The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (85 page)

asking Tanya for…10,000 rubles
: Chertkov begged Tanya Sukhotina for a loan in two letters to her from England, dated the 8th and 9th of May. On 14th July Tolstoy informed Anna Chertkova (Chertkov's wife) that his son Lyova Tolstoy had agreed to loan Chertkov the required sum.

those two summers
: S.I. Taneev stayed at Yasnaya Polyana in the summers of 1895 and 1896.

we were obviously in the right
: As a result of this court case the land remained with the Tolstoys.

something L.N. wrote…concerning women…animal
: The exact text of Tolstoy's entry in his notebook, in April 1898, was: “A woman can only be liberated if she is a Christian. A liberated woman who is not a Christian is a wild beast.”

Father Sergei…unfinished
: In June 1898 Tolstoy resumed work on his story
Father Sergei
, which he had started in 1890, but after returning to Yasnaya Polyana he did no work on it and it was not published in his lifetime.

He wants to finish Hadji Murat…emigration scheme
: Tolstoy had intended to publish three works which were still unfinished and needed to be revised:
Father Sergei
, ‘The Devil' and
Resurrection
. But he then concentrated all his attention on
Resurrection
, on which he worked until the end of 1899.

two Dukhobors…most unpleasant
: Two Dukhobors, P.V. Planidin and S.Z. Postnikov, who arrived at Yasnaya Polyana on 3rd August, had no passports and were hiding from the authorities.

England…the Dukhobors…from Chertkov
: Chertkov was a member of a committee formed by English Quakers in London to help the Dukhobors. At Tolstoy's suggestion two Dukhobors, N.S. Zibarov and I.P. Obrosimov, visited Chertkov in England on 29th August 1898 to clarify the terms of the emigration to Canada and work out how much the journey would cost.

he doesn't marry…be hypocrisy
: The first published edition (1899) of the novel ended with Nekhlyudov's marriage to Katyusha and their departure to London.

Pasternak
: Leonid Pasternak, father of the writer, spent several days at Yasnaya Polyana. He later recalled that he did not want simply to “illustrate certain passages but to do a powerful artistic rendering of the Russian life Tolstoy was describing in his portraits of various layers of society”.

Nous jouons gros jeu
: “We are taking a big risk” (French).

Mozart and Salieri, and Orpheus
: On 25th November 1898, the Private Moscow Opera House staged the première of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera
Mozart and Salieri
. The part of Salieri was sung by Chaliapin. Gluck's
Orpheus and Eurydice
was performed on the same night.

arshin and a half
: Forty-two inches.

The Soul of a People
: C. Fielding,
The Soul of a People
. The American writer Ernest Crosby sent Tolstoy this book in November 1898. It was later translated into Russian on Tolstoy's initiative, and published as
The Soul of a People. The Story of the English Officer Fielding and His Life in Burma
.

1899

Andryusha's wedding
: Andrei Tolstoy was about to marry Olga Dieterichs.

Lev Nikolaevich had a visit from Myasoedov…Resurrection
: I.M. Vinogradov, inspector of the Butyrki convict prison in Moscow, was invited by Tolstoy to look over the proofs of
Resurrection
for him. Tolstoy noted down his observations and made use of them in his subsequent work on the novel.

Seryozha…his song…wept
: Sergei Tolstoy's song ‘We meet again…' was set to words by A.A. Fet; Tolstoy considered it “sincere”.

received a telegram…left for Kiev on Monday morning
: Sofia Tolstoy left for Kiev on 8th February 1899. In reply to a letter from his wife
informing him of Tanya Kuzminskaya's almost hopeless condition, Tolstoy wrote, on 11th–12th February: “I know we all die, and there's nothing bad about death, but it is still very painful. I love her very much.”

Trubetskoy…horse
: Trubetskoy did several sculptures of Tolstoy on horseback. The Tolstoy Museum contains a bronze sculpture (1904) and a bust (plaster covered in bronze 1900) by Trubetskoy, which Sofia considered the best of all his sculptures.

a novel
: Probably ‘Song without Words'.

