by Jay Parini
But I feel sorry for Sofya Andreyevna. It’s not that she is a bad woman. She simply does not understand what her husband has accomplished. Her soul is not copious enough to absorb his dreams for the improvement of humanity. On the other hand, they don’t require immense effort to comprehend. The poor shall inherit the earth. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. And so forth. Everything Leo Nikolayevich says has all been said before. In the realm of religion and ethics, one does not invent the truth; one discovers and proclaims it.
Leo Nikolayevich is the great proclaimer.
I am not, however, so foolish as to think that he is Christ. Christ is Christ. But Leo Nikolayevich is certainly one of his prophets. I am lucky to know him as well as I do. I am more than his personal physician. I am his friend.
I began reading Tolstoy as a medical student in Prague. Strolling amid that city’s amber stones or sitting in the cathedral while the organist practiced for Sunday morning services, I would meditate on his message. Later, in Hungary, I dedicated myself to his writings. Soon I wrote to him asking for advice, informing him that I had been sought out by local Tolstoyans to lead their group.
He wrote back: ‘It is a great and gross mistake to speak about Tolstoyism or to seek my guidance on this matter or to ask my decisions on problems. There is no Tolstoyism or any teaching of mine, and there never has been. There is only one general and universal teaching of the truth, which for me, for us, is most clearly expressed in the Gospels.’
I understood this, yes. But I also knew that God spoke especially clearly through Leo Tolstoy. Divine light shone through his prose. And I tried to live by that light as I made my daily rounds in the village. The medical profession is well suited to a life of service, and I returned to my narrow room each night in the boardinghouse exhausted but fulfilled, happy inside. I would read his books by a blazing wick till midnight. His Confession moved me greatly, as did ‘What I Believe,’ where – with astonishing simplicity – he says what he thinks.
Who is Christ? This question has preoccupied Tolstoy for many decades. He answers, ‘He is who he says he is: the Son of God, the Son of Man, the truth and the life.’ But he is not God. That is the essential mistake made by our church theologians. What Christ gave us was a way of understanding our lives in a perspective that cannot be destroyed by death. It is the fear of death that hangs like a buzzard over mankind’s head, a perpetual torment. As Leo Nikolayevich has said, one should whisk that fear away. Say, ‘Be gone, buzzard!’ And then comes freedom.
As a token of my faith, I have forsaken women. True, I am not a handsome man. I am small. But my hands are a doctor’s hands: delicate and fine. I stitch and cut. I bandage and assuage. I am a doctor. Though I am hardly an old man, not having yet passed fifty, I am quite bald, and this seems to offend many women. My beard, which I trim each morning, seems to grow whiter by the month. But I have fire. There is a fire in my head, in my heart. I am in love with God. I can feel the fire of God in my soul. I am part of him. I am God, as everyone is God who recognizes the God within himself.
I can even recognize a bit of God in Goldenweiser, that fraud and mountebank, that pianist and Jew. Why Leo Nikolayevich allows that man to hang about this house, to play his piano, to eat at his table and walk beside him in the orchard, defeats my understanding. The superiority of the Slavic race to the Israelites has always been known. As a man of science, I cannot fail to observe the colossal sequence of defeats that the Jews have sustained. Wherever they go, they are suspect. They fester and grow in almost any soil. Leo Nikolayevich does not understand about Jews.
But every man has his blind spots. Leo Nikolayevich is not God. Nevertheless, I love him. I love him completely. I cannot believe my luck, that each day of my life since I came here six years ago, in 1904, has been spent here beside him. I have thus been privileged to listen to his words. I write them all down. I have mastered a kind of shorthand, so I rarely miss anything important.
It can be quite annoying at lunch or dinner, however. Sofya Andreyevna teases me for writing under the table whenever Leo Nikolayevich speaks. She shouts, ‘Dushan Petrovich, you’re scribbling again! Naughty, naughty!’
