The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (40 page)

I hired a new governess for Sasha today, an elderly lady, the mother of three daughters. I have been busy with practical matters, and played the piano for three hours.

I made a great mistake and personally delivered some books to Sergei Ivanovich. I very much regret this now, but I have been quite beside myself recently, lying awake until four in the morning, haunted by the stench of corpses, the misery of loneliness and the vanity of life, and desperately searching for something to grasp hold of, something to save me from this depression.

 

23rd September
. My wedding anniversary. Today I have been married to Lev Nikolaevich for thirty-six years—and we are apart.

 

28th September (Yasnaya Polyana)
. I have come home. I turned off the highway at Yasenki in the dark and drove towards the church. It was a dismal journey in the dark through melting snow along the bad road, and I was weighed down with worries about Misha, whom I had left in a despondent state. But then what a treat to get back to the bright house at Yasnaya, filled with my dear ones who love me. I went straight to Lyovochka's study, and we fell into each other's arms as we used to when we were young, and kissed over and over again. His eyes shone with joy and love—it's a long time since I have seen him so happy.

 

3rd October
. L.N. is buried in his work; he keeps putting more finishing touches to
Resurrection
, and has sent several chapters abroad to be translated. Today he was talking to a wandering man who was thrown into jail for four months after a strike, and was deported. L.N. was mesmerized by his stories.

 

5th October
. We have had news of Tanya. She has apparently refused Sukhotin, and they were both crying; Nurse writes that Misha told her she was pining and weeping.

Misha has arrived very depressed; he has been carousing in Moscow, and has returned to his family in the country to come to his senses. We had an interesting French couple here called M. and Mme de Gercy. They are extreme socialists and atheists, and have instigated several strikes in Paris. They are both passionate people, very fond of each other and very French, with their lively, temperamental natures and their capacity to live entirely for some cause, something beyond themselves.

 

6th October
. This morning I had a talk with Misha about his recent disorderly life and he said how remorseful he felt and how much he longed to do better and be more disciplined. What I found so touching was that he had come to be with his family and seek salvation in nature—and he seems to have found it too.

Pasternak the artist came; L.N. invited him here as he wants him to do some illustrations for
Resurrection
for a French journal—called
Illustration
, I believe. What a lively, clever, educated man this Pasternak* is.

 

17th October (Moscow)
. Sasha and I have been in Moscow since Sunday evening, the 11th. She is studying hard and behaving well at present. Long may this continue. It's very hard having to keep an eye on Misha all the time, it's a constant strain and worry that he'll do something wrong, yet I feel he relies on me to worry about him. My life is constantly busy, selling the oats according to the plan, tidying the house, then publishing business and work. I am also copying Lev Nikolaevich's diaries, which is one more torment for my soul.

 

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.