The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (32 page)

 

26th November
. I spent all day in theatres. This morning I took Sasha, Vera Kuzminskaya and my niece Zhenya to the Korsh Theatre to see Griboedov's
Woe from Wit
. It was a poor production and I was terribly bored. Then this evening Tanya persuaded me to accompany her to see the Italian actress Tina di Lorenzo. She is a beautiful woman, with an Italian temperament, but since I didn't know the language or the play
(Adrienne Lecouvreur)
, I didn't find it very interesting. I was exhausted today and hardly played at all; all I want now is to sit at home.

 

29th November
. I received a long, kind, reasonable letter from my husband yesterday. I tried very hard to absorb what he was saying, but there was such an old man's coldness about it that it made me wretched. I often forget he will soon be 70—I forget this discrepancy in our ages and the degree of tranquillity we have attained; and this fault of mine isn't mitigated by my youthful appearance and emotions.
Tranquillity
is more important than anything to L.N. now; but I still want him to long impetuously to see me, and to live with me again. I have been pining for him these past two days—but I have got over it: something in my heart has snapped shut…

I am rereading Seneca, and continuing with the Beethoven biography. It's so long, and there's so little time.

 

30th November
. S.I. came for lunch and was his usual delightful self, calm, gay and kind. I was observing him with Tanya, but detected nothing.

Safonova* also came with her two little girls to visit Sasha, and Sonya Kolokoltseva came too, and all the girls cheerfully went skating in the garden. Then Makovitsky* arrived from Yasnaya and told me in his broken Russian that L.N. was well and working hard.

 

10th December
. I haven't written my diary for ten days. What has happened? It is hard to assemble all the events on paper, especially since it has all been so painful—and now yet more painful facts have come to light. But I shall try to recall everything.

On 2nd December, I went to a Beethoven evening. Auer and d'Albert played four of his violin sonatas. It was an utter joy, and balm to my soul. But the following day I saw in the papers an advertisement for L.N.'s essay in the
Northern Herald
. Then on top of this Tanya picked an argument with me, reproaching me for my supposed relations with S.I.—when I haven't seen him for a whole month. I feel dreadfully hurt; my family is always so quick to accuse me of crimes I haven't committed the moment I stop serving them like a slave and submitting to their demands.

I was waiting eagerly for L.N. to come. I longed to write to him, to help him in every way, to love him, not to cause him any more unhappiness and to see no more of S.I. if it was really so painful for him, and the news that he wasn't coming to see me after our month's separation—and that he was publishing his article in the
N.H.—
reduced me to the depths of despair. I packed my things and decided to go off somewhere. I got into a cab, with no idea where I was going. First of all I went to the Petersburg station, intending to go to St Petersburg and take the essay from Gurevich, then I thought better of it and set off for the Troitsa monastery. That evening, alone in a dirty hotel room lit by one candle, I sat alone as if turned to stone, overwhelmed by feelings of grief for and resentment of my husband, and his utter indifference to me and my love for him. I tried to console myself with the thought that one's feelings are less passionate when one is almost 70—but why the deception, why all these secret negotiations behind my back with the
N.H.
over his essay? I thought I would go mad.

I went to bed and had just fallen asleep when I was woken by Nurse and Tanya knocking on the door. Somehow Tanya had guessed that I had gone to Troitsa, and had grown worried and decided to come and fetch me. I was very touched, but it did nothing to dispel my despair. Tanya told me that L.N. was coming the next day. But the news left me completely unmoved. I had waited for him too eagerly and for too long, and now something inside me had snapped, and I felt morbidly indifferent to everything.

Tanya left and I went to church. I spent the whole day there—nine hours—and I prayed fervently to be delivered from the sin of killing myself or avenging myself for the pain my husband had caused me; I
prayed for a reconciliation, for a miracle to unite us in love, trust and friendship; I prayed for my sick soul to be healed.

