1891

Trans-Siberian railway line starts construction, opening up vastness of Siberia to colonization. Harvest, followed by famine in which thousands die.

25th February—Volume 13 of the Complete Works (published separately containing The Kreutzer Sonata) seized and banned. March—Sofia successfully petitions the Tsar against the ban. (The volume is published in June, with many textual changes.) April—Tolstoy’s property redistributed amongst his family. Spring—Lyova Tolstoy forced to leave the university by a nervous illness. Autumn—Tolstoy works in the countryside, setting up canteens for victims of famine. Sofia joins him. Tolstoy denounced as “impious infidel” by the Archbishop of Kharkov.

 

2nd January. I have just returned from seeing Ilyusha and christening the baby. The ceremony, renouncing Satan and so on, was as dull as usual. But the baby, his eyes tightly closed, had such a touchingly contented expression on his red little face, and I was deeply moved by the mystery of his soul and his new life as I prayed for him. There were crowds of Filosofovs in Grinevka, all very large and stout, but astonishingly sweet-natured, both in their manners and the way they live their lives. There is so much genuine unassuming simplicity about them, and they are so completely without malice. And that is splendid. Ilya was somewhat distracted, and seemed almost deliberately inattentive, rushing about on small errands. It was sad to get home, for it was obvious nobody was interested to see me back. I often wonder why they do not love me when I love all of them so dearly. I suppose it’s because of my outbursts of temper, when I get carried away and speak too sharply. Then everyone gathered round me, although they hadn’t bothered to make me anything to eat. Only Vanechka and Sasha were glad to see me—he with noisy delight, she with quiet pleasure.

Masha and I had another angry argument this evening about Biryukov. She is doing all she can to re-establish contact with him, but I cannot alter my views on the matter: if she marries him she is lost. I was harsh and unreasonable with her, but I cannot discuss it calmly, and Masha really is the most terrible cross God has sent me to bear. She has given me nothing but pain from the moment she was born. She is a stranger to her family and to God, and her love for Biryukov is incomprehensible.

 

3rd January. I worked all day on the puppet theatre. The drawing room was packed with children but it wasn’t a success. How disappointing that they liked Punch best when he was fighting. What nasty coarse values! I am tired and bored. We have guests and Lyovochka is cheerful; he did a lot of writing this morning on the subject of the Church. I am not very fond of these religious and philosophical articles of his—I love him best as an artist, and always shall. There is a blizzard. 7° below freezing.

 

4th January. Terrible snowstorm all day, 10° below freezing. The wind is howling in the stoves, outside everything is buried in snow. We had some unpleasant news this morning: Roman the head forester got drunk last night and rode down to the marshes, where he and his horse fell into the lake. He got soaked through, but a Yasnaya peasant called Yakov Kurnosenkov managed to drag him out. The horse was drowned, however. It’s most annoying and a great pity, for it was a young horse. Roman himself ran home in a terrible state. Our steward Berger can’t be found either. I am very displeased with him, for he is frightfully lazy and a liar. Masha has bought a washtub and scrubs her own underwear. I angrily told her she was ruining her health and would be the death of me, but she answered me with calm indifference. All four of the young ones have coughs and colds, but they are up and about and in good spirits. Where can Seryozha be in this blizzard? He was visiting the Olsufievs—I only hope he didn’t leave. Lyovochka has been complaining that he cannot write.

Lyova and Berger went to look for the drowned horse, but they got lost and returned without finding it. My son Lyova is so precious to me. I only wish he wasn’t so distressingly thin and melancholy—although at present he is looking happier, which is a relief.

 

5th January. I am feeling ill, my back aches, my nose keeps bleeding, my front tooth is aching, and I am terrified of losing it, for a false one would be horrible. I copied Lyovochka’s diary all morning, then tidied his clothes and underwear and cleaned his study until it was spotless; then I darned his socks, which he had mentioned were all in holes, and this kept me busy until dinner time. Afterwards I played with Vanechka. This evening I was angry with Misha for hitting Sasha. I was much too hard on him and pushed him in the back and made him kneel in front of everyone. He cried and ran off to his room, and I felt sorry for him and for our friendship. But we soon made up.

 

6th January. I haven’t stirred all day, just sat dumbly darning Lyovochka’s socks. I was sent some Spinoza but cannot read it: I shall wait for my head and the black spots in front of my eyes to clear. We had guests—Bulygin and Kolechka Gué.* Seryozha returned by express train and is kind and genial. We chatted about frivolous matters, his visit to the Olsufievs and business. He is going to Nikolskoe tonight.

Andryusha and Misha went to the village to look in on a party. They evidently didn’t have a good time, for the village lads were shy and wouldn’t play. I’m sorry they didn’t enjoy themselves. It’s all very difficult with Masha. She goes out on her own with a village girl to visit typhus patients. I am worried about her and the risk of infection, and have told her so. This desire of hers to help the sick is all very well—I do so myself frequently—but she always goes too far. But today I reasoned gently with her and began to feel so sorry for her, so sorry too that we are estranged.

 

7th January. Masha’s words to me yesterday have been in my mind all day: she is going to marry Biryukov next spring, she says. “I shall go and grow potatoes,” were her words. I have now adopted the habit of waiting until the next day to respond. So today I wrote Biryukov a letter, enclosing the money for a book he had sent her. I said I didn’t want Masha marrying him, and asked him to stop writing her letters and coming to see her. Masha overheard me telling Lyovochka about the letter and was furious with me, saying she took back all the promises she had made to me. I was upset and in tears too. Masha really is a torment, everything about her, her deviousness and now her imaginary love for B.

Lyova left for Pirogovo with his servant Mitrokha this morning. Tanya went to Tula where she had her money stolen. And last night two cartloads of firewood were stolen from the shed. I copied L.’s diaries this morning, then taught the children, darned some socks, and now I can’t do another thing. What infernal drudgery! This evening I read aloud two tedious and horrible stories which that stupid, insensitive Chertkov sent.

Today I was thinking that nine tenths of all that happens in this world is caused by love, in all its various aspects, yet people are always anxious to conceal this, since otherwise all their most private emotions, thoughts and passions would be revealed: it would be like appearing naked in public. There is no mention of love in Lyovochka’s diaries, not as I understand it anyway—he seems to have had no experience of it.

 

8th January. Overwhelmed with work all day. I went through the accounts for Yasnaya Polyana and the timber sales and checked them and read the proofs for Volume 13 of the new Collected Works. Then I gave Andryusha and Misha a music lesson that lasted two hours, and after dinner I wrote down some chords for the children. Then I worked out our expenses on butter and eggs, and wrote yet more rough drafts of my legal petition regarding the division of the estate to the Ovsyannikovo priest and the transfer of the Grinevka estate. So now I have put everything in perfect order—as if before death? I really should pay a visit to Moscow about Volume 13, but I have no desire to go. My heart is heavy, though it shouldn’t be: everyone is well and happy, thank God. Sasha, Vanechka and I all said our prayers together. Lyovochka spends all his time downstairs reading and writing, and comes out only to eat and sleep. He is happy and well.

 

9th January. Tanya and I played the Kreutzer Sonata as a piano duet—badly; it’s a very difficult piece to play without practising beforehand. This evening Andryusha had a toothache, and I carried Vanechka about in my arms as he had lost his voice. What a gentle, affectionate, sensitive, clever little boy he is! I love him more than anything in the world and am terrified he will not live long. I dream constantly that I have given birth to another son.

 

10th January. It was almost ten when I got up, so I didn’t go to Tula; there’s a terrible wind. This morning I cut out some underwear for Sasha and did some copying, gave the children a music lesson and gave Andryusha religious instruction. I took great pains with them and it went very well. Andryusha is stubborn and absent-minded and seems deliberately not to listen or understand. The more I put my heart into the lesson the more inattentive and rude he is. How he distresses me! He will have a hard life with that character, poor boy! Lyovochka and Nikolai Nikolaevich* played chess with Alexei Mitrofanovich,* who played without looking at the board, to our great amazement. We talked about the ways in which censorship prevents writers from saying what is most important to them, and I argued that there were free works, works of pure literature that the censors were unable to silence—like War and Peace for instance. Lyovochka angrily replied that he had renounced all such works.* It was obviously the banning of The Kreutzer Sonata that was making him so bitter.

 

12th January. Yesterday I went to Tula, traded in the coupons, submitted my application for the transfer of Grinevka property, settled the bills and wore myself out discussing the division of the Ovsyannikovo estate with the priest’s wife, who shares the rights to the land with us. Four times I walked from the district court to the provincial offices and back, as each place sent me to the other, saying the matter was not under their jurisdiction. So I left without accomplishing a thing. It is a long time since I felt so depressed, waiting in Davydov* the magistrate’s office for the barrister who was late. These business matters are so tedious and difficult—it’s much easier to say: “I’m a Christian, it’s against my rules!” I must hire a proper businessman to see to it for I cannot be continually going to Tula. At three this morning Vanechka started coughing and running a high fever. I dragged myself out of bed, went to his room and tried to soothe him. I got up late this morning. Today is Tanya’s name day, but we both gave the children their lessons; Andryusha played the piano quite nicely, but Misha scowled. Vanechka still has a cough and a temperature but he doesn’t complain. The post brought a letter from L.N.’s niece Varya Nagornova, as well as the proofs for The Kreutzer Sonata. The affair has now reached some sort of denouement—what will happen? Will it be banned? What should I do?

