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Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COUNTESS TOLSTOY
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
COUNTESS TOLSTOY
[SOPHIE ANDREEVNA TOLSTOY]
TRANSLATED BY
S. S. KOTELIANSKY
AND
LEONARD WOOLF
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. MCMXXII
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
Translators' Note, 7
Preface by Vassili Spiridonov, 9
Autobiography, 27
Notes, 109
Appendix I.
Semen Afanasevich Vengerov, 143
Appendix II.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov, 146
Appendix III.
Tolstoy's First Will, 149
Appendix IV.
Tolstoy's Will of 22 July, 1910, 153
Appendix V.
Tolstoy's Going Away, 155
TRANSLATORS' NOTE
The circumstances under which this autobiography of Tolstoy's wife has
just been discovered and published in Russia are explained in the
preface of Vassili Spiridonov which follows. Spiridonov edited and
published it in the first number of a new Russian review, _Nachala_. We
have translated his preface in full and also the greater number of his
notes, which contain much material with regard to Tolstoy which has not
previously been available for English readers. Such readers may perhaps
consider that some of these notes and the documentation generally are
over-elaborate. But they must remember that the question of Tolstoy's
"going away" and of his relations with his wife, Countess Sophie
Tolstoy, and other members of his family, has roused the most passionate
interest and controversy in Russia. This is partly due, no doubt, to
the dramatic and psychological interest of the whole story, but is also
due very largely to the fact that Tolstoy's actions were bound up with
his teachings, and his numerous disciples and opponents were watching
the struggle of the preacher to put his principles in practice in his
own life. The whole question of the will and the going away of Tolstoy,
of the difference with his wife, and of the subsequent dealings with his
property, has given rise to an immense literature in Russia. As
Spiridonov's preface shows, it is treated as a kind of _cause célèbre_
in which the whole of humanity is to judge between Tolstoy and his wife.
The importance of this book lies in the fact that in it for the first
time Countess Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy herself states her own case in
full. The reader should, however, remember that it is only one side of
the case.
We have added ourselves a few short appendices giving some additional
information with regard to some of the more important points and
persons.
S. S. K.
L. S. W.
PREFACE BY VASSILI SPIRIDONOV
The manuscript of the autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy exists
among the documents of the late director of the Russian Library,
Professor Semen Afanasevich Vengerov, which, in accordance with the will
of the deceased, have been handed over to the Library. The Library is
now in the Petrograd Institute of Learning, and the documents form a
special section in the Institute under the title: "The Archives of S. A.
Vengerov."
The history of the manuscript is as follows. At the end of July, 1913,
S. A. Vengerov sent a letter to S. A. Tolstoy asking her to write and
send him her autobiography which he proposed to publish. We do not know
the details of S. A. Vengerov's letter, but from the replies of S. A.
Tolstoy which are printed below we may conclude that Professor Vengerov
enclosed in his letter to S. A. Tolstoy a questionnaire, and that,
besides the usual questions which he was accustomed to send out
broadcast to authors and men of letters, he put a number of additional
questions, especially for S. A. T., asking for light upon certain
moments in the history of the life and creative activity of Leo
Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and upon the time and causes of the differences
between the husband and wife, the beginning of that formidable drama
which took place in the Tolstoy family.
S. A. T. answered immediately; she wrote to Vengerov as follows:[A]
YASNAYA POLYANA,
30 JULY, 1913.
MUCH-RESPECTED SEMEN AFANASEVICH: I received your letter to-day,
and hasten to tell you that I will try to answer all your questions
soon; but in order to do it fully, I need a little time. I shall
hardly be able to write an autobiography, even a brief one. At any
rate, _whatever_ I may communicate to you, you have my permission
to cut out anything that you think superfluous. As to your
questions about my family, my sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii,
could answer you better than I; she and my first cousin, Alexander
Alexandrovich Bers, have devoted a good deal of time to this matter
and have, in particular, tried to trace the origin of my father's
family, which came from Saxony. We have the seal with its
coat-of-arms: a bear (hence _Bers_, i. e. _Bär_ in German) warding
off a swarm of bees.[B] I will write to my sister to send me this
information, and I will let you have it.[C] Please also let me know
roughly when you expect me to send you the information you desire.
The most difficult thing for me will be to fix the moment and the
cause of our _differences_[D]. It was not a _difference_, but a
gradual _going-away_ of Leo Nikolaevich from everything in his
former life, and thus the harmony of all our happy previous life
was broken.
Of all this I will try to write briefly, after having thought it
over as well and as accurately as I can.
Accept the assurance of my respect and devotion for you,
SOPHIE TOLSTOY.
YASNAYA POLYANA,
STATION ZASSYEKA,
21 AUGUST, 1913.
MUCH-RESPECTED SEMEN AFANASEVICH: This is a difficult task which
you have set me, writing my autobiography, and, although I have
already begun it, I am continually wondering whether I am doing it
properly. The chief thing which I have decided to ask you is to
tell me what length my article should be. If, for instance, you
take a page of the magazine _Vyestnik Europa_ as a measure, how
many full pages, approximately, ought I to write? To-morrow I shall
be sixty-nine years old, a long life; well, _what_ out of that life
would be of interest to people? I have been trying to find some
woman's autobiography for a model, but have not found one anywhere.
Pardon me for troubling you; I want to do the work you have charged
me with as well as possible, but I have so little capacity and no
experience at all.
I shall hope for an answer.
With sincere respect and devotion,
S. TOLSTOY.
It may be supposed that Vengerov again came to the assistance of S. A.
T. and solved her doubts, after which she went on with her work and
finished it at the end of October, 1913. Being in Petersburg, she
personally handed it over to Vengerov.[E] The work did not satisfy
Vengerov, as he did not find in it what, evidently, particularly
interested him, namely, information as to the life in Yasnaya Polyana
during the time when _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karenina_ were written.
Vengerov wrote to S. A. T. about this, urging her to fill up the gap, to
write a new additional chapter. S. A. T. did this. She sent the new
material to Vengerov accompanied by the following letter:
YASNAYA POLYANA,
STATION ZASSYEKA,
24 MARCH, 1914.
MUCH-RESPECTED SEMEN AFANASEVICH: You are perfectly right in your
observation that I left a great gap in my autobiography, and I
thank you very much for advising me to write one more chapter; I
have now done so. But the question is, have I done it well, and is
the new material suitable? Hard as I tried, and carefully as I
searched for materials for that chapter, I found very little, but I
have made the best use of it which I could.
In the former manuscript which I gave you in Petersburg, Chapter 3
should be cut out and the new one which I enclose in this letter
substituted. The chapter had to be corrected considerably, things
altered, struck out, and added.[F]
The chapter about the children in the new material has been
slightly altered at the beginning, and all the rest remains without
alteration, as in the former manuscript.
Be so good as to note the Roman figures marking chapters, but
divide it up into chapters anew at your discretion.
As I have not the whole manuscript in its final form before me, I
cannot do it myself and am obliged to trouble you. Please also
write me a word to say you have received the new chapter and give
me your opinion, which I value greatly.[G]
Accept the assurance of my sincere respect and devotion.
SOPHIE TOLSTOY.
The additional matter did not satisfy S. A. Vengerov. He had long ago
formed an idea of Yasnaya Polyana, during the period in which _War and
Peace_ and _Anna Karenina_ were created, as of a "home" in which the
interests of the family were such that literary interests were removed
to the second floor. He hoped that S. A. T. in her additional matter
would turn her attention to that particular side in the life and
activity of L. N. Tolstoy, making use for that purpose of the very rich
material possessed by her. But S. A. T. did not fulfil his hopes, as he
told her in a letter to her and as may be seen from her reply.
S. A. T. held a different view, and she wrote to Vengerov:
YASNAYA POLYANA,
STATION ZASSYEKA,
5 MAY, 1914.
MUCH-RESPECTED SEMEN AFANASEVICH: I have received your letter; you
are not quite satisfied with the new chapter, to which I reply: you
want more facts, but where am I to get them? Our life was quiet,
placid, a retired family life.
You write about the 'home' interests which must have been
subordinated to Leo Nikolaevich's writing of _War and Peace_ and
_Anna Karenina_. But what was that _home_? It consisted only of Leo
Nikolaevich and myself. The two old women had become childish and
took no interest at all in Leo N.'s writings, but used to lose
their tempers over patience; a nd their only interests were the
children and the dinner.[H]
In so far as I could tear myself from domestic matters, I lived in
my husband's creative activity and loved it. But one can not put
into the background a baby who has to be fed day and night, and I
nursed ten children myself, which Leo N. desired and approved.
You mention among _professional_ writers Gogol, Turgenev,
Goncharov, and I would add Lermontov and others; all of them were
_bachelors without families_, and that is a very different matter.
This was reflected in their work, just as Leo N.'s _family_ life
was completely reflected in his works.
It is perfectly true that Leo N. was generally a _man_, and not
merely a writer. But it is _not_ true, if you will pardon me, that
he wrote _easily_. Indeed, he experienced the 'tortures of creative
activity' in a high degree; he wrote with difficulty and slowly,
made endless corrections; he doubted his powers, denied his talent,
and he often said: 'Writing is just like childbirth; until the
fruit is ripe, it does not come out, and, when it does, it comes
with pain and labour.'
Those are his own words.
And now, Semen Afanasevich, with regard to your last remark, that
Yasnaya Polyana of the years 1862 to 1870 gives the impression of a
'home' in which literary interests had been removed to the second
floor--I repeat once more that there was no such 'home'; it is
true that I was quite a young girl, in my eighteenth year, when I
married, and I only vaguely realized the great importance of the
husband whom I adored. Now I have come to the end of the page.
With respect and devotion,
S. TOLSTOY.
Nearly three years separate the going away and death of Leo N. Tolstoy
from the writing of her autobiography by S. A. T. It might have been
expected that that interval of time would have stilled the pain in her
heart and that her soul would have found peace from her sufferings. But
S. A. T. is far from peace and reconciliation. Pain, a void in her
heart, a protest against some one or something are felt in every word of
her autobiography. In her work she has given new and interesting
information about her family; she has dwelt upon her children, the
guests who visited Yasnaya Polyana, the literary works of her husband,
without giving us anything new; and then she concentrated all her
attention upon the domestic drama. The domestic drama is the centre
round which all the thoughts and all the feelings of S. A. T. turn.
In her story about this domestic drama she has not sinned against the
truth; she has gone back again into the past deeply and with
sincerity--every one who reads her work without prejudice will admit
this. And yet one feels that it is not for nothing that she tells of
family difficulties and pours out before us the pain of her soul.
Continual references to the difficulties of her position as a mother,
insistent emphasis upon the mutual love of herself and her husband, and
the allusions to "friends" who entered the house, got possession of the
mind, heart, and will of Leo N., and disturbed the harmony of their
married life--all this creates an impression in the reader's mind that
S. A. T., in writing her autobiography, was guided by a definite
purpose, that of contradicting the unfavourable rumours about her which
circulated everywhere and were getting into newspapers and magazines.
This desire, which is masked in the autobiography, is definitely
expressed by S. A. T. in another place, in her preface to Leo N.
Tolstoy's _Letters to His Wife_, published in 1913. There she says
frankly: "This, too, has induced me to publish these letters, that after
my death, which in all likelihood is near, people will, as usual,
wrongly judge and describe my relations to my husband and his to me.
Then let them study and form their judgment upon living and genuine
data, and not upon guesses, gossip and inventions."
We shall understand S. A. T.'s desire, if we consider her position. It
is true that the great honour of being the wife of a genius fell to the
lot of S. A. T., but there also fell to her lot the difficult task of
creating favourable conditions for the life and development of that
genius. She knew the joy of living with a genius, but she also knew the
horror of living in public, so that her every movement, smile, frown,
incautious word was in everyone's eyes and ears and was caught up by the
newspapers and spread over the whole world, recorded in diaries and
reminiscences as material for future judgments upon her. Forty-eight
years is a long period. Many unnecessary words were spoken in that time,
many incautious movements were made; and for every one she will be made
to answer before the court of mankind. S. A. T. knew this, and with an
anxious heart she prepared herself for the judgment. The _Autobiography_
and L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_ are the last words of the
accused. We should listen to them carefully and with attention, weighing
every word. If S. A. T. bears a responsibility before all mankind, each
of us before our conscience has a responsibility for whatever verdict he
may pass upon her. We must judge sternly, but justly.
S. A. T.'s wish has been carried out. In the autobiography printed below
two new chapters are substituted for the first half of Chapter III in
the original draft, and an independent Chapter V has been made out of
the last half of the original third chapter. Passages cut out of this
third chapter are given in full in notes 20, 38, and 43.
Our notes are given at the end of the autobiography.
VASSILI SPIRIDONOV.
A SHORT AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COUNTESS SOPHIE ANDREEVNA TOLSTOY
I
I was born on 22 August, 1844, in the country, at the village of
Pokrovskoye in the Manor of Glyebov-Stryeshnev, and up to the time of my
marriage I spent every summer there. In the winter our family lived in
Moscow, in the Kremlin at the house near the Troizki Gate, which
belonged to the Crown, for my father was court physician{1} and also
principal physician to the Senate and Ordnance Office.{2}
My father was a Lutheran, but my mother belonged to the Orthodox Church.
The investigations of my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, and of my brother, A.
A. Bers,{3} show, with regard to my father's origin, that it was his
grandfather who emigrated from Germany to Russia. During the reign of
the Empress Elisabeth Petrovna, regiments were raised in Russia for
which new instructors were required. At the request of the Empress, the
King of Prussia sent four officers of the Horse Guards to Petersburg;
among them was Captain Ivan Bers, who, after serving for several years
in Russia, was killed at the battle of Zorndorf. He left a widow and one
son, Evstafii. All that is known about her is that she was called Marie,
that she was a baroness, and that she died young, leaving a moderate
fortune to her son, Evstafii.
Evstafii Ivanovich lived in Moscow and married Elisabeth Ivanovna
Wulfert, belonging to an old, aristocratic, Westphalian family.{4} She
had two sons, Alexander and Andrey, my father. Both were medical men and
studied at the Moscow University.
In 1812 all the property of Evstafii Ivanovich was destroyed by fire,
including all his houses, documents, and his seal with his coat-of-arms,
a bee-hive with a swarm of bees attacking a bear, from which we derive
our family name, Bers (Bär in German means bear). The right to the
coat-of-arms was not restored to my father, though applications were
made by his descendants; permission was given only to use a bee-hive
and bees on the coat-of-arms.{5}
After the war of 1812 the government made a small grant of money to
Evstafii Ivanovich, and my grandmother, Elizabeth Ivanovna, when she
became a widow, managed with difficulty to educate her sons. After
finishing their studies at the medical schools of the university, the
brothers Bers began to earn their own living. The elder, Alexander
settled in Petersburg,{6} the younger lived with his mother in Moscow.
At the age of thirty-four Andrey married Lyubov Alexandrovna Islavin,
who was sixteen years old and the daughter of Alexander Mikhailovich
Islenev and of Princess Sophie Petrovna Kozlovskii, née Countess
Zavadovskii.
My mother's descent was as follows: Count Peter Vasilevich Zavadovskii,
my mother's grandfather, was the well-known statesman and favourite of
the Empress Catherine II. Under Alexander I he became the first Minister
of Education in Russia. He was married to Countess Vera Nikolaevna
Apraxin, who was a maid-of-honour, a peeress in her own right, and a
remarkable beauty. The elder daughter, Countess Sophie Petrovna
Zavadovskii, at the age of sixteen was married against her will to
Prince Kozlovskii; she had one son by him, but, after a short and
unhappy married life, left him and had a liaison with Alexander
Mikhailovich Islenev, with whom she lived for the remainder of her life.
She died in childbirth, but had previously borne him three sons and
three daughters, of whom the youngest, Lyubov Alexandrovna, was my
mother.
Sophie Petrovna lived permanently on my grandfather's estate in the
village Krasnoye,{7} and there she was buried near the church. It was
said that she induced a priest to marry her to my grandfather. She used
to say: "I want to be the wife of Alexander Mikhailovich at any rate in
the sight of God, if not in the view of man."
