The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy

by Cathy Porter

  22nd October. Something ripens then falls. My depression came to a head—and yesterday it fell away. I wrote Lev Nikolaevich a bad letter, and today I had one from Lyova, who writes that his papa has a headache and is exhausted by this business with the Dukhobors and his work on Resurrection. Oh, why did he involve himself with these Dukhobors! It’s so unnatural. We have quite enough to worry about in our own family; our children need a father who takes an interest in them, instead of searching the world for sectarians.

  Today I was examining a photograph of him, looking at his thin old arms which I have kissed so often and which have caressed me so many times, and I felt so sad—it’s an old man’s caresses I long for now, not a lover’s.

  Uncle Kostya, Marusya and Sergei Ivanovich visited yesterday evening. We read some poems of Tyutchev’s, and Sergei Ivanovich was in ecstasies over them. He was in a tender mood—he seemed quite inspired, and had the idea of setting the words of one of these poems to music. Marusya opened the book at random at the verse “Do not trouble me with your just reproaches”, and Sergei Ivanovich immediately began composing and wrote a song to the words and played it to us. Such a clever man.

  Pomerantsev was telling us about a soldier on the Arbat square who didn’t salute his drunken officer and the officer slashed him to death with his sabre. What hideous brutality!

  26th October. I travelled to Yasnaya this morning via Kozlovka. Rain and slush, everything grey. I was chilled and soaked. At home everyone was asleep. I went straight in to see L.N. The room was dark and he jumped out of bed and kissed me.

  In the mornings he works hard on his Resurrection. He says for the past few days he couldn’t work for thinking of me, and that on the morning of my arrival he dreamt about me. Every so often he comes in to see me, smiles and kisses me. Tanya and Vera are both very sweet and cheerful. Tanya is her old, lively, playful laughing self, lovable and cheerful. To tease Dunechka they took everything out of the larder and hid it in the cupboard, so when she got back from Tula she was convinced everything had been stolen and was about to go to the fortune-teller. Having made her thoroughly worried, they then opened the cupboard, roaring with laughter, and showed her all the bread and jam and other things inside. Then they brought a herring from Lyova’s wing, and ate it, still roaring with laughter. The atmosphere is happy, and I feel healthy and carefree.

  27th October. We slept badly last night as it was so cold. L.N. has a chill. I have asked him a lot of questions about Resurrection and have approved of the new ending and a number of other things. It’s much less hypocritical now.

  28th October. I bade a tender farewell this morning to L.N., Tanya, Vera and Lyova. It was frosty and windy, and Adrian the coachman regaled me all the way to Yasenki with a hideous story about the murder of four people near Rudakova at Kosaya Hill. Our neighbourhood has been ruined by that Belgian factory. It was a tedious journey; I read Maximov’s book on hard-labour convicts, about their lives, the convict trains and so on. A depressing picture!

  6th November (Moscow). I have only two interests now: my morbid anxieties about Misha, and making the arrangements for an evening in honour of Tolstoy. L.N. has sent me an extract from a beautifully conceived short story he is writing, called ‘History of a Mother’. It tells of a mother of eight children, a beautiful, tender, considerate woman, who at the end of her life is all on her own and goes to live near a convent, with the bitter unacknowledged awareness that her entire life has been wasted upon her children, and that not only do they give her no happiness, but they too are unhappy.

  The evening is being organized by the Society for Popular Entertainment. Tomorrow I am taking this extract to the censors; Sergei Ivanovich has been asked to play, but refused. He said to me: “I would gladly spend the time and effort if it would give Lev Nikolaevich pleasure. But who will I be playing for, and what can one play apart from the Kreutzer Sonata?” He and the singer Lavrovskaya are coming on Sunday evening to console me with music, and I am terribly happy.

  8th November. I am starting on another book of diaries, the fifth. I wonder if I’ll live to finish the whole of this thick book? Is it possible under these circumstances that I will? I did no writing yesterday. I went to rather a dull symphony concert, and Marusya, Sergei Ivanovich and I walked home together under the starry sky. Marusya and I both wanted to look at it through binoculars, then Sergei Ivanovich happened to join us. But the stars were glimmering motionlessly, and only the firmament seemed to be swaying. When I got home I stood in the garden and gazed at the sky through binoculars for the first time in my life, amazed by the extraordinary spectacle of the innumerable stars.

