The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year

by Jay Parini

  I had been through the most trying week of my life. Lyovochka turned up at the church in the Kremlin an hour late for the wedding ceremony, saying he could not find a clean shirt!

  After the service, through which I wept like a ninny, we bade everyone good-bye and set off into the future. We went by coach to a little village outside of Moscow called Birulyevo, where we stayed at an inn. Lyovochka behaved like a rabid dog, but I had expected this, after reading his diaries. It took me years to understand why he gave me those diaries. Lyovochka wanted a reader, not a wife. Someone to devote herself to his language, his vision. And now he wants other readers: Chertkov, Sasha, Bulgakov, Dushan Makovitsky. So I am useless.

  I feel as forlorn now as I did then, forty-eight years ago, when we drove through the gates of Yasnaya Polyana on a hot, dusty day in late September. I was swimming in my own perspiration, overdressed for the occasion in a blue silk dress. Aunt Toinette, wizened and skeptical, stood on the front stoop with an icon in her hands. The stony look in her eye contradicted her welcoming words.

  ‘She is preparing to suffer,’ Lyovochka whispered in my ear.

  I genuflected before the icon, kissed it, and greeted everyone politely. Sergey Nikolayevich passed around a tray of stale bread and salt. I was eager to get inside, where it was cool. We sat opposite one another in the front hall, and tea was passed around from the antique samovar. It was lukewarm and tasted of burnt metal.

  ‘We are delighted to welcome you,’ Sergey said. He seemed short of breath and deeply uncomfortable in the presence of his younger brother’s new wife – though he would soon enough fall in love with my sister Tanya. Aunt Toinette nodded heavily, looking a thousand years old. I was introduced, one by one, to the three servants who were living behind the kitchen. Only three servants for a house of that size!

  That night, after another round of animalistic sex, Lyovochka fell into a snoring slumber, but I lay awake, my nerves tingling, wondering what I had done. Lyovochka woke halfway through the night and shouted ‘Not her! Not her!’

  ‘Darling,’ I said, shaking him. ‘What on earth is wrong?’

  ‘I must have been dreaming.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Do I always have to confess my dreams? Is that what marriage means to you?’

  I apologized and let him drift back to sleep in my arms. But I know now that, yes, that is what marriage is about. Or should be about.

  During those first lonely months, I kept thinking about Mama, wondering what the first months of her married life were like. Her marriage was not perfect. Papa was something of a flirt, which did not make life easy. She, of course, had her own flaws. I have since learned, through Lyovochka, about her dalliance with Turgenev, that they were lovers. What a literary family we have turned out to be!

  Mama was fifteen when she met Papa. She had been ill for several weeks at her parents’ country house in Tula. A mysterious fever had consumed her, and the prognosis was not good. In desperation, her father turned to a famous young doctor from Moscow, Dr Andrey Behrs, who at age thirty-three was making a name for himself at court. This handsome young doctor was a friend of Turgenev, who had a summer estate in the nearby district of Orel.

  Once Papa set eyes on Lyubov Alexandrovna, his heart was no longer free. Her pale skin and dark eyes, her black hair and clean, broad forehead obsessed him. He remained at her bedside for a month, sitting up with her through the night when her fever rose. His courtly manners impressed Alexander Islenyev, my grandfather, though he buckled when his daughter announced, at the end of the doctor’s supposedly medical visit, that she wished to marry her physician.

  ‘My dear, he’s eighteen years your senior!’ he said.

  ‘I love him,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Impossible!’ her mother cried. ‘You’ve been at death’s door. You’re not fit to make such a decision.’ She had bigger plans for her daughter. A physician was not – after all – a gentleman.

  Most horrified of all was my great-grandmother, who said, ‘I would sooner have Lyubov marry a musician – or die!’

  My somewhat indelicate grandmother also pointed out that Dr Behrs was not a Russian at all; he was German. ‘Possibly even a Jew,’ she whispered in her granddaughter’s ear.

  Mama, typically, would not budge. Her family knew, or should have known, that once she had decided on a course of action the argument was closed.

  I don’t know exactly what went wrong with Mama’s marriage, nor why she took up with Ivan Turgenev, who broke her heart.

  ‘Turgenev was a rascal and a fop,’ Lyovochka says, all too frequently. ‘His novels bore me. They are French novels written in Russian.’ It is not enough for a writer to succeed; his friends must fail.

  I talk about the marriage of my parents glibly now, but it hurt me to discover the extent of their misery. At least, during my first lonely months at Yasnaya Polyana, I had the myth of their happiness to aid and abet my spirits. I had the story of their life together, which I told and retold to myself.

  Now even that story has deserted me.

  15

  L. N.

  LETTER TO I. I. PERPER

  10 MARCH 1910

  Here is a book translated from the German under the title Horrors of Christian Civilization. It was complied by a Tibetan lama who studied at German universities for several years. The title of the book is self-explanatory. Whether it was written by a real Buddhist or someone who used that form as a convention, as in Montesquieu’s famous book Persian Letters, I can’t say. In any case, the book is fascinating and instructive.

