The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy

by Cathy Porter

  18th June. Sasha’s seventh birthday. I gave her some presents this morning, and started on the translation of the preface to an English book on vegetarianism.*

  This evening we packed some plates and crockery, the samovar, some berries and various other nice things to eat, and all went off to Chepyzh, where we made a bonfire and had a “picnic”, as the children say. The little girls played rather half-heartedly, but we had great fun. Then just as it was growing dark two women came rushing out of the Kuzminskys’ house and told us the bull had escaped and was charging towards Chepyzh. We gathered up our things in a flash and raced home. It turned out that the bull had gone for the cowherd, and very nearly gored him to death. I was worried about Lyovochka, who was out swimming. But he soon came back, put on his dressing gown and announced he had a stomach ache and a chill and wasn’t feeling well. It’s hardly surprising, considering his abominable diet recently—almost nothing but bread, stuffing his stomach with it despite the doctor’s warning that it won’t do him any good. He’s completely given up eggs, drinks enormous amounts of rye coffee—and on top of that he insists on walking to Butkevich’s, carrying a heavy rucksack that strains his stomach. I’ve never met anyone so stubborn once he gets some outrageous idea into his head.

  16th July. I went to Moscow and ordered 20,000 copies of Volume 13; they had printed only 3,000, and had sold out almost immediately. I exhausted myself getting the paper and finding a printer prepared to do it in 2 weeks. I also ordered some silver for my niece Masha Kuzminskaya’s dowry. Her sister Vera and I went to the French exhibition.* I wanted to see the paintings, but it was closing for the evening when we got there so we hardly saw anything. I was terribly tired, and decided not to go up in a balloon as I didn’t want to waste 5 rubles.

  Lyovochka wrote to me in Moscow saying he wanted to make Volumes 12 and 13 public property* so that anyone could print them. On the one hand I don’t see why my family should lose the money, and on the other, since the censored articles in these volumes have been allowed to appear only in the Complete Collected Works, I think it would be wicked to release these to the public, and would involve them in all sorts of expense and confusion. But it grieves me more than anything to annoy Lyovochka, so yesterday I told him he could do what he liked, print what he wanted, I wouldn’t stop him. He hasn’t mentioned it again and hasn’t yet done anything about it.

  We have crowds of visitors. Repin left today. He has finished a small head-and-shoulders painting of Lyovochka writing in his study, and has started a larger full-length painting of him standing barefoot in the forest with his hands in his belt.* He is going to finish this one at home.

  The sculptor Ginzburg is sculpting a large bust of him, which is most unsuccessful, but he has also done a smaller figure, writing at his desk, which isn’t so bad.*

  It’s hot and terribly dry, the nights are cool, and people talk of nothing but this dreadful, terrible famine. It preys on my mind every moment of the day. The situation seems utterly hopeless.

  Lyovochka is in poor health. He ate such quantities of peas and watermelon yesterday that I was quite alarmed. He paid for it in the night with an upset stomach. He still refuses to drink koumiss.

  I took Vanya and Sasha for a walk yesterday evening and today; we went to the ravine at Zakaz, and today I walked to the well by the felled plantation. Vanya loves to exercise his imagination—he was pretending to be terrified that there were wolves in the forest, and that the water in the well was “special”.

  21st July. I must write down the whole foolish, sad story of what happened today. I don’t know whether it is I who am foolish, or the life I am forced to live, but I now feel crushed, exhausted in body and soul.