My grandfather, Alexander Mikhailovich Islenev,{8} of an old
aristocratic family, took part in the battle of Borodino, after which he
was given a commission in the Preobrazhenskii Guards. Subsequently he
was aide-de-camp to Count Chernishov. The family name "Islenev" was not
given to his children by Sophie Petrovna; the marriage was not
considered legal, and the descendants now bear the name "Islavin." Many
of them rose to high rank.{9}
II
My father and mother had a large family, and I was their second
daughter.{10} My father had, besides his government posts, a very large
medical practice and often overworked. He tried to give us the best
education and surrounded us with all the comforts of life. My mother did
the same, but she also instilled into us the idea that, as we had no
fortune at all, and the family was large, we must prepare ourselves in
order to earn our own livings. Besides learning our own lessons we had
to teach our younger brothers, do sewing, embroidering, and
housekeeping, and later on prepare for the examination of a private
teacher.
Our first governesses were German; we were taught French first by
mother, then by governesses, and later by the French lecturer of the
university. We were taught the Russian language and science by
university students. One of them tried in his own way to develop my
mind and to make me a believer in extreme materialism; he used to lend
me Blüchner and Feuerbach, suggested that there was no God and that
religion was an obsolete superstition. At first I was fascinated by the
simplicity of the atomic explanation and the reduction of everything in
the world to the correlations of atoms, but I soon felt the want of the
ordinary orthodox faith and church, and I gave up materialism for ever.
Up to the time of the examinations we daughters were educated at home.
At the age of sixteen I went in for the private teacher's examination at
the Moscow university, taking Russian and French as my principal
subjects. The examiners were the well-known professors, Tikhonravov,
Ilovaiskii, Davidov,{11} Father Sergievskii,{12} and M. Paquaut. It was
an interesting time. I was working with a friend, the daughter of the
Inspector of the University, and therefore moved in university circles,
among intelligent professors and students. It was the beginning of the
'sixties, a time of intellectual ferment. The abolition of serfdom had
just been announced; every one was discussing it, and we young people
were enthusiastic for the great event. We used to meet, discuss, and
enjoy ourselves.
At that time a new type had just appeared in life and in literature;
there was the new breath of nihilism among the young. I remember how at
a large party, when professors and students were present, Turgenev's
_Fathers and Sons_ was read aloud, and Bazarov seemed to us to represent
a strange type, something new, something which contained a promise for
the future.
I was not a good student, always concentrating exclusively upon the
subject which I liked. For instance, I liked literature very much. I was
carried away by Russian literature and read a great many books, getting
the oldest books and manuscripts from the university library, beginning
with the chronicles and ending with the latest Russian writers. I was
fascinated and surprised that the Russian tongue should have developed
out of the feeble beginnings in monastic writings into the language of
Pushkin. It was like the growth of a living creature.
In my youth Tolstoy's _Childhood_ and Dickens's _David Copperfield_ made
the greatest impression on me. I copied out and learnt by heart passages
in _Childhood_ which I particularly liked, for instance: "Will one ever
get back the freshness, the freedom from care, the desire for love, and
the power of belief which one possessed in childhood?--" When I finished
_David Copperfield_, I cried as though I were being separated from a
close friend. I did not like studying history from the text-books; in
mathematics I only liked algebra, and that, owing to a complete lack of
mathematical gifts, I soon forgot.
I was successful in the university examinations; in both Russian and
French I received the mark "excellent," and I was given a diploma of
which I was very proud. Later, I remember, I was pleased at hearing
Professor Tikhonravov praise my essay on "Music" to my husband; he
added: "That is just the wife you need. She has a great _flair_ for
literature; in the examination her essay was the best of the year."
Soon after the examination I began writing a story, taking as the
heroines myself and my sister Tanya, and calling her Natasha. Leo
Tolstoy also called the heroine in his _War and Peace_ Natasha.{13} He
read my story{14} some time before our marriage and wrote of it in his
diary: "What force of truth and simplicity." Before my marriage I burnt
the story and also my diaries, written since my eleventh year, and other
youthful writings, which I much regret.
Of music and drawing I learnt little; I did not have enough time, though
throughout my life I have loved all the arts and have more than once
returned to them, using the little leisure left to me from a life which,
in my girlhood and particularly during my marriage, was always busy and
hardworking.
III
Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy had known my mother from his childhood and
was a friend of hers, though he was two and a half years younger. Now
and then on his way to Moscow he used to pay a visit to our family. His
father, Count Nikolai Ilitch Tolstoy was very friendly with my
grandfather, Alexander Mikhailovich Islenev, and they used to visit each
other at the village Krasnoye and the hamlet Yasnaya Polyana. In August,
1862, my mother took us girls to see our grandfather at the village of
Ivitsi in Odoevski, and on our way we stopped at Yasnaya Polyana which
my mother had not seen since she was a child; at the time my mother's
greatest friend, Marie Nikolaevna Tolstoy, was staying there, having
just returned from Algiers.{15}
On our way back Leo Nikolaevich accompanied us as far as Moscow, and he
used to come and see us almost daily at our country-house in
Pokrovskoye, and afterwards in Moscow. On the evening of 16 September he
handed me a written proposal of marriage.{16} Up to that time no one
knew the object of his visits.{17} There was a painful struggle going on
in his soul. In his diary at the time he wrote, for instance:
12 Sept. 1862.
I am in love, as I did not think it was possible to be in love.
I am a madman; I'll shoot myself, if it goes on like this. They had
an evening party; she is charming in everything....
13 Sept. 1862.
To-morrow as soon as I get up, I shall go and tell everything or
shoot myself....
I accepted Leo Nikolaevich and our engagement lasted only one week. On
23 September we were married in the royal church of the Nativity of Our
Lady, and immediately afterwards left for Yasnaya Polyana in a new
carriage with a team of six horses and a postillion. We were accompanied
by Alexei Stepanovich,{18} Leo Nikolaevich's devoted servant, and the
old maid-servant, Varvara.
After coming to Yasnaya Polyana, we decided to settle down there with
Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii.{19} From the very first I assisted
my husband in the management of the house and estate, and in copying out
his writings.{20}
After the first days of our married life had passed, Leo Nikolaevich
realized that besides his happiness he needed activity and work. In his
diary of December, 1862, he wrote: "I feel the force of the need to
write." That force was a great one, creating a great work which made the
first years of our married life bright with joy and happiness.
Soon after our marriage Leo Nikolaevich finished _Polikushka_, finally
completed _The Cossacks_ and gave it to Katkov's _Russkii Vyestnik_. He
then began to work on the Decembrists whose fate and activity interested
him a great deal. When he began to write about that period, he
considered it necessary to relate who they were, to describe their
origin and previous history, and so to go back from 1825 to 1805. He
became dissatisfied with the Decembrists, but _The Year 1805_ served as
a beginning for _War and Peace_ and was published in _Russkii
Vyestnik_.{21} This work, which Leo Nikolaevich did not like to be
called a novel, he wrote with pleasure, assiduously, and it filled our
life with a living interest.
In 1864 a good deal of it was already written, and Leo Nikolaevich often
read aloud to me and to our two cousins, Varya and Lise, the daughters
of Marie Nikolaevna Tolstoy, the charming passages as soon as he had
written them. In the same year he read a few chapters to friends and to
two literary men, Zhemchuzhnikov and Aksakov, in Moscow, and they were
in raptures over it.{22} Generally Leo Nikolaevich read extraordinarily
well, unless he was very excited, and I remember how pleasant it was in
Yasnaya Polyana to listen to him reading Molière's comedies, when he had
not anything new from _War and Peace_.
During the first years at Yasnaya Polyana we lived a very retired life.
I could not recall anything of importance during that time in the life
of the people, society, or State, because everything passed us by; we
lived the whole time in the country, we followed nothing, saw nothing,
knew nothing--it did not interest us. I desired nothing else but to live
with the characters of _War and Peace_; I loved them and watched the
life of each of them develop as though they were living beings. It was a
full life and an unusually happy one, with our mutual love, our
children, and, above all, that great work, beloved by me and later by
the whole world, the work of my husband. I had no other desires.
Only at times in the evenings, when we had put the children to bed and
sent off the MSS. or corrected proofs to Moscow, as a recreation we
would sit down at the piano and till late at night play duets. Leo
Nikolaevich was particularly fond of Haydn's and Mozart's
symphonies.{23} At that time I played rather badly, but I tried very
hard to improve. Leo Nikolaevich too, it was clear, was satisfied with
his fate. In 1864 he wrote in a letter to my brother: "It is as though
our honeymoon had only just begun." And again: "I think that only one
in a million is as lucky as I am." When his relation, Countess Alexandra
Andreevna Tolstoy, complained that he wrote little and rarely to her, he
replied: "_Les peuples heureux n'out pas d'histoire_; that is the case
with us."{24} Every new idea or the successful carrying out of some
creation of his genius made him happy. Thus, for instance, he writes in
his diary on 19 March, 1865: "A cloud of joy has just come upon me at
the idea of writing the psychological history of Alexander and
Napoleon."{25}
It was because he felt the beauty of his own creations that Leo
Nikolaevich wrote: "The poet takes the best out of his life and puts it
into his writings. Hence his writing is beautiful and his life bad." But
his life at that time was not bad; it was as good and as pure as his
work.
How I loved copying _War and Peace_! I wrote in my diary: "The
consciousness of serving a genius and a great man has given me strength
for anything." I also wrote in a letter to Leo Nikolaevich: "The copying
of _War and Peace_ uplifts me very much morally, _i. e._ spiritually.
When I sit down to copy it, I am carried away into a world of poetry,
and sometimes it even seems to me that it is not your novel that is so
good, but I that am so clever." In my diary I also wrote: "Levochka all
the winter has been writing with irritation, often with tears and pain.
In my opinion, his novel, _War and Peace_, must be superb. Whatever he
has read to me moves me to tears." In 1865, when my husband was in
Moscow looking up historical material, I wrote to him: "Today I copied
and read on a little ahead, what I had not yet seen nor read, namely,
how the miserable, muffled-up old Mack himself arrives to admit his
defeat, and round him stand the inquisitive aides-de-camp, and he is
almost crying, and his meeting with Kutuzov. I liked it immensely, and
that is what I am writing to tell you."
In November, 1866, Leo Nikolaevich used to go to the Rumyantsev Museum
and read up everything about the freemasons. Before leaving Yasnaya
Polyana he always left me work to copy. When I had finished it, I sent
it off to Moscow, and I wrote to my husband: "How have you decided
about the novel? I have got to love your novel very much. When I sent
the fair-copy off to Moscow, I felt as if I had sent off a child and I
am afraid that some harm may come to it."
In copying I was often astonished and could not understand why Leo
Nikolaevich corrected or destroyed what seemed so beautiful, and I used
to be delighted if he put back what he had struck out. Sometimes proofs
which had been finally corrected and sent off, were returned again to
Leo Nikolaevich at his request in order to be recorrected and recopied.
Or a telegram would be sent to substitute _one_ word for another. My
whole soul became so immersed in copying that I began myself to feel
when it was not altogether right, for instance, when there were frequent
repetitions of the same word, long periods, wrong punctuation,
obscurity, etc. I used to point all these things out to Leo Nikolaevich.
Sometimes he was glad for my remarks; sometimes he would explain why it
ought to remain as it was: he would say that details do not matter,
only the general scheme matters.
The first thing which I copied out in my clumsy, but legible writing was
_Polikushka_, and for years afterwards that work delighted me. I used to
long for the evening when Leo Nikolaevich would bring me something newly
written or recorrected. Some passages in _War and Peace_, and also in
his other works, had to be copied over and over again. Others, for
instance the description of the uncle's hunting party in _War and
Peace_, were written once and for all and were not corrected. I remember
how Leo Nikolaevich called me down to his study and read aloud to me
that chapter just after he had written it, and we smiled and were happy
together.
In copying I sometimes allowed myself to make remarks and to ask him to
strike out anything which I thought not sufficiently pure to be read by
young people, for instance in the scene of the beautiful Ellen's
cynicism, and Leo Nikolaevich granted my request. But often in my life,
when copying the poetical and charming passages in my husband's works, I
have wept, not only because they moved me, but simply from the artist's
pleasure which I felt together with the author.
It used to grieve me much when Leo Nikolaevich suddenly became depressed
and disappointed with his work, and wrote to me that he did not like the
novel and was miserable. This was particularly the case in 1864, when he
broke his arm, and I wrote to him in Moscow: "Why have you lost heart in
everything? Everything depresses you; nothing goes right. Why have you
lost heart and courage? Haven't you the strength to rouse yourself?
Remember how pleased you were with the novel, how well you thought it
all out, and suddenly you don't like it. No, no, you must not. Now, come
to us, and instead of the Kremlin's walls you will see our _Chepyzh_,[J]
lighted up by the sun, and the fields ... and with a happy face you will
begin telling me the ideas for your work, you will dictate to me, and
ideas will again come to you, and the melancholy will pass away." And so
it was after he had come home.
If Leo Nikolaevich stopped working, I used to feel dull and wrote to
him: "Prepare, prepare work for me." In Moscow he sold the first part of
_War and Peace_ to Katkov for the _Russkii Vyestnik_, and he handed the
MS. over to the secretary, Lyubimov.{26} Somehow or other it made me
sad, and I wrote to my husband: "I felt so sorry that you had sold it.
Terrible! Your thoughts, feelings, your talent, even your soul--sold!"
When Leo Nikolaevich had finished _War and Peace_, I asked him to
publish that beautiful epic in book form, and not to publish it in
magazines, and he agreed. Soon afterwards N. N. Strakhov's brilliant
review of it came out, and Leo Nikolaevich said that the place which
Strakhov gave to _War and Peace_ by his appreciation would remain
permanent.{27} But apart from this Tolstoy's fame grew with great
rapidity, and his reputation as a writer rose higher and higher and soon
extended to all countries and all classes.
Princess Paskevich was the first to translate _War and Peace_ into
French for some charitable purpose, and the French, although surprised,
appreciated the work of the Russian writer. Among my papers I have a
copy of I. S. Turgenev's letter to Edmond About, in which Turgenev gives
the highest praise to _War and Peace_. Among other things, he says on 20
January, 1880: "_Un des livres les plus remarquables de notre temps_."
And again: "_Ceci est une grande oeuvre d'un grand écrivain et c'est
la vraie Russie_."{28}
In 1869 the printing of the first edition of _War and Peace_ was
completed; it was quickly sold out and a second printed. The writer
Shedrin's opinion of _War and Peace_ was strange; he said with contempt
that it reminded him of the chatter of nursemaids and old ladies.
After finishing his great work, Leo Nikolaevich's need for creative
activity did not come to an end. New ideas sprang up in his mind. In
working at the period of Peter the Great, despite all his efforts, he
was unable to describe the period, particularly its every-day life. I
wrote to my sister about it:
"All the characters of the time of Peter the Great he now has ready;
they are dressed, arranged, sitting in their places, but they don't
breathe yet. Perhaps they will begin to live."
But these characters did not come to life. The beginning of this work on
the time of Peter the Great still remains unpublished.
At one time Leo Nikolaevich intended to write the history of Mirovich,
but he did not accomplish that either.{29} He always shared with me his
plans about work, and in 1870 he told me that he wanted to write a novel
about the fall of a society woman in the highest Petersburg circles, and
the task which he set himself was to tell the story of the woman and of
her fall without condemning her. The idea was later carried out in his
new novel, _Anna Karenina_. I well remember the circumstances in which
he began to write that novel.
In order to amuse old Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii, I sent my son
Serge, who was her godson, to read aloud to her Pushkin's _Tales of
Byelkin_. She fell asleep while he was reading, and Serge went up to
the nursery, leaving the book on a table in the drawing-room. Leo
Nikolaevich took up the book and started to read a passage beginning
with the words: "The guests were arriving at the country-house of Count
L----"{30} "How good, how simple," said Leo Nikolaevich. "Straight to
business. That's the way to write. Pushkin is my master."{31} That same
evening Leo Nikolaevich began to write _Anna Karenina_ and read the
opening chapter to me; after a short introduction about the families he
had written: "Everything was in a muddle in the house of the
Oblonskiis." That was on 19 March, 1872.
When he had written the first part of _Anna Karenina_ and had given me
the second part to be copied, Leo Nikolaevich suddenly stopped working
at it and became interested in education. In 1874 he wrote to Countess
Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoy: "I am again deep in education, as I was
fourteen years ago. I am writing a novel, but I cannot tear myself away
from the living in order to describe imaginary people."{32}
However difficult I might find it to combine the copying with my
maternal and other duties, when I had not got it, I missed it and waited
impatiently for my husband's artistic work to begin again.
