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    Leo Tolstoy - The Light Shines in Darkness: “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
    Leo Tolstoy - The Light Shines in Darkness: “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
    Leo Tolstoy - The Light Shines in Darkness: “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
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    Leo Tolstoy - The Light Shines in Darkness: “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”

    By Leo Tolstoy

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    About this ebook

    Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on September 9th 1828 into Russian nobility but abandoned his title and through his interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus became a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. His writings on non-violence were to have a profound impact on Gandhi and Martin Luther King. His reputation for many people is based on the epic, in length and scope, of his novel ‘War & Peace’. For that alone Tolstoy would be widely considered to be one of the greatest novelists of all time. But such was the breadth of his talents that he was consummate at short stories, essays and plays. Here we publish ‘The Light Shines In Darkness’ one of those classic plays.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateOct 25, 2013
    ISBN9781783945160
    Leo Tolstoy - The Light Shines in Darkness: “If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
    Author

    Leo Tolstoy

    Count Lev (Leo) Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born at Vasnaya Polyana in the Russian province of Tula in 1828. He inherited the family title aged nineteen, quit university and after a period of the kind of dissolute aristocratic life so convincingly portrayed in his later novels, joined the army, where he started to write. Travels in Europe opened him to western ideas, and he returned to his family estates to live as a benign landowner. In 1862 he married Sofia Behr, who bore him thirteen children. He expressed his increasingly subversive, but devout, views through prolific work that culminated in the immortal novels of his middle years, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Beloved in Russia and with a worldwide following, but feared by the Tsarist state and excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox church, he died in 1910.

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      Book preview

      Leo Tolstoy - The Light Shines in Darkness - Leo Tolstoy

      The Light Shines in Darkness by Leo Tolstoy

      Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on September 9th 1828 into Russian nobility but abandoned his title and through his interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus became a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist.  His writings on non-violence were to have a profound impact on Gandhi and Martin Luther King. His reputation for many people is based on the epic, in length and scope, of his novel ‘War & Peace’.  For that alone Tolstoy would be widely considered to be one of the greatest novelists of all time.  But such was the breadth of his talents that he was consummate at short stories, essays and plays.  Here we publish ‘The Light Shines In Darkness’ one of those classic plays.

      Leo Tolstoy died acclaimed and admired throughout the world on November 20th 1910.

      Table Of Contents

      Characters

      Act 1 Scene 1

      Act 2 Scene 1

      Act 2 Scene 2

      Act 2 Scene 3

      Act 3 Scene 1

      Act 3 Scene 2

      Act 3 Scene 3

      Act 4 Scene 1

      Act 4 Scene 2

      Act 5

      Leo Tolstoy – A Short Biography

      Characters

      NICHOLAS IVANOVICH SARYNTSOV.

      MARY IVANOVNA SARYNTSOVA. His wife.

      LYUBA. Their daughter.

      STYOPA. Their son.

      VANYA. A younger son.

      MISSY. Their daughter.

      THE SARYNTSOVS' LITTLE CHILDREN.

      ALEXANDER MIKAYLOVICH STARKOVSKY. (Lyuba's betrothed in Act IV).

      MITROFAN ERMILYCH. Vanya's tutor.

      THE SARYNTSOVS' GOVERNESS.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA KOHOVTSEVA. Mary Ivanovna's sister.

      PETER SEMYONOVICH KOHOVTSEV. Her husband.

      LISA. Their daughter.

      PRINCESS CHEREMSHANOV.

      BORIS. Her son.

      TONYA. Her daughter.

      A YOUNG PRIEST.

      THE SARYNTSOVS' NURSE.

      THE SARYNTSOVS' MEN-SERVANTS.

      IVAN ZYABREV. A peasant.

      A PEASANT WOMAN. His wife.

      MALASHKA. His daughter (carrying her baby-brother).

      PETER. A peasant.

      A RURAL POLICEMAN.

      FATHER GERASIM. A priest.

      A NOTARY.

      A CARPENTER.

      A GENERAL.

      HIS ADJUTANT.

      A COLONEL.

      A REGIMENTAL CLERK.

      A SENTINEL.

      TWO SOLDIERS.

      A GENDARME OFFICER.

      HIS CLERK.

      THE CHAPLAIN OF THE REGIMENT.

      THE CHIEF DOCTOR IN A MILITARY ASYLUM.

      AN ASSISTANT DOCTOR.

      WARDERS.

      AN INVALID OFFICER.

      PIANIST.

      COUNTESS.

      ALEXANDER PETROVICH.

      PEASANT MEN AND WOMEN, STUDENTS, LADIES, DANCING COUPLES.

