by Jay Parini
For months, we hardly spoke. But I am her son, after all, and we have in recent years arrived at a truce. She puts my interest in Tolstoy down to ‘eccentricity,’ which has given her a way of talking about me to her friends. I let her indulge herself in this fantasy.
Gradually, the Lord has narrowed my enemies to only one person: Sofya Andreyevna. She has never understood. She has not even tried. So Leo Nikolayevich must live in a perpetual state of compromise, preaching poverty and obedience to the will of God while surrounded by every kind of luxury and worldliness. It is no wonder his disciples, upon seeing Yasnaya Polyana for the first time, often retreat in disillusion.
Leo Nikolayevich has talked of leaving her. Indeed, he has often swerved in the direction of abandoning his life at Yasnaya Polyana, a life that has grown more painful as the contradictions become more evident. What he will do, I cannot say. But he must do something.
In midsummer, two years ago, he fell gravely ill. The sickness seemed a combination of spiritual crisis and physical ailment. As I leaf through his diary of that period (which I keep hidden in a strong-box at Telyatinki), I find the tenor of his voice unmistakable.
2 July 1908
If I had heard of myself as an outsider – of a man living in luxury, wringing all he can from the peasants, locking them up in prison, while preaching and professing Christianity and giving away small change, and for all his loathsome actions sheltering himself behind his dear wife – I would not hesitate to call him a scoundrel! and that is just what I need that I may be set free from the praises of men and live for my soul….
2 July 1908, later in the day
Doubts have come into my mind whether I do right to be silent, and even whether it would not be better for me to go away, to disappear. I refrain from doing this principally because it would be for my own sake, in order to escape from a life poisoned on every side.
3 July 1908
It is still agonizing. Life here at Yasnaya Polyana is completely poisoned. Wherever I turn, it is shame and suffering….
6 July 1908
Help me, O Lord! Again I long to go away, and I do not make up my mind to do so, yet I do not give up on the idea. The great point is: whether I would be doing it for my own sake if I went away. That I am not doing it for my own sake in staying, that much I know for certain….
9 July 1908
One thing grows more and more excruciating: the injustice of the senseless luxury in the midst of which I am living with undeserved poverty and want all around me. I feel worse and worse, more and more wretched. I cannot forget, I cannot help seeing what I see.
Doubtless it was God’s will that he should live. Shortly after, we went walking in Zasyeka Wood, he moving very slowly, as when he is lost in thought. It was oppressively hot that summer, the air sticking to the skin like beeswax. I said, ‘Dear friend, I sense that you are suffering.’
He turned to me with his face shining, his eyes glittering like crystals. ‘I’ve been thinking a great deal of late, thinking very deeply. And it has become clear to me that when one stands at the parting of ways and does not know which way to act, one ought surely to give preference to the decision which involves the most self-sacrifice.’
I understood by this remark that he had chosen to remain with Sofya Andreyevna. Surely nothing could be more painful than that. But I refrained from comment. I have tried, repeatedly, to remind myself that Leo Nikolayevich has devoted himself to Sofya Andreyevna for nearly five decades; he has borne her prattling, her violent temper, the indignities she heaps upon him daily. I thank God that Anna Konstantinovna has never wavered in her devotion to righteousness. She has labored beside me, never questioning the justice of my activity. She understands that a woman’s role is to encourage and sustain the intellectual and moral work undertaken by her husband.
As the troika took me through the foggy countryside to Kochety, I recalled a similar morning in 1883 when, fortuitously, I found myself on the same train from Moscow to Petersburg with Leo Nikolayevich. I had, indeed, heard of Leo Tolstoy and his writing before this meeting. Once I saw him across a crowded room in Moscow: his features remained vividly in my head – the ruddy bulb of his nose, the wispy beard, which had not yet turned white.
He was alone on the train, reading, and though I was assigned a different seat, I decided to risk offense and sit across from him. Having only lately read one of his books, I felt confident of my ability to engage him in conversation.
Seeing me, he put his book aside. Our eyes met sharply.
