by Cathy Porter
Lyovochka adores Vanechka and plays with him. This evening he put first him then Sasha into an empty basket, shut the lid and carted it around the house with Andryusha and Misha. He plays with all the children, but he never looks after them.
7th February. Lyovochka is being stiff, sullen and unpleasant again. I was silently angry with him last night. He kept me up until two in the morning and spent such a long time washing downstairs that I thought he must be ill, for washing is quite an event for him. I try to see his spiritual side, but I can do this only when he is being good to me.
9th February. Yesterday evening my wish was granted and I drove to Kozlovka by sledge in the moonlight. There were just the two of us, Lyovochka and I. Tanya seems a little better, although she still has a temperature of 38.6. My darling little Vanechka has been ill too with a temperature. I made him a sailor suit, gave the children a two-hour music lesson and read Beketov’s pamphlet On Man’s Present and Future Nourishment.* He predicts universal vegetarianism and I think he is right. Vanechka is coughing and it distresses me to hear him.
10th February. Tanya was groaning from morning to dinner time with a terrible headache, then her temperature went up to 38.5 again. Vanechka too had a temperature this morning, it was 39.3. What a strange mysterious sickness! I can’t say I’m too anxious about my patients, but I do feel sorry for them. I don’t feel very well either, and couldn’t sleep last night. Today I copied out Lyovochka’s Sevastopol diaries,* which are very interesting, then took my knitting and sat with the two invalids. I examined Andryusha on this week’s lesson, which he hadn’t learnt. Masha has opened a school for the riff-raff in “that house”,* and the children have been flocking there for lessons. Sasha has been going there for her lessons too while Tanya is ill. Misha has a new watch and is terribly pleased with it. I see almost nothing of Lyovochka. He is writing about art and science again.* He showed me an article today in Open Court which accused him of living at variance with his teachings and handing over his property to his wife. “And we all know how people in general, and Russians in particular, treat their wives,” they wrote. “A wife has no mind of her own.” Lyovochka is very upset, but it’s all the same to me—I’m used to this sniping.
12th February. All the children were ill today, with various ailments: Tanya and Masha have stomach aches, Misha has a toothache, Vanechka has a rash and Andryusha has a fever and has been vomiting. Only Sasha is happy and well. I have been copying Lyovochka’s diary. He has told me several times that he didn’t like me copying them, but I thought to myself, “Well, you’ll just have to put up with it since you’ve lived such a disgusting life.” Today he brought it up again, and said I didn’t realize how much I was hurting him, he wanted to destroy the diaries—how would I like to be constantly reminded of everything that tormented me, every bad deed? To which I replied that I wasn’t a bit sorry for him, and if he wanted to burn them, let him—I put no value on my own labours. But if one were to say which of us caused the other more pain, then it was he, for he hurt me so deeply when he published his latest story* to the entire world that it would be hard for us ever to be quits. His weapons are so much more powerful. He wants the world to see him on the pedestal he has built for himself, but his diaries cast him down into the filth of his past, and that infuriates him.*
I don’t know why people connect The Kreutzer Sonata with our married life, but this is what has happened, and now everyone, from the Tsar himself down to Lev Nikolaevich’s brother and his best friend Dyakov, feels sorry for me. And it isn’t just other people—I too know in my heart that this story is directed against me, and that it has done me a great wrong, humiliated me in the eyes of the world and destroyed the last vestiges of love between us. All this when not once in my whole married life have I ever wronged my husband, with so much as a gesture or glance at another man! Whether or not I ever had it in my heart to love another man—and whether or not this was a struggle for me—is a different matter, and that is my business. No one in the world has the right to pry into my secrets so long as I have remained pure.
I don’t know why, but today I decided to let Lev Nikolaevich know my feelings about The Kreutzer Sonata. He wrote it so long ago, but he would have had to know sooner or later what I thought about it, and it was after he had reproached me for “causing him so much suffering” that I decided to speak up about my suffering.
