crawls out from under it, to everyone’s amazement, with the words: "Gentlemen, attande, the five of spades is all-in," and after her the grinning, skull-shaped, half-bald head of the prince looked out. He remained a bachelor to the end and was, it seems, without any fortune, lived constantly in Moscow on one salary, dined almost always in French restaurants...

In 1827, as can be seen from the letters of Fyodor Tolstoy, Fyodor Fedorovich Gagarin still had some remnants of his fortune - a share of the undivided estate that belonged to him, his brother and sister; but, apparently, by his disorderly behavior he upset both his financial affairs and the affairs of his brother and sister.

Tolstoy, out of friendship with the Gagarin family, mortgaged his estate for him, and Princess V.F. Vyazemskaya vouched for her brother. In a letter dated February 18 (1828), Tolstoy writes:

“I myself am at the point of losing the last true piece pledged for Prince Fyodor, or ruining your sister Vera, as a guarantor for him, even if only verbally; so much do I trust her word of honor.”

“When you have some kind of officialdom abroad, there is no inconvenience in sending you money. Give power of attorney to the American if Obolensky does not take it. He is not Zhikharev, and thus you will hit prejudice with a cudgel.” *

* P.V. Zhikharev, one of the Arzamas residents, later Chief Prosecutor of the Moscow Senate, during the forced stay of A.I. Turgenev managed his affairs abroad, squandered his fortune, and bought the estate for himself, with Turgenev’s money, but in the name of his wife (see: Russian Archives. 1902. No. 1.P. 85).

“The slowness with which everything is done with us is honestly deadly. It’s been about a month since I signed a paper to receive money to you on the basis of a 24-year payment, they promise to give it out soon.”

“Let’s talk about your affairs. They are very bad, although Pospelov is zealous about them, but it seems that his capabilities do not correspond to his good will and desire to be useful to you.<...>He complains about Prince Fyodor, who allegedly torments him too much with demands for money that he does not have and which, in all honesty, is impossible to find. According to the letters that I have from Tambov from your managers, it seems to me that “the government there is mixed: despotic and anarchic, everyone complains about each other.”

“It’s hard, but I must tell you, dear friend, how much your health requires your absence, so much your economic affairs require, on the contrary, your presence in Russia.”

"Is there a house of choice * sleeping, Pospelov wandering, Prince Pavel Pavlovich(Gagarin) , who has undertaken to manage the affairs of your brother Prince Fyodor, God knows what he is doing or doing nothing, and you are in need, suffering from needs - for this, in honor and conscience, I am not to blame... By the grace of the managing princes. Gagarin and knight Pospelov, I myself am at the point of “getting upset” and, perhaps, “putting your kind, generous sister Vera to shame; All this, perhaps, for the good sake of our desire to save Prince Fyodor from harm.”

* This is what Tolstoy calls the Orphanage, where the pawnshop was located.

And in a letter dated February 18, he reports that “an order has come to give you extra money from the pawnshop without a queue. You could have received it a long time ago, if you had made a complete division with your brother when you were (in Russia).

Having received the money, Gagarin returned to Russia. Tolstoy's next letter is addressed to the village of Bogoslovskoye, Nashchokino, Tambov province. From this letter it is clear that. Tolstoy lent Gagarin 1,000 rubles and continued to help him with business matters. So, he tells him the price of the fluff, apparently sent by Gagarin from the estate for sale in Moscow.

In a letter dated April 19, Tolstoy apparently responds to Gagarin’s letter of gratitude for the management of his affairs and thanks him for his friendship and debt, however, he notes that there was probably “perplexity” because he did not receive 1 000 rubles, or less. In the same letter, he advises not to rush to sell the fluff, but to wait for the price for it, “lest you yourself become lighter than feathers.”

In addition to business messages, in the letters one can find everyday features of that era and some details about the life of Fyodor Ivanovich himself. In almost every letter he expresses his friendly feelings to Gagarin, writes that there is no need to warm up or awaken his friendship, that his friendship does not sleep, that it has overcome his laziness, "this high virtue of my soul and body" as he puts it. However, it is precisely these outpourings that suggest that there was no particularly close friendship between them: after all, close friends do not need to constantly talk about their friendship; at the same time, it is clear that Tolstoy greatly valued his friendship with both the Gagarins and especially Vyazemsky.

By the way, in a letter dated November 3 (1827), Tolstoy writes about Vyazemsky that he rarely sees him; because Vyazemsky

“in the morning at the funeral, at noon at the christening, and in the evening until the morning at the balls, but at that moment, as the article about Vyazemsky was written, he himself appeared before me like a red sun, and his smile, known to the entire public, played on his lips.” .

The letter dated June 6, 1827 is supplemented with current gossip. Fyodor Ivanovich reports that Messrs. Shatilov and Alyabyev are being held under strict guard for a large but “faithful” crime, i.e. fair game; they killed the card worth 60,000 rubles. and show off Mr. Vremeva, after which Shatilov was sarcastically asked: is he good? kills time(pun). The same letter states that "Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky married the girl Kindyakova, but since he could not make her a mother either...(obscene word) then less than a year later he made a shift parade with her, that is, a divorce"(pun: divorce And parade- synonyms in military language).

In several letters, Fyodor Ivanovich writes about himself and his life, writes that he has grown old, cooled down, that his property affairs are bad and therefore he lives not in Moscow, but in his suburban Moscow, where he indulges in "drunkenness". In one letter he writes that he "proverleilsya" that is, lost *. Apparently, his affairs were not particularly bad: from the letters it is clear that he gave Gagarin 1,000 rubles. on loan and that he asked him to buy something in Paris, by the way, candelabra. True, in the next letter he refuses to buy candelabra, but immediately asks to send him more champagne and Bordeaux.

*Expression "beverleated" comes from the title of the play "Beverley", a bourgeois tragedy in five acts, translated from French by the Russian court actor Dmitrevskoy. St. Petersburg, 1773 and M., 1787. The main character is the player. His name became a household name. Epigram on the writer and gambler I.E. Pushkin begins Wielkopolsky with verse "The poet is a gambler, O Beverly is Horace"(Welkopolski wrote in the Horatian style).

“I live in complete boredom, sadness and drunkenness... Sarah alone seems to be gilding my unbearable existence; for the third month or three months my wife does not leave her painful bed, having given birth to my third dead son. Consequently, the hope of living as an heir is buried with the last newborn "Sorrow is unknown to you, but believe me, dear friend, that it is very sensitive."

In addition to Tolstoy’s 8 business letters, there is one more undated comic letter of his, apparently written in Moscow. It refers to the culinary arts. Tolstoy advises keeping them in salt water for half an hour before eating oysters and boasts that this discovery belongs to him.