      ACT I SCENE 1

      The scene represents the verandah of a fine country-house, in front of which a croquet-lawn and tennis-court are shown, also a flower-bed. The children are playing croquet with their governess. Mary Ivanovna Saryntsova, a handsome elegant woman of forty; her sister, Alexandra Ivanovna Kohovtseva, a stupid, determined woman of forty-five; and her husband, Peter Semyonovich Kohovtsef, a fat flabby man, dressed in a summer suit, with a pince-nez, are sitting on the verandah at a table with a samovar and coffee-pot. Mary Ivanovna Saryntsova, Alexandra Ivanovna Kohovtseva, and Peter Semyonovich Kohovtsev are drinking coffee, and the latter is smoking.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. If you were not my sister, but a stranger, and Nicholas Ivanovich not your husband, but merely an acquaintance, I should think all this very original, and perhaps I might even encourage him, J'aurais trouve tout ca tres gentil;[1] but when I see that your husband is playing the fool, yes, simply playing the fool, then I can't help telling you what I think about it. And I shall tell your husband, Nicholas, too. Je lui dirai son fait, ma chere.[2] I am not afraid of anyone.

      [Note 1: I should have considered it all very pretty.]

      [Note 2: I will tell him the plain fact, my dear.]

      MARY IVANOVNA. I don't feel the least bit hurt; don't I see it all myself? but I don't think it so very important.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. No. You don't think so, but I tell you that, if you let it go on, you will be beggared. Du train que cela va ...[3]

      [Note 3: At the rate things are going.]

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. Come! Beggared indeed! Not with an income like theirs.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. Yes, beggared! And please don't interrupt me, my dear! Anything a man does always seems right to you!

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. Oh! I don't know. I was saying

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. But you never do know what you are saying, because when you men begin playing the fool, il n'y a pas de raison que ça finisse.[4] I am only saying that if I were in your place, I should not allow it. J'aurais mis bon ordre à toutes ces lubies.[5] What does it all mean? A husband, the head of a family, has no occupation, abandons everything, gives everything away, et fait le genereux à droite et à gauche.[6] I know how it will end! Nous en savons quelque chose.[7]

      [Note:

      4: There is no reason for it to stop.

      5: I should put an end to all these fads.

      6: And plays the bountiful left and right.

      7: We know something about it.]

      PETER SEMYONOVICH [to Mary Ivanovna]. But do explain to me, Mary, what is this new movement? Of course I understand Liberalism, County Councils, the Constitution, schools, reading-rooms, and tout ce qui s'en suit;[8] as well as Socialism, strikes, and an eight-hour day; but what is this? Explain it to me.

      [Note 8: All the rest of it.]

      MARY IVANOVNA. But he told you about it yesterday.

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. I confess I did not understand. The Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount and that churches are unnecessary! But then how is one to pray, and all that?

      MARY IVANOVNA. Yes. That is the worst of it. He would destroy everything, and give us nothing in its place.

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. How did it begin?

      MARY IVANOVNA. It began last year, after his sister died. He was very fond of her, and her death had a very great effect on him. He became quite morose, and was always talking about death; and then, you know, he fell ill himself with typhus. When he recovered, he was quite a changed man.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. But, all the same, he came in spring to see us again in Moscow, and was very nice, and played bridge. Il etait très gentil et comme tout le monde.[9]

      [Note 9: He was very nice, and like everybody else.]

      MARY IVANOVNA. But, all the same, he was then quite changed.

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. In what way?

      MARY IVANOVNA. He was completely indifferent to his family, and purely and simply had l'idee fixe. He read the Gospels for days on end, and did not sleep. He used to get up at night to read, made notes and extracts, and then began going to see bishops and hermits, consulting them about religion.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. And did he fast, or prepare for communion?

      MARY IVANOVNA. From the time of our marriage, that's twenty years ago, till then he had never fasted nor taken the sacrament, but at that time he did once take the sacrament in a monastery, and then immediately afterwards decided that one should neither take communion nor go to church.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. That's what I say, thoroughly inconsistent!

      MARY IVANOVNA. Yes, a month before, he would not miss a single service, and kept every fast-day; and then he suddenly decided that it was all unnecessary. What can one do with such a man?

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. I have spoken and will speak to him again.

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. Yes! But the matter is of no great importance.

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. No? Not to you! Because you men have no religion.

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. Do let me speak. I say that that is not the point. The point is this: if he denies the Church, what does he want the Gospels for?

      MARY IVANOVNA. Well, so that we should live according to the Gospels and the Sermon on the Mount, and give everything away.

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. But how is one to live if one gives everything away?

      ALEXANDRA IVANOVNA. And where has he found in the Sermon on the Mount that we must shake hands with footmen? It says Blessed are the meek, but it says nothing about shaking hands!

      MARY IVANOVNA. Yes, of course, he gets carried away, as he always used to. At one time it was music, then shooting, then the school. But that doesn't make it any the easier for me!

      PETER SEMYONOVICH. Why has he gone to town to-day?

      MARY IVANOVNA. He did not tell me, but

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