The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (46 page)

An unpleasant scene with Sasha on Palm Sunday. I called her to go to vespers with me and she refused, saying she had lost her faith. I told her if she wanted to follow her father's path she must go the
whole way like him: he was extremely Orthodox for many years—long after he got married too—then he renounced the Church in the name of pure Christianity, and also renounced all earthly blessings. Sasha, like so many of my children, was of course simply jumping at the easy way out—in this case not going to church. I burst into tears and she went to ask her father for advice, and he told her: “Of course you must go—you mustn't distress your mother.”

So she came to the orphanage church with me and attended vespers, and now she will fast with me.

 

27th March
. The other day I received Metropolitan Antony's reply to my letter, perfectly correct but completely soulless.* I wrote mine in the heat of the moment, it has gone round the entire world and has
infected
people with its sincerity.

These public events have exhausted me and I have turned to introspection; but my inner life is tense and joyless too.

 

30th March
. Things have gone from bad to worse with Sasha. She wouldn't fast with me: first she pleaded a sore leg, then she refused outright. Yet another worsening in our relations.

I received the Eucharist today. I have found it very difficult to fast; there are such vast contradictions between what is genuine—the Church's
true
foundations—and all these rituals, the wild shrieks of the deacon and so on, that it is hard to persevere and one sometimes feels like giving up altogether. This is what disgusts young people so much.

I was standing in the church today and the invisible choir was singing so beautifully, and I thought: the simple people go to church as we go to a good symphony concert. At home there is poverty, darkness and endless, backbreaking toil. They come to church and there is light, singing, beauty…There is art and music here, and a spiritual justification for all this entertainment too, since religion is approved of, and considered good and necessary. How could one live without it?

I fasted without much conviction, but went about it in a serious, sensible way, and was glad to exert myself physically and spiritually—getting up early and standing for a long time in church, praying and reflecting on my spiritual life.

 

18th May
. We have been in Yasnaya Polyana for ten days. We travelled with Pavel Boulanger in a well-appointed private carriage, and L.N.
had a very comfortable journey. I warmed him up some pre-cooked porridge, boiled him an egg and made coffee, then he ate some asparagus and went to sleep. We were seen off in Moscow by Uncle Kostya, Dunaev, Fyodor Maslov and his sister Varvara, as well as some young people we had never met before—technical students I think—who shouted “Hurrah!” and took pictures of Lev Nikolaevich. It was very moving.

 

6th June
. I went to Moscow and did my business there, and lived alone with the maid in my big empty house. I visited Vanechka's and Alyosha's graves and went to see my living grandson, Seryozha's little boy. He's a splendid child, serene and straightforward. I saw Misha and Lina, who always make an excellent impression, and I also saw Sergei Ivanovich. There has been a cooling in our relations recently, and I have neither the energy nor the inclination to maintain our former friendship. Besides, he really isn't the sort of person one can be friends with. Like all gifted people he is always seeking new experiences and he looks for other people to provide them, while giving almost nothing of himself.

I returned to Yasnaya Polyana, and it was hot, stuffy, lazy weather. L.N. is taking salt baths and drinking Kronenquelle. He is fairly cheerful after a winter of illnesses.

 

14th June
. What a lovely summer! Through my window I can see the moon in the clear sky. It is still and silent, and the air is caressing and delightfully warm. I have been spending almost all my time outside with nature; I go swimming and in the evenings I water the flowers and go for walks. My beloved Tanya is staying with her husband, with whom I am becoming reconciled since she loves him. He has a sweet nature but is terribly selfish, which makes me fear for her.

Pasternak the artist has been here and has drawn me, Lev Nikolaevich and Tanya in a variety of poses and angles. He is planning to do a genre painting of our family for the Luxembourg.

Lyova, Dora and little Pavlik have left for Sweden. It was terribly painful to part with them. They lead such irreproachable Christian lives, with the finest ideals and intentions. They have nothing to hide, one could look into the depths of their souls and find nothing but purity and goodness. At 5 in the morning poor little Dora ran to Levushka's grave to say goodbye to her darling baby; I suffered so much for her and wanted to sob.

