The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (38 page)

Afterwards I wrote a petition to the Tula court asking them to set boundaries to the estate, otherwise the peasants will simply appropriate more and more of our land each year.

The night is still, and the moon is shining through the open window. I love being alone at night with my thoughts, in spiritual communication with my loved ones who are absent or dead.

 

27th June
. This thundery atmosphere is insufferable; we are quite debilitated by the heat and electricity in the air. L.N. has a stomach ache again. My God! Help me not to grumble, and to bear my responsibilities to the end with patience and dignity.

I gave him a bath today, ran it myself and tested the water with the thermometer. I then laid tea in the drawing room and he brightened up. I very much wanted to visit Seryozha tomorrow for his birthday, but couldn't bring myself to leave my husband. I tried to take my grandson's photograph, but he fell asleep, and then the thunderstorm made it impossible. I practised my Bach Inventions, but only managed to play for an hour. Sick peasant women, work, business. I wrote a letter to some peasant at L.N.'s request.

Westerlund said I spoilt my husband terribly. I was astounded today by something L.N. wrote in his notebook concerning women: “If a woman is not a Christian she is an animal.”* That means that throughout my life I have sacrificed all my personal life to him and suppressed my own desires—even a visit to my son, today—and all my husband can see is animal behaviour.

The real animals are those men who through their own egotism consume the lives of their wives, children, friends—everyone who crosses their path.

 

28th June
. Misha has returned from the Caucasus in ecstasy over his trip, the magnificent scenery, the friendliness of the people and all the
parties they organized for him and Andryusha. He arrived with my brother Sasha, looking manlier and uglier than ever.

L.N. is looking very pinched, thin and subdued.

He regarded Doctor Westerlund as a bourgeois, dull-witted German peasant, whose medical thinking was 30 years behind the times. He didn't see the doctor's goodness, his self-sacrificing life in the service of humanity, his eagerness to help every peasant woman and anyone he met, his concern for his wife and daughter, his unselfishness…

 

1st July
. Annenkova came today and we went to Ovsyannikovo. We called first on Maria Schmidt. She has a large portrait of Lev Nikolaevich over her bed. She has a fanatical faith in his ideas and is in love with him as only a woman can be, and this gives her the strength to endure her austere, hard-working life. Without that she would have died long ago, so weak is her organism. I love her ardent nature.

 

6th July
. Rain, cold; Tanya is in bed with a stomach ache. I strolled round the garden and picked a lovely bunch of flowers for her. I played the piano for about two and a half hours, but badly. I corrected proofs all day. I have a lot of running about to do and a mass of petty, boring matters: sending documents to the council, paying the servants' wages, buying mushrooms and raspberries, tending the sick, giving food to the beggars, ordering dinner and supper, keeping Dora and my grandson company, giving the servant girls their work for the day. I should do some copying for Lev Nikolaevich, but there's a pile of proofs to do first. And I have to look after Tanya, who stubbornly refuses to take any medicine.

 

12th July
. I left the house to make some visits, and called first on my daughter Masha. It pierced my heart to see her, so bent, weak and nervous, tearful and thin as a skeleton. It is such an impoverished life, and the food there is disgusting.

 

16th July, Kiev
. A warm welcome from my sister Tanya and her family, the Kuzminskys. They have a pretty, well-appointed little dacha, her sweet boys were there, and Sasha the cordial host, and my beloved, my dear, sweet beloved sister. The sight of little Mitechka tore at my heart: he was the same age as Vanechka, his first friend, his first childhood comrade. And Mitya is already a big boy of ten—and Vanechka is gone!

I went for a walk in the Kitaev forest, through ancient pines and old oaks, past hills and monasteries…Sasha, Vera, Mitya and little Volodka came too. We went swimming in the pool of a monastery, drank tea and rambled in the hills. It's so pleasant being a guest, everything is new, there's nothing to worry about.