Masha’s birthday. What a dreadful day it was, and it’s still just as dreadful twenty years later.*
13th February. Yesterday’s discussion distressed me deeply. But it ended with a reconciliation, and we agreed to try to live the rest of our lives as amicably as we could.
Tanya is in a strange hysterical mood. This mundane life, and all my cares about the children and their illnesses, have once again paralysed my spiritual life and my soul is asleep. It is a hateful feeling.
15th February. Lyovochka has virtually forbidden me to copy out his diaries, and I am furious, for I have already copied so much that there’s almost nothing left of the book I’m working on now. I shall go on with it while he is not looking, for I must finish: I made up my mind long ago that it had to be done. We had a letter from Misha Stakhovich who again urged me to go to St Petersburg for an audience with the Tsar, to discuss with him the censors’ attitude to Lyovochka. He puts great faith in this visit. If only I liked The Kreutzer Sonata, if only I believed in the future of Lyovochka’s literary work—then I would go. But now I don’t know where I’ll find the energy and enthusiasm I would need to exert my influence on the Tsar and his rather inflexible view of the world. I used to have a great sense of power over others, but no longer.
We went to Kozlovka to collect the mail, Lyovochka on horseback and Tanya, Masha, Ivan Alexandrovich and I by sledge.
A heavenly moonlit night, the gleaming snow, the smooth road, frost, silence. On the way home I thought with horror of life in the city. How could I ever live without this natural beauty, and the vast space and freedom of the country?
16th February. I keep dreaming of the Tsar and Tsarina and think constantly about visiting St Petersburg. Vanity plays a major part in all this—I shall not give in to it and won’t go.
I have been busy all day, cutting out underwear and sewing on my machine. I am still reading La Physiologie de l’amour moderne, and am interested by this analysis of sexual love. I gave the children a music lesson. Andryusha is playing a Beethoven sonata and Misha one of Haydn’s. Masha, Andryusha and Alexei Mitrofanovich taught the peasant girls and the housemaids in the “little house” this evening. Tanya is distracted and on edge, waiting for something to happen with Stakhovich.
17th February. We had a letter from Lyova in Moscow saying he has been ill, apparently with the same thing the children had here in Yasnaya. I feel very worried, even though he writes matter-of-factly and says it’s not serious. Ilya is also in Moscow, selling clover. Lyovochka is cheerful, but in an agitated state. First he goes to Pirogovo, then to Tula; one moment he refuses meat broth, next he demands oat coffee—being healthy evidently bores him. I personally find his fussiness worrying and a nuisance. He keeps saying he cannot write. Masha gave another evening class today; she was the only teacher there, and was exhausted.
20th February. This evening Lyovochka, the two Gués and I had a painful discussion about our marriages and how much husbands suffer when their wives don’t understand them. Lyovochka said: “You conceive a new idea, give birth with all the agony of childbirth to an entirely new spiritual philosophy, and all they do is resent your suffering and refuse to understand!” I said that while they were giving birth in their imagination to all these spiritual children, we were giving birth, in real pain, to real live children, who had to be fed and educated and needed someone to protect their property and their interests; one’s life was much too full and complicated to give it all up for the sake of one’s husband’s spiritual vagaries, which one would never keep up with anyway and could only regret. We both said much more in the same reproachful vein, yet
in our hearts we both wanted the same thing—at least I always do: to stop opening up old wounds and try to live together as friends. Any person—not only one’s husband whom one loves—will be treated kindly if they are truly good, in word and deed. It may be a slow business and take time, but it cannot be otherwise if a person really means well.
23rd February. Lyovochka was making boots this evening and complaining of a chill. There is a terrible wind outside, a real gale. I spent the day looking after Sasha and playing with Vanechka. I gave Andryusha and Misha a two-hour music lesson and worked on my blanket. I am persecuted by sinful thoughts; I have the strange sensation that they have nothing to do with my life or soul—all my life I have felt they were something quite independent of me, without the power to touch or harm me.
I was pleased with Misha today, who played the piano very well. We started practising the serenade from Don Giovanni arranged for four hands, and he beamed with pleasure at the melody.
