The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (41 page)

 

30th November (Yasnaya Polyana)
. Tanya has lost her voice and has a slight fever. Still nothing definite about Masha, but she seems calm and well. L.N. rode to Pirogovo the day before yesterday and rode back the following day, which is why he's worn out and lethargic now. Having promised to come to Moscow on 1st December, he now seems to be trying to wriggle out of it. And I was counting on the pleasure of taking him back to Moscow and living with him there. I had brought some dates, spirits and bran bread with me for the journey, I had told them to prepare a room for him in Moscow and had ordered the dinner and fruit, and I was going to pack his things myself and organize his departure as inconspicuously as possible. But by evening it was decided he wasn't going. I cried, my heart was aching and I took to my bed.

 

1st December
. I am in Moscow again. I didn't sleep all night because of the uncertainty. “I'm coming to Moscow on the first,” L.N. had written to me. Today is the 1st and I prepared to catch the fast train to Moscow, thinking: he couldn't not be packing and coming with me. My heart was pounding and I was in a fever, and this morning
he got up and went downstairs without saying a word. I got up at about 10 to discover he wasn't packing and wasn't leaving. Choking back the tears, I dressed and ordered the carriage to be harnessed—he didn't say a word. Then Maria Schmidt, Tanya and L.N. all start clamouring—why am I leaving? What do they mean—why? I had already arranged to go, the horses have been sent, my children and grandchildren are expecting me in Moscow. I am suffocated by uncontrollable sobs. I pick up my bags, order the carriage to catch up with me and start walking, for I don't want to upset them by letting them see me in this state, or give Lev Nikolaevich the pleasure of achieving his goal year after year and of seeing me so unhappy when he refuses to live with me in Moscow. But it's impossible, his cruelty is driving me to despair. Then I see him in his sheepskin coat driving towards me in the carriage: “Wait! Don't go!” he shouts. We return home. He reads me a lecture in a hateful tone of voice. I am choking back the sobs. We sit together for half an hour, while I suffer the most unspeakable pain and struggle with my despair. Tanya comes in and says: “I understand how difficult it is for you.” Eventually I say goodbye to them all, ask them to forgive me and leave. I shall never forget that journey to Yasenki as long as I live. What a terrible wind there was! I was doubled up all the way, sobbing so hard I thought my head would split open. How could they let me go like this! Only one thing prevented me from lying down under the train, the thought that then I wouldn't be buried next to Vanechka, and that is my
idée fixe
. In the train the other passengers all stared at me weeping—then I dozed off. Not a bite of food had passed my lips all day. I arrived home to a cheerless welcome from my children and grandchildren and wept again. I had a telegram from L.N.: “I'll come the day after Sonya arrives.”

 

2nd December
. I had a letter from Lev Nikolaevich this afternoon. He asks me to forgive his apparently unintentional cruelty to me, the misunderstandings, his tiredness and the various other reasons why he couldn't come and why he tormented me. Then he arrived…I have neuralgia in my right temple, my insides are aching, I didn't sleep all night, and I am completely cold and numb. I don't feel a thing, no joy, no anger, no love, no energy for life, nothing. I just want to cry and cry—for my lost health and freedom, for my friends, since if I do manage to see them now it's simply not the same as if I were alone and they belonged entirely to me. One day of suffering has destroyed me!

I shall try to do
my duty
. I shall look after L.N., copy for him, satisfy his physical love—for I don't believe in any other sort now—and there's an end to it! And what then?!!! Patience, faith and kind friends.

 

5th December
. Still the same depression, which even my grandchildren are unable to lift.

There was a most unpleasant discussion. My daughter-in-law Sonya wanted to hear some good music, so I suggested inviting Lavrovskaya, Goldenweiser and Taneev to play for us and organizing a musical evening at home. Sonya and I then shyly told L.N. that we wanted some music. He looked furious. “Well, in that case I'm going out,” he says. “God forbid you should be driven out of the house,” I say. “We'd better not have any music in that case.” “No, that's even worse—it would be as though I was stopping you.” Well, it soon led to an argument, and a very nasty one, after which of course there was no point in thinking about music.