Tomorrow I must read the proofs and cut out underwear. My soul is empty and lonely.

 

13th January. Vanechka is ill. He didn’t get up at midday, and by two he had a temperature of 39.4—and the same at 9 this evening. Last night he was running a fever and choking on a thick phlegmy cough. He has a bad cold, and this morning he had an earache. I feel so sorry for him, and so exhausted. In my free time I managed to correct a lot of the proofs for Volume 13, which includes The Kreutzer Sonata. When Vanechka was choking last night I ran into Masha’s room to ask her for an emetic. She was asleep but she woke at once and jumped out of bed with alacrity to get some ipecacuanha. When she turned to me her face looked so touchingly thin and sweet that I had a sudden impulse to hug and kiss her. That would have surprised her! She has had a sweet expression on her face all day and I love her. If only I could always feel like this towards her, how happy I would be! I must try.

 

14th January. Vanechka is better. His cough improved and he grew more cheerful. Lyova went to Moscow. Klopsky arrived. He is utterly repulsive, and a dark one.* I wrote to Misha Stakhovich and Varya Nagornova and did a little copying. I taught Andryusha the liturgy and Misha the Holy Communion. After dinner I sat with Vanechka for a while, copied Lyovochka’s diary and reached 1854, then sat downstairs with the girls. My mind is asleep. This evening we saw Mitrokha off to Moscow; Andryusha and Misha both helped him to get ready and gave him an overcoat and 50 kopecks of their own money. There is a hard frost. Lyovochka is irritable and unkind. I am terrified of his sarcasm—it cuts me to the quick.

 

15th January. It is a hard struggle at times. This morning the children were downstairs doing their lessons and Klopsky was there. “Why are you doing your lessons?” he asked Andryusha. “Do you want to destroy your soul? Surely your father wouldn’t want that!” The girls then piped up and asked him if they could shake his noble hand for saying so and the boys ran up to tell me about it. I then had earnestly to assure them that since we did no real, peasant labour, without intellectual labour there would be nothing for us but total idleness; that this intellectual work was the justification for the grand life we led. I told them that I had to educate them all on my own, that if they turned into bad people all the shame would be mine, and that I would be very hurt if all my labours were in vain.

 

16th January. I went to Tula on business again, ran all over the place, saw a lot of people and did a lot of talking.

On my way home I thought of my enemies and prayed for them, and decided to write a friendly letter to Biryukov. I have decided to send Masha to help the families of those peasants who are in jail for stealing the wood.

 

17th January. I was feeling lazy this morning and got up late. Over dinner we had a frivolous discussion about what would happen if the masters and servants changed places for a week. Lyovochka scowled and went downstairs; I went and asked him what the matter was and he said: “That was a stupid discussion about a sacred matter. It’s agony for me to be surrounded by servants, and very painful that this should be turned into a joke, especially in front of the children.”

 

18th January. I had a dreadful scene with Nurse. She was very rude to me yesterday and has been neglecting the baby. She is driving me desperate. I was feeling ill and told her I wouldn’t be insulted by a hussy. At that she said something so appallingly vulgar that were I not so besotted with Vanechka I would have sacked her on the spot. The poor little boy, sensing an argument, clung to her skirt and wouldn’t leave her, saying, “Maman good, Maman good!” If only we were all little children! I gave Misha a lesson and did some copying. I didn’t go to bed, although I was groaning with pain and could eat nothing. This part of Lyovochka’s diaries, about the Crimean War and Sevastopol, is so interesting. One page, which had been torn out, struck me particularly. A woman wants marriage and a man wants lechery, and the two can never be reconciled. No marriage can be happy if the husband has led a debauched life. It is astonishing that ours has survived at all. It was my childish ignorance that made it possible for us to be happy. Instinctively I closed my eyes to his past, and deliberately, in my own interests, didn’t read all his diaries and asked no questions. If I had, it would have destroyed both of us. He doesn’t know this, or that it was my purity that saved us, but I know now that this is true. Those scenes from his past, that casual debauchery, and his casual attitude to it, is poisonous, and would have a terrible effect on a woman who hadn’t enough to keep her busy. After reading these diaries a woman might feel: “So this is what you were like! Your past has defiled me—this is what you get for that!”

 

19th January. I am still ill; I have a stomach ache and a temperature. I have observed a connecting thread between Lyovochka’s old diaries and his Kreutzer Sonata. I am a buzzing fly entangled in this web, sucked of its blood by the spider.

 

25th January. I got up early this morning, despite being unwell and having a bad cold, and drove to Tula. It was a warm day. At the footbridge I met Lyovochka, bright and cheerful, already returning from his walk. I love meeting him, especially unexpectedly. I had various things to attend to in Tula. I collected the payment for the timber, came to an understanding with the Ovsyannikovo priest, acceding to all his claims and virtually agreeing to the division of the land. I visited the Raevskys, the Sverbeevs and Maria Zinovieva, at whose house I met Arsenev, the local marshal of the nobility. For two years now I have noticed people treating me like an old woman. It feels strange, but doesn’t greatly bother me. What a powerful habit it becomes, feeling one has the power to make people treat one with a certain sympathy—if not admiration. And I need even more respect and affection from people these days.

It occurred to me this evening as I was correcting the proofs for The Kreutzer Sonata* that when a woman is young she loves with her whole heart, and gladly gives herself to the man she loves because she sees what pleasure it gives him. Later in her life she looks back, and suddenly realizes that this man loved her only when he needed her. And she remembers all the times his affection turned to harshness or disgust the moment he was satisfied.

And when the woman, having closed her eyes to all this, also begins to experience these needs, then the old sentimental, passionate love passes away and she becomes like him—i.e. passionate with her husband at certain times, and demanding that he satisfy her. She is to be pitied if he no longer loves her by then; and he is to be pitied if he can no longer satisfy her. This is the reason for all those family crises and separations, so unexpected and so ugly, which happen in later life. Happiness comes only when will and spirit prevail over the body and the passions. The Kreutzer Sonata is untrue in everything relating to a young woman’s experiences. A younger woman has none of that sexual passion, especially when she is busy bearing and feeding her children. Only once in every two years is she a real woman! Her passion awakes only in her thirties.

I returned from Tula at about six and dined alone. Lyovochka came out to meet me but we missed each other, which was sad. He has been more affectionate lately, but I have deceived myself time and again about this, and I cannot help feeling it’s for the same old reasons: his health is better and the usual passions are aroused.

I worked hard all evening correcting the proofs for The Kreutzer Sonata and the postscript, then did the accounts. I made a list of everything I had to do in Moscow: seeds, shopping, business.

 

26th January. I got up at ten. Save me Lord, from the sinful dreams that woke me.

 

4th February. A lot has happened recently. On the night of the 27th I left for Moscow. My adventures there were of no great interest. On my first day I dined with our friends the Mamonovs. The following morning I paid 7,600 rubles into the Moscow Bank and redeemed the Grinevka estate, then delivered the mortgage papers to the Bank of the Nobility. I dined with Fet and prattled on far too long, stupidly complaining that Lyovochka didn’t love me enough. I returned home that evening, and Tanya, Lyova, Vera Petrovna and Lily Obolenskaya visited. I visited the Servertsevs; Uncle Kostya and the Meshcherinovs were there too, and we had a discussion about love and marriage. But my main preoccupation is Lyova, his complicated inner existence, his attempts to write, and his completely joyless attitude to life. He read me a short story he has written called ‘Montecristo’, which was very touching and affected me deeply—more of a children’s story really*—and it suddenly occurred to me what a wonderful thing it was that if I should survive Lyovochka, all the things I had lived for, the artistic world that has always surrounded me, would not be lost. I shall still be involved through my son with all the fascinating things that have filled my life. But it is all God’s will!

I was disturbed on my return home to find Misha Stakhovich there, and he confessed to me, much to my amazement, his longstanding love for Tanya: “J’ai longtemps tâché de mériter Tatyana Lvovna, mais elle ne m’a jamais donné aucun espoir.”* We had always imagined he wanted to marry Masha, and when I told Tanya I could see she was deeply upset. I would be so happy if Tanya married him though, as I like him more than any other young man I know.

We are all very cheerful these days. Kern and his wife visited, as well as the Raevsky boys, Dunaev and Almazov. The children went tobogganing all over the countryside on upturned benches, and I called on blind Evlania, the mother of Lyova’s servant Mitrokha, and told her all about him.

