The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (69 page)

 

28th
. Lev Nikolaevich's birthday. About 300 visitors came to the house, and many more to the grave. I didn't go: I can't bear to see so many policemen, and there's so little real feeling for Lev Nik.*

My son Seryozha came, and my grandson Seryozha with his teacher M. Kuez. A crowd of guests. My soul is sombre and my head is a fog.

 

30th
. I went to the grave and got soaked in the rain. Chatted to the peasant Taras Fokanov. Worked hard taking notes for
My Life
, and suddenly rediscovered my interest in my old work. My eyes were better today. This evening Prince Dolgorukov came to discuss the peasants' library.*

 

3rd September
. Worked hard on my memoirs and read some sad family letters written in 1894, when Lyova was so ill, then wandered sadly about the garden. What a hard life! Rain all day, a blazing red sunset and starry night.

 

7th
. A delightful warm, bright day, but the leaves already have their autumn colouring. I couldn't stay indoors—too sad!—and went out to saw dead branches off the apple trees. Then I had to tidy up the cellar and boil jam. I sat in the barn and thought intensely about eternal life.
Where
do we all go? Where has my Lyovochka gone? This evening I copied out my Daily Diary for 1910.

 

11th
. I walked to the fir plantation, and my Sasha was here, with the peasant Frolov boy. She and I are friends, thank God.

 

12th
. I didn't sleep last night and felt wretched this morning, and got up early and went to Lev Nik.'s grave. On the way I found some mushrooms—honey agarics and milk caps—and picked a whole basketful. At the grave I wept and prayed as usual, and spoke to L.N. No one was there for a change. I spent the day painting the autumn leaves in watercolours and wandering around Yasnaya Polyana.

 

19th
. I wrote to Minister Kokovtsov about the sale of Yasnaya Polyana, painted and sat with the writer Almedingen. Life is dull and tedious these days, my soul is unbearably sad.

 

22nd
. I painted, copied, knitted and didn't leave the house. News of Liza Obolenskaya's arrival. I am so pleased. How good Socrates's last discussion with his pupils* was. One
must
believe in
eternal
life, otherwise it would be impossible to go on.

 

23rd
. Our wedding anniversary! When I got up I picked some white flowers and roses—emblems of my vanished youth—and took them to the grave. I stood alone there and wept. Where are you, my
bridegroom, my beloved husband? Liza Obolenskaya came, and my son Ilya paid a brief visit. Then dear Maria Schmidt arrived. This evening we read
The Living Corpse
.* Not very good.

 

1st October
. Dmitry Obolensky came with two engineers from St Petersburg who have come to inspect the Belgian factories at Sudakovo. Andryusha has returned from Krapivna. He was unanimously voted a town councillor of the Krapivna district.

 

2nd
. I played the piano for a long time—sonatas by Beethoven and Weber. I wanted to forget myself but couldn't. Then I copied out my Daily Diary, painted an autumn leaf and read various articles about
The Living Corpse
. Frightful weather, 2° below freezing, dark sky. It distresses me that I haven't visited the grave for so long.

 

4th
. Tanya's 47th birthday. Already! How vividly I remember her birth. Lev Nik. had a broken arm, and sobbed with emotion when his first daughter was born. How he loved me!

 

8th
. Lovely weather. Clear, still, 7°. I went to the grave and talked to the peasant Taras Fokanov, who loved Lev Nikol. and now guards his grave. This evening I finished reading aloud ‘Tolstoy and Turgenev'. I have tried to work on my memoirs but still haven't written anything. My spiritual life is severe and contemplative. I must be brave!

 

9th
. Not many visitors today—eight in all. Andryusha, Yulia Igumnova and I visited the grave. Taras, Ivan Drozd and I measured the space for the new wrought-iron fence. I don't like their plans. I worked hard on my memoirs for 1894. Life was hard then, but it got worse.

 

16th
. Andryusha returned from Moscow, and told us about
The Living Corpse
and the Tolstoy exhibition.* He understands a lot. I spent the day drawing autumn leaves; I didn't feel disposed to write. A warm wind. The workmen have arrived to mend the path by the grave and dig ditches.