‘Count Tolstoy?’
He raised his eyebrows.
I mentioned the reception, which he seemed not to recall. ‘I am a great admirer of yours,’ I continued. ‘Though I take issue with some of the things you have written about the Cossacks.’ He romanticized them, I suggested. To my surprise, he quickly agreed. I have since learned that Leo Nikolayevich likes nothing better than serious readers who will take the trouble to contradict him.
We swiftly became friends, sharing many ideas and preoccupations, ideals, future plans. Had Sofya Andreyevna not made it difficult for us to continue our relations, there is no telling what we might have accomplished.
From a narrow, personal perspective, I have gained immensely from my contact with Leo Nikolayevich. I treasure the letters he has written to me over the years, especially the one dated 7 November 1884. ‘I would very much like to live with you,’ he wrote.
I wonder if you are perpetually as anxious as when we are together. You can’t be like that at home (though – if your letters suggest the truth – you are constantly pressed for time). As you know, I once wrote part of a novel about Peter I, and there was one good thing about what I said – my explanation of his character and evil deeds by the fact that he was simply too busy with building ships, working at a lathe, traveling, making proclamations, et cetera. It’s a truism that idleness is the handmaid of discontent with oneself and, in particular, with other people. I would wish, for you, more calm, more idleness. More good-natured, warm, kindly, and self-indulgent calm and idleness. I would like to live with you and, if we are still alive, I shall live with you. Never cease to love me as I love you.
The directness of the man, the willingness to speak his emotions, his thoughts, clearly and boldly, has never ceased to shock me. I have, indeed, loved him as dearly as one can love another man.
The matter of his will continues to torment us all. The great novels, his diaries, and correspondence remain in the hands of Sofya Andreyevna. Far from seeing that this work receive the widest dissemination among the people, she wants to ensure that it can be published only in the most expensive and, for her, most profitable editions. Alas, she has Leo Nikolayevich cornered, and he cannot see a way around her.
I, however, shall propose that he make me the executor of his work. I can produce it cheaply and distribute it to the muzhiks. This will be the grandest of gifts to the Russian people. Ad majorem Dei gloriam, as the Jesuits say.
I felt quite faint with anticipation as the troika wobbled along the muddy road to the front door of Kochety. We had barely come to a halt when Leo Nikolayevich rushed out to greet me, his face full of expectation and love. I was, as ever, overwhelmed by my dear friend’s affection, so childlike and unqualified as we embraced, his face wet with tears. Indeed, my driver was embarrassed, turning away from us.
Perhaps those years I spent in England are at fault, but I confess that open displays of emotion unsettle me. Though I tried to respond to Leo Nikolayevich in kind, I shrank from him instinctively.
We went immediately to my room to talk over various publishing projects. Leo Nikolayevich expressed his satisfaction with young Bulgakov, whom I have come to distrust. He has been sending the most idiotic, unhelpful reports from Yasnaya Polyana. He is vain enough to imagine that I should actually want to hear his running commentary on Tolstoyan texts.
Although I tried, delicately, to bring the conversation to the matter of his will, Leo Nikolayevich sensed the drift of my lang
uage and emphasized his commitment to Sofya Andreyevna.
‘I couldn’t do it,’ he said, his voice faltering.
I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘I will never ask you to do anything against your better judgment. You must trust me.’
‘I trust you entirely,’ he said, standing, putting his arms around me, kissing me on either cheek. ‘Always, my friend.’
I told him that I had recently bought a new house, near Moscow, in Meshcherskoye. It is a lovely, secluded little estate, purchased with an inheritance recently passed on from a distant uncle. I said that he must come very soon to see it, since I have assembled a group of Tolstoyans – young men mostly, from the university – who will live there with me and help me in the work at hand. To my astonishment, he accepted instantly.
‘I shall come soon. In a few weeks!’ he said. ‘Perhaps Sasha will come with us. She is doing so well, you know. Recovering in the Crimea. Her doctor has written a most encouraging letter.’
