The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (11 page)

 

7th November
. I cut out shirts for Lyovochka and helped Liza with her studies. There was an unpleasant incident: I thought someone had cut a piece off my length of linen, but in fact I was wrong. Lyovochka went to the bathhouse with Ilyusha and Lyolya this evening; he is much more cheerful now and clearer in his mind about his writing.

 

11th November
. It's a pity that I always write in my diary at the end of the day when I'm worn out. Andryusha woke up wheezing and coughing at four this morning and went on until eight. I was at my wits' end. He is slightly better now, but still has diarrhoea and a harsh rasping cough. I gave him three drops of antimony, and bandaged his neck with a piece of flannel soaked in oil, lard, soap and camphor. Today Lyovochka said all his characters were coming to life, and he saw it all much more clearly. He is cheerful and working again, now that he
believes
in it.

The drawing master and Ulyaninsky the high-school teacher came again today. Tanya is doing quite a good drawing of a shepherd boy's head, while Ilya and Lyolya merely play at it. I have done a lot of sewing and have finished a flannel vest for Andryusha, as well as a pillow and two pillowcases for him. I had a letter from Mother.

 

14th November
. Yesterday evening Lyovochka and Alexander Grigorevich played piano and violin duets together. This morning, after a night filled with the most frightful dreams and nightmares, I had tea with Lyovochka (a rare event nowadays) and we had a long philosophical discussion about death, religion, the meaning of life and so on. These discussions have such a soothing effect on me. I interpret his wisdom on these matters in a very personal way, and can always pick out things he says that lay my doubts to rest. I should set his ideas down on paper but I can't, especially now, when I have a headache and am tired.

 

16th November
. Lyovochka said: “All the characters and events and
ideas are here in my head.” But he is still unwell and unable to write. He started eating Lenten fare yesterday; I strongly opposed this as I was sure it would do his health no good. This evening the six children, Lyovochka and I all gathered in the balcony room and I suddenly felt how sad it was that the time would come when we would all have gone our separate ways and would look back on this moment.

 

19th November
. Lyovochka went hunting again and caught 4 hares and a fox. Seryozha, Ilyusha and M. Nief rode to Yasenki to watch the Tsar travel past,* but all they saw was the train “
et le marmiton
”,* as M. Nief jokingly put it.

 

21st November
. Various disasters. First Nurse is pregnant and will have to leave in two months, so I shall have to find another nurse for poor little Andryusha. Then Grigory the butler has given his notice. Lyovochka went hunting with Ilyusha today and caught 6 hares. Seryozha has a cough and played waltzes on the piano with Tanya all day; he played Beethoven's
Sonata Fantasia
too. This evening the children danced quadrilles and various other dances. Andryusha has diarrhoea, and in one day has become frightfully weak. It's warm outside—the children have brought in some willow branches still in leaf.

 

24th November
. Tonight I sat feeding Andryusha in the silence, with only the icon-lamp lighting the darkness. The nurse had gone off to hang up the swaddling clothes when I heard Annie shouting from the nursery next door: “Serosha, dare not!* Serosha!” I was terribly alarmed, laid Andryusha in his cradle and hurried into the nursery, to find Annie shouting in her sleep. I tucked up Tanya and Masha, who had kicked off the blankets in their sleep, and went to bed. I was shivering and feverish all night and didn't sleep a wink. Tanya's fur coat arrived from Tula today, as well as my hat and my fox jacket. The jacket is too narrow at the back and the sleeves are too short.

Lyovochka has stayed at home the last two days; on Wednesday he had dinner with the Samarins in Tula. I finished the second version of my biographical essay today, but it's too long, so once more it won't do.

9th February—Grigory Goldenburg's assassination of Prince Kropotkin, Governor of Kharkov. 13th March—Leon Mirsky's unsuccessful attempt to kill the chief of security police, General Drenteln. 2nd April—Alexander Solovyov fires five shots at the Tsar. The new People's Will party formed in October, dedicated to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. 18th and 19th November—two more attempts to kill the Tsar
.