 

18th
. At 7.20 this morning Maria Alexandrovna Schmidt died in Ovsyannikovo. Yet another dear, close friend is no more—yet again my heart is like lead! She died suddenly, as she lived, without bothering anyone, all alone with her maid. I went to Ovsyannikovo to look at her stern, yellow face and say goodbye to my dear friend. A fine
sunny day, with a freezing north wind. Before going to Ovsyannikovo I visited the grave. The workmen are there mending the ditches and the road, and it's seething with activity.

 

19th
. I went to the grave; everyone was hard at work there, as they were yesterday. Then I went to the barn and the threshing machine. There they all were, peasants and young folk, laughing and joking and threshing—life goes on around me, but my heart is sad and silent. As silent as the small, thin, dead figure of Maria Alexandrovna in her coffin. The artist Baturin has arrived. A warm, windy day, with fleecy clouds in the sky. I drew and wrote.

 

20th
. We buried Maria Schmidt today. Andryusha and Katya are packing up and preparing for a new life in Taptykovo. A still day. 5°, and a starry, moonlit night. It's good to be with nature, even though it's autumn.

 

21st
. This morning I went to the grave. Yesterday and today they've been putting up another sort of fence. There are a lot of workmen there.

 

23rd
. I wept bitter, painful tears as I walked back from the grave and recalled Lyovochka's tortured mental state at the end, and I am still weeping now. Visitors arrived from Moscow and I showed them everything. I attended to the day-labourers' records and accounts, and packed my bag for Moscow.

 

25th (Moscow)
. Visited the banks and delivered the album and
Skeleton Dolls
.* Everyone was very pleasant. Had dinner and spent a pleasant evening with Seryozha and Masha, and my grandson Seryozha.

 

27th
. Shopping and business all morning. Dined with Seryozha again. Saw my grandchildren, Misha's children, and was very, very happy.

 

28th
. It was on this day that Lev Nikol. left Yasnaya Polyana. Spent the morning at the Tolstoy Exhibition. Various gentlemen kept following me around so I had to force myself not to cry. It was very distressing, but interesting!*

 

29th
. Back at Yasnaya. The moon was still shining at 7 this morning. The house is silent, sad and empty.

 

31st
. I have started copying Repin's portrait of Lev Nik.—very hard. This evening I read Arabazhin's book about Lev Nikolaevich;* very well written. A grey, windy day. I took a bath. Lev Nik. lives in me, like a pregnant woman with her baby. I'm forever thinking: “Oh, I'll tell Lyovochka that, I must show him that…” But he was so indifferent last year to everything that concerned me, he lived only for Chertkov. It was on this day that he stopped at Astapovo. But I survived, and, alas, I am still alive!

 

1st November
. I wrote letters to my sister Tanya, Marusya Maklakova, Lyova and my daughter-in-law Katya. Also letters about the waltz and the poems.* I worked on my copy of Lev Nik.'s portrait and went to the grave; they're finishing the work on the fence and the paths.

 

7th
. A sad day. A year ago today Lev Nikolaevich died. All my sons came, apart from Lyova, and a crowd of journalists and members of the Tolstoy Society—about 500 visitors in all. Our peasants followed me to the grave and sang ‘Eternal Memory'. My granddaughter Tanyushka Sukhotina was with me. Endless bustle, long discussions about the sale of Yasnaya Polyana and sadness in my heart.

 

11th (Moscow)
. The Sukhotins, Yulia, my maid Verochka and I are all staying for the last time in my house in Khamovniki Street, and are happy to be here. Sukhotin and Makovitsky stayed with my son Seryozha in Staro-Konyushenny Street.

 

12th
. I visited the Duma to discuss selling my house to the city of Moscow.

 

17th
. Ilya complains about his affairs, and says: “I'll shoot myself.” I have been visiting Speshnev the notary about the sale of the house. Dzhunkovsky the governor came to give me some advice about my letter to the Tsar. I wrote him a letter about the sale of Yasnaya Polyana,* and Ilya and I decided to send it straight to his palace in Livadia with my son Misha. I still don't know whether it has been sent.

