A LINK WITH TOLSTOY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 54, 5 March 1927, Page 26

A LINK WITH TOLSTOY

Countess Tatiana Tolstoy-Sukhotin, the eldest of the great Tolstoy's 13 children, and her daughter, Tanya Sukhotin, have arrived in England to give lectures both on the works and, what is often more interesting to those who never knew him, on Tolstoy in the home. The reason for this is that in 1928 will bo celebrated the centenary of Tolstoy, and the Tolstoy Society, of which Lady Grey of Fallodon is the president, and Mr. Aylmer Maude the secretary, are trying to get out the completed pocket edition of the books and plays of the great writer, and also to get some of his plays acted in London. Mr, Maude, who with his wife did so much translation of Tolstoy's works during his lifetime, states that only the American rights were holding up tho completion of the cheap edition. Countess Tatiana hopes shortly, therefore, to go to America on a lecture tour which will bring about the desired result. Stephen Graham Galsworthy, Maurice Baring, 11. G. Wells, Gilbert Murray, and Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton are some of tho well-known people who are going to write introductions to the various books.

Countess Tatiana, with her sister Alexandra, now living in Moscow, was for 35 years, until her marriage, the constant companion of Tolstoy on their country estate. She was with him during his conversion, though at that time she was just grown up, and with her mother went into society in Moscow, to balls and parties, grieving her father very much. Later on she and her sister and two of'her brothers used to work at harvest time in the fields jf the estate with Tolstoy, dressed in peasant costume, eating the same coarse bread as the peasants, and sleeping at night on bare boards, "although Alexandra, who was very thin, used to rattle about like a bunch of dried peas on them," added Countess Tatiana with a smile. It was a strenuous simple life that Tolstoy led in those days, drawing water and sawing wood for the household, lighting the Btove, drinking neither alcohoj, nor tea, nor coffee, eating only vegetables, and no sweet bread or sweet dishes. Tatiana. who had not been converted, used to get rather tired of this, and one day hearing that a well-known painter was coming to dinner, she left her field work, hurried home, bathed, did up her hair, and dressed in a scarlet evening gown to receive the painter. Tolstoy never scolded his children,- but next day a verse lay on her plate asking her why "the worker of the morning" had become the boiled crab of the evening!" • ■