The conditions under which _Anna Karenina_ was written were much more
difficult than those under which _War and Peace_ was written. Then we
had undisturbed happiness, now there died in succession three of our
children{33} and two aunts.{34} I became ill, grew thin, coughed blood,
and suffered from pains in the back. Leo Nikolaevich became alarmed, and
in Moscow, on the way to get kumiss, he consulted Professor Zakharin,
who said: "It is not yet consumption, but her nerves may be shattered";
and he added reproachfully: "You have neglected her, though." He forbade
me to teach the children or do the copying, and he prescribed a régime
of silence. For a long time I got no better, especially as we had to
spend the summer on the Samara steppes in very inconvenient surroundings
and living on kumiss, which I could not drink. Miserable and ill, I
wrote to my sister: "Levochka's novel is published and is said to be a
great success. In me it arouses strange feelings; there is so much
sorrow in our house, and we are everywhere made so much of."
After _Anna Karenina_, Leo Nikolaevich, wishing to purify the literature
read by simple folk and to introduce more morality and art into it,
wrote a series of stories and legends which I admired very much; I
sympathized keenly with their idea and object. I remember being present
at the university when these legends were read aloud, and I wrote to Leo
Nikolaevich at Yasnaya Polyana:
"The legends were a tremendous success. They were beautifully read by
Professor Storozhenko. The majority of the audience were students. The
impression which the stories makes on one is that the _style_ is
remarkably severe, concise, not a single unnecessary word, everything
true and pointed--a harmonious whole. Much meaning, few words; it gives
one satisfaction right up to the end."
I mention these works, as I have done those which were created during
the happiest years of our life.
IV
During the first years of our married life we had few people to stay
with us. I remember that Count Sollogub, the author of _Tarantas_, with
his two sons, used to come and visit us. He was a clever and amiable
man, and we all liked him very much; he won my heart by saying to Leo
Nikolaevich: "Lucky man to have such a wife." To me he once said: "You
are, in fact, the nurse of your husband's talent, and go on being that
all your life long." I always remembered this wise and friendly advice
of Count Sollogub, and I tried to follow it as well as I could.
Very often Fet used to come to us; Leo Nikolaevich was fond of him and
Fet was fond of us both. On his journeys between Moscow and his estate
he used to stay with us, and his good wife, Marie Petrovna, often came
with him; he used to make the house ring with his loud, brilliant, often
witty, and sometimes flattering, talk.
In the early summer of 1863, he was at Yasnaya Polyana when Leo
Nikolaevich was tremendously interested in bees and used to spend whole
days among the hives; sometimes I used even to bring the lunch out
there. One evening we all decided to have tea in the apiary. Everywhere
in the grass glow-worms began to shine. Leo Nikolaevich took two of them
and laughingly held them to my ears, saying: "Look, I always promised
you emerald ear-rings; could anything be better than these?" When Fet
left, he wrote me a letter in verse, ending as follows:
In my hand is yours,
What a marvel!
And on the earth are two glow-worms,
Two emeralds.{85}
Almost always after a visit Afanasii Afanasevich Fet sent me a poem, and
many of them were dedicated to me.{86} In one of them I was pleased by
the, perhaps, undeserved description of the qualities of my soul in the
following stanza:
And, behold, enchanted
By thee, here, remote,
I understand, bright creature,
All the _purity_ of thy soul.
When we settled down in Moscow, Fet bought a house near us and often
visited us, saying that in Moscow all he wanted was a _samovar_. We
laughed at this unexpected desire of Fet's, and he explained: "I must be
certain that in such and such a house, in the evening, the samovar is
boiling and that there is sitting there a sweet hostess with whom I can
spend a pleasant evening."
Among the interesting visitors at Yasnaya Polyana was Turgenev, who came
twice. The first time was in 1878, and the second when he came to ask
Leo Nikolaevich to be present at the opening of the Pushkin memorial. He
was amiable and lively and liked our happy family life, and he said to
Leo Nikolaevich: "How well you did for yourself, my dear, in marrying
your wife."{37}
I thank those dear, dead, _real_ friends of ours for their invariable
goodness and kindness to me. Many of them were more than twenty years
older than I and treated me, as a young woman, with kindliness.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov often came to us on long visits; he was for
all of us a loved and respected friend and he was always deeply touched
by our life and was fond of the children. He used to say: "I must write
about Yasnaya Polyana and the life here." But his intention remained
unfulfilled.
Many other guests came to us at Yasnaya Polyana and in Moscow. Among
them were foreigners, Riepin, the famous artist, Gué, Syerov, Ginsburg,
Truberskoi, Aronson who painted and sculptured Leo Nikolaevich and
myself. My portraits for some reason were never like me.
A great deal could be written about this happy period of my life, when
everything was so full of joy, interest, and occupation. I regret that
at the time I kept few records of events and the interesting
conversation of visitors and of Leo Nikolaevich himself; now I remember
little, for I have passed through different experiences in which I had
to pay with sorrow and tears for former happiness, experiences caused by
painful circumstances and by wicked people.
V
When children began to appear upon the scene, I could no longer devote
myself entirely to my husband's service and to the constant sympathy
with his work. We had many children: I bore thirteen. Ten of them I
nursed myself, on principle and because I wanted to do so. I did not
want to have wet-nurses. Owing to difficulties, I had to give up the
principle on three occasions.
The children were growing up, and at that time we were of one mind with
regard to their education. Leo Nikolaevich always himself engaged or
found teachers and governesses for them. We parents taught them a great
deal ourselves. Their father wanted to give them a most refined
education, and to the boys an exclusively classical one. He learnt Greek
himself with great labour in order to teach our eldest son, Serge, whom
Leo Nikolaevich wanted to go to the university. "By that time Tanya will
be grown up," he would say, "and we shall have to bring her out." I had
to teach the children those subjects for which at the time there were no
teachers, French, German, music, drawing, Russian literature, and even
dancing. I knew very little English. Leo Nikolaevich, who also at that
time had a poor knowledge of the language, began teaching it to me, and
the first book which we read together in English was Wilkie Collins's
_The Woman in White_.{38} Later on I easily acquired the language from
the English governess whom we had for the children.
What we were chiefly concerned for in the education of the elder
children, we obtained in 1881 when we moved to Moscow for the winter.
Our eldest son, Serge, entered the university; our two other sons, Ilya
and Leo, were sent by Leo Nikolaevich to L. I. Polivanov's classical
school. He sent our daughter, Tanya, to the School of Painting and
Sculpture, and he took her out to her first fancy-dress ball at the
Olsufevs, as I was expecting my eighth child, Alesha, born on 31
October, and did not go out anywhere.
The move to Moscow and our life in the town turned out for both of us to
be much more difficult than we could have anticipated. It is true that
Leo Nikolaevich wrote to me from the Samara steppes, where he had gone
for a kumiss cure: "If God will, I shall come and help you in your
Moscow affairs willingly--you have only to give me the order"; but he
was unable to carry out his word and he suddenly fell into despondency.
Now that he was away from the country and nature, the impressions of
town life, which he had forgotten, but which now came fresh to him, with
its poverty on the one side and its luxury on the other, threw him into
despondency, so that it often made me cry to see his moods which became
much worse after he took part in the Moscow census. City life was for
the first time presented, as it were, to his impressionable mind. But a
return to our previous life was impossible, as the children's education
had just been begun and had become the principal problem in our life.
With sadness I had to look back and recognize that the nineteen years
which we had spent continuously at Yasnaya Polyana were the happiest
time of our lives. Besides the family and the copying for Leo
Nikolaevich, what a number of good occupations I had in the country!
Sick peasants used to come to me and, as far as I could, I used to treat
them, and I was fond of the work. We planted apple trees and other trees
and took pleasure in watching them grow. Once we had a school in the
house and the village children were taught with ours as they grew up.
But this did not last long, because we had to have our own children
educated and we wanted to make their life as varied as possible. In the
winter the whole family, including us parents, the tutors, and
governesses, skated on the ice or tobogganed on the hills, and we
cleared the snow from the pond ourselves. Every summer, for twenty
years, the family of my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, came to Yasnaya
Polyana, and our life was so merry that the summer with us was a
continuous holiday. There were various games like croquet and tennis,
amateur theatricals, and other amusements like bathing, gathering
mushrooms, boating, and driving, and besides these, the summer was
devoted to music, and concerts arranged by the children and grown-ups,
with piano, violin, and singing.
One summer all the young people worked on the land, and with Leo
Nikolaevich gathered in the crops for the poor peasant women. Already at
the same time, _i. e._ at the end of the 'seventies and beginning of the
'eighties, he felt in him that inner crisis, that desire for a
different, more simple and spiritual, life which never left him until
the end of his life. But there also came an end to the undisturbed
happiness with which we had lived so many years. At the beginning of his
spiritual crisis Leo Nikolaevich, as is well known, gave himself
ardently to the orthodox faith and church. He saw himself united in it
with the people. But gradually he left it, as his later writings show.
It is difficult to trace the steps of this crisis in Leo Nikolaevich,
and when it was exactly that I, with my intensely hardworking life and
maternity, could no longer live so completely in my husband's
intellectual interests, and he began to go further and further away from
family life. We had already nine children, and the older they grew, the
more complicated became the problem of their education and our relations
to them. But their father was withdrawing himself more and more from
them, and at last he refused altogether to have anything to do with the
education of his children, on the plea that they were being taught
according to principles and a religion which he considered harmful for
them.
I was too weak to be able to solve the dilemma, and I was often driven
to despair; I became ill, but saw no way out. What could be done? Go
back to the country and give up everything? But Leo Nikolaevich did not
seem to want that either. Against my will he bought a house in Moscow,
and thus seemed to fix our life in the town.{39}
The difference between my husband and myself came about, not because _I_
in my heart went away from him. I and my life remained the same as
before. It was _he_ who went away, not in his everyday life, but in his
writings and his teachings as to how people should live. I felt myself
unable to follow his teachings myself. But our personal relations were
unaltered: we loved each other just as much, we found it just as
difficult to be parted even temporarily, and, as an old and respected
friend of our family expressed it in a letter to me: "Not a jot could be
added to or taken from either of you without disturbing the wonderful
harmony of your private spiritual life in the midst of the multitude of
people surrounding you...."
Only rarely was our happiness clouded and the harmony broken by flashes
of mutual jealousy, which had no ground at all. We were both
hot-tempered and passionate; we could not bear the thought that anyone
should alienate us. It was just this jealousy which woke up in me with
terrible force when, towards the end of our life, I realized that my
husband's soul, which had been open to me for so many years, had
suddenly been closed to me irrevocably and without cause, while it was
opened to an outsider, a stranger.{40}
VI
In four years we had suffered five losses in the family. The two aunts
died, in 1874 Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii, and in 1875 Pelageya
Ilinishna Yushkov. Also three of our young children died; I caught
whooping-cough from them, and at the same time became ill with
peritonitis which brought on child-birth prematurely and I was on the
point of death.
Whether these events influenced Leo Nikolaevich or whether there were
other causes, his discontent with life and his seeking for truth became
acute. Everyone knows from his _Confession_ and other works that he even
contemplated hanging himself, when he did not find satisfaction in his
seeking. I could not feel as happy as before, when my husband, though
without saying it frankly, threatened to take his life, as later he
threatened to go away from his family. It was difficult for me to
discover the causes of his despair or to induce myself to believe in
them.{41} Our family lived its normal, good life, but it no longer
satisfied him; he was looking for the meaning of life in something
different; he was seeking for belief in God, he always shuddered at the
thought of death, and he could not find that which might comfort him and
reconcile him with it. At one time he would speak to Count Bobrinsky{42}
of the teaching of Radstock,{43} at another to Prince S. S. Urusov{44}
of the orthodox faith and church, at another with pilgrims and
sectaries, and later with bishops, monks, and priests. But nobody and
nothing satisfied Leo Nikolaevich or put his mind at rest. A spirit
which rejected the existing religions, the progress, science, art,
family, everything which mankind had evolved in centuries, had been
growing stronger and stronger in Leo Nikolaevich, and he was becoming
gloomier and gloomier. It was as though his inner eye was turned only to
evil and suffering, as though all that was joyful, beautiful, and good
had disappeared. I did not know how to live with such views; I was
alarmed, frightened, grieved. But with nine children I could not, like a
weather-cock, turn in the ever changing direction of my husband's
spiritual going away. With him it was a passionate, sincere seeking;
with me it would have been a silly imitation, positively harmful to the
family. Besides, in my innermost heart and beliefs I did not wish to
leave the church to which from my childhood I had always turned in
prayer. Leo Nikolaevich was himself for nearly two years at the
beginning of his seeking extremely orthodox and observed all rituals and
feasts. At the time the family also followed his example. _When_ exactly
we parted from him and over what, I do not know, I cannot remember.
Leo Nikolaevich's denial of the church and orthodoxy had a sharp
contrast in his recognition of the efficacy and wisdom of Christ's
teaching, which he considered incompatible with the doctrine of the
church. Personally I could have no difference with him regarding the
Gospel, since I considered the Gospel to be the foundation of the
orthodox faith.{45} When he accepted Christ's teaching and tried to live
in accordance with the Gospel, Leo Nikolaevich began to suffer through
our apparently luxurious mode of life, which I could not alter. I simply
did not understand why I should alter it, nor could I alter conditions
which had not been created by ourselves. If I had given away all my
fortune at my husband's desire (I don't know to whom), if I had been
left in poverty with nine children, I should have had to work for the
family--to feed, do the sewing for, wash, bring up my children without
education. Leo Nikolaevich, by vocation and inclination, could have done
nothing else but write.{46} He was always rushing off from Moscow to
Yasnaya Polyana; he lived alone there, read, wrote, and thought out his
work. I bore these partings from him with difficulty, but I considered
them necessary for my husband's intellectual work and peace of mind.
In my turn, as I grew older, the external and internal complexity of
life made me look seriously into its demands, and again, as in my early
youth, I turned to philosophy, to the wisdom of the thinkers who had
preceded us. At that time, about 1881 or 1882, Prince Leonid Dmitrievich
Urusov,{47} an intimate friend who often visited us and who was Deputy
Governor of the Tula Province, translated into Russian _The Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius_ and brought us the book to read. The thoughts of
that royal sage produced a great impression on me. Later Prince Urusov
gave me the works of Seneca in a French translation. The brilliant style
and richness of thought in that philosopher so attracted me that I read
his works through twice. I then read in succession various philosophers,
buying their books and copying out the ideas and sayings which struck
me. I remember how impressed I was by Epictetus's thoughts on death. I
found Spinoza very difficult to understand, but I became interested in
his Ethics and especially in his explanation of the conception of God.
Socrates, Plato, and other philosophers, but particularly the Greeks,
enchanted me, and I can say that these sages helped me greatly to live
and to think. Later on I also tried to read modern philosophers; I read
Schopenhauer and others, but I much preferred the ancients. Of Leo
Nikolaevich's philosophical works I liked and understood best his book
_On Life_, and I translated it into French with the assistance of M.
Tastevin. I worked hard at that translation, being particularly ill at
the time and expecting the birth of our last child, Vanichka. While
working conscientiously at the translation, I often went for advice to
my husband and to the philosophers, N. Y. Grot and V. S. Solovev.
I always very much liked writing of whatever kind. When Leo Nikolaevich
was writing his _A. B. C._ and _Four Reading-Books_, he used to intrust
to me the work of making up sentences and of re-telling and translating
them so as to adapt them to the Russian language and customs. I also
wrote the small story _Sparrows_ and others.
On the appearance of _Kreutzer Sonata_, which I never liked, I wrote a
story from the woman's point of view, but I did not publish it. Later on
I wrote a tale, _A Song without Words_. I got the idea for it by seeing
girls at a concert behave strangely to a famous pianist. They kissed
his goloshes, tore his handkerchief to pieces and altogether acted as if
they were mad. What has music to do with all that? I wanted to convey
the idea that our attitude towards art, as towards nature, must be
chaste, _i. e._ pure, without any mixture of base human passions.
When I taught the children, I wrote a Russian grammar from which they
quickly learnt to write correctly. Unfortunately the Russian teacher,
who much approved of my work, lost it.
I used to invent stories to tell to my children, and I wrote some of
them down and later published them with illustrations. In the first
story, _Skeleton Aurelias_, I used an idea of Leo Nikolaevich's. He
began to write the story, but the beginning was lost. Whether it was
lost with his suit-case,{48} or whether it was carried off with the
other MSS., I do not know.{49}
I always regarded my literary work with a certain contempt and irony,
considering it in the nature of a joke. For instance, after reading
various writings of the decadents, I tried to imitate them, and, for a
joke, wrote prose poems under the title _Groans_. They were published,
without my name, and without the author being known, in the _Journal
Dlva Vsvekh_ for March, 1904.
