The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (53 page)

At 11 o'clock on 11th September we had a fire in the attic and four beams were burnt. By a sheer stroke of luck I had gone up to inspect the attic and noticed the fire. If I hadn't, the whole house would have burnt down and the ceiling might have collapsed on top of Lev Nikolaevich, who was asleep in the room directly below. I was led there by the hand of God, and I thank Him for it.

Lev Nikolaevich's health is good; he went horse-riding, worked on
Hadji Murat
and has started on a proclamation to the clergy.* Yesterday he said: “How hard it is. One must expose evil, yet I don't want to write unkind things as I don't want to arouse bad feelings.”

But our peaceful life here and our good relations with our daughter Masha and her shadow—her husband Kolya—have now been disrupted. It is a long story.

When the family divided up the property, at Lev Nikolaevich's insistence, our daughter Masha, who had already reached the age of consent, refused to partake of her parents' inheritance. As I didn't believe her at the time, I took her share in my name and wrote my will, leaving this capital to her. But I didn't die, and then Masha married Obolensky and took her share, as she had to support both herself and him.

But as she had no rights in the future, she decided without telling me to copy out of her father's diary for 1895 a whole series of his wishes after his death. Among other things, he had written that it made him unhappy that his works should be sold, and that he would prefer his family not to sell them after his death. When L.N. was dangerously ill last July, Masha asked her father, without telling anyone, to sign this passage she had copied from his diary, and the poor man did so.

It was exceedingly unpleasant for me when quite by chance I found out about it. To make L.N.'s works
common
property would be senseless and wicked, in my opinion. By making his works public property we only line the pockets of rich publishing companies like Marx, Zetlin and so on. I told L.N. that if he died before me I would
not
carry out his wishes and would
not
renounce the copyright on his works; if I thought that was the right and proper thing to do, I would give him the pleasure of renouncing it
during his lifetime
, but there was no point in doing so after his death.

As I didn't know the exact contents of this document, I asked Lev Nikolaevich to give it to me, after he had taken it from Masha.

He readily agreed, and handed it over to me. Then Masha flew into a rage. Yesterday her husband was shouting God knows what nonsense, saying they had planned to make the document “public property” after Lev Nikolaevich's death, so as many people as possible would know that he hadn't wanted to sell his works, but his wife had made him do so.

So the upshot of this whole episode is that Masha and Kolya Obolensky will now be leaving Yasnaya.

 

23rd October
. Masha and I have made peace; she has stayed on in the side wing at Yasnaya, and I am very glad.

An unbearably muddy, cold, damp autumn. It snowed today.

Lev Nikolaevich has finished
Hadji Murat
and we read it today; the strictly epic character of the story has been very well sustained
and there is much artistic merit in it, but it doesn't move me. We have only read half of it though, and will finish it tomorrow.

 

4th November
. It is very frosty; the little girls are skating. The sun is bright, the sky is blue, and as I came up the avenue to the house I had a sudden vivid memory of the distant past, walking up this same avenue from the skating rink carrying a baby on one arm, shielding him from the wind and closing his little mouth, while the other dragged a child in a sledge, and behind us and before us were happy, laughing red-cheeked children, and life was so full and I loved them so passionately…And Lev Nikolaevich came out to meet us, looking healthy and cheerful, having spent such a long time writing that it was too late for him to go skating…

Where are they now, those little children whom we reared with such love? And where is that giant—my strong, cheerful Lyovochka? And where am I, as I was in those days? If only I could live a little better and not store up so much
guilt
towards people, especially my family.

 

8th November
. Yesterday the sun shone, we were all in high spirits and I went skating with the little girls—Sasha, Natasha Obolenskaya and their young pupils. We all had a fine time on the ice. Today we had a discussion about divorce. I said divorce was sometimes necessary, and cited the case of L.A. Golitsyna, whose husband abandoned her three weeks after the wedding for a dancing girl, and whom he told quite cynically he had only
married
in order to have her as his mistress, otherwise he would never have managed to get her.

Lev Nikolaevich replied that marriage was merely the Church's seal of approval on adultery. I retorted that this was only the case with bad people. He then snapped back in the most unpleasant way that it was so for
everyone
. “What about in reality?” I said. To which he replied, “The moment I took a woman for the first time and went with her, that was marriage.”

And I had a sudden painful insight into our marriage as Lev Nikolaevich saw it. This naked, unadorned, uncommitted sexual coupling of a man and a woman—that is what he calls marriage, and after that coupling it doesn't matter to him who he has gone with. And when he started saying one should only get married once, to the first woman one fell with, I grew extremely angry.

It is snowing, and there seems to be a path in the snow. I looked through the proofs of
The Cossacks
. What a well-written story, what
brilliance, what talent. A man of genius is always so much better in his works than in his life!

 

25th November
. I feel more and more lonely here in the company of those members of my family I still have with me. Today I returned from Moscow to find that Dr Elpatevsky had just arrived from the Crimea, and this evening L.N. read him a legend he has just written, about devils.*

This work is imbued with the most truly negative, malicious, diabolical spirit, and sets out to mock everything on earth, starting with the Church. The supposedly Christian feelings that L.N. puts into these discussions among the devils are presented with such coarse cynicism it made me sick with rage to hear him read it: I became feverish, and felt like weeping and shouting and stretching out my hands to ward off the devils.

I told him in no uncertain terms how angry it made me. Would it not be more fitting for an old man of seventy-five, whom the whole world respects, to do like the Apostle John, who when he was too weak and debilitated to speak simply said, “Children, love each other!” Neither Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Plato nor Epicurus had any need to attach ears and devils' tails to the truths they wanted to proclaim. But then maybe contemporary man, whom L.N. is so clever at pleasing, needs this sort of thing.