I taught the children today: Andryusha had done no work while I was away, and I lost my temper and sent him out of the room. Lord, how he torments me! Lyovochka is not very well, but he rode to Yasenki today, and after dinner he played some Chopin. Nobody else moves me so much on the piano; he always plays with such extraordinary feeling and perfect phrasing. Masha suddenly made up her mind to go to Pirogovo, but I am not letting her go because she has a sore throat and it’s cold—15° below freezing. I wonder if she was distressed to hear that Stakhovich loves Tanya; for so long everyone believed it was her he loved.

Tanya went to Tula with Miss Lydia to have another photograph taken; Stakhovich had asked for her picture and she eagerly agreed. She is very excited, but once again it is in God’s hands…

 

6th February. I got up at 10. I had been dreaming of my little son Petya who died; Masha had brought him from somewhere, and he was all torn and mutilated. He was already as big as Misha, and bore a great resemblance to him. We were overjoyed to see each other, and all day I have been seeing him as he was when he was ill, lying in the darkness. I cut out and sewed some trousers for Andryusha and Misha, and had finished both pairs by evening. Later on Lyovochka read us Schiller’s Don Carlos* while I knitted. It is now 11 and he has ridden to Kozlovka to collect the post. The girls have gone to bed; both of them are upset and slightly unhappy about Mikhail Stakhovich’s declaration of love. I am reading La Physiologie de l’amour moderne.* I haven’t fully grasped what it’s about yet, as I have only just started it, but I don’t like it.

Lyovochka adores Vanechka and plays with him. This evening he put first him then Sasha into an empty basket, shut the lid and carted it around the house with Andryusha and Misha. He plays with all the children, but he never looks after them.

 

7th February. Lyovochka is being stiff, sullen and unpleasant again. I was silently angry with him last night. He kept me up until two in the morning and spent such a long time washing downstairs that I thought he must be ill, for washing is quite an event for him. I try to see his spiritual side, but I can do this only when he is being good to me.

 

9th February. Yesterday evening my wish was granted and I drove to Kozlovka by sledge in the moonlight. There were just the two of us, Lyovochka and I. Tanya seems a little better, although she still has a temperature of 38.6. My darling little Vanechka has been ill too with a temperature. I made him a sailor suit, gave the children a two-hour music lesson and read Beketov’s pamphlet On Man’s Present and Future Nourishment.* He predicts universal vegetarianism and I think he is right. Vanechka is coughing and it distresses me to hear him.

 

10th February. Tanya was groaning from morning to dinner time with a terrible headache, then her temperature went up to 38.5 again. Vanechka too had a temperature this morning, it was 39.3. What a strange mysterious sickness! I can’t say I’m too anxious about my patients, but I do feel sorry for them. I don’t feel very well either, and couldn’t sleep last night. Today I copied out Lyovochka’s Sevastopol diaries,* which are very interesting, then took my knitting and sat with the two invalids. I examined Andryusha on this week’s lesson, which he hadn’t learnt. Masha has opened a school for the riff-raff in “that house”,* and the children have been flocking there for lessons. Sasha has been going there for her lessons too while Tanya is ill. Misha has a new watch and is terribly pleased with it. I see almost nothing of Lyovochka. He is writing about art and science again.* He showed me an article today in Open Court which accused him of living at variance with his teachings and handing over his property to his wife. “And we all know how people in general, and Russians in particular, treat their wives,” they wrote. “A wife has no mind of her own.” Lyovochka is very upset, but it’s all the same to me—I’m used to this sniping.

 

12th February. All the children were ill today, with various ailments: Tanya and Masha have stomach aches, Misha has a toothache, Vanechka has a rash and Andryusha has a fever and has been vomiting. Only Sasha is happy and well. I have been copying Lyovochka’s diary. He has told me several times that he didn’t like me copying them, but I thought to myself, “Well, you’ll just have to put up with it since you’ve lived such a disgusting life.” Today he brought it up again, and said I didn’t realize how much I was hurting him, he wanted to destroy the diaries—how would I like to be constantly reminded of everything that tormented me, every bad deed? To which I replied that I wasn’t a bit sorry for him, and if he wanted to burn them, let him—I put no value on my own labours. But if one were to say which of us caused the other more pain, then it was he, for he hurt me so deeply when he published his latest story* to the entire world that it would be hard for us ever to be quits. His weapons are so much more powerful. He wants the world to see him on the pedestal he has built for himself, but his diaries cast him down into the filth of his past, and that infuriates him.*

I don’t know why people connect The Kreutzer Sonata with our married life, but this is what has happened, and now everyone, from the Tsar himself down to Lev Nikolaevich’s brother and his best friend Dyakov, feels sorry for me. And it isn’t just other people—I too know in my heart that this story is directed against me, and that it has done me a great wrong, humiliated me in the eyes of the world and destroyed the last vestiges of love between us. All this when not once in my whole married life have I ever wronged my husband, with so much as a gesture or glance at another man! Whether or not I ever had it in my heart to love another man—and whether or not this was a struggle for me—is a different matter, and that is my business. No one in the world has the right to pry into my secrets so long as I have remained pure.

I don’t know why, but today I decided to let Lev Nikolaevich know my feelings about The Kreutzer Sonata. He wrote it so long ago, but he would have had to know sooner or later what I thought about it, and it was after he had reproached me for “causing him so much suffering” that I decided to speak up about my suffering.

Masha’s birthday. What a dreadful day it was, and it’s still just as dreadful twenty years later.*

 

13th February. Yesterday’s discussion distressed me deeply. But it ended with a reconciliation, and we agreed to try to live the rest of our lives as amicably as we could.

Tanya is in a strange hysterical mood. This mundane life, and all my cares about the children and their illnesses, have once again paralysed my spiritual life and my soul is asleep. It is a hateful feeling.

 

15th February. Lyovochka has virtually forbidden me to copy out his diaries, and I am furious, for I have already copied so much that there’s almost nothing left of the book I’m working on now. I shall go on with it while he is not looking, for I must finish: I made up my mind long ago that it had to be done. We had a letter from Misha Stakhovich who again urged me to go to St Petersburg for an audience with the Tsar, to discuss with him the censors’ attitude to Lyovochka. He puts great faith in this visit. If only I liked The Kreutzer Sonata, if only I believed in the future of Lyovochka’s literary work—then I would go. But now I don’t know where I’ll find the energy and enthusiasm I would need to exert my influence on the Tsar and his rather inflexible view of the world. I used to have a great sense of power over others, but no longer.

We went to Kozlovka to collect the mail, Lyovochka on horseback and Tanya, Masha, Ivan Alexandrovich and I by sledge.

A heavenly moonlit night, the gleaming snow, the smooth road, frost, silence. On the way home I thought with horror of life in the city. How could I ever live without this natural beauty, and the vast space and freedom of the country?

 

16th February. I keep dreaming of the Tsar and Tsarina and think constantly about visiting St Petersburg. Vanity plays a major part in all this—I shall not give in to it and won’t go.

I have been busy all day, cutting out underwear and sewing on my machine. I am still reading La Physiologie de l’amour moderne, and am interested by this analysis of sexual love. I gave the children a music lesson. Andryusha is playing a Beethoven sonata and Misha one of Haydn’s. Masha, Andryusha and Alexei Mitrofanovich taught the peasant girls and the housemaids in the “little house” this evening. Tanya is distracted and on edge, waiting for something to happen with Stakhovich.

 

17th February. We had a letter from Lyova in Moscow saying he has been ill, apparently with the same thing the children had here in Yasnaya. I feel very worried, even though he writes matter-of-factly and says it’s not serious. Ilya is also in Moscow, selling clover. Lyovochka is cheerful, but in an agitated state. First he goes to Pirogovo, then to Tula; one moment he refuses meat broth, next he demands oat coffee—being healthy evidently bores him. I personally find his fussiness worrying and a nuisance. He keeps saying he cannot write. Masha gave another evening class today; she was the only teacher there, and was exhausted.

 

20th February. This evening Lyovochka, the two Gués and I had a painful discussion about our marriages and how much husbands suffer when their wives don’t understand them. Lyovochka said: “You conceive a new idea, give birth with all the agony of childbirth to an entirely new spiritual philosophy, and all they do is resent your suffering and refuse to understand!” I said that while they were giving birth in their imagination to all these spiritual children, we were giving birth, in real pain, to real live children, who had to be fed and educated and needed someone to protect their property and their interests; one’s life was much too full and complicated to give it all up for the sake of one’s husband’s spiritual vagaries, which one would never keep up with anyway and could only regret. We both said much more in the same reproachful vein, yet in our hearts we both wanted the same thing—at least I always do: to stop opening up old wounds and try to live together as friends. Any person—not only one’s husband whom one loves—will be treated kindly if they are truly good, in word and deed. It may be a slow business and take time, but it cannot be otherwise if a person really means well.

 

23rd February. Lyovochka was making boots this evening and complaining of a chill. There is a terrible wind outside, a real gale. I spent the day looking after Sasha and playing with Vanechka. I gave Andryusha and Misha a two-hour music lesson and worked on my blanket. I am persecuted by sinful thoughts; I have the strange sensation that they have nothing to do with my life or soul—all my life I have felt they were something quite independent of me, without the power to touch or harm me.