I remember two others of my writings, translations which Leo Nikolaevich
commissioned me to do. One was from the German, _The Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles_,{50} which he afterwards corrected himself, and the
other from English, _On the Sect of the Bahaists_.{51}
I also published various articles in newspapers. The most important
were: my appeal for funds for the famine-stricken on 3 November, 1891;
my letter to the _Metropolitans_ and _Synod_ on Leo Nikolaevich's
excommunication, which had deeply revolted and pained me.{52} I also
published an article, _A Recollection of Turgenev_, in the _Orlovskii
Vyestnik_, a critical article on Andreyev, and others.{53}
If I ever wrote anything of value, it was the seven thick note-books,
under the title _My Life_.{54} In them I described all my long life up
to 1897. When after the death of Leo Nikolaevich I was, quite
illegally, forbidden access to the Historical Museum, where I had placed
for safe keeping all my husband's papers, diaries, letters, note-books,
as well as my own, I could not continue my work without materials, and
three years of my life, which was drawing to a close, were lost to the
work. And who knows better than I the life of Leo Nikolaevich? It was I
myself who in 1894 placed those documents first in the Rumyantsev
Museum, and later during its repair transferred them to the Historical
Museum, where they now lie awaiting the verdict as to their fate from
the courts of law.{55}
VII
In the summer of 1884 Leo Nikolaevich worked a great deal on the land;
for whole days he mowed with the peasants, and when tired out he came
home in the evenings, he used to sit gloomy and discontented with the
life lived by the family. That life was in discordance with his
teaching, and this tormented and pained him. At one time he thought of
taking a Russian peasant woman, a worker on the land, and of secretly
going away with the peasants to start a new life; he confessed this to
me himself. At last, on 17 June, after a little quarrel with me about
the horses, he took a sack with a few things on his shoulder and left
the house, saying that he was going away for ever, perhaps to America,
and that he would never come back. At the time I was beginning to feel
the pains of childbirth. My husband's behaviour drove me to despair,
and the two pains, of the body and of the heart, were unendurable. I
prayed to God for death. At four o'clock in the morning Leo Nikolaevich
came back, and, without coming to me, lay down on the couch downstairs
in his study. In spite of my cruel pains I ran down to him; he was
gloomy and said nothing to me. At seven o'clock that morning our
daughter Alexandra was born. I could never forget that terrible, bright
June night.
Once more in 1897 Leo Nikolaevich had the desire to go away; but no one
knew of it. He wrote me a letter which, at his desire, was handed over
to me only after his death.{56} But that time also he did not go away.
In the autumn of that year Leo Nikolaevich gave me a power-of-attorney
to manage all his affairs, including the publication of his works.
Inexperienced and without a farthing, I energetically began to learn the
business of publishing books, and then of selling and subscribing L. N.
Tolstoy's works. I had to manage the estates and in general all his
affairs. How difficult it was, with a large family and with no
experience! I had more than once to appeal to the censor, and for that
purpose I had to go to Petersburg.
Once Leo Nikolaevich called me into his study and asked me to take over
in full ownership all his property, including his copyrights. I asked
him what need there was for that, since we were so intimate and had
children in common. He replied that he considered property an evil and
that he did not wish to own it. "So you wish to hand over that evil to
me, the creature nearest to you," I said, in tears; "I do not want it
and I shall take nothing." So I did not take my husband's property, but
I managed his affairs under the power-of-attorney, and it was only some
years afterwards that I agreed to a general division of the property,
and the father himself apportioned the shares to each of the children
and to myself. He renounced altogether the copyright of his books
written after 1881.{57} But he retained until the end of his life the
copyright of the previous books. The division was completed in 1891,
and Yasnaya Polyana was given to our youngest son, Vanichka, and to
myself.
In the same year 1891 an important event happened to me. I went to
Petersburg to petition the authorities to remove the ban on the
thirteenth volume of L. N. Tolstoy's works, which contained _Kreutzer
Sonata_. I made an application to the Emperor Alexander III. He
graciously received me, and, after I had left, he ordered the ban on the
forbidden book to be removed, although he expressed a desire that
_Kreutzer Sonata_ should not be sold as a separate volume. But some one
secretly published the story, and envious persons calumniated me by
telling the Tsar that I had disobeyed his will. The Sovereign was,
naturally, highly displeased, and, as Countess A. A. Tolstoy told me he
said: "If I was mistaken in that woman, then there are no truthful
people in the world." I got to know about this too late to clear up the
matter, and I was deeply grieved, the more so because the Tsar died that
autumn without ever knowing the truth.
VIII
The year 1891 and the two following years were memorable for us because
of the assistance given by the family to the famine-stricken Russian
people. Distressed by the news which we received about the calamity, I
decided to publish in the newspapers an appeal for subscriptions. What a
joy to me was the ardent sympathy of the good people who sent generous
donations, often accompanied by moving letters! The four younger
children remained with me in Moscow. It was extraordinarily difficult
for me to part from my husband and the elder children who were exposing
themselves to many dangers. My only comfort was that I, too, was taking
part in the good work. I bought trucks of corn, beans, onions, cabbage,
everything needed for the feeding centres where the famine-stricken poor
from the villages were fed. To pay for this I received money which was
sent to me in considerable sums. From the material sent to me by textile
manufacturers I had under-clothing made by poor women for small wages,
and I sent it to the places where it was needed most, chiefly for those
suffering from typhoid.
It might have been thought that this work would have satisfied Leo
Nikolaevich. And at first it did, but he became disappointed with this
too, and he began again to dream of a great act of renunciation, as he
expressed it in his diary. He was annoyed with the family, though he did
love us. He was often angry with me. We were what stood in the way of
his carrying out his dream of a free, new life, of an act of
renunciation. At times he would soften, and he wrote, for instance in
his diary: "It is good to be with Sonya. Yesterday I thought, as I saw
her with Andryusha and Misha, what a wonderful wife and mother she is in
one sense." Remarks like that, when they were made directly to me,
comforted me; but, on the other hand, his obstinate rejection of all
our method of life pained and tormented me.
The famine relief work nearly cost my son Leo his life; he was at the
time a young undergraduate and worked on his own account on famine
relief in the Samara Province. His health, especially after an attack of
typhus, broke down completely, and for a long time afterwards I suffered
to see him sinking. But he recovered after being ill for two years. In
1895 our youngest son, Vanichka, died; he was seven years old, a general
favourite, extraordinarily like his father, a clever, sensitive child,
not long for this earth, as people say of such children. This was the
greatest sorrow of my life, and for long I could find neither peace nor
comfort.{58} At first I spent whole days in churches and cathedrals; I
also prayed at home and walked in my garden, where I remembered the dear
little slim figure of my boy. "Where are you, where are you, Vanichka?"
I used often to cry, not believing in my loss. At last, after having
spent nine hours one day in the Archangel Cathedral--it was a
fast-day--I was walking home and got soaked in a violent storm of rain.
I became very ill and my life was despaired of, but on Easter night at
the ringing of the bells I came to myself and reëntered upon my
sorrowful existence. Everybody about me, and particularly my husband and
two eldest daughters, looked after me with extraordinary goodness and
tenderness. This gladdened and comforted me.
In the spring my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, arrived and took me off with
her to Kiev, and that disposed me still more to religion and made a
strong impression on me.[K] My depression and loss of interest in
everything continued during the summer, and it was only by chance and
quite unexpectedly that my state of mind was changed--by music. That
summer there was staying with us a well-known composer and superb
pianist.{59} In the evenings he used to play chess with Leo Nikolaevich,
and afterwards, at the request of all of us, he often played the piano.
Listening to the wonderful music of Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and
others, superbly executed, I forgot for a time my sharp sorrow, and I
used morbidly to look forward to the evening, when I should again hear
that wonderful music.
Thus the summer passed, and in the autumn I engaged a music mistress
and, at the age of fifty-two, began again to practise and learn to play.
As time went on, I made little progress. But I went to concerts, and
music saved me from despair. Leo Nikolaevich wrote somewhere about
music: "Music is a sensual pleasure of hearing, just as taste is a
sensual pleasure. I agree that it is less sensual than taste, but there
is no moral sense in it." I could never share this view. He himself
often cried, when his favourite pieces were played. Does the pleasure of
taste make one cry? Music always acted upon me like something soothing
and elevating. All the petty, everyday troubles lost their meaning. When
I heard the Chopin sonata with the funeral march or certain Beethoven
sonatas, I often had the desire to pray, to forgive, to love, and to
think of the infinite, spiritual, mysterious, and beautiful, just as
the sounds themselves do not say anything definite, but make one think,
dream, and rejoice vaguely and beautifully.
IX
In August, 1896, Leo Nikolaevich suggested that I should go with him and
his sister, Marie Nikolaevna, to the monastery near Shamardin. From
there we went to the Optina Monastery, where I fasted. While I
confessed, Leo Nikolaevich walked round the cell of the venerable monk,
Father Gerasim, but he did not come in.
After Vanichka's death our family life was no longer happy. Gradually
the other children married and the house became empty. The parting with
our daughter was especially hard. Leo Nikolaevich's health began to be
bad, and in September, 1901, the doctors after a consultation ordered
him off to the south, to the Crimea. Countess Panin kindly lent us her
magnificent house in Gaspra, where our whole family spent nearly ten
months. Leo Nikolaevich's health not only did not improve, it grew
worse. He was ill in Gaspra from one infectious disease after another,
and it is with pain in my heart that I remember how I used to sit at
night by my husband's bed during nearly the whole of those ten months.
We took it in turns to sit by him, I, my daughters, the doctors,
friends, and above all my son, Serge. How much I used to go through and
think over during those nights!{60}
We did not go back again to our life in Moscow, and the doctors and I
decided that it was best for Leo Nikolaevich to live in Yasnaya Polyana,
where he was born and bred.
After making up our minds on our return from the Crimea to remain in the
country, during the following years we lived quietly and peacefully, all
occupied with our own work. I worked hard at writing my memoirs, under
the title _My Life_; I often went to Moscow on business in connection
with Leo Nikolaevich's publications, and then every day in the morning I
used to sit in the Historical Museum, copying from the diaries,
letters, and note-books the material which I wanted for my work. It gave
me great pleasure, that work upstairs in the tower of the museum, in
complete solitude, surrounded by such interesting papers. I did not
arrange the MSS., thinking that I might leave that for others, and
considering it more useful to write my reminiscences, as I did not
anticipate a long life or that my memory would remain fresh.
Moreover by mere accident I took to painting passionately, for it always
attracted me. In Petersburg in the Tauric Palace a very good and
interesting exhibition of old and modern portraits was opened, and we
were asked to lend all our family portraits from Yasnaya Polyana. It
seemed to me most unpleasant to have the walls of the drawing-room bare,
and with my usual boldness I began copying the portraits before they
were removed. I had never studied painting, but I loved it, like all the
arts, and I was terribly excited and worked for whole days, and often
the nights as well. As formerly with music, I was completely carried
away by painting. Leo Nikolaevich laughingly said that I had caught a
disease called "portraititis," and that he was afraid for my sanity. The
most successful of my attempts was a copy of Leo Nikolaevich's portrait
by Kramskoi. Later I tried to paint landscapes and flowers from nature,
but extreme short-sightedness put me at a great disadvantage, and I was
dissatisfied with my want of skill. But I do not regret that I took up
music and painting, however unskilfully, towards the end of my life. One
only thoroughly understands any art when one practises it, however
badly.
My last attempts were water-colour paintings of all the Yasnaya Polyana
flora and of all the fungi of the Yasnaya Polyana woods.
X
In 1904 I had to endure the pain of my son, Andrey, leaving to fight in
the war against Japan. In my heart I was opposed to war as to any other
kind of murder, and it was with a peculiar pain in my heart that I saw
my son off at Tambov and with other mothers looked at the carriages full
of soldiers--our sons doomed to death.
A happy event for our family in 1905 was the birth of an only child to
our daughter, Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin. This granddaughter, as she grew
up, was a favourite of Leo Nikolaevich and of the whole family.
In 1906 I underwent a serious operation, performed by Professor V. F.
Snegirev in Yasnaya Polyana. How quietly I prepared myself for death,
how happy I felt, when the servants, saying good-bye to me, cried
bitterly! I felt a strange sensation, when I fell asleep under the
anaesthetic which was given to me: it was new and significant. All
external life in its complicated setting, especially of towns, flashed
before my inner vision like a quickly changing panorama. And how
insignificant human vanity appeared to me! I seemed to be asking myself:
what, then, is important? One thing: if God has sent us on to the earth
and we are to live, then the most important thing is to help one another
in whatever way possible. To help one another to live. I think the same
now.
The operation was quite successful, but it seemed as though the will of
fate, having aimed at taking my life, wavered and then removed its hand
to our daughter Masha. I recovered, and that lovely, unselfish,
spiritual creature, Masha, died of pneumonia in our house two and a half
months after my operation. This sorrow was a heavy weight on our life
and aging hearts. The previous rift, the reproaches and unpleasantness
ceased for a while and we humbled ourselves before fate. The time passed
in our usual occupations, and Leo Nikolaevich, as a distraction, played
cards with his children and friends; he was very fond of whist. In the
mornings he wrote, and every afternoon he rode; he lived the most quiet
and regular life. He was, however, often worried by visitors who tired
him, by applicants, and by letters in which people disagreed with his
teaching and reproached him with his way of life, or asked him for money
or to get them jobs.
These reproaches and the interference of outsiders in our peaceful
family life ruined it. Even before this the influence of outside people
was creeping in and towards the end of Leo Nikolaevich's life it assumed
terrifying dimensions. For instance, these outsiders frightened Leo
Nikolaevich with the prediction that the Russian Government would send
the police and seize all his papers. On that pretext they were removed
from Yasnaya Polyana, and, therefore, Leo Nikolaevich could no longer
work at them, as he had not the _whole_ material. Eventually with
difficulty I succeeded in getting back seven thick note-books containing
my husband's diaries which are now in the possession of our daughter
Alexandra; but the affair led to strained relations with the man who had
them in his keeping and he ceased his daily visits.{61}
XI
In 1895 Leo Nikolaevich wrote a letter in which, as a request to his
heirs, he expressed the desire that the copyright in his works should be
made public property, and in which he entrusted the examination of his
MSS. after his death to Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov, to Chertkov, and
to me.{62} The letter was in the keeping of my daughter Masha and was
destroyed,{63} and in its place in September, 1909, a will was made at
Chertkov's house in Krekshino not far from Moscow, where Leo Nikolaevich
and several other persons were staying at the time. The will turned out
to have been drawn incorrectly and to be invalid, a fact which the
"friends" soon found out.{64}
Our journey home from Krekshino through Moscow was terrible. One of the
intimates had informed the press that on such and such a day at a
certain hour Tolstoy would be at the Kursk Station. Several thousands of
people came there to see us off. At moments it seemed to me, as I walked
arm in arm with my husband and limped on my bad leg, that I should be
choked, fall down, and die. In spite of the fresh, autumnal air, we were
enveloped in a hot, thick atmosphere.
This had a very serious effect upon Leo Nikolaevich's health. Just after
the train had passed Schekino station, he began to talk deliriously and
lost all consciousness of his surroundings. A few minutes after our
arrival at home he had a prolonged fainting fit and this was followed by
a second. Luckily there was a doctor in the house. After this I suffered
more and more from a painful, nervous excitement: day and night I
watched my husband to see when he would go for a ride or a walk by
himself, and I awaited his return anxiously, for I was afraid that he
might have another fainting fit or simply fall down somewhere where it
would be difficult to find him.
Owing to these agitations and to the difficult and responsible work
connected with L. N. Tolstoy's publications, I continually grew more
nervous and worried, and my health broke down completely.{65} I lost my
mental balance, and, owing to this, I had a bad effect upon my husband.
At the same time Leo Nikolaevich began continually to threaten to leave
the house and his "intimate" friend[M] carefully prepared, together,
with the lawyer M., a new and correct will[N] which was copied by Leo
Nikolaevich himself on the stump of a tree in the forest on 23 July,
1910.{66}
* * * * *
This was the will which was proved after his death.
In his diary he wrote at the time, among other things: "I very clearly
see my mistake; I ought to have called together all my heirs and told
them my intention; I ought not to have kept it secret. I wrote this
to----, but he was very annoyed--"
On 5 August he writes of me:
"It is painful the constant secrecy and fear for her...."
On 10 August he writes:
"It is good to feel oneself guilty, as I do...." And again: "My
relations with all of them are difficult; I cannot help desiring
death...."