  Just before dinner today Lyovochka told me he was sending his letter to various newspapers renouncing the copyright on his latest works.* The last time he mentioned doing this I decided to endure it meekly, and that is what I would have done this time too. But when he mentioned it again I simply wasn’t prepared, and my immediate feeling was of outrage. I felt how terribly unfair he was being to his family, and I realized for the first time that this protest of his was merely another way of publicizing his dissatisfaction with his wife and family. It was this more than anything else that upset me. We said a great many unpleasant things to each other. I accused him of being vain and greedy for fame. He shouted at me, saying I only wanted the money, and that he had never met such a stupid, greedy woman. I told him he had humiliated me all my life, and he had never learnt how to behave towards a decent woman. He told me I would only spoil the children with the money. It ended with him shouting “Get out! Get out!” So I went out and wandered about the garden not knowing what to do. The nightwatchman saw me crying and I was so ashamed. I went to the apple orchard, sat down in the ditch and signed his statements with a pencil I had in my pocket. Then I wrote in my notebook that I was going to Kozlovka to kill myself. I was exhausted by these endless quarrels with Lev Nikolaevich and no longer had the strength to settle all our family business on my own, so I was going to put an end to my life.

  When I was younger, I remember I always felt like killing myself after an argument, but I never thought I could. Today though I would have done it—if circumstances hadn’t saved me. I ran to Kozlovka completely deranged. When I had almost reached the footbridge across the great ravine, I lay down to get my breath back. It was growing dark but I wasn’t at all afraid. It was strange, but my main feeling was that I would be ashamed to go home without carrying out my plan. So I got up and walked on, in a calm, dispirited way and with the most frightful headache, as if my head were in a vice. Then suddenly I caught sight of a figure in a peasant shirt, walking towards me from Kozlovka. I was overjoyed, thinking it was Lyovochka and we would be reconciled. But it turned out to be my brother-in-law Alexander Kuzminsky. I was furious that my plan had been thwarted, and felt sure he wouldn’t let me go on alone. He was greatly surprised to meet me, and saw from my face that I was upset. I certainly hadn’t expected to see him, and tried to persuade him to go home and leave me, assuring him I would soon be back myself. But he wouldn’t go, and urged me to walk with him, pointing to a crowd of people in the distance and saying they might frighten me. God knows who was wandering in these parts.

  Then he told me he had intended to take the roundabout route back, through Voronka and Gorelaya Polyana, but he was attacked by a swarm of flying ants, and had to run for cover into a thicket and take off his clothes. After waiting there for a while he decided to set back along the same road. Realizing that God didn’t want me to commit this sin, I had no choice but meekly to follow him. But I didn’t want to go home and decided to walk alone through Zaseka and go for a swim. There is another way out, I thought, I can drown myself; for I was still pursued by the dull despairing desire to leave this life with all its impossible problems. By then it was quite dark in the forest. Then all of a sudden, just as I was approaching the ravine, a wild beast leapt at me across the path. I couldn’t see what it was, a fox or a wolf—I’m so short-sighted I can see nothing from a distance—but I screamed at the top of my voice. The animal jumped away and darted off with a great rustling of leaves, and at that point all my courage deserted me and I set off home. I got back and went straight in to Vanechka, who was already in bed. He kissed me and said, “My Maman! My Maman!” over and over again. In the past, when I used to go to my children after these episodes, they seemed to give meaning to my life. Today I realized to my horror that on the contrary, my despair merely grew deeper, and the children made me even more sad and hopeless.

  I lay down in my bed, then was seized with anxiety about Lyovochka, who had gone out, and went into the garden to lie in the hammock and listen for his returning footsteps. One by one all the others came out to the veranda, and eventually Lyovochka returned. Everyone was chattering, shouting and laughing, and he was as merry as if nothing had happened; for him these are rational issues, in the name of some idea, which have no effect whatsoever on his heart. As for the pain
he caused me—he has already hurt me so often in the past. As for the fact that I was close to killing myself—he will never know about that, and if he did he wouldn’t believe it.

  Exhausted by the emotional and physical torment I had endured, I dozed off in the hammock. Masha then came looking for something with a candle and woke me up, so I went in for tea. We all gathered together and read Lermontov’s play A Strange Man. Later on, Lyovochka came up to me, kissed me and tried to make peace. I begged him to print his statement and say no more about it. He said he would print it only when I understood why it had to be. I said I had never lied and never would, and I would never “understand”. Days like these are hastening my death. Something inside me has broken, and left me feeling sad, hard and old. “Let them strike but let them finish me off quickly!” I thought.