He and Andryusha are always whispering secrets, which I find dreadfully upsetting. Borel* has perhaps corrupted them—goodness knows! Purity, sublime purity, this is what I value more highly than anything in the world.
25th February. Vanechka woke me at 4 in the morning with a rasping cough. Masha and I both leapt out of bed and gave him some heated seltzer water to drink, then we boiled up some water and turpentine, poured it in a basin, covered all our heads in a sheet and made him inhale the steam. This relieved the choking, but his temperature shot up to 40° and he started coughing again. I thought it would be a long illness but it was all over in twenty-four hours, and today he was singing ‘The Lyre’ in the drawing room. Sasha is much better too and has got up.
I gave the children a scripture lesson and spent a long time explaining the notion of God to Misha. He has heard so many ideas denied, particularly concerning the Church, that he is now thoroughly confused. But I tried my best to explain the true meaning of the Church as I understand it: an assembly of the faithful, a repository of holiness, contemplation and faith, not a mere ritual. Lyovochka is happy, calm and well. Our relations are friendly and straightforward—superficially: it doesn’t go very deep. But it’s certainly much better than at the beginning of the winter. The wind is still howling. Olga Ershova’s little girl has died in the village. She was her mother’s favourite, seven years old and such a darling. I feel dreadfully sorry for her; Lyovochka and Annenkova went to see her but I couldn’t go.
2nd March. Yesterday was a lazy holiday. The children and the Raevskys went to the Rovsky Barracks* for tea. They took their things with them and played games after dinner. Vanechka was utterly adorable and tried to understand all the games and join in the fun. The dear, pale, clever little mite is particularly touching when he is with grown-ups, especially the Raevskys. Seryozha and Ilya arrived here today with Tsurikov, Seryozha’s colleague and their neighbour. Ilya invariably asks me for money, which is most unpleasant. He has such a frivolous attitude to it and lives such an extravagant life. Lyovochka is wretched; when I asked him why, he said his writing isn’t going well. And what is he writing about? About non-resistance.* So it doesn’t surprise me in the least! Everybody, including him, is sick of the subject—it has been examined and discussed from every conceivable viewpoint. He wants to work on some fictional subject but doesn’t know how. That would demand a lot of philosophizing. Once he let his true creative powers pour forth he wouldn’t be able to stop the flow, and he would then find all this non-resistance most awkward—he’s terrified to let it go, yet his soul yearns for it.
My son Lyova took great offence when Seryozha and I told him we thought he was looking unwell. I felt sorry for him, but hurt his feelings instead.
Today I finished Bourget’s Physiologie de l’amour moderne, in French. It’s clever but it bored me; it all centres on one thing and a life that is alien to me.
6th March. Seryozha went to Nikolskoe and Masha took a sick peasant woman to Tula, and Sashka the village girl went too to keep her company. Life has resumed its normal course. It was lovely to see my nine children all sit down at the table with us old folk on Saturday and Sunday. I have been at home all day doing various tasks. As I wanted some exercise after dinner I joined Lyovochka who was playing with the little ones, Sasha, Vanechka and Kuzka. Every evening after dinner he puts them one at a time into an empty basket, closes it and drags it around the house. Then he stops and makes the one in the basket guess which room he is in. Lyova is all skin and bones and my heart aches for him.
I read some Spinoza on my own. His interest in the Jewish people doesn’t particularly excite me; we shall see what happens in the part which contains his éthique.
Over tea we had a talk about food, luxury and the vegetarian diet Lyovochka is always preaching. He said he had seen one in some German magazine that recommends a dinner of bread and almonds. I am quite sure the man who wrote this keeps to it in the same way Lyovochka practises the chastity he preaches in The Kreutzer Sonata.