Clearly the pressure brought to bear upon him tormented him. One of his
friends, P. I. B..V,{67} was of opinion that no secret should be made of
the will, and he told Leo Nikolaevich so. At first he agreed with the
opinion of this true friend, but he went away and Leo Nikolaevich
submitted to another influence though at times he was obviously
oppressed by it. I was powerless to save him from that influence, and
for Leo Nikolaevich and myself there began a terrible period of painful
struggle which made me still more ill. The sufferings of my hot and
harassed heart clouded my reasoning powers, while Leo Nikolaevich's
friends worked continually, deliberately, subtly upon the mind of an old
man whose memory and powers were growing feeble.{68} They created around
him who was dear to me an atmosphere of conspiracy, of letters received
secretly, letters and articles sent back after they had been read,
mysterious meetings in forests for the performance of acts essentially
disgusting to Leo Nikolaevich; after their performance he could no
longer look me or my sons straight in the face, for he had never before
concealed anything from us; it was the first secret in our life and it
was intolerable to him. When I guessed it and asked whether a will was
not being made, and why it was concealed from me, I was answered by a
"no" or by silence. I believed that it was not a will. It meant,
therefore, that there was some other secret of which I knew nothing, and
I was in despair with the perpetual feeling that my husband was being
carefully set against me and that a terrible and fatal ending was in
front of us.{69} Leo Nikolaevich's threats to leave the house became
more and more frequent, and this threat added to my torment and
increased my nervousness and ill-health.
I shall not describe in detail Leo Nikolaevich's going away. So much has
been and will be written about it, but no one will know the real cause.
Let _his_ biographers try to find out.
When I read in the letter which Leo Nikolaevich sent me through our
daughter Alexandra that he had gone away finally and for ever, I felt
and clearly understood that without him--and especially after all that
had happened--life would be utterly impossible, and instantly I made up
my mind to put an end to all my sufferings by throwing myself into the
pond in which some time before a girl and her little brother had been
drowned. But I was rescued, and, when Leo Nikolaevich was told of it, he
wept bitterly, as his sister, Marie Nikolaevna, wrote to me, but he
could not get himself to return.{70}
After Leo Nikolaevich's going away an article appeared in the newspapers
expressing the joy of one of his most "intimate" friends at the
event.{71}
XII
All my children came to Yasnaya Polyana and called in a specialist on
nervous diseases and had a nurse to be with me. For five days I ate
nothing and did not take a drop of water.
I felt no hunger, but my thirst was acute. In the evening of the fifth
day my daughter Tanya persuaded me to drink a cup of coffee, by saying
that, if father summoned me, I would be so weak that I should be unable
to go.
Next morning we received a telegram from the newspaper _Russkoye Slovo_
that Leo Nikolaevich had fallen ill at Astapovo and that his temperature
was 104. The "intimate" friend had received a telegram before this and
had already left, carefully concealing from his family the place where
the patient was lying. We took a special train at Tula and went to
Astapovo. Our son Serge on his way to his estate had been overtaken by a
telegram from his wife who had sent it at our daughter Alexandra's
request, and he was already with his father.
This was the beginning of new and cruel sufferings for me. Round my
husband was a crowd of strangers and outsiders, and I, his wife who had
lived with him for forty-eight years, was not admitted to see him. The
door of the room was locked, and, when I wanted to get a glimpse of my
husband through the window, a curtain was drawn across it. Two nurses
who were told off to look after me held me firmly by the arms and did
not allow me to move. Meanwhile Leo Nikolaevich called our daughter
Tanya to him and began asking all about me, believing me to be in
Yasnaya Polyana. At every question he cried, and our daughter said to
him: "Don't let us talk about mama, it agitates you too much." "Ah, no,"
he said, "that is more important to me than anything." He also said to
her, but already indistinctly: "A great deal of trouble is falling upon
Sonya; we have managed it badly."
No one ever told him that I had come, though I implored every one to do
so. It is difficult to say who was responsible for this cruelty. Every
one was afraid of accelerating his death by agitating him; that was also
the doctors' opinion.{72} Who can tell? Perhaps our meeting and my ways
of looking after him to which he was accustomed, might have revived him.
In one of his letters to me, which I have recently published, Leo
Nikolaevich writes that he dreads falling ill without me.
The doctors allowed me to see my husband when he was now hardly
breathing, lying motionless on his back, with his eyes already closed. I
whispered softly some tender words in his ear, hoping that he might
still hear how I had been all the time there in Astapovo and how I loved
him to the end. I don't remember what more I said to him, but two deep
sighs, as though the result of a terrible effort, came as an answer to
my words, and then all was still....
All the days and nights that followed, until his body was removed, I
spent by the dead, and in me too life became cold. The body was taken to
Yasnaya Polyana; a multitude of people came there, but I saw and
recognized no one, and the day after the funeral I collapsed with the
same illness, pneumonia, though in a less dangerous form, and I was in
bed for eighteen days.
A great comfort to me at the time was the presence of my sister Tatyana
Andreevna Kuzminskii, and of Leo Nikolaevich's cousin, Varvara
Valeryanovna Nagornaya. My children, tired out, returned to their
families.
XIII
And then there began my lonely life in Yasnaya Polyana, and the energy
which I used to spend on life was and is directed only to this, that I
may endure my sorrowful existence worthily and with submission to the
will of God. I try to occupy myself only with what in some way or
another concerns the memory of Leo Nikolaevich.
I live in Yasnaya Polyana keeping the house and its surroundings as they
were when Leo Nikolaevich was alive, and looking after his grave. I have
kept for myself two hundred desyatins of land with the apple orchard and
the plantations, the making of which had given us such pleasure. The
greater part of the land (475 desyatins), with the fine, carefully
preserved woods, I sold to my daughter Alexandra to be transferred to
the peasants.{73}
I also sold my Moscow house to the municipality,{74} and I sold the last
edition of the works of Leo Tolstoy, and gave all the proceeds to my
children. But they, and particularly the grandchildren, are so numerous!
Including the daughters-in-law and myself, we are now a family of
thirty-eight, and my help was, therefore, far from satisfactory.
I always feel in my heart profound gratitude to the Sovereign Emperor
for granting me a pension, which allows me to live in security and to
keep the manor of Yasnaya Polyana.
Three years have now passed. I look sadly on the havoc in Yasnaya
Polyana, how the trees which we planted are being cut down, how the
beauty of the place is gradually being spoiled, now that everything has
been handed over to the timber-merchants and peasants who frequently
have painful quarrels, now about the land and now about the woods. And
what is going to happen to the manor and the house after my death?
Almost daily I visit the grave; I thank God for the happiness granted to
me in early life, and as to the last troubles between us, I look upon
them as a trial and a redemption of sin before death. Thy will be
done.{75}
COUNTESS SOPHIE TOLSTOY.
OCTOBER 28, 1913.
YASNAVA POLYANA.
NOTES
{1}. In _The Book of Genealogies of the Nobility of the Moscow
Government_, Vol. I, page 122, it is said of S. A. T.'s father: "Andrey
Evstafevich, son of a chemist, born 9 April, 1808, a physician on the
staff of the Moscow Palace Control, collegiate assessor 1842, State
Councillor 1864."
{2}. This was the former name of the Commandant's Board.
{3}. Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, first cousin of S. A. T.
{4}. Born 3 December, 1789, died 25 March, {1855}. Buried in Petersburg
in the Volkov Lutheran Cemetery. _Peterburgskii Necropol, Petersburg_,
1912, Vol. I, page 204.
{5}. In _The Book of Genealogies of the Nobility of the Moscow
Government_, Vol. I, page 122, the Bers are included under Section III,
_i. e._ among those families which were promoted to the title of
nobility through the civil service. The year of their promotion was
1843. The right to the coat-of-arms was granted by Supreme Order to the
father of S. A. T. in 1847. See V. Lukomskii and S. Troinizkii, _List
of persons to whom has been granted by H. I. M. the right to
coats-of-arms and the title of nobility of the All-Russian Empire and of
the Kingdom of Poland_, Petersburg, 1911, page 14.
{6}. Alexander Evstafevich Bers, born 18 February, 1807, died 6
September, 1871. See _Peterburgskii Necropol_, Vol. I, page 204; also V.
Lukomskii and S. Troinizkii, page 14.
{7}. In the Tula Province, twenty-five versts from Yasnaya Polyana.
{8}. A. M. Islenev, born 16 July, 1794, died 23 April, 1882. Leo
Tolstoy, who knew him well, described him as the father in _Childhood
Boyhood and Youth_. See P. Sergeenko, _From the Life of L. N. Tolstoy_
and _How Count L. N. Tolstoy Lives and Works_, Moscow, 1898, page 40.
{9}. The well-known Vladimir Alexandrovich Islavin, State Councillor,
born 29 November, 1818, died 27 May, 1895, author of the _The Samoyeds,
their Domestic and Social Life_, Petersburg, 1847, which at the time was
much discussed in newspapers and magazines. See V. I. Maezkov's
_Systematic Catalogue of Russian Books_, A. F. Basunov, Petersburg,
1869, page 404.
{10}. There were five sons and three daughters, _The Book of
Genealogies_, Vol. I, pages 122 and {123}. The best known of these,
besides Sophie Andreevna, were: Tatyana Andreevna (by marriage
Kuzminskii) born 24 October 1846, the author of _My Reminiscences of
Countess Marie Nikolaevna Tolstoy_, Petersburg, 1914; Stepan Andreevich
Bers, born 21 July 1855, author of _Reminiscences of L. N. Tolstoy_,
Smolensk, 1894; Peter Andreevich Bers, born 26 August 1849, died 19 May
1910, the editor of _Detskyii Otdikh_ (1881-1882), and co-editor with L.
D. Obolenskii of the collection of _Stories for Children by I. S.
Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy_, 1883 and 1886; Vacheslav Andreevich Bers,
born 3 May 1861, died 19 May, 1907, an engineer who was killed for no
obvious reason by workmen during the revolutionary days in Petersburg.
Leo N. Tolstoy was very fond of him. See P. Biryukov, _How L. N. T.
Composed the Popular Calendar_, {1911}.
{11}. A. Y. Davidov, 1823-1885, professor of mathematics in the
University of Moscow, author of popular text-books on algebra and
geometry.
{12}. N. A. Sergievskii, 1827-1892, a writer on theology, author of many
scholarly theological books, founder and editor of _The Orthodox
Review_, professor of theology in the University of Moscow.
{13}. In the Natasha of _War and Peace_ there are many characteristics
of S. A. T. and of her sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii. According
to S. A. T., Leo Nikolaevich made the following remark about his
heroine: "I took Tanya, ground her up with Sonya, and there came out
Natasha." See P. Biryukov, _Biography of L._ N. T., Vol. II, page 32.
{14}. In S. A. T.'s story _Natasha_ L. N. T. recognized himself in the
hero, Dublitskii, and he wrote to her in September, 1862: "I am
Dublitskii, but to marry merely because I needed a wife--that I could
not do. I demand something tremendous, impossible from marriage; I
demand that I should be loved as much as I am able to love." L. N. T.
doubted whether a woman could fall in love with him deeply and
completely, as he was not good-looking. On 28 August, 1862, he put down
in his diary: "I got up in the usual despondency. I thought out a
society for apprentices. A sweet, placid night. Ugly face, don't think
of marriage, your vocation is different and much has been given you
instead." _L. N. T.'s Letters to his Wife_, edited by A. E. Gruzinskii,
1913. P. Biryukov, _Biography of L. N. T._, Vol. I, page 471.
{15}. M. N. Tolstoi, 7 March, 1830--6 April, 1912, sister of L. N. T. In
the 'sixties she went abroad with her brother Nikolai and lived with him
at Hyères in the South of France. After her brother's death, M. N. T.,
overcome with grief, did not wish to return to Russia and settled for a
short time in Algiers. She returned from there in 1862 and visited
Yasnaya Polyana for a short time and met S. A. T. and her mother there.
See T. A. Kuzminskii, _My Reminiscences of Marie N. Tolstoy_,
Petersburg, 1914. P. Biryukov, _Countess Marie N. Tolstoy_, in
"_Russkaya Vedomostii_," 1912, Moscow. A. Khiryakov, _L. N. Tolstoy's
Sister_, in "_Solitse Rossii_," 1912. S. Tolstoy, _To the Portrait of
Countess Marie N. Tolstoy_ in _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, 1912. L. N.
Tolstoy's Letters to Marie N. Tolstoy in _New Collection of Letters of
L. N. Tolstoy_, collected by P. A. Sergeenko, edited by A. E.
Gruzinskii, Moscow, 1912, and Complete works of L. N. Tolstoy, Vols.
XXI-XXIV, edited by P. I. Biryukov, Moscow, 1913.
{16}. S. A. T. here leaves out some curious details. According to her
own account, Leo Nikolaevich followed the Bers family, first to Ivitsa,
Tula Province, fifty versts from Yasnaya Polyana, and then to Moscow.
Leo Nikolaevich's proposal to S. A. T., which was like Levin's to Kitty
in _Anna Karenina_, took place at Ivitsa. See "The Marriage of L. N.
Tolstoy," from the reminiscences of S. A. T. under the title "My Life,"
in _Russkoye Slovo_, 1912. Also P. Biryukov, _Biography of L. N.
Tolstoy_, Vol. I, pages 464-473, and L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his
Wife_, pages 1-3.
{17}. The Bers family were convinced that L. N. T. was in love with
Liza, the elder sister of S. A. T., and expected him to propose to her.
This misunderstanding worried L. N. T. as he said in his letter to S. A.
T. See L. N. Tolstoy's Letters to his Wife, pages 1-3.
{18}. Orekov, a serf of Yasnaya Polyana, L. N. T.'s inseparable
companion during the war in Sevastopol, and later steward at Yasnaya
Polyana. See I. Tolstoy, _My Reminiscences_, Moscow, 1914, pages 18,
22-23.
{19}. T. A. Ergolskii, born 1795, died 20 June 1874, a remote relation
brought up in the Tolstoy family, taught Marie, Leo and his brothers,
who lost their mother at an early age. In Tolstoy's house she was called
aunt. See _Reminiscences of Childhood_ and L. N. T.'s _Letters to T. A.
Ergolskii_; also L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters_, 1848-1910, collected and
edited by P. A. Sergeenko, L. N. Tolstoy's _Diary_, Vol. I, 1847-1852,
edited by V. G. Chertkov, Moscow, 1917.
{20}. The beginning of Chapter II, ending with the words "and in copying
out his writings," is incorporated literally by S. A. T. from the first
MS. There is also written in pencil by her "This is new." The statement
is not quite accurate. In the remainder of Chapter III, which is new, a
small part of the original Chapter III, slightly altered, is
incorporated. We shall quote this part in full:
"The first thing which I copied in my clumsy, but legible handwriting
was _Polikushka_. For many, many years afterwards that work delighted
me. I used to long for the evening when Leo N. would give me something
newly written or corrected for me to copy.
"I was carried away by the newly created scenes and descriptions, and I
tried to understand and watch the artistic development and growth of
ideas and creative activity in my husband's works...."
{21}. The beginning was published in two numbers of _Russkii Vyestnik_,
1865 and 1866, and under the title of _The Year 1805_ was later
published in book form, Moscow, 1866. Tolstoy returned to the
Decembrists when he had finished _Anna Karenina_, but was again
disappointed. "My Decembrists are again God knows where; I don't even
think of them," he wrote to Fet in April, 1879, (Fet, _My
Reminiscences_, Vol. II, page 364). The first three chapters of the
Decembrists were published in a miscellaneous volume called _Twenty-five
Years_, 1859-1884, Petersburg, 1884. But towards the end of his life
Tolstoy again became interested in the Decembrists and began to study
the period, see A. B. Goldenweiser, Diary, _Russkie Propilei_. Vol. II,
pages 271-272, Moscow, 1916.
{22}. A. M. Zhemchuznikov and I. S. Aksakov visited Leo Nikolaevich in
the middle of December, 1864, in Moscow at his father-in-law's house
where he came to have his arm medically treated. It was then that he
read to them some chapters from _War and Peace_. See L. N. Tolstoy's
_Letters to his Wife_, page 41.
{23}. There were a number of musical works which always made a deep
impression upon Tolstoy. See list of musical works loved by L. N.
Tolstoy, given by A. B. Goldenweiser, _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, pages
158-160; also musical works loved by L. N. Tolstoy, in S. L. Tolstoy's
_Reminiscences_.