  I am haunted again and again by thoughts of The Kreutzer Sonata. Today I again told him I could no longer live with him as his wife. He assured me this was exactly what he wanted too, but I didn’t believe him.

  He is asleep now and I cannot go in to him. Tomorrow is my niece Masha Kuzminskaya’s name day, and I have got the children to rehearse a game of charades. I hope to God nothing goes wrong and no one quarrels.

  23rd July. This latest quarrel has broken something in me that will never mend. I went in twice to ask him publicly to renounce the copyright on his recent works. Let him tell the world about our family arguments! I am not afraid of anyone, my conscience is clear. I spend all the money from his books on his children; I merely regulate the amount I give them, since if they had it all at once they might spend it unwisely. Now I have but one desire: to clear myself of this charge, this crime I am accused of. I have too much on my shoulders already: the division of the property, foisted on me against my will, the education of the boys, for whose sake I should go to Moscow, all the business with the publishers and the estate, and the entire emotional responsibility of my whole family. These past two days I have felt crushed by the weight of my life; were it not for the flying ants that attacked Kuzminsky and forced him to return, I might not be alive on this earth today. I was never so calmly determined about it as I was then.

  Yet despite this stone on my heart, I organized the children’s charades yesterday. We did “horse-pond”. Masha, Sanya, Vasya Kuzminsky, Boris Nagornov, Andryusha and Misha all joined in. Sasha appeared briefly as an angel, and also made a tableau vivant. They all played nicely together; these games are essential for the boys I think, for they develop their imaginations and occupy their minds.

  26th July. A young peasant woman died in the village—the wife of Pyotr, Fillip the coachman’s son. Masha, who was looking after her, had mentioned she had a bad sore throat, and eventually told us she thought it was diphtheria. I told her she wasn’t to go there again. But if she has been infected it will be too late anyway. I was so sorry for that dear little peasant woman, but also very angry with Masha for exposing two families and several small children to the risk of infection. Judging from her reports it certainly seems like diphtheria, but she was keeping it to herself in her usual sly way. Now she is distraught, complains of a sore throat and is obviously terrified. This daughter of mine brings nothing but grief, anxiety, irritation and pity; she was sent to me as the cross I must bear.

  I spent all day working on the proofs for ABC. The Academic Committee has not approved it in view of various words, such as “lice”, “fleas”, “bedbugs” and “devil”.

  27th July. Horribly dissatisfied with myself. Lyovochka woke me this morning with passionate kisses…Afterwards I picked up a French novel, Bourget’s Un cœur de femme, and read in bed till 11.30, something I normally never do. I have succumbed to the most unforgivable debauchery—and at my age too! I am so sad and ashamed of myself! I feel sinful and wretched and can do nothing about it, although I do try. Because of all this, I didn’t get up early, see off the Bashkirs and make sure they didn’t miss their train, write to the notary and send for the papers, or visit the children to see what they were doing. Sasha and Vanya romped with me for a long time on the bed, laughing and playing. Then I told Vanya the story about Lipunyushka,* which he loved.

  What a strange man my husband is! The morning after we had that terrible scene, he told me he loved me passionately. He was completely in my power, he said; he had never imagined such feelings were possible. But it is all physical—that was the secret cause of our quarrel. His passion dominates me too but I don’t want it, my whole moral being cries out against it, I never wished for that. All my life I have dreamt sentimental dreams, aspired to a perfect union, a spiritual communion, not that. And now my life is over and most of the good in me is dead, at any rate my ideals are dead.