I have an excellent memory, however – a gift from God. Each night, before sleeping, I settle down at my little deal table and recall his words, working from notes gathered during the day. I take great care not to embellish what he says. The words of Leo Nikolayevich need no improvement! Each pause, each gesticulation and aside – all perfect. And it’s all there, in my diary. Word for word – a permanent record. My gift to humanity.
Apart from the annoyance of Sofya Andreyevna, my life here has been pleasantly routine. I spend each morning, while Leo Nikolayevich is writing, in the village. An isba has been converted into a surgery for my use, and I see a dozen or so patients there every day. Whooping cough, bad throats, intestinal obstructions, fevers, measles, consumption, venereal diseases. Cases of hysteria. Lice. I see everything. But I love our Russian peasants. They are the soul of endurance. They are simple and God loving. God fearing. This is why Leo Nikolayevich loves them, and why I do, although most of them are pathetically superstitious. They do not understand that I represent the science of medicine. What I practice is not magic. For magic, I direct them to the monastery outside Tula. Let the monks heal you, I say, if you don’t believe in my methods. Not one of them has yet taken me up on this offer.
Today was a special day. Against Sofya Andreyevna’s wishes (which made it all the more attractive), I collected Leo Nikolayevich from his study at nine-thirty. He had already been at his desk for two hours, which is unusual for him. He normally begins at nine. But he had planned on our trip into Tula this morning, so he got up and started to work before the rest of the household was awake, doubtless treasuring the early morning clarity that overtakes the soul.
We went into Tula in the troika – a relatively short and effortless journey, except in winter, when heavy drifts can block the road. Today it was unusually warm, and the roads were clear, even though it snowed lightly all night. The fields spread about us in their whiteness. It was so beautiful! Leo Nikolayevich commented several times on the freshness and stillness of the day. His health had not been good recently – some chills, some coughing – so I made sure he bundled up in several coats and wore a thick hat. I put a blanket over his legs to block the wind. He drooled slightly, and a glaze of ice soon formed in his beard, but he did not appear to notice.
Leo Nikolayevich was moved by our little excursion, which we had been planning for some weeks. Tula’s newspaper, the Molva, had been filled with nothing else. Some muzhiks from the Denisov estate had been charged with stealing mail from the postal service. They were to go on trial first, followed by something more important, something dearer to Leo Nikolayevich’s heart than mail thievery. I. I. Afanasev, whom Leo Nikolayevich met several times at Telyatinki, had been accused of circulating pamphlets advocating socialism and revolution.
‘It is always distressing when a man is accused of nothing more than expressing a view of life which is saner than that which already prevails,’ said Leo Nikolayevich, talking more to himself than to me as the troika clattered over the wooden bridge into Tula. He took on that ponderous look which sometimes overwhelms and distorts his features.
When we arrived at the courthouse, the street was thronged. Not unlike at the Kursk Station in Moscow, earlier in the month, when Leo Nikolayevich found himself drowning in a mob of well-wishers, thousands of them, all of whom screamed his name at the top of their lungs. Today, word had spread that Tolstoy would appear as a witness for the defense in both cases, and people came out hoping to catch a glimpse of him. All kinds of people, but especially beggars, who imagined that ‘the Count,’ as they persist in calling him, could work a miracle for them. Many reached out merely to touch his coat in passing.
‘Clear a path for Leo Nikolayevich!’ I shouted, and four young soldiers in dark green overcoats rushed to help us. We five formed a wedge, like geese going s
outh, with Leo Nikolayevich in the wake of the V. He kept his head down, ignoring the shouts of ‘God bless you, Leo Nikolayevich!’ I was terrified that he would stumble or collapse, as he sometimes does, but he walked with a determined step. If anything, the attention buoyed him.
The courts were too cold for a man of Leo Nikolayevich’s eighty-two years. Though logs had been laid in all the fireplaces, the high ceilings and bare halls conspired against all possibility of comfort. And Leo Nikolayevich quickly succumbed to the frigid temperature. His lips soon began to quiver, turning blue as nails; I feared he might have another one of the minor strokes that have plagued him lately. They leave him temporarily speechless and without exact memory.