CHAPTER VII

The last years of F. Tolstoy according to the stories of Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, A. Herzen,
L. Tolstoy, M. Kamenskaya, F. Bulgarin, L. Stakhovich and others.

Over the years, Fyodor Ivanovich settled down somewhat. In 1821 he married, and in 1822 he turned forty years old. Apparently, a turning point in his life occurred around this time. He did not stop only playing a large card game. A.Ya. Bulgakov writes to his brother on April 13, 1827: “We recently beat young Poltoratsky, who is married to Kindyakova, for 700 thousand. The American Tolstoy and Islenyev worked here.<...>As soon as one of these scoundrels is punished, they will stop playing."

* Russian archive. 1901. No. 9.S. 30-31.

In addition to playing, Fyodor Ivanovich's time was spent in pursuing his family and property affairs, in reading - he read a lot, in attending church services - he became religious, and in communicating with friends - he especially valued his friendships.

He continued to live mostly in Moscow, part of the year in the village, visited St. Petersburg and other places in Russia - on business or with friends, and visited abroad, probably on the waters. In 1840, for some reason, he lived in St. Petersburg for about a year.

From this second period of his life (1821-1846) several stories have survived from his contemporaries or people of the next generation. These stories, however, are not always reliable. Sometimes they are legendary, like the stories of Novosiltseva, sometimes they are highly embellished, like the stories of A. Stakhovich, and they have to be accepted con grano salis.

Boratynsky, having met Fyodor Tolstoy, wrote about him, probably in 1826:

“The other day I met Tolstoy the American. An interesting man! He looks like a good-natured person, and anyone who has not heard of him will be mistaken” *.

* Boratynsky.Op. 4th ed. Kazan. 1885. P.525 (according to Saitov).

"We don't know why,- writes Vyazemsky, - Tolstoy at one time imposed penance on himself and for six months did not take anything intoxicating in his mouth. During one drunken farewell, when his friends drank for two weeks, he still did not drink anything. Only after the last drink, leaving in a sleigh with Denis Davydov, he asked him: “Darling, die on me.” He wanted to at least smell the wine."

The following anecdotes are also recorded by Vyazemsky:

Some people serve some kind of appetizer or appetizer at the end of lunch. Tolstoy refuses, the owner insists:

Take it, Tolstoy, you will see how good it is. It will immediately knock off all the hops.

“Oh, my God,” he exclaimed, crossing himself. - Why did I work for two hours? No, humble servant, I want to stay to my own devices.

One day, at the English Club, a gentleman with a red-gray and blossoming nose was sitting in front of him. Tolstoy looked at him with sympathy and respect. But seeing that during the entire dinner the master drinks one clean water, he was indignant and said: “Yes, this is an impostor! How dare he wear signs on his face that he does not deserve.”

Fyodor Ivanovich's nephew, a narrow-minded and boring man, asked to introduce him to Denis Davydov. One day, when his nephew was drunk, Fyodor Ivanovich invited him to meet Davydov.

No, - answered the nephew, today I drank too much, I’m a little in my head...

So much the better,” Fyodor Ivanovich answered and, leading him to Davydov, said: “I present to you my nephew, who has a little in his head.”

One day, Fyodor Ivanovich’s old aunt asked him to sign as a witness on a stamp deed that cost several hundred rubles. He wrote: “On this occasion, I express my deepest respects to my aunt.”

Some prince owed Fyodor Ivanovich several thousand rubles on a bill of exchange. The prince, despite Tolstoy’s letters and the missed deadline, did not pay for a long time. Fyodor Ivanovich wrote to him: “If you do not pay your debt in full by such and such a date, I will not go to seek justice in the courts, but will take it directly to your Excellency.”

Regarding use "at random and crooked French words and sayings" Vyazemsky recalls the following story by Tolstoy. Tolstoy was traveling by postal service through one of the interior provinces. He heard the coachman, spurring the horses, say: “Oh, my Voltaires!” It seemed to Tolstoy that he had disobeyed. But the driver repeated the same words two more times. Finally Tolstoy asked him:

How do you know Voltaire?

“I don’t know him,” answered the coachman.

How could you confirm this name?

Have mercy, master, we often travel with great gentlemen, so we’ve heard something from them.

Vyazemsky notes: there are predestined people fatal force to inevitable loss. Tolstoy talks about one of these doomed people: if he starts playing cards with himself, then he will find a way to lose.

In the old days, there lived a rich lady who gave balls, that is, her hospitable husband gave balls. The wife was very stingy. At dinner she sat apart at the door through which the food was brought in and taken away. She watched the servants so that they would not somehow appropriate part of the food for themselves and also so that they would dump on her plate everything that remained on the dishes after serving to the guests; she would gobble it all up so that it would not go to waste. This lady was akin to the American Tolstoy. He nicknamed her: “Auntie Drain.”

Somewhere in Germany Tolstoy was officially asked: lhr Charakter? (your title). He replied: Lustig (cheerful).

In 1845, Vyazemsky took the album of Fyodor Ivanovich’s daughter, Polinka, to his place in St. Petersburg on Kamenny Island, with a promise to write something in it. In a letter dated June 23, Tolstoy reminds him of this: “Polinka thanks you sincerely for your promise to write her something, but she misses her little album.”. Vyazemsky kept the album for a long time and finally, on August 30, he wrote a rather long poem dedicated to Polinka. This poem, by the way, contains the following beautiful verses:

Was Vyazemsky hinting at the life of Fyodor Ivanovich with these verses?

In "Past and Thoughts" Herzen recalls the American Tolstoy regarding one "rakes of a bad kind" - Prince Dolgorukov, exiled for his pranks to Perm, and from there exiled to Verkhoturye; before his expulsion, this Dolgorukov treated Perm officials to pate from his Danish dog.

"The suffocating emptiness and muteness of Russian life,- writes Herzen - strangely combined with liveliness and even turbulence of character, it especially develops various foolishnesses in us. In the cockcrow of Suvorov, as in the dog pate of Dolgorukov, in the wild antics of Izmailov, in the semi-voluntary madness of Mamonov and the violent crimes of Tolstoy the American, I hear a related note, familiar to us all, but which in our country is weakened by education or directed towards something else.

