The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (84 page)

Lyovochka…Prince Dmitry Shakhovskoi
: Tolstoy attended a congress called by representatives of the liberal intelligentsia to organize a protest against the Tsar's speech. Those present failed to make any practical decisions. “A complete waste of time,” Tolstoy wrote in his diary on 29th January. “All very stupid, and quite obvious the organization was only parading the strength of the individuals present.”

this frenzy is an unforgivable, incorrigible vice
: Later recalling her mental state at that time, Sofia wrote: “With time I realized that the real cause of my despair was my premonition of Vanechka's death, which happened at the end of February. I fell into exactly the same despairing state in the summer just before Lev Nikolaevich's death. Such times are beyond our powers of endurance. There are always plenty of opportunities for grief in our life. The question is whether we have the strength to survive them and control ourselves.”

Lyova has left for Ogranovich's sanatorium
: Lyova Tolstoy was sent to the hospital for nervous diseases established by Doctor M.P. Ogranovich near Zvenigorod, outside Moscow. On 21st February Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “Yesterday Ogranovich helped me to understand Lyova a little better. He explained that he had some latent form of malaria. And I suddenly began to understand his condition and felt sorry for him, although I still cannot summon up any genuine feeling of love for him.”

1897

Masha's wedding…tomorrow
: Maria Tolstaya married Nikolai Obolensky (Kolya) on 2nd June 1897. She wrote to Leonila Annenkova, on 8th May 1897: “Maman was at first opposed to my marriage, since he is very poor and is slightly younger than me. Papa likes my future husband very much, however, and thinks he is the best person I could have chosen. But he pities me and feels wretched for me, although he will never say what's on his mind, never gives me any advice, and just avoids me. I am delighted he likes Kolya, and more importantly, believes in him, but of course the prospect of parting with him is dreadfully painful for me.”

Lev Nikolaevich is writing his article about art
: In January 1897, Tolstoy began work on his tract
What Is Art
? Completed in 1898, the first uncensored edition appeared in 1898 in London, translated into English by Aylmer Maude.

Dunaev
: Alexander Dunaev, director of the Moscow Trade Bank and a fellow thinker of Tolstoy's.

I miss Sergei Ivanovich more than anything
: Sofia wrote: “After the death of my little son Vanechka, I was in a state of utter despair, such as
one experiences only once in a lifetime. Such grief usually kills one, but if it doesn't, one's heart is incapable of suffering so deeply again. But I survived, and I owe this to fate and to music. Once I had been intoxicated by music and learnt to listen to it, I could no longer live without it, and it was Taneev's music that affected me more powerfully than any other; it was he who first taught me, with his beautiful playing, how to listen to and love music. Sometimes I had only to meet Sergei Ivanovich and hear his calm, soothing voice to feel comforted. I was in a distressed state, and this coincided with my critical period. In the mood I was in at the time, I didn't think very much about Taneev's personality. To all appearances he was not very interesting, quite equable, extremely reticent, and a complete stranger to me to the end.”

settled Masha's financial affairs
: In accordance with the division of the property between the Tolstoy children (in 1891), the part belonging to Masha was worth 57,000 rubles. At first she refused this, but after her marriage she decided to accept her share. Her brother Sergei was to pay her this money from the mortgage on the Nikolskoe-Vyazemskoe estate. Before this, however, Sofia had taken the money, assuming that her daughter would later accept her share, and Sergei gave an undertaking to pay the money to his mother. Sofia now had to hand over to Masha the money Sergei had given her, and transfer to her name the remainder of the sum he owed her.

Kholevinskaya…help her
: Maria Kholevinskaya, a
zemstvo
doctor in the Krapivna district of the province of Tula, was arrested in Tula in March 1896 and sent to prison for distributing the banned works of Tolstoy. She was arrested after a search revealed Tanya Tolstaya's visiting card, with the message: “Give Tolstoy's ‘What I Believe' to a man you don't know, who is reliable.” In April that year, Kholevinskaya was released from prison and exiled to Astrakhan. In a letter to Sofia of 30th May 1897, she said she was in bad health and begged her to “do her utmost to see that the punishment was alleviated”. What was “unpleasant” about this letter was that she referred several times to being unjustly punished on account of Tanya's “ill-considered action”.