 

20th June
. I went to Moscow to negotiate the sale of Sasha's land; another frightful waste of time and energy. It was hot, I spent two nights on the train, talked to the barrister, did some shopping and so on.

When I returned exhausted next morning, they hadn't sent any horses, so I had to walk back from Kozlovka. I was in a thoroughly bad temper, the heat was insufferable and the house was crowded with good-for-nothings—Alyosha Dyakov, Goldenweiser, some sculptor, the Sukhotins. Tanya is the only one I care about.

 

3rd July
. Something frightful is drawing near, and it is death.

Lev Nikolaevich fell ill on the night of 27th–28th June. He felt wretched, couldn't sleep and had difficulty breathing. Sasha and I planned to visit my son Seryozha on the 28th, but I wasn't sure I could leave him. In the end we did go, at 8 that morning. He slept well that night, but the following day he set off for a walk and could hardly manage to get home. The pain in his chest grew worse, but they put a hot blanket on it and that eased it. He again had a fever on the evening of the 29th when I returned. No one had looked after him properly while I was away! It broke my heart to see him. It must be his heart, I told him. The following morning Doctor Dreyer from Tula discovered he had a high fever and a dangerously high pulse of 150 per minute. He prescribed 10 grains of quinine a day, and caffeine and strophanthus for the heart. But when his temperature fell to 35.9° his pulse was still 150.

We wired Doctor Dubensky in Kaluga (chief doctor at the local hospital and a good friend of ours) who said it was the pulse of the death agony. After several doses of quinine the fever passed, and for two days running his temperature has been normal, 36.2°. But he has just had another two sleepless nights, with a slight chill, a fever and profuse sweating, and he is now feeling exhausted, and what is more serious, his heart has been weakened.

The children have all arrived—apart from Lyova, who is in Sweden, and Tanya. Ilya's children are here too. Yesterday he invited his three grandsons and Annochka his granddaughter into his room, gave them all chocolates out of a box, made four-year-old Ilyusha tell him about the time he almost drowned in a rainwater tub, and asked Annochka about her hoarseness. Then he said: “Off you go now, I'll call you again when I'm next feeling bored.” And when they had gone out he kept saying: “What marvellous children.”

Yesterday morning I was putting a hot compress on his stomach and he gazed at me intently and began to weep, saying: “Thank you
Sonya. You mustn't imagine I'm not grateful or don't love you…” His voice broke with emotion and I kissed his dear familiar hands, telling him what pleasure it gave me to look after him, and how guilty I felt when I couldn't make him happy. Then we both wept and embraced. For such a long time my soul has yearned for this—a deep and serious recognition of our closeness over the thirty-nine years we have lived together…

Today he said to me: “I am now at a crossroads. I would just as soon go forwards (to death) as backwards (to life). If this passes now, it will just be a respite.” Then he reflected a little and added: “But there's still so much I want to tell people!”

Yesterday he was anxiously enquiring about some peasant victims of a recent fire in a faraway village, to whom he had asked me to give 35 rubles. He wanted to know if any of them had come to the house, and asked us to tell him if they came asking him for anything.

He had a terrible night last night, 2nd–3rd July; I was with him from two to seven in the morning. He didn't sleep a wink, and his stomach was aching. Later his chest started hurting, so I massaged it with spirit of camphor and made a cotton-wool compress, which eased the pain. Then he started having pains in his legs and they grew cold, so I massaged them with spirit of camphor and wrapped them in a warm blanket. He began to feel a little better, and I was happy to relieve his suffering. But then he began to feel very low and miserable, so I took his temperature. It was up again—from 36.2° to 37.3°—and he remained feverish for about three hours. Then he went to sleep, and I went off to bed as I was dropping with exhaustion.