My confession was before God, since Father Fyodor, the Church elder, was so decrepit he couldn't hear a word I was saying, and just let out a short sob of nervous exhaustion. There was something mysterious and poetic about this monastic existence: the stone corridors and cells, the monks wandering about, the simple folk—prayers, long services and complete solitude amidst a crowd of supplicants who didn't know me. I went back and spent the evening poring over the precepts and prayers in a book I found at the hotel. The next morning I received the Eucharist at the Trapeznaya Church. It was a royal day (6th December), and a magnificent dinner was being prepared for the monastery—four fish dishes, honey and beer. The tables were covered in tablecloths, the plates, dishes and mugs were all of pewter, and the meal was served by novices dressed in white aprons.

Having stood through the service, I went off to wander around the monastery buildings. A gypsy woman pursued me as I was walking across the square: “A fair-haired man is in love with you, but dares not tell you. You are a noble, distinguished lady, refined and educated, and he is not of your class…Give me 1 ruble and 6 10-kopeck pieces and I'll give you a charm! Come to my house and I'll give you a charm to make him fall in love with you like your husband…”

I was quite unnerved and wanted to take her charm. But when I got back to my room I crossed myself and realized this would be foolish and wicked of me.

I felt very depressed—there was still no telegram from Tanya to inform me of L.N.'s arrival. After I had something to eat I drove to the telegraph office and there were two undelivered telegrams waiting for me: one from Tanya, and the other a long, touching one from L.N. asking me to return to Moscow.

I went straight to the station.

At home Lev Nikolaevich was waiting for me in the hall with tears in his eyes, and we fell into each other's arms. He agreed not to publish his essay in the
Northern Herald
(he had already said this in the telegram to me that Tanya had sent); I promised faithfully not to see S.I. again, and to serve and care for him and do all I possibly could to make him happy.

We had such a pleasant talk, it was a joy for me to promise this, I loved him very deeply and was eager to love him…

Yet today in his diary he writes that I had “acknowledged my crime”* for the first time, which had brought him much joy! God
help me endure this! Once more he has to present himself to future generations as a
martyr
, and me as a
criminal
. But what is my
crime
? L.N. was angry with me for visiting S.I. with Uncle Kostya a month ago when he was in bed with a bad leg. It was because he was so furious about this apparently that he didn't come to Moscow; this, according to him, was my “crime”.

Yet when I told him that considering my pure and blameless life with him, he could surely forgive me paying a visit to a sick friend—and with my old uncle too—the tears came to his eyes and he said: “Of course that is true, your life has indeed been a pure and blameless one.” No one saw his tears of contrition, no one knows about our life together, and in his diaries he writes only of my “crimes”! God forgive him for his cruelty and injustice to me.

 

11th December
. Gurevich visited Tanya, weeping and telling her how wretched she was not to have L.N.'s essay. He didn't go out to see her. He has now asked her for the article back. What will happen now! I no longer trust him after he deceitfully sent it to the
Northern Herald
.

If I wasn't living under this domestic despotism I would go to St Petersburg for the Nikish concert. As it is, I've had to abandon my music again. Dora and Lyova left for Yasnaya today. He was very irritable in Moscow.

 

14th December
. Today I took Vera Kuzminskaya and my Sasha to Gluck's
Orpheus
. It is a marvellous opera, graceful and melodious, and the choruses, the dances and sets were airy and elegant. Yesterday I went to a symphony concert—Beethoven's lovely ‘Pastoral', Tchaikovsky's 1st Symphony, and some other works of no interest.

The fact is that although I put a brave face on it I feel a deep grief in my heart that L.N. and I are not on better terms, and a lot of anxiety about his health. I have done my best—I truly want us to be friends. But oh how difficult it is! As I was leaving for the theatre today I was waylaid by some woman—the wife of a chemist—sobbing and imploring me to give her 600 rubles, then 400 rubles, to settle her debts. It's even harder for her. But we are all tempting the Lord…

 

16th December
. Yesterday I paid social calls. Everywhere I go it's the same question: “What is the Count writing at present?”, “
Qu'est-ce que vous faites pour rester toujours jeune?
”* and so on. My youthful
appearance has become an invariable topic of conversation in society. But what is it to me when my soul is sad? And Lev Nikolaevich is so unfriendly. There is definitely something he is concealing from me. I see nothing of S.I. and try not to think about him.