  11th November. Misha came home late today. I was sitting up sewing, waiting for him. He seemed genuinely contrite, kissing me and begging me not to cry (for I couldn’t restrain my pent-up tears by then), that for the time being I felt consoled.

  But I myself am bad too. I fear my mania for spending money, I fear my foolish love of dressing up—those are my sins, which I cannot control.

  13th November. Marusya, Sasha, Misha and I left on the 13th for Yasnaya Polyana. We enjoyed the journey and laughed all the way. We arrived on the mail train at 11 at night, and drove in the moonlight to Yasnaya through drizzle, white fog and frightful slush. But it was nice in the country and even nicer to be at Yasnaya. We found them all well and friendly. Masha appears to be well. The doctors say the baby couldn’t have moved yet, but that it will soon; so either she imagined the movement or simply lied to herself and us. She is very cheerful and full of energy, and so pale, delicate and pretty.

  L.N. was tender and passionate with me but I couldn’t respond.

  14th November. I had a long talk with him about Misha, about me and about his work. He says he hasn’t been in such a creative mood since writing War and Peace, and is very pleased with Resurrection. He rode over to Yasenki and is full of energy; his body is fit and he is in high spirits, because he is doing the sort of artistic work to which he is temperamentally suited.

  16th November. I woke this morning in tears. I dreaded returning to Moscow and having to leave L.N. We were deeply, genuinely touched to see each other this time, and these past few days we were good friends and in harmony with each other—even loving.

  I was sorry too to leave Tanya, whom I love so much, and peaceful, beautiful Yasnaya Polyana. L.N. was astonished to see me crying, caressed me and shed some tears too, promising to join me in Moscow on 1st December. I would dearly love this, but it would be wicked to make him come here and tear him from his work.

  Misha was there to meet us in Moscow, but he immediately got ready to go out. I was very distressed. And I was even more distressed when he came home at three in the morning and I was again obliged to give him a scolding. So the moment I arrived I was waiting up for him, darning linen and worrying.

  18th November. Misha didn’t return until three a.m. again. I waited up listening for him, then couldn’t sleep all night for worrying. This morning I went to see the director of the Lycée and asked him to take him on as a full boarder. “Nous jouons gros jeu,”* he replied, meaning that Misha might well go off for good. He looked very crestfallen when he eventually returned and said I was right about everything, but that he simply forgets about my anxiety when he is sitting up all night with his comrades. This evening he suddenly presented me with three pears.

  22nd November. If my diary could express the groans in my soul, I would groan and groan. Misha is ruined. His moments of remorse are short-lived. The day before yesterday he again disappeared all night with the gypsies, and didn’t return until seven in the morning. Yesterday he stayed at home, and today he went off again, and where he is or who he is with I have no way of knowing. He has a new set of friends every day, wild, rough strangers.

  25th November. I dragged myself around Moscow all day in the rain, wandering senselessly, aimlessly through the mud—the depression is insufferable! This afternoon I lay down for a sleep. I got up and Sasha came in. “Are you ill, Maman?” I said no.
She threw herself into my arms and kissed me. “Oh, if only you know how pink and pretty you are when you’ve been asleep.” Am I really pretty? Or is it her love that sees beauty in her darling Maman? This evening we went to the theatre to see Mozart and Salieri, and Orpheus.* Sergei Ivanovich was with us, as well as Marusya, Sasha, Goldenweiser, and Butyonev. Various other acquaintances were in the boxes. It started off cheerfully and interestingly enough, but I was annoyed by the atrocious singing in Orpheus and barely managed to sit through it.