1900

The Corpse
: Tolstoy worked on his play
The Living Corpse
, originally titled
The Corpse
, from the beginning of January to November 1900. The play remained unfinished and was not published in his lifetime.

They are thinking of starting a journal…the scheme
: Pavel Boulanger had the idea of publishing a weekly, illustrated, literary-political and scientific journal called
Morning
. When they heard about Tolstoy's proposed participation in the scheme, the Chief Department for Press Affairs forbade the journal to be published.

The Ice House
: A.N. Koreshchenko's opera
The Ice House
, libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky, was performed in 1900 in the Bolshoi Theatre.

This Malayan had read…him
: On 19th November 1900, Tolstoy was visited by a Dutchman called Engelberg who had an administrative post on the island of Java and arrived with his friend.

two choral works…‘The Stars'
: S.I. Taneev. Two choral works and one “a cappella” piece for four mixed voices, ‘Stars' and ‘At the Midnight Hour', words by A.S. Khomyakov; ‘Alps' and ‘Through the Azure Gloom of Night', words by F.I. Tyutchev.

the lunatic asylum
: Professor S.S. Korsakov's psychiatric clinic.

zhaleiki
: Russian folk wind instrument rather like a fife, made from a young branch of willow, or a reed cane, with a mouthpiece of cow horn or birch bark.

1901

On 24th February…has been excommunicated
: On 24th February 1901, issue no. 8 of the
Church Gazette
published an announcement from the Holy Synod about Tolstoy, dated 20th–22nd February, which said: “The Church does not consider him a member as long as he does not repent and doesn't restore his links with it.” On 25th February this document appeared in the newspapers. This was Tolstoy's official excommunication from the Church. The newspaper cutting is pasted into the diary.

I myself wrote…here
: On 26th February 1901, Sofia Tolstoy sent a letter to the Chief Procurator of the Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, and the Metropolitans who had signed the excommunication. Learning of its contents, Tolstoy said, “There have been so many books written on the subject that you couldn't fit them into the house—and you want to teach them what to do with your letter.” Sofia Tolstoy's letter was
printed on 24th March 1901, in a supplement of the
Church Gazette
, along with Metropolitan Antony's reply of 16th March 1901. She pasted a cutting of this letter into her diary, with her own comments in the margin. “There are no limits to my sad indignation,” she wrote, “and not because my husband will be spiritually destroyed by this document: this is not men's business, it is God's. The religious life of a human soul is known to none but God, and mercifully it is not answerable to anyone. But as for the Church to which I belong and which I shall never renounce, which was created by Christ to bless in God's name all the significant moments of life—births, weddings, deaths, human joys and griefs—from the point of view of this Church, the Synod's instructions are utterly incomprehensible to me. It provokes not sympathy, but anger, and great love and compassion for Lev Nikolaevich. We are already receiving expressions of this—and there will be no end to them—from all over the world.”

upheavals in the university…the poor
: 183 students were drafted into the army for participating in the student uprisings that took place in Kiev University in January 1901. This provoked students in St Petersburg and elsewhere to come out in support of them. On 25th February there was a demonstration of students and workers in Moscow.

None of Lev Nikolaevich's manuscripts…foreign languages
: Her letter was published only in the foreign press and distributed in Russia in hectographed form; the Moscow censorship committee had been sent a circular forbidding papers to publish telegrams and other material “expressing sympathy” with Tolstoy.

Lev Nikolaevich…His Assistants
: Tolstoy's letter was in response to the government's persecution of students who had taken part in the demonstrations, and was also sent to the Grand Dukes and all the Ministers.

my concert in aid of the orphanage…1,307 rubles
: The concert took place on 7th March 1901. The programme of the concert has been sewn into the Diary.