 

10th December
. Relations with L.N. have improved, but I don't believe they are pure or lasting. I am copying the latest chapters of
Resurrection
. My eyes ache, I have no free time, yet I still copy.

I went to the bank with Andryusha and handed him all his money and documents. I also gave him a fur coat and 2,000 rubles, and ordered a dozen pieces of silver for his bride. And after everything I'd done for him and all my presents, he not only didn't say thank you, he actually looked disgruntled.

 

13th December
. I invited Lavrovskaya to sing, Taneev to play and some close friends to listen. Raevskaya, the Kolokoltsevs, Uncle Kostya, my brother and his wife, the Maslovs and various others came. Sergei Ivanovich played delightfully, and also accompanied. Lavrovskaya sang a lot, and beautifully too. It would have all been so pleasant and cheerful if one didn't feel Lev Nikolaevich was angrily condemning every entertainment I organized.

 

14th December
. I copied for Lev Nikolaevich for 7 hours without stirring from my chair, then answered his letters. My head was spinning. He is gloomy and sullen. Misha is a trial: he disappears every evening to parties, stays out all night, sleeps to three in the afternoon and hasn't been to school.

 

15th December
. This evening L.N. read us a translation of Jerome K. Jerome—no good. It's thawing heavily.

 

16th December
. Spent the day going over the bills with the accountant again. L.N. read us more of the Jerome K. Jerome—I haven't seen him laugh like that for a long time.

 

19th December
. We have just returned from an evening at the Korsh Theatre in honour of seventy-year-old Tolstoy. And what a wretchedly unsuccessful evening it was! Bad singing, bad reading, bad music and some appalling
tableaux vivants
utterly lacking in truth, beauty, artistry or anything else. Mikhailovsky received shattering ovations for some reason, then began shouting for Tolstoy and sent him a telegram…It was all so trite, so vulgar—one had no sense of it as a genuine cry from the people's heart. L.N. himself had earlier today set off alone for Yasnaya Polyana on the mail train. He worked all morning, ate some porridge and drank coffee at one, then left.

Ilyusha and Andryusha have arrived. Andryusha is terribly anxious: this summer in the Caucasus he frivolously proposed to a certain Princess Gureli, then wrote her a letter of rejection. The princess shot herself, the parents sprang to her defence, and Andryusha now lives in terror of being murdered or having to fight a duel. It's nothing but sorrow! Misha left for Oryol, and from there will visit Ilyusha, then Yasnaya.

The princess has since died.

 

20th December
. I discovered that those taking part in yesterday's so-called Tolstoy evening, Ilya included, all went off to the Hermitage to dine, i.e. get drunk—and this
in honour of Tolstoy!
It's disgraceful!

Numerous distressing discussions at home about this Princess Gureli who has killed herself; Andryusha is terrified of the Caucasian parents' revenge.

 

24th December (Yasnaya Polyana)
. I got up early, massaged L.N.'s back and stomach again and gave him his Ems water, and again my closeness disturbed him. Terrible weather—damp and windy, 3 degrees of frost. L.N. is more cheerful and was able to work again today, but he hasn't written anything recently and has grown terribly weak and lethargic. Whenever I am away he is unable to write, is prone to illnesses and sleeps badly.

Today he is like another person, and when I said this to him he smiled and agreed. I am happy to be here, but not all my family are in good spirits, and I fear that
my
energy alone isn't enough to compensate for the generally sour mood. I went to “the other house” to see Lyova and Dora and my adorable six-month-old grandson Levushka. I took a walk round the garden in a prayerful mood, filled with all my old sentimental feelings about Yasnaya and memories of my youth and recent past.