  Recently Buddhism has become increasingly free from the overlays that have burdened it in the past, just as the Christian world has begun to understand its true essence. Also, one sees more and more people converting from Christianity to Buddhism in both Europe and America.

  Apart from the philosophical depth of its teaching, so well explained by Schopenhauer, the moral basis of this teaching strikes me as particularly attractive. I would isolate five essential commandments in Buddhism:

  Kill no living creature deliberately.

  Do not steal what belongs to others.

  Do not capitulate to sexual desires.

  Tell the truth.

  Avoid drugging yourself by alcohol or smoking.

  One can hardly help thinking what a great change would occur in the world if people knew these commandments and thought them at least as binding as the need to perform certain external rituals.

  LETTER TO V. G. KOROLENKO

  26–27 MARCH 1910

  I just listened to someone reading your essay on the death penalty. Much as I tried, I was unable to restrain myself – not just from shedding a tear but from actually sobbing as I listened. I can barely express to you my thanks and affection for writing this article, which is marvelous in its expression, its thought, and – singularly – its feeling.

  It should be reprinted and distributed in the millions. No speeches at the Duma, no tracts, no plays or novels could have even a thousandth of the impact.

  It could have such influence because it stirs a powerful sense of compassion for the suffering experienced by these victims of human insanity; one can’t help forgiving whatever their crimes may have been, and (however much one might like to) one can’t forgive those responsible for their suffering. Also, your article makes one gape in disbelief at the self-confident ignorance of those who commit these dreadful acts, and at the uselessness of it all, since it’s obvious that capital punishment has the reverse effect of that intended, as you show. Apart from this, your article will arouse another feeling, one I have experienced to a high degree – a feeling of pity, not just for those who were murdered but also for those duped, simple, manipulated people – the guards, jailers, executioners, and soldiers who commit such deeds with no sense of what they have done.

  One thing that brightens my heart is that an article such as yours unites many readers who are not deceived
or perverted. They are united by a single ideal of goodness and truth, and this blazes out ever more brightly – no matter what its enemies may try to do.

  16

  Bulgakov

  I woke early, startled by what sounded like someone shuffling in the hallway outside my bedroom. Sergeyenko is by nature suspicious, so I wouldn’t put it past him to loiter outside my door. He is by now aware that Masha and I have formed an intimate friendship. During meals, we sit together at the narrow pine table in the dining room of Telyatinki, and this is enough to raise suspicion. Nothing is really forbidden at Telyatinki, but there are tacit standards that cannot be ignored.

  ‘Each man is alone with his conscience and his God,’ Sergeyenko said one morning over breakfast. He did not have the courage to look at me directly as he spoke.

  One bright day when the April sun was glistening on the wet grass and the sky was blue as ice, I said to Sergeyenko, ‘It’s a fine day, Leo Patrovich!’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘But we’ll pay for it.’

  Likewise, I said to him one night before retiring, ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Leo Patrovich.’

  Looking warily at me, he said, ‘If we’re spared.’

  The atmosphere of general deflation at Telyatinki has become a subject of secret jokes between me and Masha. We tease Sergeyenko in front of the others, asking portentous questions about the meaning of life, begging him to comment on a quotation by the Buddha or La Rochefoucauld, but our teasing occasionally backfires. His impromptu sermons can last for hours.

  It amazes me how unself-consciously egotistical people can be. They assume that whatever they say must interest others in the same way it interests them. Leo Nikolayevich is unique, I think, among great men in having a sense of audience. He speaks his mind, but he does not linger unnecessarily over details or digress. Nor, like so many old men, does he repeat himself or talk obsessively about the past.

  He gives his opinion freely when asked. Only a week ago I heard him tell a young man who came to Yasnaya Polyana seeking advice on his writing career that his story was without merit. He advised the young man to learn a trade, such as carpentry. The poor fellow was aghast but grateful for such frankness.

  Masha and I have united against the common enemy: Sergeyenko. But I realized there was still an obstacle between us when I tried to put a spoonful of porridge into Masha’s mouth as we stood by the stove. It was my turn to wash up, and she was helping me.

  ‘Please, don’t!’ she said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t want that kind of relationship with you. I want to be your … friend.’

  My friend. Of course I am her friend. What did that mean? Romance was not exactly my reason for coming to Tula. I am here to work, to help Leo Nikolayevich. Or so I tell myself.

  ‘Will you be gone all day?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. What does that question mean?’

  ‘It means I wonder if you will be gone all day. Why does everything have to mean something?’

  ‘I will probably not stay for tea today. Not unless Leo Nikolayevich needs me for some reason.’

  He usually works for an hour or two before dinner, after his walk or ride. I don’t actually have to stay, but I like being there in case he should want to talk with me. In the past week or so, I have been leaving early. I look forward to returning to Telyatinki as soon as possible, though I had refused to tell myself – until now – that it is because of Masha.

