Another brother dies

Leo Tolstoy goes to Europe for a second time in July 1860 with his sister Marya and her three children. They sail from St Petersburg on a paddle steamer and it is the last time he leaves Russia. Visiting his oldest brother Nicholas, who is ill with tuberculosis in the German spa town of Soden, is a key motivation behind the trip. Yet Tolstoy gets distracted by travelling around visiting schools and meeting with famous German educationalists. He has still not gone to see him several weeks after arriving in Germany so the gravely unwell Nicholas travels many hours by train to see him at Kissingen, returning to Soden the next day. It takes his younger brother another two weeks to go to his side. On the recommendation of doctors, the two brothers, Marya and the children move to Hyeres in the south of France. Within a fortnight Nicholas, aged 37, dies in his younger brother’s arms, the second of the four brothers to die of tuberculosis.

After this death, Tolstoy stays for two more months in Hyeres at Marya’s rented villa. The town is full of tuberculosis sufferers. He then travels around Italy for another two months, meets the Russian philosopher Alexander Herzen for the first time while in London, meets the French philosopher Pierre Joseph Proudhon while in Belgium and returns to Germany. Throughout his travels he continues his exploration of child education. He returns to Russia in April 1861.