 

17th, 18th, 19th, 20th July
. I have spent the past four days with the Kuzminskys. We had a picnic with some other dacha folk on an island in the river Dnieper, went to the peasant theatre in Kitaev and swam in the Dnieper. On the 20th I went to Kiev with Tanya and we visited the cathedral. The best painting there was
The Raising of Lazarus
, by Svedomsky. Vasnetsov's paintings—especially the
Baptism of Vladimir and the People—
were beneath criticism: one was amazed by the complete lack of formal elegance. Eve's legs, for instance, when she is being tempted by the serpent in Paradise, are frightful.

The monument to Vladimir stands in a charming place, with a lovely view over the Dnieper below. Ancient monuments are generally so much better than the modern ones, like that hideous statue of Pirogov in Deviche Pole in Moscow.

We also visited the caves in Kiev. I forced myself to go this time, but felt nervous as soon as we had walked a little way down that airless underground passage, illuminated only by the candles we held in our hands. It was impossible to turn back, and it suddenly came into my mind that the devil was obstructing my path. And just then the monk who was leading us said to me: “No need to be afraid, Mother! Why, people used to live here, and you're afraid to walk through. This is a church, so pray!” I mechanically crossed myself and repeated the words of a prayer, and my fear vanished and I walked on fascinated. It was extraordinary to see those little round windows in the walled-up cave rooms where the holy men used to immure themselves. People would hand them food through the windows once a day, and there they would die, in these cells, these living coffins.

My sister's family made a good impression on me; I envied the fact that Sasha was so concerned about his sons and was on such good terms with them. Tanya's and her husband's concern for each other was also very touching.

I persuaded her to accompany me back to Yasnaya, to my great joy.

 

22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th July
. Early in the morning of the 22nd my sister Tanya and I arrived in Tula. It was cold and wet and they hadn't sent horses for us, so we hired a cab and drove back. Then the trouble started—a whole series of unpleasant remarks from L.N. about my meeting with Sergei Ivanovich in Moscow on the way to Kiev. Yet I had asked him before I left whether he would mind, and said I wouldn't go if he did. I had leant over him to say goodbye, kissed him while he was still half-asleep, and put it to him quite candidly. And he snapped back ironically: “Why should I mind? By all means go,” adding: “It's your business anyway.”

There is a huge wall painting at the threshold to the cave in Kiev, depicting the ordeals to which St Theodora is subjected. The pictures alternate: two angels, with the soul of Theodora as a young girl dressed in a white robe, followed by a group of devils in inconceivably hideous poses. And these devils, forty groups of them, portray the forty sins, which are inscribed in Old Church Slavonic beneath. I suppose L.N. is cursing me for committing all the forty sins in those three or four days.

 

28th July
. I took Tanya to Yasenki and she left for Kiev, apparently happy with her stay in Yasnaya. We have grown even closer, if that's possible. I feel bereft—I have no one to cling to now.

I walked through the forest alone, swam and wept. Late that night we resumed our discussion about jealousy, with yet more shouting, cursing and recriminations. Suddenly my nerves snapped. Some valve maintaining the equilibrium in my brain flew open. I lost all self-control and had the most terrible nervous attack. I was terrified, shaking, sobbing and raving. I don't remember what happened to me, only that I ended up stiff with cold.

 

29th, 30th July
. I have been lying in bed in a darkened room for the past day and a half, without food or light, without love, hate or emotions, just the deathly gloom of the grave. They all came in to see me but I didn't care about any of them. I just wanted to die.

I pushed the table a moment ago and Lev Nikolaevich's portrait fell on the floor, just as this diary of mine has pushed him off the pedestal he has spent his entire life erecting for himself.

 

3rd August
. I spent yesterday and the day before industriously copying L.N.'s story
Father Sergei
, an artistic work written in a lofty style, excellently conceived although still unfinished.* It takes from the
Lives of the Saints
the story of the saint who sought God and found Him in the most ordinary, lowly woman, who had sacrificed herself entirely to work and toil. In this story Father Sergei, a proud monk who has experienced all life's vicissitudes, finds God in Pashenka, a woman no longer young, whom he has known since childhood, who leads an industrious life in her old age and lives for her family.