I personally knew Tolstoy and it was precisely in that era (in 1838) when he lost his daughter Sarah, an extraordinary girl with a high poetic gift. One glance at the old man's appearance, at his forehead covered with gray curls, at his sparkling eyes and athletic body, showed how much energy and strength was given to him by nature. He developed only violent passions, only bad inclinations, and this is not surprising; everything vicious is allowed to develop unhindered for a long time, but for human passions they are sent to a garrison or to Siberia at the first step. He rampaged, fought, beat, mutilated people, ruined families for 20 years in a row, until he was finally exiled to Siberia, from where he “returned as an Aleut,” as Griboyedov says, that is, he made his way through Kamchatka to America and from there he begged permission to return to Russia. Alexander forgave him, and the next day after his arrival he continued old life. Married to a gypsy woman, famous for her voice and belonging to a Moscow camp, he turned his house into a gambling den, spent all his time in orgies, all his nights playing cards, and wild scenes of greed and drunkenness took place near the cradle of little Sarah. They say that once, as proof of the accuracy of his eye, he ordered his wife to stand on the table and shot her through the heel of her shoe.

His latest trick almost brought him to Siberia again. He had been angry with some tradesman for a long time; he somehow caught him in his house, tied him hand and foot, and pulled out his tooth. The tradesman submitted a request. Tolstoy punished the police, punished the court, and the tradesman was sent to prison for false reporting. At that time, one famous Russian writer N.F. Pavlov served on the prison committee. The tradesman told him the matter, the inexperienced official raised it. Tolstoy got scared in earnest, the matter was clearly heading towards his condemnation, but the Russian God is great! Count Orlov wrote a secret letter to Prince Shcherbatov, in which he advised him to extinguish the matter, so as not to give such a direct triumph to the lower class over the higher. N.F. Pavlova gr. Orlov advised removal from such a place.<...>I knew the careless official very well."

* Herzen A.I. Op. Geneva, 1879, T.6. P.293-294.

Herzen’s story about how Tolstoy pulled out a certain tradesman’s tooth is confirmed by the story of A.A. Stakhovich; According to Stakhovich, this tradesman was a contractor who undertook to build either a hospital or an almshouse in memory of Tolstoy’s deceased daughter Sarah and built it poorly. Stakhovich says that Tolstoy ordered this contractor to pull out not just one tooth, but all his teeth, but, obviously, this is hyperbole, and the story of Herzen, who knew the official who initiated the case, is more reliable.

Herzen in “Past and Thoughts” once again recalls Fyodor Tolstoy regarding the influence that P. Chaadaev had while living as a private person in Moscow.

"For what,- asks Herzen, - in Chaadaev’s small modest office on Staraya Basmannaya, the aces of the English Club, patricians, crowded on Mondays Tverskoy Boulevard? Why did fashionable ladies look into the cell of a gloomy thinker, why did generals, who did not understand anything about civilians, consider themselves obligated to come to the old man?<...>Why did I meet the wild American Tolstoy with him? "*.

* Herzen A.I. Op. Geneva, 1879, vol.6. P.278.

“I remember he drove up in a postal carriage, entered my father’s office and demanded that they bring him special dry French bread; he had not eaten anything else. At that time, brother Sergei had a toothache. He asked what he had, and, having learned , said that he could stop the pain with magnetism. He entered the office and locked the door behind him. A few minutes later he came out with two cambric scarves. I remember they had a purple border of patterns; he gave the scarves to my aunt and said: “This one, when. he puts it on, the pain will go away, and this one, so that he can sleep.” I remember his beautiful face: bronze, shaved, with thick white sideburns to the corners of his mouth and the same white curly hair. *.

* Biryukov P.I. L.N. Tolstoy: Biography. T.1. Berlin. Ed. I.P. Ladyzhnikova. 1921. P.89

Above were some stories of Maria Fedorovna Kamenskaya, the daughter of the famous artist and vice-president of the Academy of Arts Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, the cousin of the American. I will cite her next stories.

Kamenskaya met Fyodor Ivanovich at her great-grandfather's, and his uncle, Count Andrei Andreevich Tolstoy. She found that the American was a human being, elderly, curly-haired, with gray hair, a red face, large, intelligent eyes, talking and joking.

“Grandfather Andrei Andreevich told him:

- Come on, American, show your chest and arms.

Fyodor Ivanovich unbuttoned his black frock coat and took off the large image of St. Spiridonia in salary. He constantly wore this image on his chest. He was completely tattooed: in the middle, in a ring, sat a large motley bird, and some red and blue squiggles were visible all around. There are snakes on the hands, wild patterns. Then the men took him upstairs and stripped him naked. His entire body was tattooed. He was often asked to show off his tattooed body, and he never refused, apparently finding some pleasure in it..."

“He counted eleven people killed in duels. He carefully wrote down the names of those killed in his synodik. He had 12 children, who all died in infancy, except for two daughters. As the children died, he crossed out from his synodik according to one of the names of the people he killed and put the word “quit” on the side. When his eleventh child, a lovely, smart girl, died, he crossed it out. last name killed by him and said: “Well, thank God, at least my curly-haired gypsy baby will be alive.”

M.F. Kamenskaya wrote that Fyodor Ivanovich was not only a pilgrim, but a hypocrite. This is confirmed by my father's review of him. Lev Nikolaevich said that Fyodor Ivanovich was pious and superstitious because he was tormented by remorse. He repented, prayed and made prostrations, trying to atone for the crimes of his youth and his cruel deeds. Perhaps this was reflected in the pious tradition of the family of his mother, born Maykova; after all, Nil Sorsky came from this family.

How strong man, Fyodor Ivanovich acted charmingly on some of his contemporaries, for example, on Bulgarin.

"A whole book could be written about him,- says Bulgarin, - if we were to collect everything that was told about him, although there is a lot of injustice in these stories, especially in relation to his censure... He was well educated, spoke several languages, loved music and literature, read a lot and willingly became close to artists, writers and lovers of literature and the arts. He was as smart as a demon and amazingly eloquent. He loved sophistry and paradoxes, and it was difficult to argue with him. However, he was, as they say, a kind fellow, he was ready to do anything for a friend, he willingly helped his friends, but he did not advise his friends and acquaintances to play cards with him, saying frankly that in the game, as in battle, he did not know anything. friend, nor brother, and whoever wants to transfer his money into his pocket, he has the right to win. I had to meet him in Mogilev in 1836, and then I often saw him in St. Petersburg, where he lived for about a year in 1840, with his family... I remember him as an extraordinary phenomenon even at that time when people did not live according to the calendar, did not speak under dictation and did not follow the rules, i.e. when some kind of knightly unbridledness subjugated etiquette and education."

* State archive. 1878. Unit. hr. 1. L.837 (according to Saitov).

The following anecdote is also known from the last years of Fyodor Ivanovich *. At the English Club on Saturday lunch, a heated argument ensued with one of the Slavophiles, Konstantin Aksakov. During the argument, an old man with curly hair, white as a harrier, unfamiliar to him, approached Aksakov and expressed sympathy for him, calling him by name.