Lev Nikolaevich…Chertkov in England
: Chertkov reproached Tolstoy in a letter of 19th June for not replying to several letters of his. On 20th June Tolstoy sent Chertkov a telegram apologizing for the delay.

Aphrodite
: Pierre Louÿs, Paris, 1896. For Tolstoy's negative opinion of this book, see his
What Is Art?

Les Demi-vierges
: Marcel Prévost, Paris, 1894

A young man…long time
: Stepan Shidlovsky, a peasant Stundist, living in the village of Kishentsa near Kiev. (The Stundists were an evangelical, communistically inclined sect, living in communes mainly in the South of Russia.) In a letter to P.I. Biryukov, of 14th July, Tolstoy wrote: “New friends have appeared from the province of Kiev. One of them, Shidlovsky, has been staying with us. I liked him very much.”

kvas
: A popular mildly alcoholic drink made from fermented bread.

the Englishman Maude
: Aylmer Maude, translator of Tolstoy's works into English and author of a biography.

some factory worker
: Pyotr Bulakhov, a former Old Believer. According to Tolstoy, a man of “Herculean strength, both morally and intellectually”.

Boulanger
: Pavel Boulanger, official on the Moscow—Kursk railway and fellow thinker of Tolstoy's.

Chertkov had expressly asked…in English
: Chertkov wrote to Tolstoy: “Recouping the funds spent on publication is directly dependent on the success of the English editions of your writings. And this success is largely dependent on
us
being the
first
to publish your latest works, which means preventing any other translators from acquiring by devious means a Russian transcript, either before us or simultaneously with us. It is most important for us to have a transcript of every new work of yours, if possible three weeks before it is distributed in manuscript form in Russia.” On 8th August Tolstoy replied: “There need be no doubt that all my writings will go to you before anyone else, and that you will make arrangements for their translation and publication.”

he has decided to write an open letter to be published abroad
: On 29th August 1897, Tolstoy wrote an open letter to the Swedish newspaper
Stokholm Tagblatt
refusing the Nobel Prize. Tolstoy felt the prize should be awarded to the Dukhobors. In October 1897 the paper published his letter. It was published in Russian in the journal
Free Thought
, no. 4, 1899. In referring to Nobel as a “kerosene merchant”, Sofia was confusing the Swedish engineer Alfred Nobel with L.E. Nobel, the well-known oil magnate.

his friends have been deported
: Tolstoy's friends and co-thinkers, Biryukov, Tregubov and Chertkov, were exiled for “propaganda and illegal interference in the trial of the sectarians” and for distributing a proclamation, ‘Help!', signed by them and Tolstoy, appealing for support for the Dukhobors. Chertkov was deported to England, Biryukov and Tregubov to the province of Courland.

St John…Chertkov
: Arthur St John, formerly an officer in the Indian Army, left the army under Tolstoy's influence and settled in a farming colony in the south of England. In September 1897 he travelled to Russia on Chertkov's instructions to give the Dukhobors money collected by English Quakers. As he wanted to be more closely acquainted with the Dukhobors, he went to the Caucasus, and was arrested there and banished from Russia.

Boulanger is being deported…the Dukhobors
: Pavel Boulanger was deported from Russia for his dealings with the Dukhobors in the Caucasus. In October 1897 Boulanger left for England.

We had a visit from some Molokans
: Molokans, members of the “milk-drinking” sect. On 18th September 1897, some Molokans visited Tolstoy from Samara begging him to use his influence to get their children returned to them. Their first visit to Tolstoy was in May that year. Tolstoy did everything in his power to help them. He wrote two letters to the Tsar
and to a large number of influential people and friends. It was only in February 1898 that the children were eventually returned, thanks to the efforts of Tanya Tolstaya, who visited K.P. Pobedonostsev that January.

