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

by Jay Parini

  Feeling lost and stupefied, I went back to my room and wept. Chertkov had doubtless shown this letter to Lyovochka, who would have said to himself, ‘See! Vladimir Grigorevich is bending over backward to befriend her. He is being generous and openhearted.’ He cannot see that Chertkov is trying to hoodwink us both.

  Three days later, Chertkov walked brazenly into the dining room during the midday meal. My husband became wildly solicitous, as if the tsar himself had arrived unexpectedly. He dragged a chair from the wall for him, offering him anything he might like. ‘What will it be, my dearest dear, my lovely Vladimir Grigorevich? My wife’s heart on a platter? Her kidneys? With salt? But of course, my dear Vladimir Grigorevich! Whatever pleases you! You would like the estate, is that it? Fine! And permanent copyright on everything I’ve ever written? Certainly!’

  I tried, with difficulty, to sit through the meal, but they had no interest in my company. After the first course, I excused myself by saying that a headache was coming on (it was) and left the room. Upstairs, I settled at my desk to write in my diary. It was July 1. The hottest day yet. In the past, writing in my diary relieved certain feelings. Now, I could think of nothing to say.

  Chertkov stayed through the afternoon and remained for dinner. I pretended not to care. Indeed, I was as polite as could be, inquiring after his mother’s health, his various projects. I showed interest in his wretched publishing company, the very company that is stealing my children’s inheritance. It surprised me that I could remain so cool in the face of such an outrage.

  The entire table normally retires to the library for coffee or tea at the end of the meal. Tonight, Sasha furtively whisked Chertkov and her father into the study. I could see that they were plotting. They are always plotting. The whole thing cut and tore at my nerves. I hate it when people lack the courage to tell me what evil deeds they have concocted behind my back….

  I tiptoed to the study, where they had shut the door firmly. Lyovochka never shuts his door. It is always ajar, as if to say, ‘Yes, I am working, but you may knock and enter.’

  As I listened, my worst fears were confirmed. They were whispering, and my heart stopped when, above the low rustle of language, I heard my name.

  My heart caught between beats; I thought surely I would faint when Sasha said, clearly, ‘Of course, Mama would kill us if she found out.’ And Chertkov hushed her. They waited, panicky, for a long time, as if listening for footsteps. But I did not move.

  When they resumed their whispering, I fled downstairs, where I sat in the parlor with a glass of vodka, burning inside. I resolved to climb onto the balcony where the door, with its venetian slats, might allow me to hear what they were planning. It was information that might be crucial to the welfare of my family.

  There is a narrow ledge running along the second floor, and it is possible to slip along the building if you keep your back pressed tightly to the wall. Squeezing through a window, I was able to edge my way along the wall. My weight, unfortunately, is such that the balance was precarious. At several points I swayed forward, almost swooning. Soon I stood exactly outside Lyovochka’s study.

  I listened at the blinds. Their voices, though hushed, could be clearly discerned through the lathwork.

  ‘I cannot do it,’ said Lyovochka.

  ‘Papa, I think he is right. You must listen to him. He has in mind only your best interests.’

  ‘The interests of the people,’ Chertkov added. ‘Which are, of course, identical with the best interests of Leo Nikolayevich.’

  Here were my enemies, huddled and scheming, inventing their little plots. It was all too horrific. Suddenly I lost my balance; the ground tilted over my ankles, or seemed to tilt, and I shrieked.

  ‘Who’s there?’ shouted my daughter. Her voice was harsh, bitter, unforgiving.

  I went bowling through the latched shutters, flung like a turnkey by the weight of gravity. My skirts fluttered up over my shoulders. I was upside down, peering at the assembled company from between my thighs. ‘You’re all plotting against me!’ I shouted. ‘In my own house, too!’

  My husband slumped in his chair, staring ahead weirdly.

  ‘You will kill him, Mama,’ Sasha said smugly. ‘But that’s what you want, isn’t it? You want him to die!’

  She left me standing there by myself as Ilya, the houseboy, and Chertkov carried Lyovochka out of the room.

  When Chertkov returned, he seemed more ferocious than I have ever seen him. The putty of his cheeks blazed like newly fired clay.

