The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (59 page)

I had already told Davydov and Salomon about Chertkov's malicious intrigues against me, and they were sincerely horrified. They were astonished that my husband could tolerate these insults to his wife, and unanimously spoke of their dislike for this proud, spiteful fool. Davydov was particularly incensed that Chertkov had stolen all Lev Nik.'s diaries since the year 1900.

“But these should belong to you and your family,” raged dear Davydov. “And that letter Chertkov wrote to the newspapers when Lev Nik. was staying with him was the height of stupidity and insensitivity.”*

All this seems quite clear to everyone else—but what about my poor husband?…

 

11th July
. I slept only from 4 to 7.30 a.m. Lev Nik. also slept very little. I am ill and exhausted, but my soul is happy. Relations with Lev Nik. are friendly and straightforward again. I love him so intensely and foolishly! He needs me to make concessions and heroic sacrifices, but I am incapable of doing this, especially at my age.

Seryozha came this morning. Sasha and her shadow, Varvara Mikhailovna, are cross with me—as if I
cared
! Lyova is being very sweet to me, and the clever fellow has started working on a sculpture of me.

We all went to bed early. L.N. himself asked Chertkov not to come this evening. Thank God! Just to breathe freely for one day is a rest for one's soul.

 

12th July
. I posed for Lyova; his bust of me is beginning to look quite lifelike. What a talented, good person he is. Alas, what a contrast with Sasha!

Lev Nik. waited in for Goldenweiser, as he wanted to go for a ride with him, but he didn't appear. So he sent Filka the stable boy to Telyatinki, and Filka invited Chertkov by mistake instead of Goldenweiser. I didn't know about this, but L.N. eventually decided not to wait any longer for Goldenweiser and went to the stable to saddle his horse and ride out to meet him. I thought he would be all on his own in this fierce heat and might get sunstroke again, so I ran to the stable and asked where he was going and if he was meeting anyone. Lev Nik. was trying to hurry up the coachman, and Doctor Makovitsky was there too, and as soon as he left the stable I saw the odious figure of Chertkov, approaching from under the hill on his white horse. I shrieked that I had been deceived again, that they were trying to hoodwink me, that they had lied about Goldenweiser and invited Chertkov instead, and I had a hysterical attack right there, in front of all the servants, and ran off to the house. Lev Nik. told Chertkov he wouldn't ride with him, Chertkov went home and L.N. rode on with the doctor.

Fortunately it turned out there had been no plot, merely that Filka had been half-asleep and forgotten where he had been told to go, and had accidentally invited Chertkov instead of Goldenweiser. But I am in such a state of torment that the merest mention of Chertkov, and especially the sight of him, drives me into a state of frenzied agitation. When he arrived this evening I left the room and shook like a leaf for a whole hour. Goldenweiser and his wife were here, and were both very kind.

Chertkov's mother, Elizaveta Ivanovna, wrote inviting me to call on her today. Two preachers have come to visit her; one is called Fetler, and the other was some Irish professor whom I could barely understand, but who ate very heartily and occasionally made religious pronouncements in a mechanical sort of way. But Fetler was a man of principle and spoke beautifully and tried to convert me to his faith in Redemption. He got down on his knees and started praying for me, for Lev Nikolaevich, for the peace and happiness of our souls and so on. It was a beautiful prayer, but it was so strange! Elizaveta Ivanovna was there all the time, and at one point she called me over to ask me why I hated her son. I told her about the diaries, and explained that her son had taken my beloved husband from me. To which she replied: “And I have been unhappy because your husband has taken my son from me!” And she is quite right.

 

13th July
. After sending Chertkov away yesterday for my sake while he was out riding, Lev Nik. spent the whole evening waiting for him to come so he could explain the reason. Chertkov didn't come for a long time. Sensitive to my husband's moods, I saw him anxiously looking for him, waiting like a lover, and becoming more and more agitated, sitting out on the balcony downstairs staring at the road. Eventually he wrote a letter, which I begged him to show me. Sasha brought it, and soon I had it in my hands. It was “dear friend”, of course, and endless endearments…and I was again in a frenzy of despair. Nevertheless he gave this letter to Chertkov when he arrived. I took it under the pretext of reading it, then burnt it. He never writes me tender letters, I am becoming even more wicked and unhappy and close to my end. But I am a
coward
. I didn't want to go swimming yesterday, because I was afraid of
drowning
. I need only
one moment
of determination, and am incapable of even that.