I received…completely soulless
: Metropolitan Antony wrote to her on 16th March 1901: “It is not the Synod which has acted cruelly in announcing your husband's lapse from the Church, it is he himself who has acted cruelly in renouncing his faith in Jesus Christ, son of the living God, our saviour and expiator. This renunciation should have provoked your grief and anger long ago. And your husband will not of course perish from a scrap of printed paper, but from the fact that he has turned aside from the source of Life Eternal. You receive expressions of sympathy from the entire world. This does not surprise me, but I do not think this is any cause for consolation. There is human glory, and there is the glory of God.”

letter from Queen Elizabeth…her little book
: Letter from Queen Elizabeth (pseudonym Carmen Silva) of 16th July. Tolstoy thanked her for her letter, and told her he hadn't received the work she sent.

Doctor Makovitsky
: The Slovak Doctor Dushan Makovitsky had visited Yasnaya Polyana twice before, in 1894 and 1897.

Maxim Gorky
: Gorky was staying at a dacha in Oleiza, about a mile from Gaspra.

1902

Giuseppe Mazzini's On Human Duty
: Tolstoy considered the book “excellent”.

Chekhov called
: Anton Chekhov, who was living in Yalta, visited Tolstoy soon after his arrival in the Crimea, and had several meetings with him.

he asked…to it
: Tolstoy was continuing work on ‘On Religious Tolerance'.

Count Olsufiev…easy death
: Apropos of the death of A.V. Olsufiev, a friend of the Tolstoy family who died on 9th September 1901 of diabetes, Tolstoy wrote to his brother Sergei, on 6th November 1901: “He was walking about in the morning, talked for 10 minutes, realized he was dying, said goodbye to everyone, gave advice to his children and kept repeating: ‘I never thought dying would be so easy.'”

dictated a page of ideas…as he calls it
: Evidently the first version of the Preface to ‘Notes for Soldiers' and ‘Notes for Officers'. The text was written in Masha Obolenskaya's hand, dated 8th February (unpublished).

my unfinished children's story, ‘Skeletons'
: The short story ‘Skeleton Dolls', its final title, appeared in: S.A. Tolstoy,
Skeleton Dolls and Other Stories
, Moscow, 1910.

the Wanderers' Exhibition
: Thirtieth exhibition of paintings by the Fellowship of Wandering Artists.

He is dictating ideas…at the moment
: The contents of this dictated text relates to his article ‘To the Working People'.

Arguments about the Bashkirs
: This relates to Tolstoy's disagreement with Sofia as to whether some Bashkirs should be invited to Yasnaya Polyana with their koumiss mares; Tolstoy was strongly urged by his doctors to drink koumiss.

saffron milk caps
: A small, yellowish mushroom.

he writes his novel Hadji Murat
: Tolstoy resumed work on
Hadji Murat
on 24th June 1902.

Sergei Ivanovich…musical textbook
: Taneev finished his work
Mobile Counterpoint on Old Notation
in 1908 and published it in 1909.

The priests…him
: Tolstoy observed in his diary: “Leaflet from a priest—very painful. Why do they hate me?”

started on a proclamation to the clergy
: Tolstoy began work on his article ‘To the Clergy'.

a legend he has just written, about devils
: The legend ‘Destruction and Reconstruction of Hell' on which Tolstoy worked from November 1902 to the end of that year, was thought up as an illustration to his article ‘To the Clergy'.

Kropotkin's Notes
: P.A. Kropotkin,
Notes of a Revolutionary
, London, 1902. On Tolstoy's admission, “reading Kropotkin's splendid memoirs” made him consider writing his own memoirs.

1903

Two more Englishmen…will save him
: Tom Ferris and Bert Toy visited Russia to meet Tolstoy and discuss spiritualism with him. They visited Yasnaya Polyana, but their conversation with Tolstoy was a brief one because he was ill.

We had a visit from an old man and his wife…Athanasius
: The peasant A.N. Ageev was sentenced to exile in Siberia, in January 1903, for blasphemy. Tolstoy tried to help him and his family and took an active part in their case. On 29th August 1903, Ageev was sent to Siberia.

1904

three students from the St Petersburg…energy
: A delegation of students from the St Petersburg Mining Institute brought Tolstoy a letter expressing their deep love and admiration. They wanted to discuss the agrarian question and the student revolutionary movement with him.

a rehearsal of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard
: Rehearsals of
The Cherry Orchard
were going on at the Moscow Public Art Theatre.