  I said, ‘Vladimir Grigorevich, I know exactly what you’re trying to do. Don’t think that you deceive me for one little moment. I want my husband’s diaries back. Return them immediately to this house, where they belong. In the name of God!’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘You’re the Devil himself,’ I said.

  He looked beyond me to a far corner of the room. ‘Had I cared to, I could have demolished you and your family. It would have been only too easy, you know. The press is bloodthirsty.’

  I wish to God my husband could have heard him talking then, the real Chertkov.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Ruin us. Tell them anything you like.’

  ‘I have too much respect for Leo Nikolayevich to attempt such a thing. You are lucky.’

  ‘I detest you, Vladimir Grigorevich.’ My lips quivered. I could barely contain myself.

  ‘If I had a wife like you,’ he said, moving toward the door, ‘I would have blown my brains out a long time ago. Or gone to America.’

  That night, in bed, I dreamt that my husband and Vladimir Grigorevich were lying on the wet forest floor of Zasyeka, naked, writhing in the dead leaves: an old man, white haired, with a beard of snow, engaged with his fat-faced, oily disciple in an act of monstrous intercourse. They wriggled in the mud like worms.

  I woke with a start, pooled in sweat. Trembling, I knelt at the side of my bed and prayed, aloud, ‘God, dear God. Have mercy on me, a sinner.’

  24

  Bulgakov

  I don’t know how long I can allow this double life to continue. In the presence of Leo Nikolayevich, I pretend my private life is beyond reproach. That is, I avoid the subject altogether. He assumes (or I assume that he assumes) that I live according to his principles, since I have vocally supported them and written about them, too, with enthusiasm. But this little deceit, and the nearly invisible contradictions in my life, trouble me.

  I do not consider myself immoral. A man must follow his own conscience, and while the Tolstoyans oppose sexual relations outside of marriage (indeed, Leo Nikolayevich has grave doubts about the morality of sex within marriage), I find myself more in accord with Plato, who said that one can progress from sexual love to spiritual love. Ideally, one should not have to suffer a split between body and soul.

  I do love Masha. My life has changed utterly since we met. But it has become difficult for us to maintain our love at Telyatinki. Sergeyenko hardly speaks to me now. He shuns Masha completely, rudely, and she has become exasperated. Yesterday she spoke of leaving for St Petersburg, where a Tolstoyan enclave has just been started by a group of her former acquaintances.

  ‘My intent was never to stay here for longer than a few months. When Chertkov invited me to come, he was quite explicit about this,’ she said.

  ‘Nobody ever worries about that kind of thing here.’

  ‘I worry about it.’

  ‘Sergeyenko ought to be shot.’

  ‘You don’t mean it, Valya. He isn’t nearly so rude as you imagine. You think everyone is shunning us. It’s not true.’

  I could not convince her. She is so imperturbable, so clear-eyed in the face of a storm.

  I would spend more time with her if I could, but that has become impossible. Leo Nikolayevich needs me badly at present, and he prefers that I stay overnight at Yasnaya Polyana. He wants me there so that he can escape from the family tensions, I suspect. Chertkov has become nothing less than obsessive lately, coming up with new schemes eve
ry week for booklets, pamphlets, anthologies, selections. I doubt the purity of his motives, but Leo Nikolayevich doesn’t. He agrees eagerly with Chertkov about everything.

  Sofya Andreyevna has been of no help. She discovers plots where none exist. Indeed, she imagines that Chertkov is trying to have her and the children written out of the will, as if Leo Nikolayevich could ever do such a thing.

  Chertkov may be something of a prig and a bore, but he is not cruel. On the other hand, without religion to restrain him, I suspect he could be barbarous. There is a peculiar heartlessness in his laugh.

  Sofya Andreyevna is obsessed with regaining possession of her husband’s diaries. Leo Nikolayevich no doubt writes truthfully about the flux of their relations, but she does not want posterity to have access to this information.

  ‘Can you understand why this bothers me so much?’ she asked me last night, as I brought her tea.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ I said. ‘But you mustn’t think that Leo Nikolayevich would consciously distort the nature of your marriage in his diaries. The truth means everything to him.’

  ‘He thinks he’s honest, but he doesn’t know himself very well. He doesn’t realize, for instance, that he loves Chertkov and despises me. He thinks he loves me. But you should see the kind of things he writes about me. These will delight future biographers. They will say, “Poor Leo Tolstoy … dragged down by a jealous, foolish, possessive, and extravagant wife who could not possibly share his lofty intellectual or moral life.”’