Why do you know me? - asked Aksakov. - Did I have the honor to meet you?

No, I have not met you, but I know you from your articles and speeches. And you've probably heard about me. I am the one about whom it is said: “A night robber, a duelist, he was exiled to Kamchatka, returned as an Aleut, and is firmly in his hands.”(from Repetilov’s monologue in “Woe from Wit”).

* This story is told from “Nashchokin’s Stories” by Novosiltseva and from “Scraps of Memories” by A. Stakhovich.

* Barsukov N.P. Life and works of M.P. Weather. 1892. Book. 5. P.360.

“Nikolai Nikolaevich should be somewhat loud, Pyotr Petrovich - with some gulf. In general, it would be good if each of the actors held, in addition, some other famous person. The player playing Pyotr Petrovich needs to pronounce his words especially large, clearly, grainy. He must copy the one he knew(How) who speaks Russian better than anyone else. It would be nice if he could somewhat adhere to the American Tolstoy." *.

* Shchepkin M.A. ,

In Liprandi's notes there is a note about his meeting with Fyodor Ivanovich in 1844 in Moscow.

"Having visited A.F. Velman,- writes Liprandi, - I met an unfamiliar old man with gray and thick hair. The owner recommended us to one another. Almost in one voice we asked each other: Isn’t it you? Isn’t it you?.. The count noticed that the prince’s penzer was still with him(this is the penzer of Prince Dolgorukov, killed in the presence of Tolstoy and Liprandi, during the Swedish War - see) and that it had become a habit for him to see him often. The next day he made me promise to have dinner with him. He also invited the venerable, veteran of our era F.I. Glinka. I found him the same: he was pouring soup for everyone. Our conversation consisted of memories of the prince and his death. A few months later...same dates. He promised to show me his notes in the village in the summer, which, as it turned out, were true to my story. The next time I brought my diary, but the count was no longer there..."

CHAPTER VIII

Type of American Tolstoy in Russian literature
(from Griboyedov, Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy and others).

As a bright type, the American Tolstoy attracted Russian writers and served as material for several of their works. On the other hand, from these works one can glean some information about his life. Griboedov's poems related to F. Tolstoy are well known. This is the following passage from Repetilov’s monologue:

This characteristic is interesting because it confirms the stories of contemporaries about Tolstoy’s eloquence; however, in fact, it is not entirely correct, as Fyodor Ivanovich himself drew attention to.

In the Lenin Library (formerly the Rumyantsev Museum) there is a manuscript “Woe from Wit”, which belonged to the Decembrist Prince F.I. Shakhovsky with the autograph of Fyodor Tolstoy. Against words: "He was exiled to Kamchatka" he wrote: “The devil went to Kamchatka, because he was never exiled,” and the verse "And his hands are not clean" he suggested replacing it with a verse "I'm not good at cards" and added: “For the fidelity of the portrait, this amendment is necessary so that they do not think that he is stealing snuff boxes from the table; at least, he thought to guess the author’s intention.”

L.N. Tolstoy said that Fyodor Ivanovich, having once met Griboyedov, told him:

Why did you write about me that I am deeply dishonest? They will think that I took bribes. I never took bribes in my life.

But you’re not playing cleanly,” Griboedov noted.

Just that? - answered Tolstoy. - Well, that's how you would write it.

About the attitude of Fyodor Ivanovich to his image in “Woe from Wit” the famous actor M.S. Shchepkin says the following:

“Once I visited Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who, when coming to Moscow, always stayed with N.V. Nashchokin. Count Tolstoy (American) and Zhikharev, the author of “Notes of a Student,” were already there. At that time, “Woe from Wit” excited the most lively talk to the public. Zhikharev, wanting to prick the count, constantly repeated the following verses from the comedy during dinner (since the general rumor attributed them specifically to him): Night robber, duelist... etc.

Count Tolstoy, as a man with a great mind, did not give himself away and while reading these poems he himself laughed heartily. Such feigned indifference touched Zhikharev to the quick, and he again decided to repeat the poems after dinner. Tolstoy stood in front of him, looked seriously into his face and, turning to those present, asked:

- Isn’t it true, he’s black?

-Well, in front of his own soul he is a perfect blond. Zhikharev was offended and fell silent."*

* Shchepkin M.A. , Shchepkin M.S. Ed. A.S. Suvorina, 1914, p.219.

We saw that Pushkin, in his letter to Chaadaev, inserted several poems about F. Tolstoy, without naming him. These poems can hardly be called artistic characteristics; there is too much personal in them. But in "Eugene Onegin", in the person of Zaretsky, Pushkin used the figure of Fyodor Tolstoy to create a bright artistic image. “Tolstoy will appear to me in all his splendor in the 4th song of Onegin,” - he writes to his brother, and he intended to write a cruel description of the American. But Zaretsky appeared not in the 4th song, but in the 6th. Then Pushkin had already made peace with Tolstoy; maybe that's why he softened his characterization somewhat. Nevertheless, Zaretsky is similar to Tolstoy even in details.

This can be seen from the following verses from Eugene Onegin:

Regarding Zaretsky’s question about who will be Onegin’s second, Pushkin says about Zaretsky:

In this characteristic, many, even small, features are taken from the life of Fyodor Tolstoy: “Once a brawler, a chieftain of a gambling gang, the head of a rake, a tavern tribune, now he is a single father of a family, a reliable friend, a peaceful landowner, and even an honest man... an old duelist... He was not stupid... he is angry, he he's a gossip, he's talkative"- all this is said as if about Tolstoy. Only he was not captured by the French, like Zaretsky. Poem "The father of the family is single" hints at his relationship with a gypsy, verse "And even an honest man"- on his dishonest play in his youth. With this verse, Pushkin presented Tolstoy with a golden pill. If now Zaretsky "even an honest person" then this implies that he was not honest before. Lerner points out that "Zaretsky bit his lip" when Onegin recommended his servant and second M. Guillot to him. “Even though he is an unknown person, he is certainly an honest guy.” Having read this, Tolstoy also probably bit his lip, notes Lerrer.

Be that as it may, the appearance in print of the 6th song of Onegin did not lead to a new quarrel between Pushkin and Tolstoy. Apparently, Tolstoy bit his lip, and Pushkin was satisfied that he had fully repaid him for his gossip.

Pushkin's story "The Shot" once again reminds us of Tolstoy the American. In Zaretsky, the everyday Tolstoy is depicted, so to speak, in “The Shot”, in the person of Silvio, his somewhat stylized image, colored with some demonism.