‘Keep your coat on, Leo Nikolayevich,’ I said. ‘Even the sun is cold today.’
He grinned that toothless grin of his, stretching his lips. ‘You are my doctor, aren’t you?’
‘I am indeed. So listen, for once.’ I am forever trying to get him to behave sensibly about his age.
An official of the courts led us to a small box, where we sat on a wooden bench with other witnesses and official observers. The gallery was crowded, and the judge – an aristocrat and member of the local militia called Bozorev – bowed slightly to Leo Nikolayevich as he entered and took his place behind a table.
The first session concerned the muzhiks who stole the mail. Leo Nikolayevich believed the peasants had been framed, and I communicated this information to the judge. Leo Nikolayevich patted his knees with his long fingers, as if keeping time with a private melody. He seemed lost through much of the proceedings. But he came to life during the testimony against Afanasev, who belonged to a fringe group of socialists and revolutionaries. An oxlike prosecutor in a regimental uniform accused Afanasev of circulating materials designed to create discontent among the muzhiks. Afanasev was not directly accused of plotting to overthrow the government of the tsar, but the implications were grave. Those wishing to speak in his behalf, such as Leo Nikolayevich, were slated for the afternoon session.
We had lunch in a bare little room next to the courts, a piece of rough brown bread and a slice of goat cheese drunk with hot tea brought by a vendor. As we talked about the proceedings, Leo Nikolayevich grew animated. He believed in the elementary principles of free speech, he said, principles quite alien to the Imperial government of Russia. He admired Afanasev, who is young and idealistic. Indeed, he sympathized with the young man’s goals, though he doubted that violent revolutions would ever lead to the establishment of a just society.
‘People seem to forget that we all must die,’ he said. His hand trembled as he tore off a small bit of bread to mouth slowly with his gums. ‘We ought to spend our energies not on useless conflicts but on doing what is clearly good. If a revolution is not something genuinely new – such as the abolition of all government – it will certainly be nothing more than an imitation of what we have already seen, and that will be worse than what it replaces.’
I did not find this entirely sound. ‘But the tsar is wicked,’ I said, whispering, even though we seemed alone. ‘Any government would be better than this one. Surely none could be worse.’
Leo Nikolayevich spoke calmly, unafraid of being overheard. He is among the few Russians who can be said to have immunity from prosecution by the tsar. ‘There can be no improvement in the condition of the Russian people,’ he said, ‘nor any people, through revolution that does not exist on a moral basis. A moral basis presuppose that force will not be used.’
I quickly got all this down on my notepad. It was good. Very good. But I objected to the impracticality of his stance. I, too, believed that the will of God must be followed in all things and that immoral revolutions could only hurt the Russian people. But I saw no reason why it could not be God’s will that a reasonable form of government forcibly replace a tyrannical one. I expressed these reservations, but Leo Nikolayevich seemed immovable. Perhaps he was putting himself in a mood appropriate to the afternoon session.
We got back to the chambers before the rest of them; it was even colder now. Leo Nikolayevich hunched forward, working his mouth as though lumps of bread were still lodged in his cheeks and needed mastication. He gasped once or twice, and I quickly took his pulse. It was racing madly. I urged him to return immediately to Yasnaya Polyana.
‘I will not speak,’ he said. ‘But you must stand in my place. Say that I disagree with all that has been said against Afanasev. Tell them that I consider him a young man of high ideals and goodwill, and that he should not be punished.’
When the judge returned, I stood to apologize for Leo Nikolayevich, saying that his health made it impossible for him to speak in public. But I communicated, briefly, his position with regard to Afanasev, and the judge thanked us warmly. At this point, Leo Nikolayevich stood, bowed to the judge and the assembly, and left the courtroom, leaning heavily on my arm for support.
Not a sound could be heard as we left, not until a voice lifted, lonely as a puff of smoke on the horizon: ‘God save Leo Nikolayevich!’ I looked back. It was Afanasev.