I was pleased with Misha today, who played the piano very well. We started practising the serenade from Don Giovanni arranged for four hands, and he beamed with pleasure at the melody.

He and Andryusha are always whispering secrets, which I find dreadfully upsetting. Borel* has perhaps corrupted them—goodness knows! Purity, sublime purity, this is what I value more highly than anything in the world.

 

25th February. Vanechka woke me at 4 in the morning with a rasping cough. Masha and I both leapt out of bed and gave him some heated seltzer water to drink, then we boiled up some water and turpentine, poured it in a basin, covered all our heads in a sheet and made him inhale the steam. This relieved the choking, but his temperature shot up to 40° and he started coughing again. I thought it would be a long illness but it was all over in twenty-four hours, and today he was singing ‘The Lyre’ in the drawing room. Sasha is much better too and has got up.

I gave the children a scripture lesson and spent a long time explaining the notion of God to Misha. He has heard so many ideas denied, particularly concerning the Church, that he is now thoroughly confused. But I tried my best to explain the true meaning of the Church as I understand it: an assembly of the faithful, a repository of holiness, contemplation and faith, not a mere ritual. Lyovochka is happy, calm and well. Our relations are friendly and straightforward—superficially: it doesn’t go very deep. But it’s certainly much better than at the beginning of the winter. The wind is still howling. Olga Ershova’s little girl has died in the village. She was her mother’s favourite, seven years old and such a darling. I feel dreadfully sorry for her; Lyovochka and Annenkova went to see her but I couldn’t go.

 

2nd March. Yesterday was a lazy holiday. The children and the Raevskys went to the Rovsky Barracks* for tea. They took their things with them and played games after dinner. Vanechka was utterly adorable and tried to understand all the games and join in the fun. The dear, pale, clever little mite is particularly touching when he is with grown-ups, especially the Raevskys. Seryozha and Ilya arrived here today with Tsurikov, Seryozha’s colleague and their neighbour. Ilya invariably asks me for money, which is most unpleasant. He has such a frivolous attitude to it and lives such an extravagant life. Lyovochka is wretched; when I asked him why, he said his writing isn’t going well. And what is he writing about? About non-resistance.* So it doesn’t surprise me in the least! Everybody, including him, is sick of the subject—it has been examined and discussed from every conceivable viewpoint. He wants to work on some fictional subject but doesn’t know how. That would demand a lot of philosophizing. Once he let his true creative powers pour forth he wouldn’t be able to stop the flow, and he would then find all this non-resistance most awkward—he’s terrified to let it go, yet his soul yearns for it.

My son Lyova took great offence when Seryozha and I told him we thought he was looking unwell. I felt sorry for him, but hurt his feelings instead.

Today I finished Bourget’s Physiologie de l’amour moderne, in French. It’s clever but it bored me; it all centres on one thing and a life that is alien to me.

 

6th March. Seryozha went to Nikolskoe and Masha took a sick peasant woman to Tula, and Sashka the village girl went too to keep her company. Life has resumed its normal course. It was lovely to see my nine children all sit down at the table with us old folk on Saturday and Sunday. I have been at home all day doing various tasks. As I wanted some exercise after dinner I joined Lyovochka who was playing with the little ones, Sasha, Vanechka and Kuzka. Every evening after dinner he puts them one at a time into an empty basket, closes it and drags it around the house. Then he stops and makes the one in the basket guess which room he is in. Lyova is all skin and bones and my heart aches for him.

I read some Spinoza on my own. His interest in the Jewish people doesn’t particularly excite me; we shall see what happens in the part which contains his éthique.

Over tea we had a talk about food, luxury and the vegetarian diet Lyovochka is always preaching. He said he had seen one in some German magazine that recommends a dinner of bread and almonds. I am quite sure the man who wrote this keeps to it in the same way Lyovochka practises the chastity he preaches in The Kreutzer Sonata.

 

10th March. Lyovochka was having his breakfast today when the letters and papers were delivered from Kozlovka. “Still no news about Volume 13,” I said. “What are you fussing about?” he said. “No doubt I shall be forced to renounce the copyright on all the works in Volume 13.” “Just wait until it comes out,” I said. “Yes, of course,” he said, and left the room. I was seething at the thought that he was intending to deprive me of badly-needed money for my children, and tried to think of a spiteful reply. So as he was going out for his walk, I said to him: “Go ahead, publish your renunciation. But I shall publish a statement immediately below it saying I hope the publisher is sufficiently sensitive not to exploit the copyright that belongs to your children.” He then told me I was being insensitive, but he spoke gently and I made no answer. If I really loved him, he went on, I myself would publish a statement that he had surrendered the copyright on his new works. He then left the room and I felt so sorry for him: all these material considerations seem so paltry compared to the pain of our estrangement. After dinner I apologized to him for speaking maliciously, and said I wouldn’t publish anything; the idea of distressing him was unbearable to me. We both cried, and Vanechka who was standing there looked frightened. “What’s the matter, what’s the matter?” he kept asking. “Maman hurt Papa,” I told him, “and now we’re making up.” This satisfied him and he said, “Ah!”

A cold windy day. The drawing master came; he asked me to lend him money and I refused, for he is a very bad teacher.

I read an extraordinarily sensitive, intelligent article on The Kreutzer Sonata by M. de Vogué. He says, among other things, that Tolstoy had taken his analysis to extremes (“analyse creusante”), and that this had killed all the personal and literary life of the work.

Lyovochka is correcting and rewriting his piece ‘On Non-resistance’, and Masha is copying it for him. It is hard for him as an artist to write these weighty articles, but he cannot do his artistic work now.

 

12th March. We had a visit from an American from New York who edits a paper called the New York Herald. Also a “dark one” named Nikiforov. Nothing but talk, endless talk. I have been informed by the Moscow censors that Volume 13 has been irrevocably banned. I shall go to St Petersburg to appeal. I dread the thought of it. I am sure I shall achieve nothing, and feel all my faith, strength and happiness are being wasted. But maybe the good Lord will come to my rescue. Snowing, wind and frost—just the weather for a ride in the sledge.

 

13th March. I went to Tula. More negotiations with the priest. This evening I had a talk with the American. He needs information about Lyovochka for his newspaper, and I was able to help him, although I’ve learnt my lesson and didn’t tell him too much. I had a letter from Countess Alexandra Tolstaya, Alexandrine, who said the Tsar didn’t normally receive ladies, but that I should wait a week or ten days for him to reply.*

I am going to Moscow. I shall bring out the 12 volumes with an announcement that Volume 13 has been delayed.* I wish I did not have to move, what a worry this business is! But who else can do it?

Cold, wind, some snow. We all went out in the sledge again.

 

20th March. I spent the 15th and 16th in Moscow with Lyova, and heard that Volume 13 had been banned in St Petersburg. (In Moscow only The Kreutzer Sonata was censored.) I shall have to go to St Petersburg and do all I can to see the Tsar and vindicate Volume 13. In my mind I keep composing speeches and letters to him, thinking endlessly about what I should say. I am only waiting now for Alexandrine’s letter telling me whether or not he’ll agree to receive me, and if so when. Lyovochka says his mind is asleep and his writing is going badly.

 

21st March. I have been reading Spinoza and was deeply impressed by two of his arguments, the first about authority and laws: people should respect authority not out of fear of punishment, but because it represents an ideal, something to aspire to and inspire virtue, not just for the individual but for society as a whole. The other argument is about miracles. The uneducated (“le vulgaire”) see the hand of God only in what lies beyond the laws of nature and probability, and simply don’t see God in the whole of Nature and Creation. This is why they expect miracles—i.e. something that lies beyond nature.

Lyovochka is in an extraordinarily sweet, affectionate mood at the moment—for the usual reason, alas. If only the people who read The Kreutzer Sonata so reverently had an inkling of the voluptuous life he leads, and realized it was only this that made him happy and good-natured, then they would cast this deity from the pedestal where they have placed him! Yet I love him when he is kind and normal and full of human weaknesses. One shouldn’t be an animal, but nor should one preach virtues one doesn’t have.

 

22nd March. I was busy all day measuring and sewing new clothes for the children. Lyovochka and I played duets after dinner; later on, instead of playing patience he wound some balls of cotton for me, which he found highly entertaining. I wrote a letter to Ilya’s wife Sonya. I am ill and tired.

 

23rd March. I felt spring in the air for the first time today. Although it’s still freezing there was a bright sunset, the birds sang and the trunks of the young birch trees at Chepyzh looked particularly beautiful and spring-like. After dinner I took Andryusha and Sasha out and we cleared the snow from the stone terrace in front of the house. Lyovochka rode to Tula.

Still no news from St Petersburg. I am sick with uncertainty.