  She turned away from me and sat down at the kitchen table with a book. I could not fathom her. I rode off without saying good-bye and realized, as I approached Yasnaya Polyana, that I was furious. But why? I had no reason to be. No reason whatsoever.

  When I arrived at Yasnaya Polyana, Leo Nikolayevich was standing on the terrace at the side of the house, posing for the famous photographers Sherin and Nabgolts, whom Sofya Andreyevna had brought down from Moscow. She was preparing the twelfth edition of Tolstoy’s Collected Works and wanted a new portrait for the frontispiece. I watched as she shouted directions, waving the photographers this way and that. Leo Nikolayevich submitted to these indignities like a schoolboy having his trousers hemmed.

  Later, he came into the Remington room, where I had taken over for Sasha.

  ‘You seem tired, Leo Nikolayevich,’ I said.

  His eyes had sunk deeply into their sockets, and his skin had a yellowy, parchment quality. His lips, like thin blue lines, quivered slightly as he hunched beside me.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well,’ he said. ‘Posing for pictures disgusts me. There are enough pictures of this ragged old man for the press to feed on.’

  ‘Sofya Andreyevna is happy about the new edition.’

  His face tightened. ‘I wish I had been stricter with her. She is needling me to include that chapter about hunting in Childhood. It is a disgraceful piece of writing.’

  ‘She thinks it will be popular.’

  ‘At my age, popularity is irrelevant. I have to provide an example for other Russian writers. Since I disapprove of hunting, hunting scenes should be cut from my work. At least I’m still alive and can do this. After my death, goodness knows what will happen.’

  Leo Nikolayevich seemed in a talkative mood, so I withdrew from the typewriter.

  ‘You know, dear boy,’ he said, ‘a revolution of sorts has taken place in the public mind. It’s quite a recent phenomenon. Russians are becoming more liberal, I suspect. Some years ago, nobody would conceive of hunting as anything but an admirable and manly activity. Now, it’s widely considered reactionary. The same is true of attitudes toward stealing. It would never have occurred to people in the past that peasants were victims of the wealthy classes, who in effect stole from those less fortunate than themselves.’

  ‘Property is theft,’ I said, quoting Proudhon.

  He knew that I was teasing and liked it. ‘Valentin Fedorovich, you are a fund of quotations.’

  He still had on his mind the young author who had come seeking his advice and asked me if he had been too harsh. I insisted he had not.

  ‘I’ve never denied art, you know,’ he said. Ever since he published What Is Art?, he has been called the enemy of art. ‘The opposite is true of me, in fact. I consider art a necessary condition of the rational life. But I think that art should contribute to human understanding.’

  I wasn’t quite sure why he felt compelled to go on like this. I agree with him, and he knows that. The empty frivolity of so many French and English and – alas – Russian writers disturbs us both. Perhaps, like many old men, Leo Nikolayevich enjoys restating his positions, which have been won by years of contemplation.

  ‘You see, there are so many writers now. Everybody wants to be a writer,’ he said, pacing the room. ‘Look at this morning’s mail, for instance. Three or four letters from budding authors. They all want to be published. But in literature, as in life, one must observe a kind of chastity. A writer should attempt only what has not been done before. Almost anyone can write “The sun shone, the grass was bright,” and so forth.’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘When I wrote Childhood, I was convinced that no one before me had portrayed the poetry of childhood in that particular way. But I will say it again: in literature, as in life, one must horde one’s bounty. Don’t you think?’

  I nodded. What could I say?

  ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ Leo Nikolayevich asked. I do not intend to lose my soul, I thought. Not for anything.

  He abruptly turned and left for his study. I consoled myself that he was lost in meditation. I mean very little in the larger context of his life. He hardly knows me. I have entered his life at the end.

  I was left with a moving letter to type on his behalf, a response to a peasant who had written with concern over the contradictions in the count’s life. Leo Nikolayevich answered him:

  You ask if I like the life I am currently leading. I do not. Emphatically. I dislike it because I live with my family in
ridiculous luxury, while all around me there is poverty and need, and I seem unable to extricate myself from the luxury or answer the needs of the people. I hate this. But what I do appreciate about my life is that I try to do what is within my power, to the extent of my power, to follow Christ’s precept and love God and my neighbor. To love God means to love what is good and draw near it. To love your neighbor means to love all men equally as our brothers and sisters. It is to this, and this alone, that I aspire. Since I am approaching this ideal, little by little, though imperfectly, I refuse to despair. Indeed, I rejoice.

  When I finished typing, I went to his study for a signature. Getting no response to a knock, I walked in to find him sleeping with his head on the desk. It was noon exactly. I put a hand on his shoulder and set down the letter so that when he woke he would find it.

  Without warning, he lifted his head. ‘I’m afraid my powers of work exist in inverse proportion to my desire to work,’ he said. ‘In the past, I often lacked the desire to work. But now, near the end of my life, I find I have to restrain it.’