 

17th December
. This morning I had a piano lesson with Miss Welsh. Then a call from Annenkova and a visit to the bathhouse.

An astonishing incident there. There has been a lot of talk in Moscow recently of the Solovyov family, whose three children all died of scarlet fever in one week. Well, I just happened to be sitting next to the mother of these children. We got into conversation, and I shared with her my painful memories of Vanechka's death; I told her of my grief, and of the (religious) solution I had sought and partly found, and this consoled her a little. Then she asked me who I was, and when I told her she burst into tears and threw her arms around me, kissing me and begging me to stay with her a little longer. What a dear, lovely, pitiful woman.

This evening there were guests: Chicherin, Masha Zubova, Annenkova, Rusanova and Taneev. His appearance alarmed me for Lev Nikolaevich's sake, and at first I felt awkward and anxious. Then I had to preside at the tea table. I was happy to see him of course, and would have been even happier to hear him play, but he didn't.

I had a dream last night; there was a long narrow hall and at the end of it was a piano, on which S.I. was playing one of his own compositions. I observed him more closely, and saw Vanechka was sitting on his knee. I could only see him from the back, his golden curly hair and his white shirt. He was leaning his head against S.I.'s right shoulder, and I felt so peaceful and happy listening to the music and seeing Vanechka and S.I. together. Then someone banged the shutters and I woke up. The tune he was playing stayed clearly in my mind even after I had woken up, but I didn't manage to retain it for long. And I was overwhelmed with sadness.

Lev Nikolaevich was telling us today about a woman who was giving birth in the Kremlin. It was a difficult birth and she was thought to be dying, so they sent to the monastery for a priest. A monk came with the sacraments, and it turned out that this monk had once been a doctor, and saw that he could save the mother and baby with the standard forceps procedure. It was the middle of the night; he went back to his cell, fetched his surgical instruments and performed the operation, and both mother and baby were saved. It
is said when this news reached the ears of the Metropolitan he was going to defrock the monk, but in the end he was merely transferred to another monastery in another town.

 

21st December
. Where is it, human happiness?

Today was yet another painful, dreadful day. Tanya had a letter from Gurevich, insisting that L.N. give her his essay. Both Tanya and Seryozha, who came today, berated me for my unwillingness to do so (I find these dealings with the
Northern Herald
so disagreeable), and they sent me to L.N. to beg him to let her have his ‘Preface' to the translated Carpenter article. So I went in to him and asked him to give it to her, since he and his family wanted it so much.

But when I foolishly said something to the effect that I found his relations with Gurevich as unpleasant as he found mine with Taneev, I looked at him and was terrified. His face has changed so much recently: his thick bushy eyebrows beetle over his angry eyes, and his expression is wild, ugly and full of suffering; his face is pleasant only when it has an expression of kindly sympathy or passionate affection. I often wonder what he would do to himself if I really did something sinful! I thank God for sparing me from sin and temptation.

This morning L.N. swept the skating rink in the garden and went skating, then rode to Sparrow Hills. He is doing no work at present.

 

25th December
. The day before yesterday Lev Nikolaevich went off to Nikolaev station as he wanted to catch Sulerzhitsky and the Englishman St John to give them some money for the Dukhobors, whom they were going to visit. But he didn't find them in. He walked home, chilled and exhausted, and went straight to bed, and when I got back he was already quite ill, with a temperature of 38.5. The doctor prescribed Ems water as usual, and said he should have a warm massage and keep his stomach warm. I did all I could, and yesterday he was a little better and his temperature was down to 38.6. Today it is 37.5. He is still very weak but no longer ill, and today he had something to eat. At 3.30 I brought him some puréed oatmeal soup. “How clever of you to think of bringing me soup,” he said. “I was beginning to feel a little weak.” Then he ate dinner with the rest of us.