There is some hypocrisy in the story though—the ending in Siberia. I hope it won't be left like that, for it really is very well devised and constructed.

I copied it from 1.30 to 5 a.m., by which time it was growing light and my head was spinning. But I finished the whole thing, so L.N. can start working on it the moment he gets up.

He wants to finish
Hadji Murat, Resurrection
and
Father Sergei
together, publish the 3 stories simultaneously and sell them for as much as possible in Russia and abroad, so he can use the profits to finance the Dukhobors' emigration scheme.*

This is an insult to us, his family: he would do better to help Ilyusha and Masha, who are both extremely poor. And two Dukhobors came here whom I had to hide in the pavilion, which was most unpleasant.*

Windy, dry, fine and beautiful.

I have been keeping Dora company and getting to know my little grandson Lev. I have lost that direct, almost animal passion for small children, and in my grandchildren I love only my
dreams
for the future and for the continuation of our life.

 

5th August
. I copied L.N.'s essay on art yesterday: the same rejection of absolutely everything, all under the pretext of Christianity—it's pure socialism.

This morning I went to Tula, where I had a lot of business to attend to at the bank and the council, visiting the notary, looking for a teacher for Misha and going to the shops. I was so exhausted my legs were shaking. I was longing for a rest when I got home, but a huge crowd of guests unexpectedly arrived—Sergeenko, the two Dieterichs girls, my sister Liza with her daughter and governess, Zvegintseva with her daughter, Volkhonsky, Prince Cherkassky and his boys—and they all stayed to supper. My heart sank. Goldenweiser came for the evening too and played some Chopin. The music awakened that wonderful mood of elation which I have lived for these past two years.

A lot of noise and shouting and mindless youthful merriment. I am very tired. L.N. on the other hand is cheerful and excited; he enjoys
guests and Misha Kuzminsky's balalaika and Princess Volkhonsky's chatter, and any sort of entertainment and diversion.

 

11th August
. Bad news from the censors, who have seized the last volume of the expensive edition I have just had printed. It won't be passed unless I make a fuss. I have written to Solovyov, the chief censor, in St Petersburg.

 

19th August
. I have been ill with a high fever and stomach pains. I stayed in bed until yesterday, and barely managed to get up even then. The time flashed past so quickly—I have only a dim memory of it. Everyone was very kind to me, looked after me, stayed with me constantly, anticipated all my needs and comforted me. There was one day when I thought I was dying but was quite happy about it. Now I am up again, back in life's whirlpool, with all its demands, griefs, worries and irresolvable questions that have to be resolved.

I am reading an interesting book called
Le Réveil de l'âme
. I also read Anatole France's
La Bûche
and
La Fille de Clémentine
. Being ill didn't bore me at all; I enjoyed the solitude, being able to concentrate on my thoughts, and the absence of material anxieties.

 

22nd August
. My 54th birthday. Tanya, Masha and Sasha all gave me presents; Tanya and Sasha gave things they had made themselves, which was nice, but Masha bought me a little table, which I didn't like, for I know she has no money and it's a pity to waste it on things I don't need. But I suppose it was a kind thought. She is always ill, first her headaches, then her stomach, then something else…She thinks too much about her health—it's simply
neurasthenia
.

 

24th August
. Windy, raining and cold. We all stayed indoors talking. Everyone is interested in this latest statement from the Tsar in favour of universal peace and disarmament. L.N. actually had a letter from the
World
in America, asking his opinion of it. So far it was only
words
, he said, first of all one had to abolish taxes, military service, and much more besides. I think many generations will need to be educated to hate war if it is to be eradicated.

Some Munich professor came to visit, a stocky red-faced German. Sulerzhitsky came here after seeing the Dukhobors, and is going on to England for more information. Meanwhile the Dukhobors, 7,000
of them, are living on the coast in Batumi in Georgia, waiting for a decision as to where they should go. And from whom? Why, from Chertkov* of course. It's an appalling, disgraceful situation.