The quarrel between the officers at the card table in "The Shot" is reminiscent of Tolstoy's quarrel with Naryshkin, and the story of Silvio with Count B., especially the delay of Silvio's shot, is reminiscent of Pushkin's quarrel with Tolstoy. The upcoming duel with Tolstoy weighed on Pushkin for several years, just as Silvio’s shot weighed on his opponent. During this time, Pushkin, of course, had thoughts about marriage, and in connection with these thoughts, he could not help but think that in the near future he would face an inevitable and dangerous duel.

In May 1830, when N.N. Goncharova agreed to be his wife, Pushkin had already made peace with Tolstoy. As you know, Pushkin’s wedding was postponed, and in September of the same year he lived in Boldin and wrote Belkin’s stories. Then, I think, he could have asked himself: if I now faced the prospect of being killed soon after the wedding, or even before it, how would I feel and how would I behave? And then he processed his memories and experiences into a living story. So, it seems to me, “The Shot” reflected Pushkin’s quarrel with Fyodor Tolstoy.

Leo Tolstoy used stories about the American Tolstoy to create two heroes of his works: the old hussar - Count Turbin in "The Two Hussars" and partly Dolokhov in "War and Peace". This does not mean that the old hussar or Dolokhov are portraits of the American Tolstoy. L.N. said that he would not be an artist if he only described living people. But when describing his heroes, he had the habit of imagining the appearance of one or another living person and imagining what this person would do under certain circumstances. Often he also used incidents that actually happened to characterize his heroes.

In “The Two Hussars” a certain cavalryman speaks of Count Turbin like this:

“I’m telling you, this is the same hussar duelist, well, Turbin is famous.<...>But you need to know who it is? Who took Migunova? He. He killed Sablin, he let Matnev down by the legs from the window, he beat Prince Nesterov for three hundred thousand. After all, what a desperate head this is, you need to know! Gambler, duelist, seducer; but the hussar is a soul, truly a soul!”

If Count Turbin can be called his brother by his resemblance to Fyodor Tolstoy, then Dolokhov in “War and Peace” can be called his cousin. In Dolokhov, along with great similarities, there are features that, apparently, were not present in the American. Leo Tolstoy, when creating the image of Dolokhov, probably used, in addition to the American Tolstoy, other people of the same ilk. Such was, for example, a certain Rufim Ivanovich Dorokhov, the son of a famous general of the 12th year. This Dorokhov was demoted several times for dueling and violent temper, so he spent almost his entire service as a private. He beat Pushkin on his way back from Erzurum. He was killed in 1852 near the Goyta River.

Dolokhov, just like Fyodor Tolstoy, is a reveler, a good comrade, a duelist, insanely brave, twice demoted, plays dishonestly, went as a spy in the chain of the French, etc. - but Dolokhov is not Fyodor Tolstoy. He is differently vicious than the American. He acts not only impulsively, but also with calculation, he is arrogant, he is cold and he is cruel by nature. "His gaze flashed with a cruel brilliance" in those moments when he probably beat Nikolai Rostov, shot Pierre Bezukhov or shot captured Frenchmen. This is hardly the cruelty of Fyodor Tolstoy. Tolstoy was not cruel con amore; his cruelty manifested itself only under the influence of passion or anger, and he had outbursts of generosity, which we do not find in Dolokhov.

Turgenev has two stories: "Breter" and "Three Portraits", in which the characters are akin to the American Tolstoy. These are Luchkov in "Breter" and Vasily Luchinov in "Three Portraits", both types are not attractive. But Turgenev hardly took samples of his stories from the life of Fyodor Tolstoy. At least, in the sources known to me about Tolstoy’s life, there are no indications of events similar to those described by Turgenev.

CHAPTER IX

Death of Fyodor Tolstoy. His family. Conclusion.

According to the testimony of his daughter Praskovya Fedorovna, Fyodor Ivanovich died on October 24, 1846 at the age of sixty-four, in the presence of her, his wife and his beloved family of Praskovya Vasilievna Tolstoy, née Barykova. The family of Praskovya Vasilievna, the widow of Andrei Andreevich Tolstoy, Fyodor Ivanovich’s uncle, consisted of herself, a son and three daughters. One of her daughters, Alexandra Andreevna, was subsequently on friendly terms with L. Tolstoy, as evidenced by the extensive correspondence between them. The grave of Fyodor Ivanovich is at the Vagankov cemetery.

When Novosiltseva’s stories about the American Tolstoy appeared in the Russian Archive, Praskovya Fedorovna Perfilyeva wrote a refutation of some of them. Thus, she refuted Novosiltseva’s story that her father and Nashchokin exchanged rings as a sign of an eternal union, with whom they were allegedly buried, that they gave their word to each other that the one who first felt the approach of death would call the other that Tolstoy called Nashchokin and that Nashchokin arrived and did not leave the dying man.

“Nashchokin was not there,- writes Praskovya Fedorovna, - and none of the family found it necessary to notify him of the count’s imminent death. Nashchokin and his father did not exchange any rings. But my father had a special style wedding ring, based on the model of which Pyotr Alexandrovich once ordered the same one for himself. Father was buried without a ring."

"Fyodor Ivanovich died a Christian,- writes A.A. Stakhovich. - I heard the priest who confessed the dying man say that the confession lasted a very long time, and rarely had he encountered such repentance and such faith in God’s mercy.”

The best funeral eulogy for Tolstoy’s death was said by Zhukovsky. Upon learning of his death, he wrote to A.Ya. Bulgakov: “He had many good qualities. I personally knew only good qualities. Everything else was known only by legend, and I always had a heart for him, and he was a good friend of his friends.” *.

*Zhukovsky V. Op. 7th ed. T.6. P.572.

Fyodor Ivanovich had several children - twelve, according to Kamenskaya. Except for Sarah, who died at the age of 17, and Praskovya, his only daughter who reached adulthood, all of his children died in infancy or were stillborn. He dearly loved his eldest daughter Sarah and gave her a good education. She was sickly and mentally ill, but exceptionally talented. Her poems were published, and Belinsky gave a favorable review of them, and Herzen calls her an extraordinary girl with a high poetic gift. She died in 1838, and her death was a heavy blow to her father.

His second daughter, Praskovya Fedorovna, was married to Vasily Stepanovich Perfilyev, who was the Moscow civil governor in the 70s and 80s. L.N. Tolstoy was on friendly terms with both his second cousin Polinka, as he calls her, and her husband Vasenka; he mentions them more than once in his diary of his youth.

Praskovya Fedorovna died in 1887. V.S. Perfilyev - in 1890. They had one son, Fedor, who looked like his grandfather. He was married to Princess M.A. Golitsyna and had two daughters. He died at a relatively young age from progressive paralysis.