 

27th March. On the 25th I went to Tula with Misha and Andryusha and we visited the Wanderers’ art exhibition.* I love looking at paintings, but there were few good ones, apart from some lovely landscapes by Volkov and Shishkin. Afterwards we visited the pastry-cook’s, the educational suppliers and the Raevskys.

Next morning I got up early and went to town to attend to my business. As I was walking down Kievskaya Street who should I meet but Ilyusha. I was very surprised to see him and asked if he would come with me to inspect a barouche that was for sale. It was a long, tedious business. Afterwards I visited the senior notary to collect the mortgage documents, then went home with Ilya. He had come to find out about the auction of the estate and to ask me for 35,000 rubles, which I refused him. It caused a nasty scene, but it didn’t last long. I had gone to Tanya’s room to sit with the children after dinner, when he suddenly shouted: “Well I shan’t give you that koumiss mare then!” I lost my temper. “I shan’t ask you for it anyway—I’ll ask the bailiff!” At that he too lost his temper. “But I’m the bailiff here!” he says. “Well, I’m the estate manager,” say I. I don’t know whether it was because I was tired or if he had driven me to exasperation with his talk of money and property, but I became furious with him. “You’ve got to the point where you even grudge your father a koumiss mare—I can’t think why you came! You can go to the devil—you torment me!” And I slammed the door and went out. I felt so sick and ashamed, and so angry with my son—it was quite horrible.

Then for the first time we had a serious discussion about it all and agreed things couldn’t go on like this, and that we would have to divide up the property among all of us. I am delighted by the idea, but agree only on condition that the children draw lots; I don’t expect Ilya will accept this, as he wants to hold on to Nikolskoe and Grinevka, but I won’t deprive my defenceless little ones. It’s really only Ilya who is being so difficult. He is terribly selfish and greedy, maybe because he already has a family of his own. The other children are all very sensitive and will agree to anything. Lyovochka has always had a special fondness for Ilya and will never see his faults, and this time too he was agreeing to all his demands. I am afraid there’ll be no end of unpleasantness. Fortunately, though, Grinevka is in my name, and if the others won’t agree to draw lots I shall refuse to hand over Grinevka and Ovsyannikovo. I simply won’t allow my little ones to be slighted. Lyovochka finds all these discussions a great trial, but they are ten times worse for me, as it is I who have to defend the younger children against the older ones. Then Tanya always takes Ilya’s side, which distresses me. Tomorrow I am going to St Petersburg. I am dreading it, for I know I shall not succeed. The very thought terrifies me. It’s warmer now, although windy. Today it was 7° above freezing.

 

22nd April. I haven’t written in my diary for almost a month. It has been a particularly interesting and eventful month, but it’s always the same: I had so little free time, my nerves were strained and I had to write so many letters home that I didn’t manage to write my diary.

Today is the second day of Easter, and the second warm, summery day of the year. In just two days all the bushes and trees have changed from brown to a soft green, and for the first time this morning I heard a nightingale singing at the top of its voice. Yesterday evening it was just tuning up.

I got back from St Petersburg early on Palm Sunday. I wasn’t well, and for the first days of Holy Week I rested in bed in the peace of our family circle, and gave the children a few lessons. Then we resumed our discussions about dividing the property, with the children, especially Ilya, all grabbing for the biggest bits. This is how we eventually decided to divide it: Ilya will have Grinevka and part of Nikolskoe, Seryozha will have another part of Nikolskoe, and either Tanya or Masha will have the third and largest part, with responsibility for paying off its debts. Lyova will have the house in Moscow and the Bobrov estate in Samara; either Tanya or Masha will have Ovsyannikovo and 40,000 rubles, and Andryusha, Misha and Sasha will each have 4,000 acres in Samara. Vanechka and I will have Yasnaya Polyana. At first I insisted we draw lots for everything, but Lev Nikolaevich and the children protested so I had to agree with them. The Samara land is good for the children since it will gain in value, and there is nothing to steal, chop down or damage there and it is all run by the same hands. Vanechka and I were given Yasnaya because his father must not be moved, and where Lev Nikolaevich is I must be, and Vanechka too.*

Over Holy Week I made Andryusha and Misha fast, although I couldn’t do so myself. They were calm and natural about it, like the common people. We had a service performed here on Saturday, at the request of the servants. Lyovochka was out. When I asked him that morning if he would find it unpleasant if we held a service in the drawing room, he said, “Not a bit.”

Yesterday after breakfast I ordered the new carriage to be brought round and gathered up the children. Then we all drove off down the road to pick morels at Zaseka. I was with Vanechka and Sasha all the time. Although I saw almost no morels because I’m so short-sighted, I love the forest, the wild profusion of nature in spring and the silence in the depths of the trees, and I enjoyed myself enormously. Lyova and Andryusha went fishing but didn’t even get so much as a bite, and Lyova broke his rod. Today and yesterday the children were playing pas de géant in the meadow in front of the house, and romping in front of the byre.

Yesterday evening our boys played games with the village children. It’s strange the way these lads of 11 and 13 already treat the peasant girls as girls, no longer friends. How sad and hateful it is!

Quite apart from all this, the children are growing up without any religious training. Children need forms, as do the common people, to express and contain their relationship with God. This is what the Church is for. And only those with the most lofty and abstract of faiths can separate themselves from it, for without it we feel nothing but the most hopeless emptiness.

Now I shall try to recollect and faithfully record my visit to St Petersburg in connection with the banned Volume 13 of the Complete Collected Works, and the audience I had with the Tsar on 13th April 1891.

My Visit to St Petersburg

I left Yasnaya Polyana on the night of 28th–29th March, and arrived in Moscow the following morning. I sat and talked to Lyova for a while, then went to the State Bank to convert my 5 per cent bonds to 4 per cent ones. By 4 that afternoon I was at Nikolaev Station. I found myself a comfortable second-class compartment which I shared with one other lady, a landowner from Mogilyov, whose husband was marshal of the local nobility. We had a very pleasant journey together. When I arrived at my sister’s house they were just getting up. My brother-in-law Sasha was away on a tour of inspection in the Baltic provinces, Tanya was getting dressed, and the children were receiving the Eucharist. Tanya and I were overjoyed to see each other, and she put me in her bedroom. We sat down at once and wrote a note to Misha Stakhovich. When he arrived he told me he had already written asking me to attend an audience with the Tsar, since Elena Grigorevna Sheremeteva (née Stroganova), the Tsar’s cousin and daughter of Maria Nikolaevna (Lichtenburgskaya), had managed to persuade him to receive me. The reason she gave for my petition to see him was that I wanted to be personally responsible for censoring Lev Nikolaevich’s works. Stakhovich showed me a letter to the Tsar he had sketched out. I didn’t like it, but took it all the same. The morning after my arrival I called on Nikolai Strakhov* in his apartment, which is filled with his marvellous library. He was surprised and delighted to see me, and we sat down to discuss my letter and my forthcoming discussion with the Tsar. He didn’t like Stakhovich’s letter any more than I did and drafted another, which was delivered to me at 5 that evening. I didn’t like this one any better, so I decided to write a third version myself, based on the other two. My brother Vyacheslav arrived and made the final corrections, and it was this version we sent, on 31st March:

Your Imperial Majesty,

I make so bold as to enquire very humbly about the audience Your Majesty has so graciously granted me in order that I may bring to Your Majesty’s notice my personal petition on behalf of my husband, Count L.N. Tolstoy. Your Majesty’s gracious attention gives me the opportunity to specify the conditions under which my husband would be able to return to his former artistic and literary endeavours, and to point out that some of the very grave accusations made against his work have been unfounded, and have stolen the last ounce of spiritual strength from a Russian writer who is already losing his health, but who might possibly still bring some glory to his country with his writings.

Your Imperial Majesty’s faithful subject,
Countess Sofia Tolstoy

31st March, 1891

As I wasn’t sure how to send this letter, Tanya made enquiries on the telephone to a good friend of hers called Skalkovsky, who occupies a senior position in the Post Office, and the following morning Skalkovsky sent his messenger round with a note assuring me that my letter would be delivered to the Tsar that evening at his palace in Gatchina. The letter arrived there on 1st April. On the same day Grand Duchess Olga Fyodorovna, who was in Kharkov on her way to the Crimea, died of pleurisy and a heart attack. Her death, together with the marriage of her son Mikhail Mikhailovich to Countess Merenberg without permission from the Tsar or his parents, was the talk of St Petersburg. People could think of nothing else. Tradition and etiquette demanded a complete cessation of activity at the court for nine days, and the entire royal family went into full mourning. We stood at the window of the Kuzminskys’ apartment and watched as the Grand Duchess’s coffin was borne along the Nevsky Prospect on its way from the station to the Peter and Paul fortress. The Tsar and Mikhail Mikhailovich went straight to the graveside. The priests and soldiers were inseparable (there was a particularly large number of the latter) and, when they stopped in front of the Church of the Annunciation to read the litany and the prayer, they beat the drum, and played a strange sort of whistling music. I have never heard anything like it, it reminded me of a pagan ceremony.