 

20th
. The Moscow Arts Theatre gave me a ticket for a box to see
The Living Corpse
.

 

22nd
. This evening we went to the Arts Theatre and sat in the director's box with Zosya and old Alexander Stakhovich.
The Living Corpse
is remarkable more for the performance of the actors (often in a bad sense, as in the part of Fedya) than for its literary merits. It's better to read it.

 

23rd
. Spent the morning at the Merchant Bank and the Duma. I received 125,000 rubles for the house and sent 60,000 rubles of this to my 6 children. Sasha is very rich now, but she is all alone.

 

26th
. I tidied the old house in Khamovniki Street and choked back the tears as I said farewell to the past. Yet one more thing has been torn from my heart. I dined with Seryozha. He then left for the English Club, and this evening I set off home for Yasnaya.

 

27th
. I am back again; the house is cold and empty. The artist Orlov is here. I went to bed and slept till one, then drank some coffee and went to the grave. The grey sky looming overhead, the forest silence, our peasants chopping brushwood in the gulley—everything is sombre and severe here in the country. Letters from Lyova, tender but sad.

 

28th
. I got up late feeling rested but lonely. I had letters from the children, which was a consolation. I learnt that Sasha had walked over to the house and hadn't come in! What a strange creature!

 

30th
. I went to the village and took over the peasants' library from Maria Valentinovna, who is leaving. The villagers take out books and don't return them, which is most annoying. The library will have to be closed, and that will be the end of it. Our peasants are still so uncultured. I worked on newspaper cuttings until late tonight and pasted them in.

 

5th December
. I went to Taptykovo with Verochka to visit Andryusha. The road was terrible! Not much snow, frozen mud, potholes and unbearably bumpy. They were all touchingly pleased to see me, and I was glad I went; Katya, Andryusha and little Mashenka warmed me with their love, and I looked round their comfortable house.

 

6th
. Andryusha's 34th birthday. We all spent the day together.

 

7th
. We spent the morning together again, and Katya and Andryusha thanked me touchingly for coming. A strong wind, the road was terrible, 2½° below freezing. I was exhausted and fell asleep on the sofa in the drawing room. This evening I read Alexandrine's ‘Reminiscences', which I found fascinating, and her correspondence with Lev Nik., published in a splendid Tolstoy Museum edition.

 

12th
. I collected the library books from the peasant children—some were lost, some were torn and filthy. Then I drew up a contents table for my memoirs. I didn't go out all day. There was a heavy fall of snow. I relive my whole life when I read my memoirs.

 

15th
. Wanda Landowska and her husband arrived here from Sasha's. Their talk upset me. Before they came I went to the grave and fed the birds. The silent forest, hoar frost, 5° below freezing.

 

22nd
. The house was cleaned and I tidied my Lyovochka's rooms myself. He is always in my thoughts, and I am glad to be able to live on in this house as if he was still here. Nyuta and I played Haydn's 20th Symphony, which I used to play with Lyovochka. I painted wooden dolls for my grandchildren, who will soon be here.

 

24th
. 27–30° of frost. 18° this evening, but windy. I did some copying on the Remington for my daughter Tanya. I also wrote her a letter. Then I read ‘The Forged Coupon'.* What a lot of murders! It is painful to read.

 

25th
. Christmas. Alone with Yulia. I walked on my own to the grave, weeping and praying. I entered the library books into the catalogue (the returned ones), gave the peasants presents and worked hard on my memoirs for 1895, the year of Vanechka's death. It's strange, when I go back to the past, even the painful times, I stop living in the present and live entirely in my memories—they're so vivid, they're almost real.

 

26th
. Dushan Makovitsky was here. I worked all day on my memoirs, preparing material for each month. 13° of frost, slight snow. They're doing a performance in Telyatinki of
Poverty's No Sin
, and everyone is hurrying over to see it.

 

29th
. We are decorating the Christmas tree and listening to the gramophone, which I dislike very much.