  27th November. Letters from home, from Lev Nikolaevich (who still plans to come to Moscow on 1st December), and from Tanya. Mine to her was lost—what a nuisance! I had written to urge L.N. not to come to Moscow. I can’t bear to think of him suffering in the city. He cannot endure the visitors, the noise, the crowded streets, the lack of leisure, being away from the country and his daughters, who have been such a help to him. Besides, it would be hard for me to curtail my interests—the children’s education, my music, my friends, my visits, rare as they are, to concerts and theatres—and that will annoy him. And then my failing eyesight and frequent blood rushes now make it impossible for me to go on copying his endlessly revised writings as I used to, and he will be angry about this too.

  S.I. Taneev arrived this afternoon while Masha, Misha and I were having tea together. How pleased I was to see him! I love him best when he comes like this, just to see me. He had just finished composing the most beautiful work for two choirs, set to words by Tyutchev, and had come to play and sing it through for me. We sat chatting quietly and read an article of music criticism. One always has such sincere, interesting talks with him. We get on so well—it is a great shame that L.N.’s jealousy weighs so heavily on this pure, simple friendship.

  30th November (Yasnaya Polyana). Tanya has lost her voice and has a slight fever. Still nothing definite about Masha, but she seems calm and well. L.N. rode to Pirogovo the day before yesterday and rode back the following day, which is why he’s worn out and lethargic now. Having promised to come to Moscow on 1st December, he now seems to be trying to wriggle out of it. And I was counting on the pleasure of taking him back to Moscow and living with him there. I had brought some dates, spirits and bran bread with me for the journey, I had told them to prepare a room for him in Moscow and had ordered the dinner and fruit, and I was going to pack his things myself and organize his departure as inconspicuously as possible. But by evening it was decided he wasn’t going. I cried, my heart was aching and I took to my bed.

  1st December. I am in Moscow again. I didn’t sleep all night because of the uncertainty. “I’m coming to Moscow on the first,” L.N. had written to me. Today is the 1st and I prepared to catch the fast train to Moscow, thinking: he couldn’t not be packing and coming with me. My heart was pounding and I was in a fever, and this morning he got up and went downstairs without saying a word. I got up at about 10 to discover he wasn’t packing and wasn’t leaving. Choking back the tears, I dressed and ordered the carriage to be harnessed—he didn’t say a word. Then Maria Schmidt, Tanya and L.N. all start clamouring—why am I leaving? What do they mean—why? I had already arranged to go, the horses have been sent, my children and grandchildren are expecting me in Moscow. I am suffocated by uncontrollable sobs. I pick up my bags, order the carriage to catch up with me and start walking, for I don’t want to upset them by letting them see me in this state, or give Lev Nikolaevich the pleasure of achieving his goal year after year and of seeing me so unhappy when he refuses to live with me in Moscow. But it’s impossible, his cruelty is driving me to despair. Then I see him in his sheepskin coat driving towards me in the carriage: “Wait! Don’t go!” he shouts. We return home. He reads me a lecture in a hateful tone of voice. I am choking back the sobs. We sit together for half an hour, while I suffer the most unspeakable pain and struggle with my despair. Tanya comes in and says: “I understand how difficult it is for you.” Eventually I say goodbye to them all, ask them to forgive me and leave. I shall never forget that journey to Yasenki as long as I live. What a terrible wind there was! I was doubled up all the way, sobbing so hard I thought my head would split open. How could they let me go like this! Only one thing prevented me from lying down under the train, the thought that then I wouldn’t be buried next to Vanechka, and that is my idée fixe. In the train the other passengers all stared at me weeping—then I dozed off. Not a bite of food had passed my lips all day. I arrived home to a cheerless welcome from my children and grandchildren and wept again. I had a telegram from L.N.: “I’ll come the day after Sonya arrives.”

  2nd December. I had a letter from Lev Nikolaevich this afternoon. He asks me to forgive his apparently unintentional cruelty to me, the misunderstandings, his tiredness and the various other reasons why he couldn’t come and why he tormented me. Then he arrived…I have neuralgia in my right temple, my insides are aching, I didn’t sleep all night, and I am completely cold and numb. I don’t feel a thing, no joy, no anger, no love, no energy for life, nothing. I just want to cry and cry—for my lost health and freedom, for my friends, since if I do manage to see them now it’s simply not the same as if I were alone and they belonged entirely to me. One day of suffering has destroyed me!