In my essay I tried to be objective. In order to judge people like American Tolstoy, one must travel back to their era. His life can serve as a living illustration of the evil that the autocratic serfdom caused not only to the oppressed, but also to the oppressors, perverting their psyche and instilling in them disrespect for man and the habit of giving full rein to their passions and vices.

Once, in the 80s, I heard V.O. Klyuchevsky said: "Almost everything noble families, which rose to prominence under Peter and Catherine, degenerated. Of these, the Tolstoy family is an exception. This genus has shown particular vitality.". The American Tolstoy fully confirms Klyuchevsky’s words. He was especially tenacious. He was a wonderful representative of the family Homo sapiens with healthy heredity and with the passion, egocentrism and savagery characteristic of some representatives of the Tolstoy family. L.N. Tolstoy, in one letter (1865, Oct.) to his relative Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoy, with whose family the American was close, even writes about her, a reserved and tactful teacher of the grand duchesses: “You have the Tolstoyan savagery we all share. It’s not for nothing that Fyodor Ivanovich got a tattoo.”

Tolstoy the American also had good qualities, which was noted by Zhukovsky. He showed independence of character, loyalty to friends and family, a willingness to risk his life in war, for the sake of his friends, or at least to restore his conventional honor, and at the end of his life he repented of his crimes.

However, he was not only "in the moral world there is a mystery" according to Vyazemsky; he was an immoral and criminal man. He lived only for his own pleasure, drank, overeat, debauched, played games, killed, tortured his serf servants, etc.

But can you blame him for this? The morality he learned from childhood consisted only of the teachings of the church, which justified serfdom and extolling autocratic power, and from the conventional ethics of guards officers. Everything he did was also done by others and was not condemned by public opinion. He only did it more openly and with more passion than others, and he was convinced that he had every right to do so.

Who knows? Perhaps, with a different upbringing and in a different environment, his passion and his outstanding abilities would have been turned to something else - to useful work and to serving people.

Sources

Genealogical books of the book. P. Dolgorukova, G.A. Vlasyev, Rummel and Golubtsov.

Saitov's notes to volume 1 of the correspondence of the book. P.A. Vyazemsky with A.I. Turgenev. P.518-521.

Pushkin A. Academic publication.

Lerner. Pushkin and his contemporaries. St. Petersburg, 1911. P.1-20.

Wigel F. Notes. M., 1892. Liprandi. Notes on the notes of F. Wiegel.

Bulgarin. Memories. St. Petersburg, 1848. T.5. P.201-210.

Vyazemsky P.A. Op. T.3. pp.161-163; T.4. P.8,282; T.8. P.37, 58, 350, 369, 375, 461, 505.

Novosiltseva. Nashchokin's stories // Russian antiquity. 1878. XVIII. P.718; XXI. pp.538-539; XXII. pp.282-283, 334; and objections P.F. Perfileva. XVIII. P.718.

Stakhovich A. Pieces of memories // Literary Bulletin. VII. Book 2.43.

Kamenskaya M.F.// Historical Bulletin. 1894. T.57. P.41-45.

Notes of Admiral Krusenstern. T.1. St. Petersburg, 1810.

Lisyansky. Notes on sailing on the Neva. St. Petersburg, 1812.

Nine letters from gr. F.I. Tolstoy to the book. V.A. Gagarin (manuscript).

Other sources are indicated in the text or in footnotes.

Charming and dangerous

Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy was the son of a poor count from the Tolstoy family. His mother came from the respectable Maykov family and was a very well-behaved woman. Maria Ivanovna Lopukhina from the famous portrait by Borovikovsky was Fyodor’s sister. The future American was born in Moscow, but spent his entire childhood on the family estate. Then the boy was assigned to Morskaya cadet corps in St. Petersburg - for the impoverished nobles it was the only way provide children with a decent future. After him, Tolstoy entered the Preobrazhensky Regiment.

Maria Lopukhina, Tolstoy's sister

Fyodor Tolstoy was a distant relative of the poet Apollo Maykov

Already in his youth, Fedor was at least an extraordinary person. He was strong and agile, excellent at shooting and fencing. Thaddeus Bulgarin wrote about Tolstoy: “He was a dangerous opponent because he shot excellently with a pistol, fenced no worse than Severbek (the general fencing teacher of that time) and cut masterfully with sabers. At the same time, he was definitely brave and, despite the ardor of his character, he was cold-blooded both in battle and in duel.” Many noted his unusual appearance: black curly hair, shiny black eyes and excellent build.

Breter and gambler

In those days, among the nobility, daring and youth were in fashion - and it didn’t matter whether the hero fought in the war, fought duels, or was just desperately carousing. Brave, sometimes cruel and even violent, Tolstoy soon turned into a real legend. Proud and impudent, Fedor often initiated duels himself, which became a kind of everyday entertainment for him. Due to constant pranks, he was assigned to the Vyazmitinsky garrison regiment. There the young count's first duel took place. How it ended is unknown, and rumors that the young brute was demoted to soldiering are most likely not true. Another favorite pastime of Tolstoy was cards, and, as he said, he sometimes “corrected the mistakes of fortune” and played for sure.

World trip

Tolstoy's real adventures began when he set out on a circumnavigation of the world in 1803 with Krusenstern's expedition. He decided on the journey himself and, as a “young well-bred person,” took the place of his cousin on the ship, who suffered from seasickness. There was absolutely nothing for the rake to do on the ship - so he set about his favorite tricks. One day he got an old priest drunk, and while he was sleeping, he sealed his beard with sealing wax to the floor with the government seal that he stole from Krusenstern. When the priest woke up and wanted to get up, Tolstoy declared that the seal could not be broken - the beard had to be cut off. Another time, Fedor taught a monkey living on a ship to spill ink, and it destroyed all of Krusenstern’s notes.

Tolstoy received the nickname American after his trip around the world.

After one of these pranks, the captain could not stand it and landed Tolstoy on one of the little-known islands. What kind of island it was, and how exactly the count got there - there is no reliable information. There he spent several months and, according to him, made friends with the aborigines and even received an offer to become their king. There he decorated his entire body with tattoos, which he later showed off to everyone with pleasure. Off Alaska, Tolstoy was picked up by a merchant ship, and he returned to Russia either on horseback or on foot. It was thanks to these adventures that he received his nickname American.

Return to St. Petersburg

The count never managed to reach St. Petersburg - he was sent to serve in the Neishlot fortress, where Tolstoy spent two years. Finally, he begged Prince Dolgorukov to take him as his adjutant. The brave young man's dream came true - he got to real war, where he showed himself excellently. Much later, he once again distinguished himself in battle - already at Borodino, where he volunteered, and even received the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

Tolstoy served Pushkin as a prototype for Zaretsky

Returning to St. Petersburg, the count returned to his old ways. Because of a joke during a card game, he ended up in a duel with a young officer Naryshkin, for whose murder he ended up in the Vyborg fortress. There were legends about Tolstoy's dueling skills - they said that one day a friend called him to be a second in a duel. To help out his comrade, Tolstoy himself challenged his opponent to a duel and killed him.