Lev Nikolaevich's letters to Koni…out of town
: Tolstoy gave the Molokans who visited in May a letter he wrote to the Tsar, as well as letters to A.F. Koni, A.V. Olsufiev, A.S. Taneev, K.O. Khis and A.A. Tolstaya, asking them to help the Molokans. The Molokans destroyed the letters for fear of reprisals.

his application…volunteer in the army
: In 1898 Misha Tolstoy left the Lycée and enlisted.

L.N. has described life in Moscow as “suicide”…not to come
: Sofia Tolstoy wrote to Tolstoy on 25th November: “I thought, Lyovochka, that you would come here with Tanya, but you are evidently delaying your visit for as long as possible. Tanya told me you had even gone so far as to say that living in Moscow would be ‘suicide' for you. Since you feel you are only coming here for my sake, this is not suicide, I am killing you. So I am now hastening to write and tell you for God's sake, don't come! This visit, which is such agony for you, will only deprive us both of our peace of mind and freedom. You will feel you are being ‘murdered'. Let us not kill one another with demands and reproaches, let us write to one another as friends, and I shall visit you when my nerves are calmer.” Tolstoy referred to this in his diary: “An aggrieved letter from Sonya. I shouldn't have said it, but Tanya shouldn't have repeated it.”

Safonova
: Varvara Safonova, wife of Vasily Safonov, pianist, conductor and director of the Moscow Conservatoire.

Makovitsky
: Doctor Dushan Petrovich Makovitsky, a Slovak, who had set up a Slovak branch of the Intermediary publishing house in Hungary, made a second visit to Yasnaya Polyana in connection with publishing matters. On that day Tolstoy noted in his diary: “This morning Makovitsky came, a sweet, pure, mild man.”

in his diary he writes that I had “acknowledged my crime”
: Tolstoy noted on 7th December: “Yesterday we talked and talked, and I heard something from Sonya that I have never heard before: an acknowledgement of her crime. This was a great joy. No matter what the future holds, it has happened and it is very good.”

Qu'est-ce que…jeune
: “How do you manage to stay so young?” (French).

Lev Nikolaevich is totally unperturbed…in God's hands
: Tolstoy wrote in his diary on 21st December: “Received an anonymous letter yesterday threatening to kill me if I didn't mend my ways by 1898. 1898, no later. It's both frightening and good.”

1898

Stasov
: Vladimir Stasov, well-known art and music critic.

He is reading all he can find…everything
: In this period Tolstoy was working on his story
Hadji Murat
.

Biryukov is leaving Bauska for England
: Pavel Biryukov, deported in 1897 to Bauska in Latvia for his part in helping the Dukhobors, received permission to go abroad in January.

Molokans…begging for letters of introduction…St Petersburg
: Tolstoy addressed a petition to the Tsar in the name of one of these visiting Molokans—F.I. Samoshkin—and asked Tanya Tolstaya, who was in St Petersburg at the time, to support their campaign.

publish his preface…perfectly
: At the time of writing his article
What Is Art?
, Tolstoy wrote a preface to an article by Edward Carpenter called ‘Modern Science', translated by his son Seryozha. Tolstoy confessed that this article “explained” his own “work on art” to him.

Lev Nikolaevich's letter…collecting money for this
: The Dukhobors, having received permission from the Russian government to emigrate, appealed to Tolstoy for help. On 17th March he wrote a letter to the editor of the
St Petersburg Gazette
appealing for public support for the Dukhobors, and also to E.E. Ukhtomsky, the paper's editor. The appeal was not published.

my story
: Her story, ‘Song without Words'.

Seryozha about some musical translation…questions
: At Taneev's suggestion, Seryozha Tolstoy was translating from the English Ebenezer Prout's book
Musical Form
, Moscow-Leipzig, 1900.

Lyova has come…sell the house
: After the division of the property between Sofia Tolstoy and the children in 1891, the Tolstoy's Moscow house belonged to Lyova Tolstoy.

In Grinevka…canteens
: Tolstoy stayed in Grinevka from 24th April to 27th May. His son Ilya, who accompanied him on his trips around the region, later wrote that when making these enquiries, “Father always did the hardest work himself—finding out how many mouths there were to feed in each peasant family. He often used to travel round the villages for days at a time, often until late at night.” In all, twenty canteens were opened.