 

25th December, Christmas (Yasnaya Polyana)
. Everyone has been in a holiday mood: we made presents and unpacked all the good things we had brought from Moscow. The moment I enjoyed best was my walk through the woods. It was especially lovely in the young fir plantation—three degrees of frost, silence and brief moments when the sun peered out after disappearing all autumn. Everything was covered with fresh pure snow that had fallen during the night. The young green fir saplings were lightly covered in snow, and across the horizon stretched the broad black band of the old Zaseka forest, frozen for the winter, and everything was quiet, still and severe. Nature and art are the best things in life. How well Sergei Ivanovich understands this. With one's family and in the company of others there is so much unnecessary aggravation, so much pain and spite…

We had a nice cheerful family dinner. M.A. Schmidt came. At five o' clock Dora and Lyova entertained us around the Christmas tree with tea and refreshments. Poor Dora was so tired, but she loved the whole thing—she is only nineteen, virtually a little girl still, and she
needs
this holiday. My grandson Levushka was startled and amazed. A splendid, adorable baby.

By eight o'clock everyone was in low spirits again, for L.N. had a temperature of 38°.

 

26th December
. L.N. was feverish all night. He was shrieking, groaning and tossing, and I didn't get a wink of sleep. It would be hard to find a more impatient, selfish invalid, he is so stubborn. He wouldn't take his rhubarb yesterday, but took it at 11 today. This means he cannot take his quinine for the fever now on a full stomach, but must wait another twenty-four hours—all because of his stubbornness and his unwillingness to listen to me and take his laxative at the proper time. Oh, how bored and weary I am of putting all my energy into
persuading, convincing
and getting angry with him, with the sole purpose of saving and helping a cross, grumbling, stubborn man for
whom I have sacrificed my entire life and killed every personal desire, even the simple need for peace, leisure, reading and music—not to mention that I have never travelled anywhere, neither abroad nor within Russia.

Some Tula working man came here with an extraordinary picture by a peasant icon-painter. It is a pencil drawing, an
arshin
and a half* wide. Lev Nikolaevich is sitting in the middle, to his left is a school and some children, beyond them is an angel, above them is Christ in the clouds with the angels, then further off are various wise men—Socrates, Confucius, Buddha and so on. On the right is a church with a gallows and some hanged men in front of it. In the foreground are bishops, priests and gentlemen-in-waiting, and beyond them in the background are soldiers on foot and horseback. Then there are various national types reading books, and in the foreground for some reason a Turk in a turban reading a huge book. L.N. is not strictly true to life but his general appearance is. He is sitting cross-legged.

Appalling stories about the Yasnaya peasants. One brother has stolen from another, a widow has killed her illegitimate child, a father pushed his little son through a narrow crack into a storeroom and told him to steal things and hand them out to him, the windows of the library have been smashed and some children have made off with our books. It is sad and infuriating. Oh, the power of darkness!

I am reading a wonderful book about Buddhism entitled
The Soul of a People
.* What beautiful truths there are in Buddhism. It is as though one knew them already, but to see them written down and the laconic way they are expressed is a delight to the soul.

 

27th December
. Tanya, Sasha, Sonya Kolokoltseva and I left at five for Grinevka to visit Ilya. Misha was there looking thin, restless and confused. It's nice and friendly with Sonya and Ilya. The children were all asleep apart from Annochka.

 

28th December
. This morning we all decorated the Christmas tree and gave one another presents. My three grandchildren are such healthy, fair-haired youngsters, they're a joy.

We went for a long walk. The fresh snow that had fallen in the night on the boundless fields gleamed in the bright sun, and it was silent, pure and beautiful. I walked a long way on my own, thinking of the people I love. My soul too is pure, peaceful and happy.

This evening there were guests, a magnificent Christmas tree (I had brought everything from Moscow), neighbours, servants and peasants, singing, dancing and mummers, with a rough-and-ready performance of
Tsar Maximilian and his Unruly Son Adolf
. Sasha and Annochka dressed up and danced round in masks. Sasha is so fat and clumsy, she's a sorry sight. I like the way at Ilya's they keep open house for
everyone
to come and enjoy themselves. They had laid in quantities of food so the guests could eat and drink all day long, and had covered the floor of the office with straw and fur jackets so they could lie down and sleep. It was all very hospitable, friendly and chaotic, and they live in grand style, but I couldn't live like that.