Lev Nik. went for a ride with Goldenweiser and the Sukhotins, and I looked for his last diary but couldn't find it. We are like two silent enemies, constantly suspecting, spying and sneaking up on each other! Lev Nik. hides everything he can from me by giving it to that “spiteful pharisee”, as Gué called him. Maybe he gave his last diary to Chertkov yesterday.

Lord take pity on me and save me from sin!…

 

Night of 13th—14th July
. Let us assume I have gone mad, and my “fixation” is that Lev Nik. should get his diaries back and not allow
Chertkov to keep them. Two families have been thrown into confusion, there have been painful arguments—I have been driven to the very limits of my endurance. (I haven't eaten a thing all day.) Everyone is depressed, and my tormented appearance annoys everyone like a bothersome fly.

What can be done to make everyone happy again and put an end to my sufferings?

Get the diaries back from Chertkov, all those little black oilcloth notebooks, and put them back on the desk, letting him have them, one at a time, to make excerpts. That's all!

If I do eventually summon up the courage to kill myself, everyone will look back and realize how easy it would have been to grant my wish.

When they explain my death to the world they won't give the real reason. They'll say it was hysteria, nerves and my wicked nature—and when they look at my dead body, killed by my husband, no one will
dare
say that the
only
thing that could have
saved
me was the simple expedient of returning those four or five oilcloth notebooks to my husband's desk.

Where is their Christianity? Where is their love? Where is their “non-resistance”? Nothing but lies, deception and cruelty.

Those two stubborn men, Chertkov and my husband, have joined forces and are crushing me, destroying me. And I am so afraid of them; their iron hands crush my heart, and I long to tear myself from their grip and escape. But I am still so afraid…

Thoughts of suicide are growing stronger all the time. Thank God my sufferings will soon be over!

What a terrible wind! It would be good to go now…I must try once more to save myself…for the last time. If they
refuse
, it will be even more painful, and even easier to deliver myself from my suffering; I should hate to keep making threats, then pester with my presence all the people whose lives I have made a misery…But I should love to come back to life so I could see my husband carrying out my wishes, and see that gleam of love that has warmed and saved me so many times in my life, but which Chertkov now seems to have stifled for ever. Without that love my life is over.

 

14th July
. I haven't slept all night. These expressions of my suffering, however extreme, can't possibly do them justice. Lev Nikol. came in, and I told him in terrible agitation that everything lay in the balance: it was either the diaries or my life, he could choose. And he did choose,
I'm thankful to say, and got the diaries back from Chertkov. In my nervousness I have made a bad job of pasting into this diary the letter he gave me this morning;* I am very sorry about this, but there are several copies, including the one I made for the collection of Lev Nikolaevich's letters to me, and the one our daughter Tanya has.

Sasha drove over to Chertkov's to fetch the diaries and give him a letter from Lev Nikolaevich. But the thought of suicide, clear and firm, will always be with me the moment they open the wounds in my heart again.

So this is the end of my long and once happy marriage!…But it is not quite the end yet; Lev Nik.'s letter to me today is a scrap of the old happiness, although such a small, shabby scrap!

My daughter Tanya has sealed up the diaries, and tomorrow she and her husband will take them to the bank in Tula. They will fill out a receipt for them in the name of Lev Nik. and his heirs, and will give this receipt to L.N. I hope to God they do not deceive me, and that Jesuit Chertkov doesn't wheedle the diaries out of Lev Nik. on the sly.

Not a thing has passed my lips for three days now, and this has worried everyone terribly for some reason. But this is the least of it…It's all a matter of passion and the force of grief.

