The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (79 page)

 

21st November 1876
. He came up to me and said: “This bit of writing is so tedious!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, you see, I've said Vronsky and Anna were staying in the same hotel room, but that's not possible. In St Petersburg, at least, they'd have had to take rooms on different floors. So as you see, this means all the scenes and conversations will have to take place in two separate places, and all the various visitors will have to see them separately. So it will all have to be altered.”

 

3rd March 1877
. Yesterday L.N. went to his table, pointed at his notebook of writing and said: “Oh, how I long to finish this novel (
Anna Karenina
) and start something new. My ideas are quite clear now. If a work is to be really good there must be one fundamental idea in it that one loves. So in
Anna Karenina
, I love the idea of the
family
; in
War and Peace
I loved the idea of the
people
, because of the 1812 war; and now I see very clearly that in my next book I shall love the idea of the Russian people's
powers of expansion
.” These powers are demonstrated for Lev Nikolaevich by the constant migration of
Russians to the new lands of South-east Siberia, Southern Russia, the Belaya River region, Tashkent and so on.

One hears a great deal about theses migrants at present. Last summer when we were staying in Samara, the two of us drove out to a Cossack settlement ten miles from the farm where we were staying, and on the way we passed a whole string of carts with several families and numerous children and old men, all looking very cheerful. We stopped and asked them where they were going. “We are travelling from Voronezh to the new lands,” they said. “Our people went out to the Amur region some time back, and now they have written telling us to join them there.”

Lev Nikolaevich was fascinated by this. And just the other day at the railway station he heard of a hundred or more Tambov peasants leaving to settle in Siberia on their own initiative. They crossed the steppe and finally reached the Irtysh River. There they were told that the land belonged to the Kirghiz people, and they couldn't settle there, so they went on a little further.

This is the idea for his next book, as I understand it anyway, and around this main idea he is gathering new facts and characters, many of which are still quite unclear, even to him.

 

25th August [1877]
. L.N. has gone to Moscow to find a Russian tutor for the children.* His religious faith is becoming firmer with every day that passes. He says his prayers every day now as he did when he was a child, and on every holy day he goes to matins, where all the peasants crowd round him and question him about the war.* On Wednesdays and Fridays he fasts, speaks constantly of the spirit of humility and won't let anyone speak ill of others, stopping them half-jokingly if they do. On 26th July he visited the Optina Pustyn Monastery and was much impressed by the monks' wisdom, culture and way of life.*

Yesterday he said: “My mental valve has been unblocked, but I have a terrible headache.” He is very upset about all our reserves in the war with Turkey and the situation at home, and he spent all yesterday morning writing about it. That evening he told me he realized the best way to express his ideas would be in a letter to the Tsar.* By all means let him write it, but it's a risky way to express himself and he mustn't send it.

 

26th December [1877]
. At three in the morning on 6th December, our son Andrei was born. This seemed to release L.N.'s mind from
its mental shackles, and a week ago he started writing some new religious, philosophical work in a large bound volume. I haven't read it yet, but today he was saying to my brother Styopa: “The purpose of the work I'm writing is to demonstrate the absolute necessity for religion.”*

I like the argument he puts forward in favour of Christianity and against all the socialists and communists, who believe that social laws are higher than Christian laws, so I am going to record it. It goes like this:

“If it hadn't been for the teachings of Christianity, which over the centuries have taken root in us and laid the basis of our entire social life, there would have been no laws of morality and honour, no desire for equality, goodness and a fair distribution of the earth's blessings, which is what people live for.”

 

31st January 1881
. Feeling that his knowledge of the Russian language was far from perfect, L.N. decided this summer to set himself the task of studying the language of the people. He had long talks with the pilgrims, holy wanderers and others he met on the highway, and jotted down in his notebook all the popular words, proverbs and ideas he was hearing for the first time. This had some unexpected results.

Until about 1877, his religious feelings were vague, or rather indifferent. He was never an outright unbeliever, but nor was he a very
committed
believer. This caused him terrible anxieties (he actually wrote a religious confession at the beginning of his new work).

But from this close contact with the people, he became deeply impressed by their lucid, unshakeable faith, and terrified by his lack of it, and he resolved wholeheartedly to follow the same path. He started going to church, keeping the fasts, saying his prayers and observing all the laws of the Church. This continued for some time.

But soon he came to see that the source of all this goodness, patience and love that he had witnessed in the people was not the Church and its teachings; as he himself said, having seen the
rays
he followed them to the
light
, and discovered that this was Christianity itself, through the Gospels. He persistently denies any other influence. I shall quote his own words on this: “Christianity lives unconsciously but securely in the spirit and traditions of the people.” That is what he says.

Little by little, L.N. saw to his horror what a discrepancy there was between Christianity and the Church. He saw that the Church, hand in hand with the government, had conspired against Christianity. The Church thanks God for the men killed in battle and prays for military
victories, yet in the Old Testament it says: “Thou shalt not kill”, and in the Gospels: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” The Church demands an oath of allegiance, yet Christ tells us not to take the Lord's name in vain. The Church has given people a lot of rites and rituals which are supposed to assure their salvation, but have been an obstacle to Christianity; its true teachings about God's kingdom on earth have been obscured, because people have been forced to believe that they will be saved by baptism, communion, fasting and the like.

This is L.N.'s current preoccupation. He has begun to study, translate and interpret the Gospels.* He has been working on this for two years now, and it seems to be only half-finished. But his soul is now happy, he says. He has seen the
light
(in his words), and this light has illuminated his whole view of the world. His attitude to people has changed too; according to him, whereas before he had just a small circle of
intimates
, people like
him
, he now has millions of men as his brothers. Before, his wealth and his estate were his
own—
now if a poor man asks him for something he must have it.