I was sitting in his room today reading the Gospels, in which he has marked the passages he considers especially important, and he said to me: “Look how the words accumulate. In the first Gospel it says Christ was simply christened. In the second it has been expanded to: ‘And he saw the skies open,' and the third makes the further addition: ‘He heard the words, “Sit down and eat, my son,”' and so on.”

Now my Lyovochka is sleeping. He is still alive, I can see him, hear him, look after him…What will happen next? My God, what unendurable grief, what horror to live without him, without his love, his encouragement, his intelligence, his enthusiasm for the finest things in life.

 

14th July
. Tanya came with her husband, Doctor Shchurovsky arrived from Moscow, and a lot of our friends visited. Telegrams, letters, a
great crush of children, grandchildren and acquaintances, one anxiety after another…Eventually I fell ill too. I had a high fever all night, my heartbeat was weak, my pulse was 52, and I had to stay in bed for two days, unable to move.

He is now very thin and weak, but has a good appetite, is sleeping well and is out of pain; he works every morning on his article about the labour question.

Thank God, thank God, for yet another reprieve! I wonder how much longer we will live together! His sunken face, his white hair and beard and his emaciated body and the persistent ache in my heart become unbearable, and I feel as though my life were at an end and I had lost all my interests and energy.

Yes, a phase of my life has just come to an end. A line has been drawn between that period when life
went on
, and now, when life has simply
stopped
.

I kept thinking: “Salt baths will help, he'll get better, he'll live another ten years; Ems water will repair his digestion, and the warmth of summer and lots of rest will restore his strength…”

But now suddenly it is the
end
. No health, no strength, nothing to restore, nothing to repair—there's so little left of Lyovochka now, too little to repair. And what a giant he used to be!

 

22nd July
. Lev Nikolaevich is on the mend. He is taking long walks through the forest, and eating and sleeping well. Thank God!

We received letters from well-wishers in Tula yesterday evening. He burst out laughing and said: “Well, next time I start dying I shall have to do so in earnest, I mustn't joke about it any more. I'd be ashamed to make people go through all that again, with everyone gathering round, the journalists arriving, the letters and telegrams—and all for nothing!”

We had a delightful letter from Queen Elizabeth of Romania today. She has sent L.N. a brochure she has written, and writes how happy she will be if “
la main du maître
” lies for a moment on her little book.*

A hot, dry, dusty day. The oats are being harvested. Bright, sunny days, moonlit nights; it's so beautiful, one longs to make better use of this lovely summer.

 

30th July
. It's hot again today and there's a smell of burning, as if there was smoke in the air. It's impossible to see anything, and the sun has turned into a tiny red ball.

I lead a dreary life, sitting all day by my sick husband's door and knitting caps for the orphanage. All the life and energy in me has died.

I received a letter from Countess Panina offering us her dacha in Gaspra, in the Crimea, and we are planning to go, although I don't want to leave before September.

 

3rd August
. Lev Nikolaevich's latest illness has robbed him of even more of his strength, although he is a little better today. Terrible heat, very dry again, I swim every day. We were visited this morning by the Myasoedovo villagers who were burnt out in the fire, and we gave them all 7 rubles in the courtyard. There have been so many fires this summer, and there are so many people to be helped!

Then another visitor we didn't know, called Falz-Fein, who has just lost his young wife and has been left with three young children, desperate and ill with grief. L.N. took him out for a walk and talked to him.

 

26th August
. We're leaving for the Crimea on 5th September. I went to Moscow on business and shall go again before we leave, probably on the 1st. Cold, windy, damp and vile.

Housekeeping, bills, taxes, packing, endless practical tasks…No walks, no music, nothing but boredom and low spirits. It seems we will be staying in the Crimea for the winter, and this makes me terribly sad! Well, whatever God ordains. A line has been drawn and a new phase in our life is starting. Just as long as Lev Nikolaevich is alive and well.

 

2nd December (Gaspra, the Crimea)
. We have been living here since 9th September for the sake of Lev Nikolaevich's health, and he is making a slow recovery. He was 73 in August, and has aged and grown very much weaker this year.