  Bourget’s novel fascinated me because I read in it my thoughts and feelings. A woman of the world loves two men at the same time: her former lover (virtually her husband, though not officially), noble, affectionate and handsome; and her new lover, who is also handsome and also loves her. I know how possible it is to love two men, and it is described here very truthfully. Why must one love always exclude another? And why can one not love and remain honest at the same time?

  29th July. Nikolai Strakhov is here, wonderfully pleasant and clever as always, as well as some woman student from Kazan, who asked Lyovochka all sorts of questions about life and morality.*

  15th August. Marvellous weather. The children lured me outside to pick mushrooms and I was out for 4 hours. How beautiful it was! The earth smelt heavenly and the mushrooms were so lovely: shaggy caps, sturdy brown caps and wet milk caps glistening in the moss. The soothing forest silence, the fresh dewy grass, the bright clear sky, the children running about with happy faces and baskets full of mushrooms—this is true happiness!

  20th August. Two Frenchmen have arrived,* Richet, a learned psychologist, and a relative of his.

  19th September. It always happens that when life is most eventful I have no time to write my diary, yet this is just when it would be most interesting.

  Before 25th August, we were all cheerfully preparing for my niece Masha Kuzminskaya’s wedding. We went shopping and made lanterns, decorations for the horses, flags, and so on. On the morning of the 25th, my brother Sasha and I blessed Vanechka Erdeli, and I then drove with him in the carriage to the church. We were both very moved. I felt so sorry for this gentle boy, so pure, so young to be taking on all these responsibilities and so alone in the world. I wasn’t there to see Masha being blessed, but they told me she cried a lot, and so did her father. Then there was the ceremony. I kept swallowing the tears.

  We had dinner on the croquet lawn. It was a heavenly day, fine and warm, and everyone—family, neighbours and relatives—was in high spirits. We spent the evening playing games, dancing and singing. The party went on very late, and I sat up until dawn with the guests.

  It wasn’t until the 29th that I again raised the question of the move to Moscow, and whether we should send the boys to the gymnasium. I told Lyovochka I realized how hard it was for him and that I just wanted to know how much of his life he was prepared to sacrifice for me by living in Moscow with me. “I am definitely not going to Moscow,” he said.

  “Splendid,” I said. “The question is decided. I won’t go either in that case and won’t take the boys, but I’ll look for tutors instead.”

  “But I don’t want that!” he said. “You must go to Moscow and send the boys to school, for that’s what you think is right.”

  “Yes but that means a separation—you wouldn’t see me or your five children all winter.”

  “I see little enough of the children as it is, and you can always come and visit me here.”

  “Me? Not for anything!”

  At that moment I felt overwhelmed with regrets: all my life I had loved nobody but him, belonged to him alone, and even now, when I was being thrown out like a threadbare garment, I was still in love with him and couldn’t leave him.

  My tears embarrassed him. If he had one iota of the psychological understanding which fills hi
s books, he would have understood the pain and despair I was going through.

  “I feel sorry for you,” he said. “I see you suffering but I don’t know how to help you.”

  “Well I know!” I said. “I consider it immoral to tear your family in two, there’s no reason for it. I shall sacrifice Lyova’s and Andryusha’s education and stay with you and our daughters here in the country.”

  “You keep talking of sacrificing the children—then blame me for it.”

  “Well what should I do then? Tell me what I should do!”

  He was silent for a moment, then said: “I cannot tell you now. Let me think it over until tomorrow.”

  We parted on the Grumond field, and he went off to visit a sick man in Grumond while I walked home. The heartless, cynical way he had thrown me out of his life hurt me deeply. Yet another funeral of my happiness. I walked home sobbing. It was growing dark. Some peasant men and women drove past, looking at me in amazement. I walked through the forest terrified, and eventually reached the house. There the lights were on and everyone was drinking tea. The children ran up to meet me.

  The following day Lyovochka calmly said: “You go to Moscow and take the children. I shall naturally do whatever you want.” Whatever I want? Why, the word was ridiculous. When did I last want something for myself, rather than thinking only of their health and happiness?