The poor, dear man. I held him close to me, and we kissed once more on either cheek. For a long moment, we encountered each other with the rarest intimacy. Then we heard the rustle of carriage wheels, dogs barking, and the shouts of many servants. Soon the shrill voice of Sofya Andreyevna rose above the clatter: defiant, self-righteous, commanding.
‘Sonya!’ said Leo Nikolayevich, sucking in his lower lip. ‘She has found us, I’m afraid. I half-expected her.’
I touched him on the wrist. ‘You must come to me alone at Meshcherskoye,’ I said. ‘Forbid her to come. Do you understand?’
‘That cannot be done.’
‘It can!’ I insisted. ‘It would be good for her. She doesn’t realize it, but it would benefit her marriage. A husband and wife sometimes have to put time as well as distance between themselves to survive.’
He looked at me with his sad, large eyes and said nothing. I have to make him understand.
20
Sofya Andreyevna
He has betrayed me again. I returned from Moscow with Andrey and discovered that he had stolen off to Kochety. I ran straight to the pond. I wanted to end my life, to make him regret everything he has ever done to me. It was midday, but the world seemed empty. No people. Not a muzhik in the field. Not a bird on a black branch. The air was empty.
I lay on the bank, where the moss is thick as suede, rubbing my face in a patch of grass. Water was seething, rising through the knobby roots of alders, the willows, the black weeds. I listened, hoping to learn something by keeping still. Wondering: Should I die? Must I die?
It is always worst in spring, this feeling that I must die. Worse than in winter, which is bad enough. Snow is mercifully blank. It has no story. It does not jab at me like the blood rose, the gelder rose, the prickly thorn.
My nerves are bad now. Even last week, in Moscow, I burst into tears when a houseguest, hoping to please me, entered the front hall with fresh flowers. ‘For you, Countess,’ he said. ‘Take them back!’ I shouted to the man. ‘I don’t want your flowers!’
I wish I were the wind, invisible, circulating without body, without intent.
Lyovochka thinks that I do not love God. That God means nothing to me. But I prayed, at the pond’s edge, digging my face in the moss, in a patch of grass beside the moss: ‘God, my God … Why hast Thou forsaken me?’
I rolled onto my back. I let the sun finger my body. I spread my legs to it, the godly sun, its knife, its blade of light. It was hot on my things, and I found myself laughing and weeping.
I would not die today. No, I would not die. I would go to Kochety, at once. I would take back my Lyovochka.
I summoned the maids and a driver. Andrey said we would ride through the night if necessary. I would not give Lyovochka time to rewrite the will.
‘Papa is not in his right mind these days,’ Andrey said. ‘I don’t think he is capable of defending himself from those thieves he calls disciples.’
I kissed Andrey on both cheeks. I bowed my head to him. He is such a fine son. I wish all my children had turned out like him. He does not play at false modesty, at make-believe chastity, at pseudo-religious piety.
I went to my room to prepare for the journey, but before doing anything I wrote the truth of things in my diary. Otherwise, they will read and believe the diaries of Lyovochka and Chertkov. For all I know, even the parlor maids are keeping diaries. They watch me slyly as I pass, smiling behind my back.
We left for Kochety after dinner. My heart was palpitating the whole way, the pulse reaching extraordinary and life-threatening levels. I broke into tears, off and on, though Andrey was patient. He understands me so well. He knows that there is no moral reason for going along with Lyovochka’s schemes for giving our property to the masses, who would not know what to do with it anyway. Chertkov’s notions are all calculated to destroy me. And our family. There is nothing more pathetic than impoverished aristocrats.
We arrived just before lunch the following day, having slept badly on the train in cramped sleepers (so much for first-class service!). It was as I suspected. Vladimir Grigorevich was there, wringing his puffy hands. He was standing beside my husband on the steps, gloating over his possession.
‘What a pleasant surprise,’ he said, taking my hand.
‘I’m always happy to make you happy,’ I said.
We stabbed each other with our eyes, taking care not to lose our artificial smiles.