24. Countess A. A. Tolstoy reproached Leo Nikolaevich for his long
silence in a letter of 1 May 1863. Leo Nikolaevich wrote a four page
letter in reply, but did not send it; later in the autumn of 1863 he
wrote another letter, which he sent. The quotation referred to is,
evidently, from the letter which was not sent, and which, as far as we
know, has not appeared in print.
{25}. This quotation from L. N. T.'s Diary is also given in Biryukov's
Biography, but in somewhat different form. He also gives a detailed
sketch of the work, which Tolstoy wrote in his diary; see Biryukov, Vol.
II, pages 27-28.
{26}. N. A. Lyubimov, 1830-1897, well-known professor of physics at the
University of Moscow, a collaborator with Katkov and K. Leontev in
editing the _Russkii Vyestnik_ and _Moskovskaya Vedomesti_.
{27}. Strakhov's articles on _War and Peace_ were published in _Zarya_,
1869 and 1870, and in book form in 1871. His articles on Tolstoy and
Turgenev appeared in book form under the title, _Critical Articles on I.
S. Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy_, second edition, 1887.
{28}. Edmond About, 1828-1885, the French writer to whom Turgenev sent a
copy of _War and Peace_, translated by Princess Paskevich, and a letter
from which the above quotation is taken. M. About published the letter
in _Le XIX e Siècle_, 23 January, 1880, under the title "_Une Lettre de
Tourguéneff_."
{29}. Vasilii Yakoblevich Mirovich, 1740-1764, a lieutenant in the
Smolenskii infantry regiment, executed for his attempt to rescue Ivan
Antonovich from prison. His story formed the plot of G. P. Danilevskii's
novel _Mirovich_ (Petersburg, 1886).
{30}. From the sketch of the year 1831-2: "The guests were arriving at
the country-house." See Pushkin, edited by S. A. Vengerov, Petersburg,
1910, Vol. IV, pages 255-258.
{31}. In P. Biryukov's Biography, Vol. II, page 205, the words are given
thus: "That is how one should begin. The reader is at once made to feel
the interest of the plot. Another writer would begin to describe the
guests, the rooms, but Pushkin goes straight to the point."
{32}. This quotation is a combination of two passages from L. N. T.'s
letter to Countess A. A. Tolstoy of December, 1874. In the beginning of
this letter he says that he has written a letter to her, but has torn it
up and is writing another. It is possible that S. A. T. is quoting from
the original letter.
{33}. Peter, eighteen months old, 18 November, 1873; Nikolai, two months
old, February, 1875; and the daughter born prematurely, November,
{1875}.
{34}. T. A. Ergolskii (see note 19), and Pelageya Ilinishna Yushkov, the
sister of L. N. T.'s father, died 22, December, 1875. This death
particularly affected Tolstoy. He wrote to Countess A. A. Tolstoy: "It
is strange, but the death of this old woman of eighty affected me more
than any other death.... Not an hour passes without my thinking of her."
_Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 262-3.
{35}. From Fet's poem: "I repeated: 'When I will....'" Later Fet
evidently re-wrote the poem; his last four lines are:
In my hand--what a marvel--
Is your hand.
And on the grass--two emeralds.
Two glow-worms.
See A. A. Fet, Complete Works, Vol. I, page 427, Petersburg, 1912.
{36}. Five poems are known to have been dedicated by Fet to S. A.
Tolstoy, see Complete Works, Vol. I, pages 413, 414, and 449.
{37}. A few months after his visit to Yasnaya Polyana Turgenev wrote to
Fet: "I was very glad to make it up again with Tolstoy, and I spent
three pleasant days with him; his whole family is very sympathetic and
his wife is a darling." See Fet, _My Reminiscences_, Vol. II, page 355,
Moscow, {1890}.
{38}. Wilkie Collins, 1824-1889; his novel _The Woman in White_, was
translated into Russian under the same title, Petersburg, 1884.
{39}. The house was bought in 1882 in the Khamovnicheskii Pereulok.
{40}. An allusion to V. G. Chertkov who became acquainted with Tolstoy
in 1883. See P. A. Boulanger, _Tolstoy and Chertkov_, Moscow, 1911; A.
M. Khiryakov, "Who is Chertkov?" in _Kievskava Starina_, 1910; P.
Biryukov, Biography, Vol. II, pages 471-3, 479-480; V. Mikulich,
_Shadows of the Past_, Petersburg, 1914; Ilya Tolstoy, _My
Reminiscences_, pages 234-5, 247, 265, 269-275; Countess A. A. Tolstoy,
"Reminiscences" in _Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 36-38.
{41}. S. A. T. for a long time did not believe in the seriousness of Leo
Nikolaevich's searchings, considering them a weakness, a disease due to
over-work and the playing of a part. See Biryukov, Biography, pages
474-478; L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_, pages 196-8.
{42}. A. P. Bobrinskii, Minister of Transport 1871-1874, and a disciple
of Radstock; Tolstoy was struck by "the sincerity and warmth of his
belief." See _Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 245, 265, 268, and 275.
{43}. An English preacher who in the middle of the 'seventies lived in
Petersburg and preached with success in aristocratic houses. A short,
but good, description of Radstock is given by Countess A. A. Tolstoy,
who knew him personally, in her letter to L. N. T. of 28 March, 1876,
_Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 267-8.
{44}. S. S. Urusov, 1827-1897, an intimate friend of Tolstoy ever since
the Crimean War, a land-owner and a deeply religious man. Tolstoy
corresponded with him and often stayed with him in his country-house at
Spassko. Urusov translated into French Tolstoy's _In What do I Believe?_
{45}. But Tolstoy did not recognize the Gospel which serves as the
foundation of the orthodox faith, and he interpreted the Gospel in his
own way. It is strange that S. A. T. did not realize this. In this
respect Countess A. A. Tolstoy, who also differed from Leo Nikolaevich
on religious questions and was deeply pained by the difference, was more
understanding and consistent. She wrote of Tolstoy's _Gospel_: "Your
crude denial and bold perversions of the divine book caused me extreme
indignation. Sometimes I had to stop reading and throw the book on the
floor." See _Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, page 44.
{46}. It is interesting to compare the autobiography of S. A. T. with
Tolstoy's play _And Light Shines in Darkness_. In this Marie Ivanovna, a
character taken from S. A. T., uses the family, children, house, and so
on, as the chief arguments against the attempts of Nikolai Ivanovich to
arrange their life in accordance with his views. She says: "I have to
bring them up, feed them, bear them.... I don't sleep at nights, I
nurse, I keep the whole house...." And the husband "wishes to give
everything away.... He wants me at my time of life to become a cook,
washerwoman." See Act I, scenes xix and xx; Act II, scene ii.
{47}. L. D. Urusov, died 6, October, 1885, a devoted friend and
enthusiastic follower of Tolstoy. When he died in the Crimea, where he
had gone with Tolstoy, Urusov, according to Countess A. A. Tolstoy, left
to his son who was with him Tolstoy's letters, as the greatest treasures
which he was leaving him. See _Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. II; L. N.
Tolstoy's _Correspondence with N. N. Strakhov_; L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters
to his Wife_, pages 255-266.
{48}. Tolstoy lost his suit-case, containing MSS., books, and proofs, in
1883 on his way to Yasnaya Polyana. Among the lost MSS. were several
chapters of _In What do I Believe?_ which Tolstoy had to rewrite.
Biryukov, Biography, Vol. II, pages 457-8.
{49}. Another allusion to Chertkov, who in the middle of the 'eighties
began taking Tolstoy's MSS. to England.
{50}. Tolstoy himself translated this work from the Greek, and twice
wrote a preface to it, in 1885 and 1905. See L. N. Tolstoy's Diary,
1895-1899, edited by V. G. Ghertkov, second edition, Moscow, 1916, page
46.
{51}. As far as we know, this translation has not been published.
{52}. Her letter to the Metropolitan Antonius of 26 February, 1901,
copies of which were sent to the other Metropolitans and to the Attorney
to the Synod. The letter and the answer of the Metropolitan Antonius
were published in many newspapers.
{53}. A short article in the form of a letter to the editor, on Leonid
Andreyev on the appearance of Burenin's critical Sketches in _Novoe
Vremya_, {1903}. At the time it attracted great attention in the press
owing to the exceptional bitterness with which S. A. T. attacked
Andreyev and in general all modern novelists. She wrote: "One would like
to continue M. Burenin's splendid article, adding ever more ideas of the
same kind, raising higher and higher the standard for artistic purity
and moral power in contemporary literature. Works of Messieurs Andreyevs
ought not to be read, nor glorified, nor sold out, but the whole Russian
public ought to rise in indignation against the dirt which in thousands
of copies is being spread over Russia by a cheap journal and by repeated
editions of publishers who encourage them. If Maxim Gorky, undoubtedly a
clever and gifted writer from the people, introduces a good deal of
cynicism and nudeness into the scenes in which he paints the life of a
certain class, one always, nevertheless, feels in them a sincere sorrow
for all the evil and suffering which is endured by the poor, ignorant,
and drunken of fallen humanity. In the works of Maxim Gorky one can
always dwell on some character or pathetic moment in which, one feels,
the author, grieving for the fallen, has a clear knowledge of what is
evil and what good, and he loves the good. But in Andreyev's stories one
feels that he loves and takes delight in the baseness in the phenomena
of vicious human life, and with that love of vice he infects the
undeveloped, the reading public which, as M. Burenin says, is untidy
morally, and the young who cannot yet know life.... The wretched new
writers of contemporary fiction, like Andreyev, are only able to
concentrate upon the dirty spots in the human fall and proclaim to the
uneducated, the half-intelligent reading public, and invite them to
examine deep into the decayed corpse of fallen humanity and to shut its
eyes to the whole of God's spacious and beautiful world with its beauty
of nature, with the greatness of art, with the high aspirations of human
souls, with the religious and moral struggle and the great ideals of
good...." _Novoe Vremya_, 1903.
{54}. Three fragments of this have been published: "L. N. Tolstoy's
Marriage" in _Russkoye Slovo_, 1912; "On the Drama, _The Power of
Darkness_" in _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, 1912, pages 17-23; and "L. N.
Tolstoy's Visits to the Optina Monastery" in _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_,
1913, Part III, pages 3-7.
{55}. The history of these MSS. has been discussed at great length in
newspapers and magazines. The gist of the matter is as follows. By
Tolstoy's will everything written by him up to the date of his death,
"wherever it may be found and in whose possession," was to pass to his
daughter Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy. She laid claim to the MSS. deposited
in the Historical Museum. But S. A. T. opposed this, declaring that the
MSS. had been given to her as a gift by Tolstoy, were her own property,
and therefore could not be included in his will. The authorities of the
Historical Museum refused both parties access to the MSS. until the
question had been settled by a court. The history of the case is given
in _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_ for 1913. Part V, pages 3-10, and in the
journal _Dela i Dni_, 1921, pages 271-293, in which A. S. Nikolaev gave
an account of the case, re Count L. N. Tolstoy's MSS.
{56}. The letter of 8 July, 1897. On the envelope Tolstoy wrote: "Unless
I direct otherwise, this letter shall after my death be handed over to
Sophie Andreevna." The letter was entrusted to N. L. Obolenskii,
Tolstoy's son-in-law. See L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_, pages
524-526.
{57}. Tolstoy announced this in a letter to the editor of _Russkaya
Vedomostii_ which was published in the paper on 19 September, 1891. The
letter is reprinted in the supplement to L. N. Tolstoy's Diary,
1895-1899, second edition, pages 241-242.
{58}. The death of Vanichka was a terrible blow to Tolstoy who "loved
him, as the youngest child, with all the force of an elderly parent's
attachment." With him the last tie binding Tolstoy to his family was
broken. Ilya Tolstoy was inclined to think that there was "a certain
inner connection" between the child's death and Tolstoy's attempt to
leave Yasnaya Polyana in 1897. See Ilya Tolstoy, _My Reminiscences_,
pages 214-219.
{59}. Sergei Ivanovich Taneev, 1856-1915, who for three years
consecutively, 1894-6, came to stay in the summer with the Tolstoy's at
Yasnaya Polyana.
{60}. The story of Tolstoy's illness and his life at Gaspra is told in
the fine reminiscences of Dr. S. Y. Elpatevskii, the well-known writer
and doctor who treated Tolstoy, entitled "Leo N. Tolstoy, Reminiscences
and Character," _Rosskoe Bogatstov_, Number XI, 1912, pages 199-232;
also S. Elpatevskii, _Literary Reminiscences_, Moscow, 1916, pages
26-49.
{61}. There was a stern struggle between Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy and
Chertkov over Tolstoy's diaries almost from the first moment of his
acquaintance with Tolstoy. Originally the diaries were in Chertkov's
hands. But in October, 1895, S. A. T. insisted upon their return to
Tolstoy. On 5 November, 1895, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: "I have gone
through a great deal of unpleasantness with regard to fulfilling my
promise to Sophie Andreevna; I have read through my diaries for seven
years." After he had read them, the diaries were handed over to S. A. T.
who sent them for safe-keeping to the Rumyantsev Museum and later to the
Historical Museum. The later diaries, ending with 19 May, 1900, were
also handed over to S. A. T. The diaries of the last ten years, of which
S. A. T. is speaking here, turned out to be in Chertkov's possession. It
cost S. A. T. not only much effort, but tears and even her health, in
order to get them back. Personally and in writing, and also through V.
F. Bulgakov, she entreated and implored Chertkov to return them, but
everything proved of no avail. An atmosphere, painful for the whole
family, was thus created, and Tolstoy was literally stifled, finding
himself between the stubbornness of a morbid woman and the fear of
offending a no less stubborn man, Chertkov. It ended by Tolstoy, in the
middle of July, 1910, taking the diaries from Chertkov and placing them
for safe-keeping in the Tula bank, in order not to hurt either party.
After Tolstoy's death, according to his will, the diaries passed to
Alexandra L. Tolstoy. See L. N. Tolstoy's Diary, Vol. I, 1895-1899,
pages 11, 12, and 6; L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to His Wife_, page 493; V.
F. Bulgakov, _Leo Tolstoy During the Last Years of his Life_, Moscow,
1918, pages 255, 261-263, and 265.
{62}. This will in the form of a letter was an extract from Tolstoy's
diary of 27, March, 1895.... His request that his works should become
public property was later made in his diary for 1907, also on 4 and 8
March, 1909.
{63}. Three copies of this extract from the diary were kept by Marie
Nikolaevna Obolenskii, V. G. Chertkov, and Serge Tolstoy. Evidently S,
A. T. did not know this. See _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, page 9.
{64}. According to A. B. Goldenweiser, Tolstoy, perhaps having reason to
think that his will with regard to his works would not be carried out,
decided to make a will which would be binding legally as well as
morally. On 17 September, 1909, the will was drawn at Krekshino, and on
the 18 it was signed by Tolstoy. By this will all his works, written
after 1 January, 1881, both published and unpublished, became public
property. Consequently the will meant that all works written and
published before that date remained the property of the family. On 18
September on their return from Moscow, Alexandra L. Tolstoy went to see
the lawyer N. K. Muravev and showed him the will. Muravev said that from
a legal point of view the will was quite invalid, since according to law
you could not leave property to "nobody," and he promised to draw up and
send to Yasnaya Polyana the rough draft of a will. Two or three
consultations took place at Muravev's house, at which there were present
V. G. Chertkov, A. B. Goldenweiser, and F. A. Strakhov. Several drafts
of the will were made which it was decided to take to Tolstoy in order
that "he might read them and choose one of them, or reject them all, if
he found that they did not meet his wishes." On 26 October Strakhov left
for Yasnaya Polyana with the drafts. When he returned, he said that
"Tolstoy expressed the firm resolution to leave as public property, not
only the works written after 1881, as was originally proposed, but
generally everything written by him," a resolution completely new, and
unexpected by those who had taken part in the consultations. In
accordance with Tolstoy's new decision, Muravev drew up another will by
which everything written by Tolstoy, "wherever found and in whosesoever
possession," was transferred to the full ownership of Alexandra L.
Tolstoy. This will was taken to Yasnaya Polyana, copied in Tolstoy's own
hand, and signed by him on 1 November, 1909. This is Goldenweiser's
account of the two wills in his diary. We see from this story that
Tolstoy himself decided to make a formal will, and he himself, to his
friends' surprise, radically changed the first will regarding his works
written and published before 1881. But the reader is confronted with a
series of puzzling questions: How did Tolstoy make up his mind to have
recourse to the protection of the law, which he denied with his whole
soul? What caused him to alter so quickly and resolutely his intention
with regard to the disposal of works written by him before 1881? Why
were "two or three" consultations with an experienced lawyer necessary,
if the friends had the simple task of drawing up in correct and legal
form Tolstoy's clearly expressed intention with regard to his works?