As I wanted to find out how best to address the Tsar and plead with him for Volume 13, I decided to visit Feoktistov, on the censorship committee, to find out why it had been suppressed. My sister accompanied me there. We went in, and when we had greeted Feoktistov (whom I had first met in Moscow as a young man, just after he deceived his mother and eloped with his beautiful wife), I asked him why the whole of Volume 13 had been banned. He responded in a cold mechanical fashion by opening a book and reading from it in a monotonous voice: “The book On Life is banned by the Church censors on the orders of the Holy Synod. The article ‘What Then Must We Do?’ is banned by the Police Department, and The Kreutzer Sonata is banned on the orders of the Tsar.” I then pointed out indignantly that I had already had several chapters from On Life published in the Week, and there were no complaints from the censors then. And it was they themselves who had passed some chapters of ‘What Then Must We Do?’, which were published in Volume 12. That left only The Kreutzer Sonata, and I was hoping to obtain the Tsar’s permission to publish it.

Feoktistov was very embarrassed to discover that On Life and ‘What Then Must We Do?’ had already been published in abridged forms. He called for his secretary, ordered him to look into the matter and promised me a reply in two days’ time. I then complained about the careless and contemptuous way in which a great writer like Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy had been treated by the censors. They obviously didn’t even bother to read the contents page, and had brought both the author and me a great deal of trouble and grief. Feoktistov realized he had done something stupid, and on 3rd April he brought me Volume 13 in person and told me it had been passed for publication.

Meanwhile the New Times newspaper published the repertoire of the plays being performed that season at the imperial theatres, and these included The Fruits of Enlightenment by L.N. Tolstoy. Knowing that the play had been banned from imperial theatres, I visited the Theatre Committee to find out what was happening. It turned out to be true. I asked them if they had been in communication with the author about it, or asked him what his wishes were, and they said they hadn’t. I was furious, and told the official there that this was a tactless, discourteous way to treat an author. I also asked him among other things if he would kindly negotiate with me in future, not with the author. The following day I had a visit from the producer, who handed me a piece of paper listing various conditions. There were a vast number of obligations I was to take on: I was to guarantee that his plays wouldn’t be performed at private theatres, indemnify them with a fine of 2,000 rubles if one was, and so on and so forth. I was outraged by these conditions, and next morning I set off again to the Theatre Committee and told the official I wasn’t prepared to accept any of their terms—they could stop the production, nothing would make me sign. He told me I should say this to the director, so I ordered them to announce me to the director, Vsevolozhsky. He refused to see me. “Well, this is a peculiar state of affairs—one can see the Tsar, but the director, whose job it is to receive people, refuses to see me.” He was disconcerted by my high-and-mighty manner and went off to announce me. “You boors,” I kept saying to myself. “One has to shout at people like you.”

Vsevolozhsky received me in a somewhat overfamiliar manner and introduced me to his assistant, a person named Pogozhev. “So you don’t want to give us your plays, eh Countess?” he said. “I merely don’t want to take on a lot of obligations I can’t fulfil,” I replied. “But all that’s just a formality!” he said. “It may be a formality for you,” I said. “But for me it’s a matter of principle and I shall sign nothing.” At that point Pogozhev intervened: “If you don’t sign these conditions you’ll receive only 5 per cent of the gross takings instead of 10 per cent.” At that I turned on him in a fury: “I don’t live on Merchants’ Row and am not accustomed to haggling with shopkeepers, so kindly leave aside all questions of money since they do not interest me, or, more importantly, the Count. And I shall not give you that play.” I then turned to Vsevolozhsky and said: “What is this? How is it that a person of our circle like you doesn’t understand that one can’t treat Lev Nikolaevich like a vaudeville writer? We must all take his wishes into account, especially I, as his wife and a respectable woman, and that is why I can’t sign your conditions or undertake that his plays will never be performed on a private stage. It’s Lev Nikolaevich’s greatest joy that he hasn’t made a single kopeck out of the play, and this undertaking would deprive people of the right to perform it at charity benefits…” I became so heated that Vsevolozhsky eventually suggested deleting several of the conditions. But I wouldn’t agree to that either, so he proposed that I write an unofficial letter instead, giving the Imperial Theatre the right to perform the play against 10 per cent of the gross takings. This I did.

My son Seryozha suggested that this money be donated to the Empress Maria’s Charitable Institutions. I should have been delighted to do this, but I had to think of my 9 children who need the money so badly—where else would I find it for them?

I profited from my free time in the capital to visit two art exhibitions, the Wanderers’ and the Academy.* I don’t know if I was in a bad mood or just tired, but neither of them impressed me. Afterwards I went shopping with Tanya, sewed my dress and sat with her family and their guests. The rest of the time I stayed at home. They tried to tempt me to go to the theatre and see Duse, the celebrated Italian actress, but my nerves were shattered, and besides I couldn’t afford it. All the time I was there I never slept more than five hours a night.

Eventually, on Friday the 12th, I could wait no longer for my audience with the Tsar. Holy Week was approaching, I was feeling homesick, and my nervous condition was growing worse: I decided to return home on Sunday.

At eleven that night I had just gone to bed when a note arrived from Zosya informing me that the Tsar had sent me an invitation, through Sheremeteva, to see him at 11.30 the following morning at the Anichkov Palace.

Early that morning I checked that I had paid all my bills, asked Tanya to settle the rest for me, got dressed and sat waiting for the time when I had to leave. I had on a black mourning dress I had made myself, a veil and a black-lace hat. At a quarter to eleven I set off. My heart was pounding as we approached the Anichkov Palace. I was saluted at the gates, then at the porch, and I bowed back. I entered the antechamber and asked the doorkeeper whether the Tsar had instructed him to receive Countess Tolstoy. No, he said. He then asked someone else, and got the same reply. My heart sank. Then they summoned the Tsar’s footman. A handsome young man appeared, wearing a crimson-and-gold uniform and a huge three-cornered hat. “Do you have instructions from the Tsar to receive Countess Tolstoy?” I asked him. “I should think so, Your Excellency!” he said. “The Tsar has just returned from church and has been asking about you.” (The Tsar had apparently been at the christening of Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fyodorovna, who has just converted to Orthodoxy.) The footman then ran up a steep stairway covered in an ugly bright-green carpet, and I followed him up. I hadn’t realized how fast I was running, and when he left me with a deep bow at the reception room, my heart was pounding so wildly I thought I should die. I was in a terrible state. The first thought that came into my head was that this business wasn’t worth dying for. I imagined the footman coming back to summon me to the Tsar and finding my lifeless body. I should be unable to say a word, at any rate. My heart was beating so violently it was literally impossible for me to breathe, speak or cry out. I sat down and longed to ask for a glass of water, but couldn’t. Then I remembered that the thing to do when a horse has been driven too hard is to lead it about quietly for a while until it recovers. So I got up from the sofa and took a few paces around the room. That didn’t make it any better though, so I discreetly loosened my stays and sat down again, massaging my chest and thinking of the children. How would they take the news of my death, I wondered. Fortunately the Tsar hadn’t been informed of my arrival and had received someone else before me. So I had time to rest and get my breath back, and had fully recovered by the time the footman returned and said: “His Majesty begs Her Excellency the Countess Tolstoy to enter.” I followed him to the Tsar’s study and he bowed and left. The Tsar came to the door to meet me and shook my hand, and I curtseyed slightly.

“Do forgive me, Countess, for keeping you waiting for so long,” he said. “It was impossible for me to receive you earlier.”

I replied: “I am deeply grateful to Your Majesty for doing me the honour of receiving me.”

Then the Tsar began to talk about my husband (I don’t remember his exact words), and asked me the nature of my request. I spoke in a quiet but firm voice:

“Your Majesty, I have recently observed that my husband seems disposed to resume his literary endeavours. Only the other day he was saying to me: ‘I have moved so far beyond these philosophical and religious works now that I think I might start on some literary work—I have in mind something similar to War and Peace, in form and content.’ Yet with every day that passes the prejudice against him grows stronger. Volume 13 was banned for instance, although it has now been decided to pass it. His play The Fruits of Enlightenment was banned, then the order was given for it to be performed on the Imperial stage. The Kreutzer Sonata was banned…”

“Surely though you wouldn’t give a book like that to your children to read?” the Tsar said.

I said: “The story has unfortunately taken a rather extreme form, but the fundamental idea is that the ideal is always unattainable if the ideal is total chastity.”

I also recall that when I told the Tsar that Lev Nikolaevich seemed disposed to write literary works again, he said: “Ah, how good that would be! What a very great writer he is!”

After defining what I took to be the main point of The Kreutzer Sonata, I went on to say: “It would make me happy if the ban was lifted from The Kreutzer Sonata in the Complete Collected Works. That would be clear evidence of a gracious attitude to Lev Nikolaevich. And who knows, it might even encourage his work.”

To this the Tsar replied: “Yes I think it might very well be included in the Complete Works. Not everyone can afford to buy it after all, it won’t have a very wide circulation.”