  ‘Isn’t that Englishman, Aylmer Maude, at work on a biography?’ I asked, knowing the answer already. ‘He is said to be a fair-minded person. He knows you well – and the truth of your relations with your husband.’

  ‘He is no better than the rest of them.’

  I begged to differ, recalling a letter that Leo Nikolayevich had written to Maude only a couple of weeks before. In that letter, he chastised Maude for not appreciating the importance of Chertkov, ‘the man who for many years has been my best helper and friend.’ Maude fully appreciates Leo Nikolayevich’s overly high estimation of Chertkov. His work will set the record straight on these matters. In fact, Chertkov is terrified of what Maude will write.

  Last night, once again, Sofya did her ritual dance, racing from the house, half naked, because her husband would not immediately turn over the diaries. But nobody pays much attention to these wild displays anymore. My impulse was to say, To hell with her. If she drowns herself in the pond, so be it. Life will be easier around here. But I cannot help feeling terribly sorry for her. Her life is made miserable by circumstances beyond her control.

  When she did not return for some time, Leo Nikolayevich came into the sitting room, where I was reading, and asked me to search for her. His son Leo said he would join me but insisted his father accompany us. ‘What right do you have to lie in a warm bed when your wife is wandering the woods, driven insane by your obstinacy?’ he asked.

  ‘All right,’ Leo Nikolayevich responded wearily. ‘I will go with you.’

  I split from them to go through the orchard, while they trudged off into the fields. They found her by a stream, delirious, and coaxed her home. It is by now a familiar scene, and very little was said. But I realized that things at Yasnaya Polyana are nearing a conclusion.

  The effects of all this on Leo Nikolayevich are painfully evident. His speech is frequently slurred, and he hobbles from room to room with a cane. His writing slowed to a dribble before it stopped altogether. Chertkov became panicky. Tanya was summoned. Her presence becalms the Tolstoy household. Leo Nikolayevich loves her dearly, and he quickened visibly when I told him she was coming. ‘Wonderful news,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad. Thank you, thank you so much!’

  It was odd, him thanking me.

  ‘I’m not asking for a great deal, am I? All I want is for Chertkov to return the diaries to me,’ Sofya Andreyevna said to her daughter Tanya, who had called a family summit in her father’s study the morning after her arrival. ‘If he wants to copy them, that’s all right. But I insist on keeping the originals.’

  ‘Is there anything wrong with this, Papa?’ Tanya asked.

  By now the whole subject disgusted him. ‘Do what you like. Take the diaries. I want peace in my house. That’s all I want now. Peace …’

  Pleased by his quick concession, Sofya Andreyevna set off for Telyatinki in a droshky. At her request, I accompanied her, aware that Sergeyenko and Chertkov would read my presence as an act of alliance. But I have, by now, given up hope of appeasing anyone.

  The day sizzled, and Sofya Andreyevna looked like an empress, her white dress reflecting the sun off its many folds. Everything she does is calculated for effect, and today she was determined to shine. Chertkov’s mother – the queen of Telyatinki when she’s in residence – received us ceremoniously, ordering her personal servant to bring the samovar. We were ushered into the bare sitting room, which smelled of floor wax and burnt candles. Sofya Andreyevna looked mildly askance at the books and manuscripts piled on the floor. Chertkov came fluttering into the room, bowing and purring. He understood that a personal visit from the Countess Tolstoy could only mean trouble.

  Sofya Andreyevna was left alone with Chertkov’s mother, while I was ushered into Sergeyenko’s study. Vladimir Grigorevich stood rigidly behind Sergeyenko, a general looking over the shoulder of his field commander.

  ‘Sit down, Valentin Fedorovich,’ he said, nodding in the direction of a straight-backed chair.

  ‘It’s delightful to see you both,’ I said.

  Sergeyenko frowned. ‘What is going on?’ he asked. ‘Why is she here?’

  ‘We are not her favorite people,’ Chertkov added. He did not chuckle.

  ‘She feels that Leo Nikolayevich’s diaries belong to her, and she wants them back. But she says that you may copy them, if you like. It’s the originals that interest her.’

  ‘You told her they were here?’ Chertkov asked.