Goldenweiser provides no answer to these questions.
Let us turn to Chertkov, the principal actor in these consultations. In
the _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_ for 1913, Part I, pages 21-30, he published
photographs of the will of 1 November, 1909, and of the two subsequent
wills, with a short prefatory note in which he says: "The photographs
published here of the three successive wills, written by Tolstoy's own
hand in the space of ten months, are sufficient proof of the repeated
and serious attention which he gave to the fate of his writings, MSS.,
and papers after his death." But there is no answer here to the puzzling
questions.... Approximately three years later Chertkov, indeed, gave us
the full history of Tolstoy's wills in the Supplement to L. N. Tolstoy's
Diary, pages 241-252. There he quoted Tolstoy's letter with regard to
the transfer to public property of his works written before 1881; the
will in the form of a letter from Tolstoy's diary of 27 March 1895; the
will written in Krekshino; the final will and "explanatory memorandum."
Above all Chertkov at great length tried to prove from Tolstoy's
letters and from extracts from his diaries that Tolstoy always had
complete confidence in him as a true friend, and for that reason, in
preference to all the members of his family, made him sole executor for
his writings, by giving him the right to "omit" or "leave in" what he
thought necessary. But Chertkov does not say a single word either of the
Moscow consultations of the friends or of the will of 1 November, 1909,
and thus not only gives no answer to our questions, but excludes the
possibility of our putting them, by skilfully passing direct from the
Krekshino will to the last two wills made in the summer of 1910. Let us
now hear what the third participant in the consultations has to say,
namely Strakhov, who, in his own words, felt a "little doubt begin to
stir within him," when the friends on 1 November, 1909, "carefully
performed the transactions which are bound to have certain historical
consequences." His article on how the will of 1 November, 1909, was
drawn up fills in the gap which Chertkov passed over in silence.
Strakhov says nothing about the Krekshino will, in the making of which
he took no part.... After the failure of the will at Krekshino, the new
draft of a will was worked out at the Moscow consultations, and Strakhov
left with the draft for Yasnaya Polyana on 26 October, when, as the
friends supposed, Sophie Andreevna would be in Moscow. Their calculation
was mistaken: S. A. T. was returning to Yasnaya Polyana in the same
train as Strakhov. But her presence did not prevent Strakhov from
executing his mission brilliantly. When alone with Tolstoy, he explained
that it was necessary to draw up a formal will transferring the rights
in his literary property to a definite person or persons, and "he put
before him the draft document and asked him to read it and sign it, if
he approved of its contents." Tolstoy read the paper and "at once wrote
at the bottom that he agreed with its contents; and then, after thinking
for a little, he said: "The whole affair is very painful to me. And it
is all unnecessary--in order to secure that my ideas are spread by such
measures. Now Christ--although it is strange that I should compare
myself with him--did not trouble that some one might appropriate his
ideas as his personal property, nor did he record his ideas in writing,
but expressed them courageously and went on the cross for them. His
ideas have not been lost. Indeed no word can be completely lost, if it
express the truth and if the person uttering it profoundly believe in
its truth. But all these external measures for security come only from
our non-belief in what we are uttering." Saying this Tolstoy left the
room. Strakhov was undecided what to do, whether to oppose Tolstoy or to
leave Yasnaya Polyana without having achieved anything. He made up his
mind to oppose Tolstoy and attacked him in his most vulnerable spot. He
said to him: "You mentioned Christ. He, indeed, took no thought about
the dissemination of his words. But why? Because he did not write and,
owing to the conditions of the time, received no payment for his ideas.
But you write and have received payment for your writings, and now your
family receives it.... If you will not do something to secure the public
use of your writings, you will be indirectly furthering the
establishment of the rights of private property in them by your
family.... I shall not conceal from you that it has been painful for us
who are your friends to hear you reproached because, in spite of your
denial of private property in land, you transferred your estate to the
ownership of your wife. It will also be painful to hear people saying
that Tolstoy, in spite of his knowledge that his declaration in 1891 had
no legal validity, took no steps to ensure his wish being carried out
and thus consciously assisted the transference of his literary property
to his family. I cannot say how painful it will be for your friends to
hear that, Leo Nikolaevich, after your death, and the complete triumph
of your survivors' monopoly over your writings during the long fifty
years of copyright, and all this with the definite knowledge of your
views on the subject."
Tolstoy acknowledged Strakhov's considerations to be a "weighty
argument" and, promising to think it over, left the room. He had to wait
a long time for the answer. Tolstoy went for a ride, had a sleep,
dined, and only after his dinner called Strakhov and Alexandra Lvovna
into his study and said to them: "I shall surprise you by my ultimate
decision.... I want, Sasha, to leave to you alone everything, do you
see? Everything, not excepting what I reserved in the declaration in the
newspapers.... The details you may think over with Vladimir
Grigorevich."
Strakhov informed Chertkov by telegram of the "successful" result of his
conversations with Tolstoy. On 1 November, 1909, he returned to Yasnaya
Polyana with Goldenweiser, this time to witness the signature of the new
will by which "everything" passed to Alexandra Lvovna. This time
Strakhov entered Yasnaya Polyana with a "certain pricking of
conscience," because he had hid his purpose from Sophie Andreevna. The
signing of the will took place in the setting of a conspiracy. Strakhov
says that, when Tolstoy took the pen, "he locked the two doors of his
study one after the other." And it was so strange and unnatural to see
Tolstoy in the part of a man taking steps against unwanted visitors....
{65}. Indeed, some time before Tolstoy's going away, S. A. T.'s mind was
unhinged. This became very clear in the middle of 1910. By the common
consent of the family, Dr. N. V. Nikitin and the well-known alienist
Rossolino were summoned from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana and they found
her to be suffering from hysteria and paranoia in the early stage (see
_Dela i Dni_, 1921, Number I, page 288). As regards paranoia, the data
existing seem to show that the doctors were mistaken, since paranoia
belongs to the class of incurable diseases and comparatively soon passes
from the first to the second stage, characterized by frenzy and acute
madness, from which, so far as is known, S. A. T. did not suffer. On the
contrary her mental and bodily health improved considerably after
Tolstoy's death. But no doubt the doctors' diagnosis of hysteria was
correct. There is evidence that she had a predisposition to that disease
from her birth. Her parents also suffered from lack of mental balance,
as may be seen from Tolstoy's letters to his wife. We read in them: "L.
A. and A. E. (her mother and father) love each other, and yet both seem
to make it the purpose of their lives to irritate each other over
trifles, they spoil their own lives and those of all who surround them,
and especially their daughters'. This atmosphere of irritation is very
painful, even to outsiders." "A. E.... is difficult because of his
unceasing and overpowering care of his health, which would indeed be
much better, if he thought less about it and himself." "Lyubov
Alexandrovna is wonderfully like you.... Even the faults are the same in
you and in her. I listen sometimes to her beginning to talk confidently
about something which she does not know, and to make positive
assertions and exaggerate--and I recognize you." Signs of this disease,
though in a mild form, were observed in S. A. T. from the first years of
her married life. But the strength of her constitution and the healthy
elements of her mind for a long time had the upper hand, and the
symptoms were not obviously visible. But then the bearing and nursing of
children, the complicated business of the estate, the strain on the mind
for many years resulting from the differences with her husband and her
struggle with Chertkov--all this sapped her mental and physical powers
and made it possible for the morbid characteristics to assume an acute
form. Even in 1910, before Tolstoy's going away, she was definitely a
sick person.
{66}. The will of 1 November, 1909, was drawn in correct legal form, but
Tolstoy made the following addition to it: "In case, however, of my
daughter, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy dying before me, all the
above-mentioned property I bequeath absolutely to my daughter Tatyana
Lvovna Sukhotin." Consequently a new will was drawn up on 17 July, 1910,
but a formal mistake was made in it though Goldenweiser's fault, who
left out the words: "being of sound mind and memory." Owing to this it
became necessary to draw up a will, the fourth in number, which was
copied and signed by Tolstoy on 22 July, 1910, and not, as S. A. T.
says, on 23 July.
Such is the bare history of the two last wills, as related by Chertkov.
But he does not tell us how and under what circumstances these wills
were signed. This task Sergeenko junior, Chertkov's secretary, has taken
upon himself: he tells us how the fourth will was made. According to
him, on 22 July, Tolstoy fetched the witnesses who were with Chertkov at
Telyatenki and went on horse-back with them to the old forest of Zaseka,
and there in the depths of the forest, sitting on the stump of a great
tree, he copied his will, first from a draft and then at Goldenweiser's
dictation. From the expression on Tolstoy's face Sergeenko saw clearly
that "although the whole business was painful to him, he did it with a
firm conviction of its moral necessity. No hesitation was visible."
{67}. P. I. Biryukov, an old friend of Tolstoy, author of the _Biography
of L. N. Tolstoy_, two volumes, Moscow, 1906-8. On 1 August, 1910,
according to V. F. Bulgakov, Biryukov, during a visit to Yasnaya
Polyana, pointed out to Tolstoy "the undesirable atmosphere of
conspiracy which the business of the will was assuming. To call the
whole family together and explain his will to them would, perhaps,
correspond better with Tolstoy's general spirit and convictions." After
his conversation with Biryukov Tolstoy was extremely disturbed. When V.
F. Bulgakov, who was going to Chertkov's estate, asked him whether there
was anything which he wanted him to say to Chertkov, Tolstoy replied:
"No. I want to write to him, but I will do it to-morrow. Tell him, I am
in such a state that I want nothing and...." Tolstoy stopped for a
little. "And am waiting. I am waiting for what is going to happen and am
prepared for anything." Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy and the Chertkovs were
very annoyed at Biryukov's behaviour, thinking that his interference was
ill-timed and only disconcerted Tolstoy. See V. F. Bulgakov, _Leo
Tolstoy During the Last Years of his Life_, pages 277-8.
{68}. The typewritten MS. has "whose powers were growing feeble." The
words "and memory" were inserted in S. A. T.'s handwriting. This is
clearly no exaggeration. Ilya Tolstoy also says that Tolstoy during his
last year of life had several fainting fits and that after them he used
for a short time to lose his memory to such an extent that he did not
recognize his near relations, and once even asked about his brother who
had been dead fifty years: "And how is Mitenka?" Bulgakov, who lived at
Yasnaya Polyana in 1910, gives not a few similar instances. Tolstoy
confirms it himself. In June 1910, when asked whether he had seen the
Tula asylum, he replied: "I don't remember. I have forgotten. A
phenomenon, like the weakening of memory, must interest you mental
specialists. My memory has become very bad." See Ilya Tolstoy, _My
Reminiscences_, pages 246-7 and 272; Bulgakov, _Leo Tolstoy_, pages
34-5, 267, 289, and 323.
{69}. Was it not the desire to discover this secret which made S. A. T.
steal into Tolstoy's study at nights and search there, as is stated by
Tolstoy in his diary? See _Dela i Dni_, 1921, Number I, pages 290-1.
{70}. This letter is quoted in _My Reminiscences_, by Ilya Tolstoy,
pages 261-3.
{71}. This of course refers to Chertkov's letter on the occasion of
Tolstoy's going away, published in _Russkaya Vedomostii_, 1910, Number
252. An extract is quoted in Chertkov's pamphlet, _On the Last Days of
L. N. Tolstoy_, Moscow, 1911, page {15}.
{72}. This was also the opinion of all the members of the family who
were at Astapovo. See Ilya Tolstoy's, _My Reminiscences_, pages 253-5.
{73}. The sale of Yasnaya Polyana has its history. S. A. T. and her sons
originally approached the Government and asked whether it would acquire
Yasnaya Polyana for the State. The Council of Ministers discussed the
question at the two sittings of 26 May and 14 October, 1911. At the
first sitting it was decided to acquire Yasnaya Polyana at the price of
500,000 roubles suggested by the heirs; but at the second sitting the
Council adopted the view of the Attorney to the Synod, V. K. Sabler, and
the Minister of Education, L. A. Kasso, who held it inadmissible that
the Government should honour its enemies and enrich their children at
the State's expense; and the question of purchasing Yasnaya Polyana
went no further. Later a Bill for its purchase was introduced in the
Duma, but nothing came of it.... On 26 February, 1913, Alexandra Lvovna
Tolstoy bought Yasnaya Polyana for 400,000 roubles, which she had
received from Sitin, the publisher, for the right of publishing a
complete edition of Tolstoy's works. On 26 March, 1913, Tolstoy's
long-cherished desire was fulfilled and the land of Yasnaya Polyana was
transferred to the peasants. See _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, 1911, Number
II, page 31, Numbers III, IV, and V, pages 190-4 and 198; 1913, Part V,
pages 10-12.
{74}. On 15 November, 1912, the Moscow municipality acquired Tolstoy's
house in Moscow with all its furniture for 125,000 roubles and decided
to use it for a Tolstoy Museum and Library, and to build in the
court-yard a new building for a Tolstoy School of sixteen classes. See
_Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, 1911, Number II, pages 31-2, and Numbers III,
IV, and V, pages 194-6.
{75}. The newspapers announced that S. A. T. died in October, 1919. We
have not succeeded in verifying the date and, therefore, cannot vouch
for its accuracy.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX I
SEMEN AFANASEVICH VENGEROV
S. A. Vengerov was born 5 April, 1855 and died 14 September, 1920. On
leaving his public school in 1872, he entered the Academy of Medicine
and Surgery in Petersburg and took the general course in natural
science. He then changed to the Faculty of Law in the Petersburg
University and graduated in 1879. A year later he graduated in the
Historical and Philological Faculty in the Derpl University, after which
he remained at the Petersburg University in order to prepare for the
professorship of Russian Literature. In 1897 he began a course of
lectures on the history of Russian literature at the Petersburg
University, but was soon dismissed by the Minister of Education because
of his liberal views. It was only in 1906 that Vengerov was again
allowed to lecture in the University, and in 1910 he was made professor
of the University for Women and of the Institute of Psychoneurology. At
last in 1919 he was appointed Professor of Russian Literature in the
Petrograd University. In addition to his lectures, after 1908 he
conducted in the University a special Pushkin school, and the work of
this school was published in three volumes, _The Pushkinist_, 1914,
1916, and 1918. After the revolution, when The Library was established,
Vengerov was appointed Director and managed the institution, under very
unfavourable conditions, until his death.
"I can only remember three days in my whole life when I felt at
leisure," Vengerov used to say. The intense industriousness of his life
may be seen from the following incomplete list of his works: "Russian
Literature in her Contemporary Representatives: I. S. Turgenev, 1875; I.
I. Lazhechnikov, 1883; A. F. Pisemskii, 1884.
"Critico-Biographical Dictionary of Russian Authors and Men of Letters,"
Six volumes, 1889-1904. These six volumes only complete the first letter
of the alphabet, most of the articles being written by Vengerov.
Russian Poetry. Seven volumes, 1893-1901.
Thirty volumes of Russian authors edited with notes about the writers.
"The Sources of the Dictionary of Russian Authors," four volumes,
1900-1917.
"Library of Great Writers," edited by Vengerov and containing the
complete works of Shakespeare, Byron, Molière, and Pushkin.
"Outlines of the History of Russian Literature," 1907.
"Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century," 1890-1910.
"The Heroic Character of Russian Literature." It will be seen from the
above list that Vengerov devoted the whole of his life to Russian
literature. As a writer and man of letters, he achieved considerable
popularity.
APPENDIX II
NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH STRAKHOV.
N. N. Strakhov was born 16 October, 1828, and died 24 January, 1896. He
studied at the ecclesiastical seminary of Kostroma and completed his
course in 1845. He then passed to the Faculty of Mathematics in the
Petersburg University and took his degree in 1848. He then entered the
Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics in the Teachers' Training
Institute and completed his course in 1851, after which he became a
teacher of physics and mathematics. In 1857 he received the degree of
Master of Zoology. In 1861 he gave up teaching and became the principal
collaborator with the brothers Dostoevskii on the monthly magazine,
_Vremya_. His chief writings were polemical. Under the nom-de-plume of
"N. Kossize," he wrote a series or articles which had a great success
and were chiefly directed against the "westerners," radicals, and
socialists, e. g. Chernishersikii, Pisarev. _Vremya_, which had a large
circulation, was suppressed by the authorities because of an article by
Strakhov, called "The Fatal Problem," which dealt with Russian-Polish
relations in a spirit of opposition to the Government. Being without
work, Strakhov began translating books into Russian, chiefly on
Philosophical, scientific, and literary subjects.