We stopped for another glass of tea on the way out, since Leo Nikolayevich felt a chill. We had not been sitting there terribly long when a young man appeared. He had a message for the count, he said, smiling at me as though we shared some intimacy. He said, ‘I have been asked to report that the case against the muzhiks has been dismissed. They are free to go home.’ He paused, letting the richness of that news sink in. ‘And Afanasev has been given the minimum sentence. Three years confinement in a fortress.’
‘That’s horrid!’
‘Dushan Petrovich,’ Leo Nikolayevich said. ‘We should be glad he was not condemned to death, given the unrest throughout this country. The government is only too eager to see that examples are made of men like Afanasev. Three years in a fortress is not so bad for a young man. He will read and write. I will send him books.’
Leo Nikolayevich was aglow in the evening, kindly to everyone, listening attentively to Sofya Andreyevna. He put a drop of white wine in his water goblet – a sign that he was feeling festive.
Boulanger was there, playing (insufferably) the good little disciple, as was Nazhivin, a young writer, who insisted on sitting next to ‘the Master,’ as he called him – to everyone’s chagrin. He cooed like a pigeon when Leo Nikolayevich spoke, his throat clucking away. I disliked him intensely, especially when he grew philosophical and repeated, verbatim, Leo Nikolayevich’s own remarks, as though he’d just thought of them himself. Leo Nikolayevich remained polite with him. I can’t think why. Indeed, he nodded vigorously when Nazhivin parroted a particularly well-known Tolstoyan locution. It was most embarrassing.
Sofya Andreyevna ushered everyone into the drawing room at the front of the house, and we sat about while she played Beethoven’s Pastoral Sonata on the piano. Large tears came to Leo Nikolayevich’s eyes, and he wiped them on his sleeve. He often weeps when music is played, either on the piano (usually by Sofya Andreyevna, who fancies herself a world-class pianist whom circumstances have forced to hide her light under a bushel) or on the gramophone. On the other hand, music moves me not a whit.
It has been ruined for me by Goldenweiser, the idiot Jew. Night after night he performs at the keyboard for the Tolstoy family, who are too kindly to turn him out. Leo Nikolayevich is pushed about, submissive to all, eager to preserve the calm at any cost. But the cost is great.
One day he will understand why I oppose Goldenweiser. He will also understand that Sofya Andreyevna must be removed.
6
Bulgakov
Most days resemble other days. They fall in rows, mowed down by time. One does not much regret the loss. But a few glorious days stand out in memory, days where each moment shines separately, like cobbles on a strand. One yearns to repossess them, and mourns their distance. Such was my first day as Leo Nikolayevich’s secretary.
It was mid-January, a foggy morning, exceedingly warm for this time of year in Russia. I woke early in the small room just above the kitche
n. This was my second day at Telyatinki, and I was to meet with Tolstoy after breakfast. Masha, who had recently joined the devout band of Tolstoyans who live and work at Chertkov’s house, brought me a glass of tea in bed. She is a tall girl, Finnish in appearance, with high cheekbones and short blond hair that falls straight on either side of her head. Her almond-shaped, green eyes dipped to the floor when she entered my room, having knocked so lightly that I was unaware of her presence till she opened the door.
‘Come in,’ I said, clearing my throat and sitting up in bed.
She put the tray down on the table beside my bed.
‘It’s very kind of you to bring me tea. You needn’t have done that.’
‘Tomorrow, you will make your own tea,’ she said. ‘But today you may consider yourself lucky.’
Her shyness seemed to evaporate as she cut a fresh slice of lemon and dropped it into the tea.
‘I like being waited on.’
‘We do not grant special privileges around here. Everyone is equal at Telyatinki.’
‘A real democracy!’
‘You’re teasing me.’
‘I’m sorry. Shall I not?’
‘As you will,’ she said. She pushed the blanket back to my knees and sat down. No woman had ever sat beside me while I lay in bed, except my mother. Everything in Masha’s manner proclaimed that she was, by God, a straightforward, progressive, practical girl. A real Tolstoyan.