  ‘I assumed that you had them with you,’ I said. ‘Was I mistaken?’

  Chertkov’s face crumpled like a piece of paper.

  ‘You may join the ladies, Valentin Fedorovich,’ he said.

  ‘I hope I didn’t make matters worse,’ I said.

  I hated myself for saying that before the sentence had passed my lips. I have been trying, throughout this ordeal, to behave as straightforwardly as possible. When you are dealing with people who are suspicious by nature, you must take care to say only what is obviously true. Speculative remarks only invite further fantasies.

  ‘Go next door and have tea,’ Chertkov ordered. The remark infuriated me. I did not take this position to be treated like a child.

  When Chertkov and Sergeyenko joined us in the sitting room, Sofya Andreyevna stood boldly. ‘Let me get to the point, Vladimir Grigorevich. I must insist upon the return of my husband’s diaries. I do not wish to be your enemy. I am glad that my husband has a friend such as you – someone who understands and shares his ideas. All I want is this little favor – the return of his diaries. If you will grant me this, I assure you that we can be friends. We should be friends, as you have said yourself, since we have so many common interests.’

  I marveled at her self-possession.

  ‘You are very kind, Sofya Andreyevna. And I am glad that you have, at last, honored us with a visit. But I’m afraid I cannot help you with regard to the diaries. I can act only upon your husband’s directions.’

  With this, Sofya Andreyevna bid them all good-bye, harshly, and summoned her driver.

  ‘Are you coming with me, Valentin Fedorovich?’ she asked.

  Chertkov looked at me impassively.

  ‘Will Leo Nikolayevich be needing me this afternoon?’

  ‘You know better than I.’

  It had been a mistake to hesitate.

  ‘I’ll be back later,’ I said to Sergeyenko. ‘After dinner.’

  ‘Masha will be delighted,’ he sneered.

  Sofya Andreyevna looked at me knowingly, while Chertkov simply stared,
his eyes as narrow as the tip of a pen.

  In the droshky, Sofya Andreyevna turned to me coyly. ‘Have you been keeping something from me, Valentin Fedorovich? I should hope not. We have become close friends.’

  ‘It is nothing,’ I said.

  ‘A young woman in your life is nothing?’

  ‘Masha is a close friend.’

  ‘A lover?’

  ‘A good friend.’

  ‘That sounds serious.’

  Friendship is always serious, I thought, irritated by her meddling.

  ‘I didn’t mean to annoy you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not annoyed.’

  ‘You forget that I’m an experienced reader,’ she said. ‘I can read your face, every letter. The script is beautifully clear.’

  Did I blush or merely imagine that my entire body flamed? I said, ‘My relations with Masha are somewhat painful, just now. I don’t really want to talk about them.’

  ‘Do you love her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t fret, my dear!’ she said. ‘I shall not tell the great man.’ She paused. ‘I suppose you know about his past. He was a whoremonger in his youth, insatiable. He has hardly ever had much self-control in this regard. Why else would he protest so violently? He doesn’t want anyone else to do what he’s been doing for sixty years!’

  What could I say? Sofya Andreyevna knows far more than I do about the sexual history of Leo Tolstoy, although the general pattern of his life is familiar. He has never troubled to hide the facts of his early life. ‘I was a sinful young man,’ he once told me. ‘Obsessed with sexual longings, overcome by animal desire. Only a long struggle has rid me of these things.’ That’s what he says, though I have noticed his eyes grow lively whenever a young servant girl enters the room.

  This afternoon I spent several hours in the Remington room with Sasha, answering letters. Leo Nikolayevich is so upset that he does not even want to sign, let alone revise, our responses. I feel strange, occasionally, as I write letters in his name. It’s as though I am Leo Tolstoy. Somehow, the letters don’t seem like forgeries. When I write as Tolstoy, I am Tolstoy. His spirit, like that of other men and women, is simply a demarcation of the human spirit, which in itself is a demarcation of the larger spirit, the God-spirit; in death, the demarcations end. We become, to use Emerson’s phrase, part of the Oversoul. We touch this God-spirit in daily life, too, during blessed moments, moments of affection, of peculiar insight, of fierce candor. The spirit of Leo Tolstoy is capacious, allowing easy entry. I left Yasnaya Polyana tonight feeling more like Tolstoy than myself.