And my children too—Sasha, who is too young to know better, and Masha, who is a complete stranger to me—both imitated their father's laugh with their own hellish laughter after he had finished reading his devilish legend, and I felt like sobbing. Did he have to survive death to do work like this!

 

7th December
. My soul is again filled with despair and the terror of losing my beloved husband! Help me, Lord…Lev Nikolaevich has a fever—39 this morning—his pulse is weak, his strength is failing…The only doctor who has seen him cannot understand what is wrong.

We have summoned Dreyer from Tula and Shchurovsky from Moscow, and are expecting them today. We have wired our sons too, but none of them has arrived yet.

While there is still hope and I still have the strength, I shall write down everything that has happened.

When Lev Nikolaevich was having lunch I came in and sat with him. He ate porridge and semolina with milk, and asked for some curd pancakes from our lunch, which he ate with the semolina. I
remarked that these pancakes were a little heavy for him while he was drinking Karlsbad—which he has been taking for four weeks now—but he wouldn't listen.

After lunch he set off for a walk on his own, and asked to be driven to the highway. I assumed he would take his usual walk along the main road, but without saying a word he set out for Kozlovka, turned off into Zaseka—3 miles in all—then put on a frozen fur coat over his sheepskin jacket and drove home, flushed and exhausted, in a cold north wind and 15 degrees of frost.

The following morning, 5th December, about midday, he felt chilled and wrapped himself in his dressing gown, but remained at his desk with his papers all morning and ate nothing. He went to bed in the afternoon and his temperature went up to 38.8. That night he started having bad stomach pains; I stayed with him all night and kept his stomach warm. That evening he had a temperature of 39.4, but then Masha suddenly ran in, beside herself, and said, “His temperature is 40.9!” We all looked at the thermometer, and sure enough it was—although I am still not sure there wasn't something wrong with the mercury. We were all distraught; we sponged him down with alcohol and water, and when we took his temperature it was 39.3 again.

I am going in to Lyovochka again—oh, these groans, how I suffer for him…Forgive me, my darling, God bless you!

 

8th December
. His temperature has gone down now and the fever has passed in a profuse sweat. But his heart is still weak. The doctors have diagnosed influenza and now fear these bacteria may lead to pneumonia.

We had a visit this morning from those two dear selfless doctors, always so bright and kind—warm-hearted Usov and cheerful Shchurovsky. Doctor Chekan from Tula stayed the night here and our own Doctor Nikitin has been kind, sensible and diligent.

Seryozha, Andryusha and his wife and Liza Obolenskaya arrived yesterday, and Ilya arrived today.

I looked after Lev Nikolaevich until five this morning, when Seryozha took my place. The doctors also took turns—first Nikitin, then Chekan.

 

12th December
. It is now six in the morning of 12th December. I have spent another night sitting beside Lyovochka's bed and can see him slipping away.

A cheerless life looms ahead.

Long sleepless nights, with a heart full of anguish, a terror of life and a dread of living without Lyovochka.

As I was leaving the room just now he said, “Goodbye, Sonya!” in a distinct and significant tone of voice. And I kissed his hand and said “Goodbye” to him too. He thinks I might be asleep when he dies…No, he doesn't think anything of the sort, he understands
everything
, and it's so hard for him…

 

13th December, evening
. Lyovochka has come back to life again and is much better—his pulse, temperature and appetite have improved. Boulanger was reading Kropotkin's
Notes
* to him.

Today the following announcement from Lev Nikolaevich appeared in the
Russian Gazette
:

 

We have received this letter from Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy:

18th December
. Lev Nikolaevich is still in bed. He sits up, reads and takes notes, but is very weak…

I have been reading Hauptmann's
The Weavers
: all we rich people, landowners and manufacturers live such extraordinarily luxurious lives, I thought; I often don't go to the village simply to avoid the awkwardness and shame I feel for my wealthy, privileged life and their poverty. Yet I am constantly astonished at how meek and gentle they are with us.

Then I read some of A. Khomyakov's poems. There is so much genuine poetry and feeling in them. ‘To Children' simply pours from his heart, honest and passionate. If one has never had children, one couldn't possibly understand the feelings of a parent, especially a mother.

You go into the nursery at night and look at the three or four little cots with such a feeling of fullness, richness and pride…You bend over each one of them, look into those lovely innocent little faces which breathe such purity, holiness and hope. And you make the sign of the cross over them or bless them in your heart, then pray for them and leave the room, your soul filled with love and tenderness, and you ask nothing of God, for life is full.

And now they have all grown up and gone away…And it's not the empty cots that fill one with sadness, it's the disappointment in those beloved children's characters and fates.

 

27th December
. It's again a long time since I have written. I spent three days in Moscow—the 19th, 20th and 21st. I got the accounts for the book sales from the accountant, did some shopping and got presents for the children, servants and so on, which they loved.

Lev Nikolaevich improved greatly while I was away, and got up, went into the next room and worked. Then on Christmas Day he suddenly grew worse. He ate nothing, was given strophanthus and caffeine, and the doctor was evidently nonplussed. Yesterday he was much better again.

When Lev Nikolaevich was so ill, he said half-joking to Masha, “The Angel of Death came for me, but God called him away to other work. Now he has finished he has come for me again.”

Every deterioration in Lev Nikolaevich's condition causes me greater and greater suffering, and I am terrified of losing him. In Gaspra I didn't feel nearly so much pain and tenderness for him as I feel now. What agony it is to see him suffering and sinking, weak and stricken in mind and body!