You’re a Strange One, Lev Nikolaevich.

I went to Tolstoy’s Moscow house over the weekend. He’s one of the more interesting men of letters in the 19th-20th century, and far more vivid than a dusty pile of “classics” in some library somewhere.

The house is a beautiful, 2-story rambling wooden structure with a very large garden and several outbuildings. In the nearly 100 years since his death, the area seems to have gone from suburban to industrial to successfully post-industrial – two of the city’s hottest night spots are right across the street. The ticket office is in one of the outbuildings across the yard from the gate. I entered a low-ceilinged room and found two babushkas drinking tea at a desk surrounded by display cases of Tolstoy related writings. One of them took out the ticket book and asked if I were a student. “No,” I said, flattered by the question, “I’m already too old to be a student.”

She looked up and scolded me. “You’re never too old to learn, you know.” She also sold me a little pamphlet about Tolstoy and the house, but only after she was sufficiently satisfied that I could actually read Russian. Ticket in hand (for 60 rubles instead of the 30 ruble student price) I promised to learn something that very day.

The house is well preserved and chock full of actual Tolstoy family belongings. After his death in 1909 the family presented it to the city of Moscow for use as a museum. (Actually, it remained closed until 1920 for “political reasons” when Lenin ordered it opened.) So, the old man’s big furry overcoat is still hanging in the hallway, his pens are still on his desk, and his shoes are still in the closet.

Tolstoy was born wealthy, lived a scandalously debauched lifestyle, wrote amazing literature, and then renounced everything in his old age. He corresponded with Mohandas Gandhi – before Mohandas became Mahatma – and helped him develop his philosophy of non-violent passive resistance. His personal philosophy (Tolstoyan) was a blend of pacifism, Christianity, and anarchism – culminating in a tract he entitled “The Kingdom of God is Within Us.” That was certainly considered radical in an autocracy with an official religion. On the strength of his new ideas, he got excommunicated and shunned by the state.

So this is the real intellectual legacy of a man whose major work is now the synonym for “a thick book.” Somewhat controversial, I suppose, but I’ll take it over Ayn Rand any day.

Still, one gets the feeling that Tolstoy could be kind of prickly. For instance, instead of admitting that he needed glasses, he took his desk chair out to the barn and cut the legs down. This brought him a lot closer to the table top, and voila, his vision problem was corrected as far as he was concerned. There it is in his study – leather couches, big desk, and oddly miniature chair.

Come to think of it, that could be Tolstoy’s real legacy – ingenuity and flexibility in defining, reacting to, and trying to change his environment over a long period of time. Maybe I should run that interpretation past the ticket lady - she might just be proud of me.