  I shall try to do my duty. I shall look after L.N., copy for him, satisfy his physical love—for I don’t believe in any other sort now—and there’s an end to it! And what then?!!! Patience, faith and kind friends.

  5th December. Still the same depression, which even my grandchildren are unable to lift.

  There was a most unpleasant discussion. My daughter-in-law Sonya wanted to hear some good music, so I suggested inviting Lavrovskaya, Goldenweiser and Taneev to play for us and organizing a musical evening at home. Sonya and I then shyly told L.N. that we wanted some music. He looked furious. “Well, in that case I’m going out,” he says. “God forbid you should be driven out of the house,” I say. “We’d better not have any music in that case.” “No, that’s even worse—it would be as though I was stopping you.” Well, it soon led to an argument, and a very nasty one, after which of course there was no point in thinking about music.

  10th December. Relations with L.N. have improved, but I don’t believe they are pure or lasting. I am copying the latest chapters of Resurrection. My eyes ache, I have no free time, yet I still copy.

  I went to the bank with Andryusha and handed him all his money and documents. I also gave him a fur coat and 2,000 rubles, and ordered a dozen pieces of silver for his bride. And after everything I’d done for him and all my presents, he not only didn’t say thank you, he actually looked disgruntled.

  13th December. I invited Lavrovskaya to sing, Taneev to play and some close friends to listen. Raevskaya, the Kolokoltsevs, Uncle Kostya, my brother and his wife, the Maslovs and various others came. Sergei Ivanovich played delightfully, and also accompanied. Lavrovskaya sang a lot, and beautifully too. It would have all been so pleasant and cheerful if one didn’t feel Lev Nikolaevich was angrily condemning every entertainment I organized.

  14th December. I copied for Lev Nikolaevich for 7 hours without stirring from my chair, then answered his letters. My head was spinning. He is gloomy and sullen. Misha is a trial: he disappears every evening to parties, stays out all night, sleeps to three in the afternoon and hasn’t been to school.

  15th December. This evening L.N. read us a translation of Jerome K. Jerome—no good. It’s thawing heavily.

  16th December. Spent the day going over the bills with the accountant again. L.N. read us more of the Jerome K. Jerome—I haven’t seen him laugh like that for a long time.

  19th December. We have just returned from an evening at the Korsh Theatre in honour of seventy-year-old Tolstoy. And what a wretchedly unsuccessful evening it was! Bad singing, bad reading, bad music and some appalling tableaux vivants utterly lacking in truth, beauty, artistry or anything else. Mikhailovsky received shattering ovations for some reason, then began shouting for Tolstoy and sent him a telegram…It was all so trite, so vulgar—one had no sense of i
t as a genuine cry from the people’s heart. L.N. himself had earlier today set off alone for Yasnaya Polyana on the mail train. He worked all morning, ate some porridge and drank coffee at one, then left.

  Ilyusha and Andryusha have arrived. Andryusha is terribly anxious: this summer in the Caucasus he frivolously proposed to a certain Princess Gureli, then wrote her a letter of rejection. The princess shot herself, the parents sprang to her defence, and Andryusha now lives in terror of being murdered or having to fight a duel. It’s nothing but sorrow! Misha left for Oryol, and from there will visit Ilyusha, then Yasnaya.

  The princess has since died.

  20th December. I discovered that those taking part in yesterday’s so-called Tolstoy evening, Ilya included, all went off to the Hermitage to dine, i.e. get drunk—and this in honour of Tolstoy! It’s disgraceful!

  Numerous distressing discussions at home about this Princess Gureli who has killed herself; Andryusha is terrified of the Caucasian parents’ revenge.

  24th December (Yasnaya Polyana). I got up early, massaged L.N.’s back and stomach again and gave him his Ems water, and again my closeness disturbed him. Terrible weather—damp and windy, 3 degrees of frost. L.N. is more cheerful and was able to work again today, but he hasn’t written anything recently and has grown terribly weak and lethargic. Whenever I am away he is unable to write, is prone to illnesses and sleeps badly.