Tolstoy's friendship with Strakhov began in 1871. When someone asked him
about the friendship, Strakhov sent him the following autobiographical
note: "The origin of my acquaintance with L. N. Tolstoy in 1871 was as
follows. After my articles on _War and Peace_, I decided to write him a
letter asking him to let the _Sarya_ have some of his work. He replied
that he had nothing at present, but added a pressing invitation to come
and see him at Yasnaya Polyana whenever an opportunity should present
itself. In 1871 I received four hundred roubles from the _Sarya_, and in
June I went to stay with my people in Poltava. On my way back to
Petersburg I stopped at Tula for the night, and in the morning took a
cab and drove out to Yasnaya Polyana. After that we used to see each
other every year, that is, I used to stay a month or six weeks with him
every summer. At times we quarrelled and grew cool to each other, but
good feeling always won the day; his family got to like me, and now they
see in me an old, faithful friend, which indeed I am."
With Strakhov Tolstoy was on very friendly terms, which allowed complete
frankness between them. Tolstoy himself wrote of his correspondence
with Strakhov (in a letter of 6 February, 1906, to P. A. Sergeenko): "In
addition to Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoy, I had two persons to whom I
have written many letters which, as far as I can remember, might
interest people interested in my personality. They are Strakhov and
Prince Serge S. Urusov." (_Letters_, Vol. II, page 227.)
The friendship of Tolstoy and Strakhov lasted for twenty-five years, and
on Strakhov's part there was thirty years adoration of Tolstoy's genius
and of his great spiritual and intellectual qualities. V. V. Rosanov
wrote the following after Strakhov's death: "Strakhov's attachment to
Tolstoy was most deep and mystical: he loved him as the incarnation of
the best and most profound aspirations of the human soul, as a special
nerve in the huge body of mankind in which we others form parts less
understanding and significant; he loved him for what was indefinite and
incomplete in him. He loved in him the dark abyss, the bottom of which
no one could see, from the depths of which still rise numbers of
treasures; and there is no doubt that Tolstoy never lost a better
friend."
Strakhov's works included: _From the History of Russian Nihilism_, 1890;
_Essays on Pushkin and Other Poets_, 1888; _Biography of Dostoevskii;
The Struggle of the West with our Literature_, three volumes, 1882-1886;
and some scientific works.
APPENDIX III
TOLSTOY'S FIRST WILL
Tolstoy's first will was contained in the form of a letter in his diary
of 27 March, 1895 and repeated in his diary of 1907, see Notes 62 and 63
above. The following is the text of the entry in the diary:--
My will is approximately as follows.
(Until I have written another this holds good.)
(1). To bury me where I die, in the cheapest cemetery, if I die in
a town, and in the cheapest coffin, as paupers are buried. Flowers
and wreaths are not to be sent, speeches are not to be made. If
possible, bury me without priests or burial service. But if those
who bury me dislike this, let them bury me in the ordinary way with
a funeral service, but as cheaply and simply as possible.
(2.) My death is not to be announced in the newspapers, nor are
obituary notices to be written.
(3.) All my papers are to be given to my wife, V. G. Chertkov,
Strakhov, and to my daughters Tanya and Masha,[P] for them, or for
such of them as survive, to sort and examine. (I have myself struck
out my daughter's names. They ought not to be bothered with this.)
I exclude my sons from this bequest not because I did not love them
(I have come of late to love them better and better, thank God) and
I know that they love me; but they do not altogether understand my
ideas; they did not follow their development; and they may have
views of their own which may lead them to keep what ought not to be
kept and to reject what ought to be kept. I have taken out of the
diaries of my bachelor life what is worth keeping. I wish them to
be destroyed. Also in the diaries of my married life I wish to be
destroyed everything which might hurt anyone if published. Chertkov
has promised me to do this even during my lifetime, and knowing the
great and undeserved love that he has for me and his moral
sensibility I am sure that he will do it splendidly. I wish the
diaries of my bachelor life to be destroyed not because I wish to
conceal the wickedness of my life--my life was the usual unclean
life of an unprincipled young man--but because the diaries in
which I recorded only the torments which arise from the
consciousness of sin produce a false and one-sided impression and
represent.... Well, let my diaries remain as they are. In them at
least is seen how in spite of all the frivolity and immorality of
my youth I yet was not deserted by God and though it was only in
old age, I began, though only a little, to understand and love Him.
I write this not that I attribute great or even any importance to
my papers, but because I know beforehand that after my death my
books will be published, and will be talked about, and will be
thought to be important. If that is so, it is better that my
writings should not harm people.
As for the remainder of my papers I ask those who will have the
arrangement of them not to publish everything, but only that which
may be of use to people.
(4). With regard to the publishing rights of my former works--the
ten volumes and the _A. B. C._--I ask my heirs to give these to the
public, _i. e._ to renounce the copyrights. But I only ask this, in
no sense order it. It would be a good thing to do it. It would be
good for you also. But if you do not wish to do it, that is your
business. It means that you are not ready to do it. That my books
for the last ten years have been sold was to me the most painful
thing in my life.
(5). There is one more request, and it is the most important. I
ask all, relations and strangers alike, not to praise me (I know
that this must happen, because it has happened during my life time
and in the worst way possible). Also if people are going to occupy
themselves with my writings, let them dwell upon those passages in
which I knew that the Divine power spoke through me; and let them
make use of them in their lives. There were times when I felt that
I had become the agent of the Divine will. Often I was so impure,
so filled with personal passions, that the light of this truth was
obscured by my darkness; but at times the truth passed through me,
and these were the happiest moments of my life. God grant that
their passage through me did not profane those truths, and that
people, notwithstanding the petty and impure character which they
received from me, may feed on them. The value of my writings lies
in this alone. And therefore I am to be blamed for them, but not
praised.
That is all.
L. N. T.
APPENDIX IV
TOLSTOY'S WILL OF 22 JULY, 1910
The following is the text of Tolstoy's will, written by him on 22 July,
1910, and proved for execution by the Tula High Court on 16 November,
1910:--
22 July, 1910, I, the undersigned, being of sound mind and memory,
make the following disposition in the event of my death: all my
literary works, both those already written and those which may be
written between now and my death, both those which have already
been published and those which are unpublished, my works of fiction
as well as any other works finished or unfinished, dramatic works
or those in any other form, translations, revisions, diaries,
private letters, rough drafts, jottings, and notes,--in a word
everything without any exception, written by me up to the day of my
death, wherever such may be found or in whosever possession,
whether in manuscript or in print, and also the rights of literary
property in all my works, as well as the MSS. themselves and all my
papers left after my death--I bequeth in full ownership to my
daughter, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy. In the event of my daughter,
Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy, dying before me, I bequeath the
above-mentioned absolutely to my daughter, Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin.
(Signed) LEO NIKOLAEVICH TOLSTOY.
I hereby bear witness that the above will was actually made,
written by his own hand, and signed by Count Leo Nikolaevich
Tolstoy, who is of sound mind and memory, ALEXANDER BORESOVICH
GOLDENWEISER, artist.
Witness to the same: ALEXEI PETROVICH SERGEENKO, citizen.
Witness to the same: ANATOLII DIONSEVICH RADINSKII, son of a
lieutenant-colonel.
APPENDIX V
TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY
The following letter from Tolstoy to his daughter Alexandra and extracts
from his diary give his own account of his going away, and will enable
the reader to see something of his side of the question:
TOLSTOY'S LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER ALEXANDRA LVOVONA
29 October, 1910, OPTINA MONASTERY.
" ...will tell you all about me, my dear friend Sasha. It is hard. I
can't help feeling it a great load on me. The chief thing is--not to do
wrong. That is the difficulty. Certainly, I have sinned and shall sin,
but I should wish to sin less.
This is the chief thing above all others, that I wish for you, the more
so that I know that the task is terrible and beyond your powers at your
age. I have not decided anything, and I do not want to decide. I am
trying to do only what I can't help doing; and not to do what I need not
do. From my letter to Chertkov you will see, not how I look at this
question, but how I feel about it. I hope very much that good will come
from the influence of Tanya and Serge.[Q]
The chief thing is that they should realize and try to suggest to her
(Countess S. A. T.) that this perpetual spying, eavesdropping, incessant
complaining, ordering me about, as her fancy takes her, constant
managing, pretended hatred of the man who is nearest and most necessary
to me, with her open hatred of me and pretence of love,--that a life
like this is not only unpleasant, but impossible; and if one of us is to
drown himself, let it not be her on any account, but myself; that there
is but one thing I want--freedom from her, from that falsehood,
pretence, and spite with which her whole being is permeated.
Of course they cannot suggest this to her, but they can suggest to her
that all her acts towards me not only do not express love but are
inspired by the obvious wish to kill me, which she will achieve since I
hope that the third fit which attacks me will save her as well as myself
from the terrible state in which we have lived, to which I do not wish
to return.
You see, my dear, how wicked I am. I do not conceal myself from you. I
do not send for you yet, but I will as soon as I can, very shortly.
Write and tell me how you are. I kiss you.
L. TOLSTOY.
The following extracts from Tolstoy's diary which describe his actual
flight and the circumstances that led up to it also throw light upon
Countess Tolstoy's attitude to her husband, and completely refute the
false accounts which she persisted in publishing everywhere from the day
of Tolstoy's death until the present time.
FROM TOLSTOY'S DIARY
25 Oct. 1910.... Sophie Andreevna is as anxious as ever.
27 Oct. 1910. I got up very early. All night I had bad dreams. The
difficulty of our relation is constantly increasing.
28 Oct. 1910. I went to bed at half past eleven. Slept till two. I woke,
and again as on other nights heard steps and the opening of doors. On
previous nights I did not look out of my door; now I looked and saw
through a chink a bright light in my study and heard rustling. It is
Sophie A. searching for something and probably reading my papers.
Yesterday she asked, indeed demanded, that I should not shut the door.
Both her doors are open, so that my least movement is audible to her.
Both during the day and during the night all my movements and words must
be known to her and be under her control.
Again steps, a cautious opening of the door, and she passes by.
I do not know why this has roused in me such overpowering repulsion and
indignation. I wanted to fall asleep, but could not, tossed about for an
hour, lit the candle, and sat down.
The door opens and in comes S. A. asking about "my health," and
surprised at seeing a light in my room.
The repulsion and indignation are growing. I am choking. I count my
pulse: 97. I cannot lie down; and I suddenly come to a final decision to
go.
I write a letter to her, and begin to pack only what things are needed
for the journey. I wake Dushan[R] then Sasha[S] they help me with the
packing. It is night, pitch dark, I lose my way to the ledge; get into
the wood; I am pricked by the branches; knocked against the trees; fall;
lose my hat; cannot find it; get out with difficulty; walk home; take my
cap; and with a lantern go to the stable, give an order to harness the
horses. Sasha, Dushan, Varya[T] come there. I tremble, expecting that S.
A. T. will pursue me.
But we leave. In Schekino we wait an hour for the train, and every
minute I expect her to appear. But now we are in the train; we start.
The fear passes. And pity for her rises in me, but no doubt at all but
that I have done what I ought to do. Perhaps I am wrong to justify
myself, but I believe that I am saving myself--not Leo N. T., but that
which at times exists, though ever so feebly, in me....
29. Oct. 1910. Shamardino.... On the journey I have been thinking all
the time about a way of escape from her and from my situation, but could
think of none. But surely there will be some way, whether one likes it
or not; it will come, but not in any way that one can foresee. What has
to happen will happen. It is not my business. I got at Mashenka's 'the
_Krug Chtenia_' and reading the quotation for the 28th, I was at once
struck by the reply which seemed to be given purposely to refer to my
situation. I need a trial; it is good for me....
FOOTNOTES:
[A] In the letters here quoted in full, as well as in S. A. T.'s
autobiography, the spelling and punctuation of the original have been
preserved, except in the case of obvious mistakes.
[B] There is a contradiction here. In the autobiography printed below,
S. A. T. says that the seal with the coat-of-arms of the Bers family was
burnt in the Moscow fire of 1812, and that the Bers were not again
granted the right to that seal in spite of their applications, but were
only allowed to have on their coat-of-arms a hive of bees.
[C] It is unknown whether S. A. T. fulfilled her promise, since the
documents of S. A. Vengerov, among which the information should be, if
sent, are at present being removed from the late Vengerov's house to the
Institute of Learning, and the examination and cataloguing have not yet
begun.
[D] These and all other italics in the letters and autobiography are in
the original.
[E] The manuscript of the work, as was said above, is among Vengerov's
documents. It is catalogued in the first "collection" of autobiographies
under N 2740, and in a special catalogue its card has a short abstract
of the most important biographical data. (Professor S. A. Vengerov,
_Critical Biographical Dictionary of Russian Authors and Men of
Letters_, second edition, Vol. I; _Preliminary List of Russian Authors
and Men of Letters and Preliminary Information about Them_, Petrograd,
1915, pages xix and xxv.) The manuscript is in a cover of ordinary
writing-paper on which is written in S. A. T.'s handwriting: _A Short
Autobiography of Countess Sophie Tolstoy_. The manuscript itself is
typewritten and occupies twelve half-sheets of ordinary writing-paper
written on both sides, or twenty-four pages, of which the last page
contains only four lines. At the end of the manuscript is the date: "28
October, 1913"; place: "Yasnaya Polyana," and signature: "Countess
Sophie Tolstoy." All this is in typewriting.
[F] This is a mistake of S. A. T. She did not strike out anything in the
former manuscript. She only made a few alterations, adding considerably,
however, to the first half of Chapter 3, making that half a separate
chapter. She re-wrote Chapter 4. In her new manuscript, after the
beginning of Chapter 5, about the children, there is a note in pencil.
"Go on without change as in the former manuscript." In the first
manuscript the story about the children formed the second and greater
part of Chapter 3. Thus in the new manuscript, Chapter 3 was greatly
enlarged and became three separate chapters. Therefore S. A. T. would
have been more correct if she had said that she would strike out of the
first manuscript the first half of Chapter 3 and substitute the two new
chapters for it, making a separate chapter of the second half. The Roman
figures IV and V, marking the chapters, are in pencil in the new
manuscript and are followed by question-marks. As her letter shows, S.
A. T. roughly indicated the division into three new chapters, but left
the final decision to Vengerov.
[G] The manuscript of the additional material is not included in either
the first or the second "collection" of autobiographies, nor is it
catalogued; it is kept separately among the documents of S. A. Vengerov.
We must suppose that Vengerov intended to include it in the first
manuscript, but was prevented from doing so. It is, like the first,
typewritten on five half-sheets of ordinary writing-paper. At the
beginning and end of the manuscript are pencil notes by S. A. T.--at the
beginning: "Substitute for former Chapter 3," and at the end: "Go on as
in former manuscript." The manuscript has no date or signature. Both
manuscripts have been corrected by S. A. T. herself and in her own
handwriting.
[H] Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii and her friend, Natalya Petrovna, who
was homeless and lived with her. Leo N. writes about them in his
_Reminiscences of Childhood_. They are also mentioned in Ilya Tolstoy's
_My Reminiscences_. (Moscow, 1914.) Of Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii,
who died on 20 June 1874, Leo N. T. wrote to Countess A. A. Tolstoy:
"She died practically of old age, i.e. she slowly faded away, and as far
back as three years ago she had ceased to exist for us." See note 19
below.
[J] The old oak forest near the house. S. A. T.
[K] Kiev is famous for its churches and monasteries.]
[M] Chertkov.
[N] The story of the making of the will is related by F. A. Strakhov,
Petersburgkaya Gazetta, November, 1911. S. A. T.
[P] This extract from L. N. T.'s diary under date of March 27, 1895, is
from his first will. The wishes expressed in this diary are again
expressed by him in his diary for 1907. It was only in September 1909 in
Krekshino that he drew up for the first time a legal will, attested by
witnesses. Three copies of the diary of March 27, 1895 were kept; one by
Marie Lvovna Obolensky; one by V. G. Chertkov; and one by Serge L.
Tolstoy.
[Q] Tatyana L. Sukhotin and Count Serge L. Tolstoy are L. N. T.'s eldest
children.
[R] Doctor D. P. Makovitsii, one of the most intimate friends of the
Tolstoy family, a doctor who lived with the Tolstoy's and who remained
with L. N. T. until his death.
[S] L. N. T.'s daughter, Alexandra.
[T] Varvara Feskritov, S. A. T.'s late secretary.