Tolstoy in old age

Friendship with Pushkin and Zhukovsky

Tolstoy made acquaintances with many famous writers of that time. They were great friends with Pushkin until the count wrote an epigram about the poet. The enraged Pushkin, being in exile, promised to challenge the rake to a duel immediately upon returning to Moscow, but the duel never took place.

In duels, Tolstoy killed a total of 11 people.

He was also friends with Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky, Baratynsky, Batyushkov and Denis Davydov. Mentions of the count are often found in the lines of works of that time. Tolstoy served as a prototype for Pushkin's Zaretsky. He wrote him and Griboyedov in “Woe from Wit”. Some features were borrowed from Fyodor Ivanovich and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, his cousin, when he created the image of Dolokhov from War and Peace.

Love affairs

A fiery brunette with a violent temper, Tolstoy always attracted the attention of women, and his love affairs often gave rise to gossip. He married in 1821 the lovely gypsy Avdotya Tugaeva, who seduced the rake with her wonderful voice. They lived together for several years, but the count was in no hurry to get married. He once lost a large sum in an English club and had to be blacklisted for not paying his losses on time.

11 of Tolstoy's 12 children did not live to adulthood

He could not bear such shame and was going to shoot himself. Then Avdotya brought the missing amount, saying that she kept all the money donated to her lover. Touched, Tolstoy immediately decided to get married.

Tolstoy's daughter Sarah

In Tolstoy’s marriage to Avdotya, 12 children were born, although only their daughter Praskovya survived to adulthood. The remaining children were stillborn or died in infancy. Their eldest daughter Sarah, who was endowed with poetic talent, died at the age of 17. They said that in his old age Tolstoy became superstitious and believed that his dead children were retribution for all the people he killed in duels. He wrote down all his 11 victims and every time his child died, he wrote the word “quit” next to the name of the murdered person. The American himself died in 1846 in his Moscow home and was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

He killed more than 10 people in duels, was a war hero and went around the world. His body was covered with tattoos. His wife was a gypsy. Leo Tolstoy's uncle, Fyodor Tolstoy the American, was a born provocateur who shocked the noble society of his time.

Daring officer

Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy was born in 1782, and from childhood he was distinguished by his lively character, penchant for adventure and enviable physical health. After graduating from the Naval Cadet Corps, through patronage he ended up in the prestigious Preobrazhensky Regiment. Young Tolstoy did not manage to hold out in it for long. He was late for the extraordinary review of the regiment due to the fact that he was flying in a hot air balloon. The event itself is already extraordinary, but if Fyodor Tolstoy were not himself, if it had a standard resolution. Having been scolded by Colonel Driesen for being late, the young count could not bear the insult and... spat in the commander’s face. The situation was resolved by a duel, in which the colonel was seriously wounded. Tolstoy faced a tribunal. An original way out of the situation was found.

Around the world - from court

On August 7, 1803, the first Russian round-the-world expedition began. The ships left Kronstadt. The crew of Ivan Kruzenshtern’s sloop “Nadezhda” also included Fyodor Tolstoy, described as “a young, well-bred person, a gentleman of the embassy to Japan.”

Within a few days, the “well-bred person” managed to quarrel with all the crew members. The reason for such a sharp discrepancy lay in the fact that Fyodor Tolstoy was not the Tolstoy for whom the characterization was written, but his cousin. Only patronymics differed among relatives. Twenty-one-year-old Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy found himself on a round-the-world expedition both intentionally and by accident. On board the Nadezhda he was hiding from trial.

Pranks on the ship

Tolstoy was not bored during the expedition. He quarreled with the crew and behaved at least defiantly. Once he got the ship’s priest Gideon drunk, as they say, “to the point of vestments,” and when the old man fell asleep on the deck, he sealed the hieromonk’s beard to the deck and put the state seal on wax. It was strictly forbidden to break it; Gideon had to lose his beard.

During rare stops, Tolstoy also could not calm down his craving for drive. In the Brazilian port of Dodestero, he clashed with a Portuguese officer who was searching for smugglers. Tolstoy's appearance seemed strange to the officer. Things were heading towards shooting, but the Portuguese apologized in time. The last straw of his stay on the ship was the “story with the monkey.”

During Kruzenshtern's absence, Tolstoy and the on-board monkey entered the captain's cabin, put a sheet of paper on the table and began pouring ink on it. The monkey watched carefully and learned his lesson well. Tolstoy had only to leave the cabin when the trained primate flooded the entire captain’s desk with ink, ruining documents and maps.

Kruzenshtern could not leave Tolstoy on the ship, and in 1804 he landed the irrepressible count in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. It is significant that Tolstoy did not go to St. Petersburg right away. He spent several months in the Aleutian Islands and lived among the aborigines of the island of Sithu, to whom the Russian colonists gave the name “Koloshi”. According to Tolstoy himself, they even wanted to make him the leader of the tribe. Objective evidence This is not the case, but there is no doubt that Tolstoy lived on the islands for a long time.

Tattoos

When Tolstoy had not yet been kicked out of the ship and the Nadezhda was in the Marquesas Islands, Tolstoy covered his entire body with tattoos. In the 19th century, tattoos caused shock and awe and were considered the property of “savages.” Tolstoy deliberately shocked those around him.

War Hero

St. Petersburg did not wait for Tolstoy with open arms. Immediately from the city outpost, Tolstoy was sent to serve in the Neishlot fortress. The staff service was not to the count's liking. “The American,” as Tolstoy was nicknamed, wrote requests for transfer more than once, but not a single commander wanted to take the unpredictable tattooed adventurer. As a result, Prince Dolgoruky himself, the commander of the Serdob detachment, appointed Tolstoy as his adjutant. The “American” did not sit out at headquarters; he actively participated in the hostilities and earned the fame of a hero. Following the Swedish War, Tolstoy was rehabilitated and returned to the Preobrazhensky Regiment. But this time his guard service was short-lived. Duels, demotion to the rank and file, imprisonment in the Vyborg fortress, resignation and exile to a village near Kaluga - less than four years from Tolstoy’s biography of that time.

Fyodor Tolstoy stayed on the Kaluga estate until the Patriotic War. Having volunteered for the front with the rank of private, he heroically marched with the Russian army from the Borodino field to Paris, ended the war as a lieutenant colonel and was awarded the order George 4th degree.