On two separate occasions in the conversation (I don’t remember exactly when), the Tsar regretted that Lev Nikolaevich had left the Church. “There are so many heresies springing up among the simple people that are having a very harmful effect on them,” he said.

To this I replied: “I can assure Your Majesty that my husband has never preached any philosophy either to the people or to anyone else. He has never mentioned his beliefs to the peasants, and not only does he not distribute the texts of his manuscripts to people, he is actually in despair when others do so.”

The Tsar was astounded. “Why that’s disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful! It’s a wicked thing to do, to steal someone’s manuscripts!”

The Tsar is rather shy and speaks in a pleasant, melodious voice. His eyes are warm and kind, and he has a friendly bashful smile. He is very tall and somewhat stout, but he is sturdily built and looks strong. He is almost completely bald, and his head is very narrow at the temples, as though it had been squeezed in at the top. He reminded me a little of Vladimir Chertkov, especially his voice and manner of speaking.

The Tsar then asked me how the children felt about their father’s teachings. I replied that they couldn’t but feel the greatest respect for the lofty moral standards he preached, but that I considered it important for them to be educated in the faith of the Church. I had fasted with them over August, I said, but in Tula, not in the village, as several of our priests, far from being our spiritual fathers, were in fact police spies who had been sending in false reports about us.

“Yes, I have heard about that,” the Tsar said. Then I told him my eldest son was a leading zemstvo official, my second was married and had his own home, my third was a student, and the others still lived at home. Oh, and I forgot to note that when we were discussing The Kreutzer Sonata, the Tsar said, “Could your husband not alter it a little?”

I said: “No, Your Majesty. He can never make any corrections to his works, and besides, he says that he has grown to hate this story and cannot bear it to be mentioned.”

The Tsar then asked: “And do you see much of Chertkov, the son of Grigory Ivanovich and Elizaveta Ivanovna? It seems your husband has completely converted him.”

I was quite unprepared for this question and for a moment I was at a loss for words. But I soon regained my composure. “We haven’t seen Chertkov for over two years now,” I said. “He has a sick wife he cannot leave. His relations with my husband weren’t initially based on religion but on other matters. Seeing how many stupid and immoral books were being published for popular consumption, my husband gave him the idea of transforming this popular literature and giving it a moral and educational direction. My husband wrote several stories for the people which sold millions of copies, but were then suddenly found to be harmful and not sufficiently pious, and were also banned. Besides this they published a number of scientific, philosophical and historical books. It was a successful venture and doing very well—but this too has been persecuted by the authorities.”*

The Tsar said nothing to this, and finally I made so bold as to add: “Your Majesty, if my husband should start writing works of fiction again and I should publish them, it would be a great pleasure for me to know that the final verdict on his work rested with Your Majesty in person.”

To this the Tsar replied: “I should be most happy to do so. Send his works directly to me for my perusal.”

I cannot remember if anything more was said. I do remember though that at the end he said: “Rest assured, everything will be for the best. I am very happy to have met you.” And he stood up and gave me his hand.

I curtseyed again, and said: “I am sorry I didn’t ask to be presented to the Empress, I was told she was unwell.”

“No, the Empress is quite well today and will receive you. I shall give orders for you to be announced,” he said.

I then turned to go. The Tsar stood in the doorway leading to the little room next to his study and took his leave of me. “Will you be staying in St Petersburg for a while?” he asked.

“No Your Majesty, I am leaving today.”

“So soon? Why is that?”

“One of my children is sick.”

‘Really? What’s the matter?”

“Chickenpox.”

“Well, that’s not dangerous, so long as he doesn’t catch a chill.”

“Yes Your Majesty, I’m afraid they might let him catch a chill in this cold weather if I’m not there.”

The Tsar shook my hand very warmly, then I bowed again and went out.

I went back to the reception room, which was upholstered in red satin, with a statue of a woman in the middle, two statues of boys at the sides and two pier glasses in the arches separating this room from the main hall. Everywhere was a profusion of plants and flowers. I shall never forget the mass of bright-red azaleas I had looked at when I thought I was dying. Outside the window was a desolate view of a cobbled courtyard with two waiting carriages and some soldiers on parade.

An elderly footman, who looked and spoke like a foreigner, was standing at the door of the Tsarina’s reception room. On the other side stood a Negro in national costume. There were also more Negroes, three I believe, standing by the door of the Tsar’s study. I asked the footman to announce me to the Tsarina, telling them the Tsar himself had authorized it. He told me the Empress was with another lady at the moment, but he would announce me the moment she left.

I waited for fifteen to twenty minutes. The lady came out, the footman told me the Tsar had spoken to the Empress and informed her I wanted to be presented to her, and I went in.

The Empress, a slim woman, quick and light on her feet, came to meet me. She had a lovely complexion, and her beautiful chestnut-coloured hair was wonderfully neatly arranged, as though glued to her head. She was neither very tall nor very short, and was wearing a high-necked, narrow-waisted black woollen dress, very narrow in the arms. She gave me her hand, and like the Emperor immediately invited me to sit down. Her voice was loud and rather guttural, and we spoke in French.

“We have already met once before, I believe?” she said.

“I had the pleasure of being presented to Your Majesty several years ago at the Institute of St Nicholas in Mme Shostak’s house.”

“Ah yes, of course, and your daughter too. Now do tell me, is it really true that people have stolen manuscripts from the Count and published them without his permission? But that is horrifying—what a frightful thing to do!”

“It is indeed true, Your Majesty, and it is very sad. But what can we do?”

Then she asked me how many children I had and what they all did. I said I was happy to hear that her son, Georgy Alexandrovich, was better, and told her I had suffered for her, knowing how hard it must have been for her to be separated from her two sons when one of them was so ill. She said he was fully recovered now; he had pneumonia, the illness had been neglected, he hadn’t looked after himself properly and she had been extremely worried. I expressed my regret that I had never met any of her children, and the Empress replied that they were all in Gatchina at present.

She stood up, gave me her hand and warmly took her leave of me.

Tanya and the younger children welcomed me home. Lyovochka had gone to Chepyzh and then out to the park to wait for me. I got back before him though, and it was a long time before he returned. He was displeased about my adventure and my meeting with the Tsar. He said we had now taken on all sorts of responsibilities we couldn’t possibly fulfil. He and the Tsar had managed to ignore each other up to now, he said; all this could do us a lot of damage, and might well have disagreeable consequences.*

 

23rd April. Why is one’s own family so much more severe on one than others? How sad it is, how sad that they should spoil one’s life and relationships like this. It was a cold fine day. Tanya has just gone past my door and told me Lyovochka asked her to tell me he had lain down and put out the candle.

 

24th April. I went out for a little walk in the garden with the children, and, just by the lower pond, on the very spot where yesterday I planted all the oaks and firs, I saw a whole herd of village cows. Some village woman and girls were calmly tending them, until I let out a loud scream. I was furious about my little trees and my wasted labours. I then went to Vasily and told him to drive away any cows that got into the estate. The village people are very hard to deal with, for they have been spoilt by Lyovochka. When we got home I ran a bath for Vanechka, bathed him myself and put him to bed. Then I copied out Lyovochka’s diaries. It is now 11 o’clock. The wind is howling outside and I am afraid for anyone out in it. I sent the carriage to Kozlovka to fetch Lyovochka, but he will barely make it to Tula and catch the train. It was so cold he was glad of his fur jacket.

 

29th April. I haven’t written my diary for several days. The evening before last I had another asthma attack. I felt as though something was blocking my chest, and had dreadful palpitations and giddiness. I threw myself at Nurse and said: “I am dying!” Then I kissed Vanechka and ran downstairs to Lyovochka to take leave of him before I died. Physically I was terrified, but not mentally. Lyovochka wasn’t there, so I crossed myself and waited for death to come, unable to breathe. Then I went back to my room. On the way I managed to ask for some mustard for my chest and a pulverizer, and when I lay down and inhaled the steam I began to feel better. But even now my chest feels heavy, and I don’t think I have long to live. I have overstrained myself and broken something; I’ve used up my allotted share of energy—it’s all too much for me at my age.

The day before yesterday I wrote a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs, asking him to remind the Tsar that he had given me his personal permission to publish The Kreutzer Sonata in the Complete Collected Works. We had a wretched letter from Lyova, saying he didn’t want to take his exams and was leaving the university.* Both Lyovochka and I wrote advising him not to abandon his university studies until he has clearly decided what he wants to do when he leaves. I don’t expect he will take any notice though. Let him do what he thinks is best, the main thing is for us to support him. Tanya is going to Moscow the day after tomorrow. I have been sitting at home ill for the past three days, but outside it is already quite green. The grass and the leaves are coming out, and the nightingales are singing.

 

1st May. Tanya left for Moscow this morning. Ilya arrived and went to Tula to see about the division of the property. Davydov came for dinner with his daughter and Prince Lvov. I find them both very pleasant, and the day would have passed most enjoyably had I not been unwell. I have catarrh in my respiratory passages, am feverish at night and feel very sluggish.