Tolstoy abandons work on the Decembrists for a series of articles on religious faith, including ‘What I Believe' and ‘An Investigation of Dogmatic Theology'. Sofia Tolstoy prepares the fourth edition of Tolstoy's
Complete Works.
At the end of the year her biography of him is published in the Russian Library series. 20th December—Mikhail Tolstoy (Misha) born
.

 

18th December
. More than a year has passed. I sit waiting for my confinement, which may start at any moment and is overdue. The thought of this new baby fills me with gloom; my horizons have become so narrow and my world is such a small and dismal place. Everyone here, including the children, is in a tense state, with the approach of the holidays and the suspense about my confinement. It has been terribly cold, more than twenty degrees below zero. Masha has had a sore throat and a fever for the past week. She got up today. Lyovochka has gone to Tula to authorize Bibikov to go to Moscow and deal with the new edition,* and has promised to buy something for the Christmas tree. He is writing a lot about religion. Andryusha is the light of my life and a delight.

Two days after writing this, at 6 in the morning on 20th December, 1879, Misha* was born.

1st March—revolutionaries assassinate Tsar Alexander II. A state of emergency is declared, the power of military tribunals is extended, and administrative officials are granted wide powers. A huge roundup starts, and on 5th April five assassins, one of them a woman, are publicly hanged. The reign of the new Tsar, Alexander III (1881–94), sees the reassertion of absolutism, bureaucracy, orthodoxy and nationalism. Extreme reactionaries are appointed to government. There is a wave of pogroms
.

Tolstoy writes to the new Tsar begging him not to hang the assassins. His popularity protects him from the consequences of his plain speaking, but in official circles feeling against him is growing. June—Tolstoy makes a second pilgrimage to the Optyna Pustyn monastery. He gives up hunting and smoking and criticizes his family's worldly aspirations. September—the Tolstoys rent a flat in Moscow, and until 1901 they spent their winters in the city, where Sergei attends the university, Tanya attends art school, and Ilya and Lev go to secondary school. Tolstoy becomes increasingly distant from his family, and the discord between husband and wife is at its most intense when he meets Syutaev, a peasant, Christian and socialist, who has a great influence on him. 31st October—Sofia gives birth to Alexei (Alyosha)
.

In the summer, the Tolstoys buy a house in Dolgo-Khamovniki Street in Moscow. August—Ilya Tolstoy seriously ill with typhus. Arguments between the couple intensify and Tolstoy threatens to leave. He starts writing ‘What Must We Do?' and continues ‘What I Believe'
.

 

28th February
. We have been in Moscow since 15th September 1881.* We are staying in Prince Volkonsky's house on Denezhny Lane, near Prechistenka. Seryozha goes to the university, and Tanya attends the art school on Myasnitskaya Street, while Ilya and Lyolya go to Polivanov's secondary school, which is virtually next door to us.* Our life in Moscow would be quite delightful if only it didn't make Lyovochka so unhappy.* He is too sensitive to survive the city, and his Christian disposition cannot reconcile all this idle luxury with people's struggling lives here. He went back to Yasnaya with Ilya yesterday to have a break and do some work.

 

26th August, Yasnaya Polyana
. It was twenty years ago, when I was young and happy, that I started writing the story of my love for Lyovochka in these diaries: there is virtually nothing
but
love in them in fact. Twenty years later, here I am sitting up all night on my own, reading and mourning its loss. For the first time in my life he has run off to sleep alone in the study. We were quarrelling about such silly things—I accused him of taking no interest in the children and not helping me look after Ilya, who is sick. Today he shouted at the top of his voice that his dearest wish was to leave his family. I shall carry the memory of that heartfelt, heart-rending cry of his to my grave. I pray for death, for without his love I cannot survive; I knew this the moment his love for me died. I cannot prove to him how deeply I love him—as deeply as I loved him 20 years ago—for this love oppresses
me
and irritates
him
. He is filled with Christian notions of self-perfection and I envy him…Ilyusha has typhus and is lying in the drawing room with a fever. I have to make sure he is given his quinine at the prescribed intervals, which are very short, so I worry in case I miss a dose. I cannot sleep in the bed my husband has abandoned. Lord help me! I long to take my life, my thoughts are so confused. The clock is striking four.*

I have decided if he doesn't come in to see me it must mean he loves another woman. He has not come. I used to know what my duty was—but what now?