10th March. Lyovochka was having his breakfast today when the letters and papers were delivered from Kozlovka. “Still no news about Volume 13,” I said. “What are you fussing about?” he said. “No doubt I shall be forced to renounce the copyright on all the works in Volume 13.” “Just wait until it comes out,” I said. “Yes, of course,” he said, and left the room. I was seething at the thought that he was intending to deprive me of badly-needed money for my children, and tried to think of a spiteful reply. So as he was going out for his walk, I said to him: “Go ahead, publish your renunciation. But I shall publish a statement immediately below it saying I hope the publisher is sufficiently sensitive not to exploit the copyright that belongs to your children.” He then told me I was being insensitive, but he spoke gently and I made no answer. If I really loved him, he went on, I myself would publish a statement that he had surrendered the copyright on his new works. He then left the room and I felt so sorry for him: all these material considerations seem so paltry compared to the pain of our estrangement. After dinner I apologized to him for speaking maliciously, and said I wouldn’t publish anything; the idea of distressing him was unbearable to me. We both cried, and Vanechka who was standing there looked frightened. “What’s the matter, what’s the matter?” he kept asking. “Maman hurt Papa,” I told him, “and now we’re making up.” This satisfied him and he said, “Ah!”
A cold windy day. The drawing master came; he asked me to lend him money and I refused, for he is a very bad teacher.
I read an extraordinarily sensitive, intelligent article on The Kreutzer Sonata by M. de Vogué. He says, among other things, that Tolstoy had taken his analysis to extremes (“analyse creusante”), and that this had killed all the personal and literary life of the work.
Lyovochka is correcting and rewriting his piece ‘On Non-resistance’, and Masha is copying it for him. It is hard for him as an artist to write these weighty articles, but he cannot do his artistic work now.
12th March. We had a visit from an American from New York who edits a paper called the New York Herald. Also a “dark one” named Nikiforov. Nothing but talk, endless talk. I have been informed by the Moscow censors that Volume 13 has been irrevocably banned. I shall go to St Petersburg to appeal. I dread the thought of it. I am sure I shall achieve nothing, and feel all my faith, strength and happiness are being wasted. But maybe the good Lord will come to my rescue. Snowing, wind and frost—just the weather for a ride in the sledge.
13th March. I went to Tula. More negotiations with the priest. This evening I had a talk with the American. He needs information about Lyovochka for his newspaper, and I was able to help him, although I’ve learnt my lesson and didn’t tell him too much. I had a letter from Countess Alexandra Tolstaya, Alexandrine, who said the Tsar didn’t normally receive ladies, but that I should wait a week or ten days for him to reply.*
I am going to Moscow. I shall bring out the 12 volumes with an announcement that Volume 13 has been delayed.* I wish I did not have to move, what a worry this busines
s is! But who else can do it?
Cold, wind, some snow. We all went out in the sledge again.
20th March. I spent the 15th and 16th in Moscow with Lyova, and heard that Volume 13 had been banned in St Petersburg. (In Moscow only The Kreutzer Sonata was censored.) I shall have to go to St Petersburg and do all I can to see the Tsar and vindicate Volume 13. In my mind I keep composing speeches and letters to him, thinking endlessly about what I should say. I am only waiting now for Alexandrine’s letter telling me whether or not he’ll agree to receive me, and if so when. Lyovochka says his mind is asleep and his writing is going badly.
21st March. I have been reading Spinoza and was deeply impressed by two of his arguments, the first about authority and laws: people should respect authority not out of fear of punishment, but because it represents an ideal, something to aspire to and inspire virtue, not just for the individual but for society as a whole. The other argument is about miracles. The uneducated (“le vulgaire”) see the hand of God only in what lies beyond the laws of nature and probability, and simply don’t see God in the whole of Nature and Creation. This is why they expect miracles—i.e. something that lies beyond nature.
Lyovochka is in an extraordinarily sweet, affectionate mood at the moment—for the usual reason, alas. If only the people who read The Kreutzer Sonata so reverently had an inkling of the voluptuous life he leads, and realized it was only this that made him happy and good-natured, then they would cast this deity from the pedestal where they have placed him! Yet I love him when he is kind and normal and full of human weaknesses. One shouldn’t be an animal, but nor should one preach virtues one doesn’t have.