I bitterly regret that I have made my children Lyova and Tanya suffer, especially Tanya; she is being so sweet and kind and compassionate to me again! I love her very much. Chertkov must be allowed to come here, although this is very, very difficult and unpleasant for me. If I don't let them meet, there will be page upon page of secret, tender letters, and that would be much worse.

 

15th July
. Another sleepless night. I kept thinking if it was so easy for Lev Nik. to break his promise in his letter not to leave me, then it would be equally easy for him to break all his promises, and where would all his “true and honest” words be then? I have good reason to worry! First he promised me in front of Chertkov that he would give
me
his diaries, then he deceived me by putting them in the bank. How can one keep calm and well when one lives under the constant threat of “I'll leave, I'll leave!”

I had another frightful nervous attack and longed to drink opium, but again lacked the courage, and instead told Lev Nik. a wicked lie and said I had taken it. I confessed immediately, and wept and sobbed, and made a great effort to regain my self-control. How ashamed and wretched I felt. But…no, I shall say no more: I am sick and exhausted.

My son Lyova and I went out in the cabriolet to look at a house in Rudakovo to replace Tanya's house in Ovsyannikovo.* Lev Nik. went for a ride with Doctor Makovitsky. I thought we were going together, but L.N. deliberately went in the opposite direction. I shall go along the highway, he said, and home via Ovsyannikovo. He then went a completely different way, turning off just before Ovsyannikovo, as though quite by chance. But I notice everything, remember everything and suffer deeply.

I forced myself to let Chertkov visit us, and behaved
correctly
with him, but I suffered terribly as I watched their every movement and glance. How I loathe that man!

Chertkov's son Dima was here too, a sweet, straightforward boy accompanied by his English friend who drives motorcars. The papers have published a short article by L.N. called ‘From My Diary', about his conversation with a peasant.

A mass of dull people here: the Englishman, Dima and his comrade (they aren't so bad), the tedious Nikolaev, Goldenweiser and Chertkov. And since none of these gentlemen had anything to talk about, they played the gramophone. I tried to read some proofs—but couldn't. Lyova is sculpting me: I feel calmer with him. He understands everything and loves and pities me.

Taking these diaries from Chertkov has cost me dear, but I would do it again if I had to; I would gladly give the rest of my life to ensure they never went back to Chertkov, and I don't regret the health and strength I have lost in rescuing them. This must now lie on the conscience of Chertkov and my husband, who clung to them so stubbornly.

They will be deposited in the bank in Lev Nik.'s name, and he will have the sole right to take them out. What an insensitive, distrustful attitude—and how unkind to his wife!

 

16th July
. Now they have discovered I am keeping a diary every day, they have all started scribbling
their
diaries. They are out to attack me, condemn me and bring all sorts of malicious evidence against me for daring to defend my conjugal rights, asking for a little more love and trust from my husband, and for the diaries to be taken away from Chertkov.

God be with them all: I need my husband, while I am still not completely frozen by his coldness; I need justice and a clear conscience, not the judgements of others.

I went to Tula with Tanya and we deposited Lev Nikolaevich's seven notebooks in the State Bank. This is a half-measure, i.e. a partial
concession to me. They have been removed from Chertkov, thank God, but now I shall never be able to see or read them in Lev Nik.'s lifetime. This is my husband's revenge on me. When they were brought back from Chertkov's I took them frantically and leafed through them to see what he had written (even though I had already read most of them before), and I felt as though my beloved lost child had just been returned to me and was about to be taken away again. I can imagine how furious Chertkov must be with me! This evening he visited us again. I am still tormented by hatred and jealousy of him. A mother whose child is lured away by the gypsies must feel what I felt today.

I know hardly anything about his work; at night I go into the so-called “office”, where Sasha and her companion Varvara Mikhailovna are copying for him, and look through his papers.

There are various letters there, an introduction to the kopeck booklets, the article about suicide, several beginnings, but nothing important.*

There was the most terrible thunderstorm all evening. Lord, what rain! The noise of the storm and wind and the leaves on the trees makes it impossible to sleep…