He did come in, but it was the next day before we made up. We both cried, and I realized to my joy that his love for me, which I had mourned all through that terrible night, wasn't dead. I shall never forget the heavenly cool, clear morning, the silvery dew sparkling in the grass, as I walked through the woods after a sleepless night to the bathhouse. Rarely have I seen such a miracle of natural beauty. I sat for a long time in the icy water, hoping to catch a chill and die. But to no avail. I returned home to feed Alyosha,* who smiled with joy at seeing me.

 

10th September
. Lyovochka has taken Lyova to Moscow.* Today was the last warm day of summer. I went for a swim.

Summer—Alexander III's coronation in Moscow. All members of the People's Will behind bars or in exile. Small groups of students and intellectuals form Marxist discussion groups in the cities
.

Spring—large fire in the village of Yasnaya Polyana. 21st May—Tolstoy gives Sofia power of attorney to conduct all matters concerning the property. Hordes of “disciples” start to visit Tolstoy—including Vladimir Grigorevich Chertkov
.

 

5th March (Moscow)
. The spring sun always has a bracing effect on me. It's shining into my little study upstairs, where I sit and look back, in the calm of this first week of Lent, on the events of last winter. I went out into society a bit, enjoying both Tanya's successes and my own; I felt youthful and gay, and enjoyed everything about this sociable life. Yet no one would believe me if I said that the moments of despair outweighed the happiness—moments when I would say to myself, “It's not right, I shouldn't be doing this.” But I was
unable
to stop. I simply couldn't. It's clear to me that I am not free to act and live as I want, but am guided by the will of God, or fate—whatever one chooses to call the supreme will that controls even our smallest affairs.

It was three days ago, 2nd March, that I weaned Alyosha, and I am again suffering the pangs of separation. It comes on me again and again, and there is no way I can be rid of it.

Our life at home, away from the crowded city, is much easier and happier than it was last year. Lyovochka is calmer and more cheerful; he does sometimes get in a rage and blame me for everything, but it doesn't last so long now and doesn't happen so often. He is becoming nicer every day in fact.

He continues with his religious writings.* They are never-ending because they can never be published; but he must do it, it is God's will, and they may even serve His great purpose.

Tolstoy starts making boots, chopping wood and drawing his own water from the well, and spends more and more time with his disciple Chertkov. Arguments with Sofia become increasingly ugly, and he talks of leaving her to lead an ascetic life. Sofia, pregnant again, is beside herself with shame and misery. 18th June—Alexandra (Sasha) born. Soon afterwards, Sofia gains Tolstoy's permission to borrow money to bring out new editions of his novels. Tolstoy finishes ‘What I Believe', and all copies of the first edition are seized by the police at the printer's
.

Spring—huge strikes in two textile factories near Moscow. June—law prohibiting night work in textile mills for women and children
.

Sofia converts an empty shed near the Moscow house into a warehouse and publishing office, and assumes responsibility of all the proofreading and publishing of Tolstoy's works. Chertkov sets up his own publishing house, the Intermediary, to offset Sofia's by publishing cheap books for the masses. As Chertkov moves into the role of Tolstoy's executor, secretary and confidant, Tolstoy describes his relationship with his wife as “a struggle to the death”. In December, he again threatens divorce after a terrible argument, then leaves with his daughter Tanya to stay with friends
.

 

24th March
. Holy Easter Sunday, Lyovochka returned yesterday from the Crimea, where he went with Prince Urusov,* who is ill. The Crimea brought back his old memories of Sevastopol and the war, and he spent a lot of time walking in the mountains and gazing at the sea. On the road to Simeiz, he and Urusov passed the place where he had been stationed with his cannon during the war. He had fired it, just once, in that very spot. That was thirty years ago.* He and Urusov were travelling along, and he suddenly jumped out of the carriage and started searching for something. It turned out he had seen a cannonball lying near the road. Could it really be the same one he had fired during the siege of Sevastopol?