He sits at his work every day, surrounded by books, and toils away until dinner-time. His health is deteriorating, he suffers from headaches, his hair is turning grey and he lost a lot of weight over the winter.

He doesn't appear to be as happy as I should wish, and has become quiet, meditative and taciturn. We almost never see those cheerful exuberant moods of his, which used to enchant us all so much. I put this down to excessive overwork and exhaustion. How unlike the old days, when he was writing about the hunt and the ball in
War and Peace
, and looked as joyful and excited as though he himself was joining in the fun. His soul is in a state of calm clarity, but he suffers deeply for all the human misery and poverty he sees around him, for all those in jail, all the hatred, injustice and oppression in the world—and this deeply affects his impressionable soul and undermines his happiness.

Why Anna Karenina Was Called “Anna”, and What Suggested the Idea of Her Suicide

We have a neighbour here, a landowner of about 50, neither rich nor educated, called Alexander Bibikov. He had living with him a distant cousin of his late wife, an unmarried woman of about 35 who looked after the house and children and was his mistress. One day Bibikov hired a new governess for his son and niece, a beautiful German
woman, with whom he soon fell in love, and to whom before long he proposed marriage. His former mistress, whose name was
Anna
Stepanovna, left the house to visit Tula for the day, saying she was going to see her mother, but she returned from there with a bundle of clothes under her arm (containing nothing but a change of clothes and some underwear), to Yasenki, the nearest railway station, and there she jumped on the tracks and threw herself under a goods train. There was a post-mortem, and Lev Nikolaevich attended, and saw her lying there at the Yasenki barracks, her skull smashed in and her naked body frightfully mutilated. It had the most terrible effect on him. Anna Stepanovna was a tall, plump woman with a typically Russian temperament and appearance. She had dark hair and grey eyes, and although she wasn't beautiful she was very pleasant-looking.*

 

The Death of Vanechka

A few days before Vanechka's death he astonished me by giving away all his things. He put little labels on everything, addressed in his own hand: “With love to Masha from Vanya”, or “To Simeon Nikolaevich our cook, from Vanya” and so on. He took all the little framed pictures off the walls of his nursery and took them to his brother Misha's room; he had always been terribly fond of Misha. Then he asked me for a hammer and nails, and hung up the pictures in his brother's room. He was so fond of Misha that if they had a quarrel and Misha didn't make it up with him immediately, he would be desperately unhappy and would weep bitterly. Whether Misha loved him as much I don't know, but he did call his eldest son after him later.

Shortly before he died, Vanechka was looking out of the window, when he suddenly looked very thoughtful: “Maman, is Alyosha” (Alyosha was my little son who had died) “an angel now?” he asked.

“Why, yes,” I told him. “It's said that children who die before they are seven turn into angels.”

To which he replied: “Well, I had better die too, before I am seven. It will be my seventh birthday soon, but I may still be an angel yet. And if I don't, dear, dear Maman, please will you let me fast so I won't have any sins?”

Those words of his engraved themselves in my mind. On 20th February, my daughter Masha and Nurse took him to the clinic, where they had made an appointment with Professor Filatov. They all looked so cheerful and excited when they got back, and Vanechka told me with great glee that he had been told he might eat whatever he wanted and could go out walking and even driving. After lunch he took a walk with Sasha, and afterwards he ate a hearty dinner. We had all been through such agony while he was ill, and now the whole house cheered up again. Tanya and Masha, who had no children of their own, lavished all their maternal affection on their little brother.

On the evening of the 20th, Sasha and Vanechka asked their sister Masha to read them the children's version of Dickens's
Great Expectations
, which was called
The Convict's Daughter
. When it was
time to go to bed he came to say goodnight to me. I was touched by the sad weary look in his eyes and asked him about the book Masha had been reading to them.

“Oh, don't talk about it, Maman, it's all so sad! You see Estella doesn't marry Pip in the end!”

We went downstairs to the nursery together, and he yawned, then with tears in his eyes he said sadly: “Oh, Maman, it's back again, that, that…temperature.”

I took his temperature and it was 38.5°. He said his eyes were aching and I thought it must be an attack of measles. When I realized he was ill again, I burst into tears, and seeing me cry he said: “Don't cry, Maman, don't cry. It's God's will.”

Not long before this he had asked me to explain the Lord's Prayer to him, and I explained “Thy Will Be Done” with special feeling. Then he asked me to finish reading a Grimms' story we hadn't finished—the one about the crow as far as I recall. Then Misha came into the nursery, and I went off to my bedroom. I later learnt that Vanechka had said to Misha, “I know I am dying now.”

He was very feverish all night, but managed to sleep. Next morning we sent for Doctor Filatov, who said straight away it was scarlet fever. His temperature was 40°, and he had pains in his stomach and violent diarrhoea. (Scarlet fever is often complicated by a distemper of the bowels.)

At 3 in the morning he woke up, looked at me and said: “Forgive me, dear Maman, for keeping you awake.”

“I've had my sleep, darling,” I said. “We're all taking it in turns to sit with you.”

“Whose turn is it next, Tanya's?”

“No dear, it's Masha's.”

“Call Masha then, and go to bed.”

How lovingly my darling little boy sent me away. He hugged me to him tightly and pressed his dry little lips to mine, tenderly kissing me again and again.

“Is anything hurting you?” I asked him.

“No, nothing's hurting,” he said.

“Just miserable?”

“Yes, just miserable.”

He never regained consciousness properly after that. The next day his temperature went up to 42°. Filatov wrapped him in blankets soaked with mustard water, and laid him in a warm bath—but it was no good, his little head hung helplessly to one side as if he were dead,
then his little hands and feet grew cold. He opened his eyes once more, with a look of pure astonishment, then grew still. It was 11 at night on 23rd February.