Sober one minute, drunk the next

Adriaen van Ostade, Three Drunken Peasants in a Tavern or Inn, V&A

In Anna Karenina (1873–77) Tolstoy contrasts the drinking of lower and upper classes. Levin, blushing and bumbling after his visit to Anna, blabs on about drinking:-  «Вот  мы говорим, что народ пьет; не знаю, кто больше пьет, народ или наше  сословие; народ хоть в праздник, но… Но Кити неинтересно было рассуждение о том, как пьет народ». “‘We talk about the peasants drinking, but I really don’t know who drinks most — the common people or our own class. The peasants drink at holiday times, but …’   But Kitty was not interested in a dissertation on the drinking habits of the peasants. (VII.12)

More than twenty years later in Resurrection (1899) he revisits the contrast. He is describing Kolossov - a former Marshall of the Nobility who is now a bank director. «Колосов, выпив водки, вина, ликера, был  немного  пьян,  не  так  пьян,  как бывают пьяны редко пьющие мужики, но так, как бывают пьяны  люди,  сделавшие себе из вина привычку. Он  не  шатался,  не  говорил  глупостей,  но  был  в ненормальном, возбужденно-довольном  собою  состоянии». “Kolossov, having drunk vodka, wine and liqueur, was a little tipsy - not tipsy like the peasants, who drink seldom, but like people who are in the habit of drinking wine. He did not reel about  or talk nonsense, but he was in an abnormal condition - excited and self-satisfied.”

Elsewhere words exhorting the use of alcohol are put in the mouth of the unfortunate Maslova at one of her lowest points where nothing but cynical self-interest makes any sense to her: «Станет скучно - покурила или выпила или,  что  лучше всего, полюбилась с мужчиной, и пройдет». “When you feel depressed - have a cigarette or a drink or, best of all, make love, and it will pass.”

Towards the end of Resurrection, Tolstoy describes a general who is administrative head of a remote regional town. «Ему достаточно  было  выпить какой-нибудь жидкости, чтобы чувствовать опьянение». “He was literally saturated with alcohol. It was enough for him to drink any kind of liquid to feel intoxicated.” 

Alcohol, as with God or death, is no respecter of persons. The same phenomenon Tolstoy describes affecting the regional administrator, appears in a story by Raymond Carver set in the sort of suburbs where people can’t even afford a radio. “In the whisky days I’d wake up with this tremendous thirst in the middle of the night. But, back then, I was always looking ahead: I kept a bottle of water in the fridge, for instance. I’d be dehydrated, sweating from head to toe when I woke, but I’d wander out to the kitchen and could count on finding that bottle of cold water in the fridge. I’d drink it, all of it, down the hatch, an entire quart of water. Once in a while I’d use a glass, but not often. Suddenly I’d be drunk all over again and weaving around the kitchen. I can’t begin to account for it – sober one minute, drunk the next.”

Turning a New Leaf

С Нехлюдовым не раз уже случалось в жизни то, что он  называл  «чисткой души». Чисткой души называл он такое  душевное  состояние,  при  котором  он вдруг, после иногда большого промежутка времени, сознав замедление, а иногда и остановку внутренней жизни, принимался вычищать  весь  тот  сор,  который, накопившись в его душе, был причиной этой остановки.

Всегда после таких пробуждений Нехлюдов составлял себе правила, которым намеревался следовать уже навсегда: писал дневник  и  начинал  новую  жизнь, которую  он  надеялся  никогда  уже  не  изменять,  — turning  a  new  leaf, как он говорил себе. Но всякий раз соблазны мира улавливали его и он, сам того не замечая, опять  падал,  и  часто  ниже того, каким он был прежде.

— Лев Николаевич Толстой, Воскресение (or pre-reform Воскресеніе)

More than once in Nekhlyudov’s life there had been what he called a ‘purging of the soul’. This was the name he gave to a state of mind in which, sometimes after a long interval, he would suddenly recognize the slothfulness of his inner life, or even the total cessation of activity, and set to work to clean up all the dirt which had clogged his soul to the point of inaction.

After such awakenings Nekhlyudov would make rules for himself which he meant to follow for ever after: he would keep a diary and begin a new life, which he hoped never to go back on — turning over a new leaf, he called it to himself in English. But time after time the temptations of the world ensnared him, and before he knew it he had fallen — often lower than before.

Tolstoy, Resurrection, pp. 140 — 141