Tolstoy the American had two main passions: duels and cards. After retiring, he productively indulged in both. He played cards a lot and not always honestly, which is why he made enemies, accepted and challenged duels. Once Tolstoy was Gagarin's second. The duel was scheduled for 11 am the next day. Having picked up Tolstoy before the duel, a friend found him sleeping. It turned out that the “American” had provoked a scandal with Gagarin’s offender the day before and had already gotten even with him early in the morning.

A passionate fighter, Tolstoy the American did not keep track of his duels, but he remembered the number of those he killed in duels. He counted eleven of them. Fyodor Ivanovich was atypical in love too. His wife, the gypsy Avdotya Tugaeva, gave birth to twelve children, but only one daughter, Praskovya, reached adulthood. The eldest daughter Sarah died at the age of 17. Fyodor Ivanovich considered this as retribution for his duel murders. Opposite the names of each of the deceased children, he wrote “quit.”

Fame

Fyodor Ivanovich was a bright personality and well-known in the world. He was friends with Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Griboedov. It was Tolstoy who introduced Pushkin into the Goncharov family. The relationship between “The American” and Pushkin cannot be called simple. Once Pushkin caught Tolstoy in a dishonest game, the count did not forget the insult and during Pushkin’s exile he spread a rumor that he had been flogged in the Secret Chancellery. Everything was heading towards a duel, but by the will of fate it was limited to only apt mutual epigrams. Pushkin wrote in exile:

For a long time he was immersed in a gloomy and despicable life. For a long time he desecrated all the ends of the universe with debauchery, But, having corrected himself little by little, He made amends for his shame And now, thank God, he has just become a card thief.

Tolstoy responded with the following lines:

Moral satire's stinging sting is not at all similar to libelous slander. In the delight of vile feelings, you, Chushkin, then forgot, I honor you as despicable, insignificant, how much I honored you. Smite vices with example, not poetry. And remember, dear friend, that you have cheeks.

Fyodor Tolstoy was portrayed by Pushkin in the novel “Eugene Onegin” in the role of Zaretsky, Lensky’s second.

“Night robber, duelist” from Repetilov’s monologue in Griboedov’s “Woe from Wit” is also copied from Tolstoy.

Finally, Fyodor Ivanovich’s cousin Leo Tolstoy “copied” several of his heroes from “The American.” Dolokhov in “War and Peace”, Count Turbin in the story “Two Hussars” - the prototype of these heroes was Fyodor Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy wrote about him this way:

“I remember he drove up in a postal carriage, entered my father’s office and demanded that they bring him a special dry french bread; he didn't eat anything else. I remember his beautiful face: bronze, shaved, with thick white sideburns reaching to the corners of his mouth and the same white curly hair. I would like to tell a lot about this extraordinary, criminal and attractive person.”

Tolstoy the American spent the last years of his life as a devout Christian, prayed a lot and attended church. He died after a short illness in his Moscow home; he was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery.

The post Fyodor Tolstoy the American: the story of the most “abnormal” of all Tolstoys appeared first on Smart.

To ward off the storm from the young man, Fyodor’s relatives arranged for Kruzenshtern’s ship to go to his round the world expedition. However, the newly minted sailor here also so annoyed the entire crew with his hooligan antics that in the Alaska region he was thrown off the ship onto desert island. Tolstoy lived as Robinson for several months until he was picked up by a passing ship. From that time on, the nickname American was firmly attached to him.

Tolstoy the American felt himself a Russian man in 1812, when, without hesitation, he joined the ranks of the defenders of the Fatherland. Having enlisted as a private in active army, Fyodor Ivanovich went with her all the way from Borodino Field to Paris and ended the war as a colonel with the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

His family life was tragic: 11 of Fyodor Ivanovich’s children died in infancy - exactly the number of people he killed in duels. Tolstoy firmly believed that God was punishing him for the sins of his youth. He even compiled a list of his victims, and after the death of each child he marked next to the next name on the duel list: “Quit.” This spell was lifted only with the birth of Tolstoy’s twelfth child, his daughter Praskovya, who lived to a ripe old age.

Over the years, Tolstoy settled down, became devout, and in the 65th year of his life he quietly and calmly passed away into another world. The priest who confessed him before his death said later that in few people he had encountered such sincere repentance and faith in God’s mercy.

Facts

Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy was born on February 6, 1782, in the Kologrivsky district of the Kostroma province. From childhood, he showed sophisticated cruelty, for example, he loved to catch rats and frogs, cut their belly with a penknife and amused himself with their agony for hours.

While staying near the island of Nukagiwa, Tolstoy turned to a local artist, who covered him from head to toe with Polynesian tattoos. For a man of noble origin, this was a completely wild act, but Tolstoy was very pleased, and subsequently gladly showed off his “tattoos” to friends and acquaintances. Usually Fyodor Ivanovich was naked in front of those gathered to the waist, after which, only accompanied by men, he retired to a separate room, where he undressed naked, presenting his powerful body, covered with intricate ornaments depicting fantastic snakes and birds.

According to the story of A. Wulf, once in Moscow Pushkin met with Tolstoy at the card table. There was a game. Tolstoy shuddered. Pushkin noticed this to him. “Yes, I know that myself,” Tolstoy answered him, “but I don’t like it to be noticed to me.”

Tolstoy valued friendship above all else and, in the words of Bulgarin, “he was ready to do anything for a friend”: he helped out in word, deed, and money. There is a known case when he lent Count Gagarin a thousand rubles for a trip to Paris, and in return first asked to bring him candelabra, but then changed his mind and ordered only champagne and Bordeaux.

One of the lists of “Woe from Wit” has been preserved, in which an amendment was made by the hand of Tolstoy the American: instead of “He was exiled to Kamchatka” - “The devil carried to Kamchatka (for he was never exiled)”, and instead of “and was not firmly in hand” clean” - “he’s not clean when it comes to playing cards” and an explanation is added: “For the fidelity of the portrait, this correction is necessary so that they don’t think that he’s stealing snuff boxes from the table.”

The cousin of Tolstoy the American, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, gave his famous namesake literary immortality, making him the prototype of the brave brawler Dolokhov in War and Peace. In addition, the count ended up on the pages of “Woe from Wit” and “Eugene Onegin”, and also became the prototype of Turgenev’s “Breter” (Luchkov) and Turbin in “The Two Hussars”.

Five miles from Krasnogorye,
Villages of Lensky, lives
And is still alive today
In the philosophical desert
Zaretsky, once a brawler,
Ataman of the gambling gang,
The head is a rake, a tavern tribune,
Now kind and simple
The father of the family is single,
Reliable friend, peaceful landowner
And even an honest person:
This is how our century is corrected!
A.S. Pushkin, “Eugene Onegin”

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