I had barely stepped into the house when Lyovochka and Chertkov began to whisper and sneer like schoolgirls. Like lovers …
It’s unnatural for a man of my husband’s age to cluck and coo over a beastly younger disciple. Whenever I suggest as much, Lyovochka becomes irate, irrational, even hysterical. Whenever I act from powerful and genuine feelings, they call me ‘a lunatic.’ When Lyovochka does the same, he is called ‘a genius.’
Tanya’s lunch was formal, with waiters in white jackets hovering behind our chairs. Sukhotin presided like an Oriental potentate. ‘You are looking so well,’ he kept saying, which made me wonder how frightful, in fact, I must look.
Andrey talked with animation about land resources and the latest measure taken by the government to extort money from the land-owning classes, who end up paying for everything – as usual. It is no wonder I have so little money. Count Generosity gives away everything he earns while our estates bring in less each year, partly because of poor management and servants who steal whatever they can lay their greedy hands on. Is it any wonder I get frantic when I think of his giving away the copyrights to his work?
I spoke of the unfairness of these new taxes, too, expecting at least a pleasant nod from my husband. Instead, he sulked, looking up occasionally at Vladimir Grigorevich as if to say, ‘You’re quite right. The woman is intolerable. Just as you said. A bitch.’
I don’t know why everyone puts up with that man, with his pointy little beard, his reptilian eyes going their separate ways. He dandles his paunch with a fidgety hand as if it were a treasure.
After lunch, my husband spent the afternoon on horseback beside his lover, riding through the woods where nobody could see them – in Prince Golitsyn’s park, seven versts from Kochety. I could see them in my mind, like satyrs, scampering about in the dark brush. I tried to banish these images, telling myself how irrational they were, but they would not go away. I could feel my heart racing, my temples pulsing like the throat of a frog.
It began to rain not long after their departure. A damp chill blew through the house, which grew terribly dark. I said to Tanya, ‘You know, a man of your father’s age can easily catch his death of cold.’ I could think of a dozen cases in point.
‘Mama, you fret too much,’ she said, coldly. ‘Vladimir Grigorevich is with him. They will surely take shelter in an isba if the rain continues.’
‘Nobody listens to me anymore,’ I said.
Tanya refused to notice that I had said anything at all. I realized how blessedly lucky we are that she no longer lives with us. Her pretensions to levelheadedness would be more than
I could bear. And she has this accusatory little mouth that puckers up when she doesn’t get her way. Who could believe she is my own daughter?
Lyovochka arrived home safely, and I was glad for this, though I had to suffer Tanya’s smugness.
That night, he came into my bedroom near midnight. I was reading the Bible, the Book of Ruth, with several candles burning on a table beside my bed.
‘Good evening, dear,’ I said. ‘Are you unable to sleep?’
He bent close and kissed me. It was not a sincere kiss, but at least he kissed me. I half-wondered if he was going to ask for a sexual favor. At his age, you would think he’d be over such requests. But one never knows with him. There’s no goat like an old goat.
‘Sit on the bed,’ I said. ‘Here.’ I moved over to make room for him.
I knew something weighed on his mind. He had that stony look that overwhelms him whenever he is about to make a confession or create a scene. It made my stomach flutter.
‘Our life together has become intolerable,’ he said, speaking to the wall. He never looks directly at me when he makes cruel remarks.
‘That is pure, foolish nonsense,’ I said. ‘We have had some disagreements, but they are no more than any married couple experiences. I love you.’
I probably should have said nothing. It is sometimes best to ignore his facetious prattling.
‘You and I no longer agree on anything: neither the land question nor the religious question.’
‘We are not heads of competing states,’ I said. ‘We are man and wife. Do we have to agree on such questions?’
‘The life I lead is an embarrassment to me and my friends. I am a hypocrite.’
‘You don’t mean a word of that, Lyovochka. That is Chertkov speaking. You are not yourself tonight.’
‘I don’t know how I can continue.’ His lips trembled as he spoke. I knew it was true.