I copied Lyovochka’s diary. After dinner we all went for a walk, and afterwards I played Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte and a Beethoven sonata for two hours. It annoys me that I play so badly, I wish I could take lessons and learn properly. Over tea we had a discussion about education. I don’t want to send my children to the gymnasium, yet I see no alternative. I don’t know what to do for the best. I cannot educate them on my own, and Lyovochka is very good at talking, but when it comes to acting he never does a thing. It is warmer, and everyone keeps bringing bright fresh violets into the house. We have been eating morels, the nightingale is singing and everything is slowly coming into leaf.

 

15th May. Again, I haven’t written my diary for a long time, and again a lot has happened. On the 2nd or 3rd of May, we had a visit from Princess Urusova (née Maltseva) with her two elder daughters, Mary and Ira. Their presence reminded me painfully of the late Prince himself and I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Mary is strikingly like him, and played a Beethoven sonata so well as to leave us in no doubt about her exceptional musical ability. The Princess has changed very much for the better, is more resigned, and full of remorse. I don’t know why she is always telling me of the exceptional love her husband felt for me. This time she told me in grave and earnest tones that he had loved me even more than he loved Lyovochka, and that it was I who had given him all the things that she, his wife, should have given him—true family happiness, sympathy, friendship, affection and concern. I told her she was quite wrong to imagine her husband had loved me, he had never told me so, and we had never been anything more than very good friends.

We spent three happy days together and parted on friendly terms.

They left for the Crimea, and I got a letter from my daughter Tanya summoning me to Moscow to make arrangements for Andryusha and Misha to take their exams. On the 6th the boys, their tutor Alexei Mitrofanovich and I set off for Moscow by express train. It was very hot, and I sat knitting while the children went into the other compartments making friends with the passengers, who gave them things to eat. We arrived at Khamovniki Street that evening, and I went off immediately to see Polivanov and make enquiries about the exams. Andryusha was so nervous he couldn’t sleep, but Misha, unperturbed, went to sleep at once. The first exam, on religious knowledge, went well—at any rate they became less nervous. We stayed five days in the apartment, and spent every moment of our free time in our wonderful garden. The boys did badly in their exams. I am not sure of the reason for this—whether it’s bad teachers or their poor abilities. Andryusha was accepted into the 3rd form and Misha into the 2nd. But I still cannot decide whether to send them to the gymnasium. I feel so sorry for them and so afraid of what will happen to them there—yet I see no alternative. I am leaving it for fate to decide. How different the two boys are! Andryusha is nervous, shy and cautious. Misha is excitable, talkative and loves the good things of life.

We went to a French exhibition, but it wasn’t ready, and apart from a dazzling fountain the only things we saw were some bronzes and porcelain.

Driving past the Kremlin, I saw an enormous number of carriages at the Small Palace. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich has just been appointed Governor General of Moscow and has been receiving the whole city.

The censors are still refusing to release Volume 13 and are cavilling at three passages, which go approximately: “From the Eiffel Tower to universal conscription…”, “When all the European nations were busy teaching their young people how to murder…” and “Everything is managed by people who are half drunk.” But these phrases had already appeared in the same article, which was published in the form of a prologue to Alexeev’s book On Drunkenness.* I wrote to the Moscow censor informing him of this, and also to Feoktistov in St Petersburg. A letter arrived for me in Yasnaya from the Minister while I was away, announcing that he had given permission for The Kreutzer Sonata and the ‘Epilogue’ to be published in the Complete Works. In Moscow I learnt of this at the press where it was printed. I cannot help secretly exulting in my success in overcoming all the obstacles, that I managed to obtain an interview with the Tsar, and that I, a woman, have achieved something nobody else could have done! It was undoubtedly my own personal influence that played a major part in this. As I was telling people before, I needed just one moment of inspiration to sway the Tsar’s judgement as a human being and capture his sympathy, and the inspiration came, and I did influence his will—although he is a kind man anyway, and obviously quite capable of yielding to the correct influence. Anybody who read this and thought I was boasting would be wrong and unjust.

Volume 13 will come out any day now, and I should dearly love to send the Tsar a copy, enclosing a group photograph of my family, in whom he showed so much interest. Both he and the Tsarina asked in great detail after all my children.

Spring fills the air. The apple trees are covered in flowers—there is something mad and magical about these blossoms, I’ve never seen anything like it. Every time one looks out of the window one sees an amazing airy cloud of white, pink-fringed flowers, set against a bright green background.

The weather is hot and dry. Bunches of lilies of the valley fill the room with their intoxicating scent.

Poor Lyovochka has inflamed eyelids and has been sitting alone in a darkened room for the past two days. He was a bit better today. Yesterday I sent for Doctor Rudnyov, and he prescribed bathing the eyes in Goulard water, which he sent us. Yesterday Lyovochka dictated to Masha a letter on religious matters for Alekhin (a dark one), and I was amazed by how good it was and how totally it corresponded to my own feelings. It dealt with questions of immortality and the after-life: we should not worry about such things, he said, once we had placed ourselves in God’s hands and said, “Thy Will Be Done!” We can never answer these questions anyway, however much we may worry about them.

 

22nd May. Another busy week has passed. The Kuzminskys came, and Masha’s fiancé, Erdeli. The usual summer activities—swimming, lounging in the heat, admiring the beauty of the countryside, crowds of noisy, jostling children with nothing to do. Fet was here with his wife and read us some of his poems—nothing but love, love, love. He was in raptures over everything here at Yasnaya Polyana, and seemed well pleased with his visit and with Lyovochka and me. He is 70 years old, but his lyrics are ageless, lively and melodious, and they always arouse in me suspiciously youthful poetic feelings. Yet they are so good and innocent and always remain in the realms of abstraction—what if these feelings are inappropriate?

My Masha went off with the Filosofov girls to stay with them at Paniki. Let her enjoy herself, poor girl, she’s only 20 but so serious and old for her age. We went out for a walk, but it started to rain and one by one we all made our way back to the house. Instead of reading, we spent a most interesting evening talking about novels, love, art and painting. Lyovochka said there was nothing more horrible than those paintings that depict lust in everyday situations, like the one of the monk looking at the woman, or the Tartar and the lady riding off on horseback together to the Crimea, or the father-in-law casting lascivious glances at the young bride. All this is bad enough in real life, he said, but in a painting you have to look at this filth all the time. I completely agree with him. I only like paintings that depict beauty, nature and lofty ideals.

Today is Ilya’s birthday. The poor fellow lives in such a muddled and senseless fashion, preoccupied with his household, his family and his doubts, and permanently dissatisfied with his fate. It is sad that these disagreements over property have put a strain on our relations.

 

27th May. Very cold and cloudy. There has been a strong north wind for the past three days so we all stayed indoors. Vasya Kuzminsky fired at Sasha’s eye with his toy pistol and left a red bruise. Vanechka had a stomach ache last night and didn’t sleep. I got up at 3 a.m. to be with him and didn’t get back to sleep myself until 5. The lilacs and lilies of the valley are over now. Vanechka and Nurse brought some night violets into the house, and the white mushrooms are out. It’s very dry and the grass is withering. Raevsky was saying there was a drought in the Epifania district. We had a letter from Masha. She is evidently enjoying herself at the Filosofovs, which I am happy about.

 

1st June. Endless guests. First our friend Annenkova’s husband, a landowner, much preoccupied with legal affairs, and an odd, vulgar sort of man, although said to be infinitely kind and sensitive. He brought with him a man called Nelyubov, a thin dark idealist full of ecstasy and gloom, and the magistrate of Lgov, their county capital. Then Suvorin, editor of New Times, came for the evening. He struck me as a shy man, interested in everything. He asked whether he might bring with him or send along a Jewish sculptor from Paris,* to do a full-length sculpture of Lev Nikolaevich. I begged him to send him here, although Lyovochka said nothing as usual. I am sure he would like it. Yesterday P.F. Samarin was here, as well as Davydov and General Bestuzhev. Lyovochka walked to Tula to inspect the abattoir, but they weren’t slaughtering anything so he just looked round. Everybody is terribly interested to hear about my visit to the Tsar. Yet nobody knows my real motive for visiting St Petersburg. It was all because of The Kreutzer Sonata. That story cast a shadow over my life. Some people suspected it was based on me, others felt sorry for me. Even the Tsar said: “I feel sorry for his poor wife.” Uncle Kostya told me when I was in Moscow that I had become “une victime”, and everyone pitied me. So I wanted to show that I wasn’t a victim at all; I wanted people to say my visit to St Petersburg was something I had done instinctively. I knew in advance that I would be successful and prevail upon the Emperor, for I haven’t yet lost my powers of winning people’s sympathy; and I certainly made an impression on him, with my words and my demeanour. But it was also for the sake of the public that I had to vindicate the story. Everyone now knows that I pleaded with the Tsar for it. If that story had been about me and my relations with Lyovochka, I would hardly have begged him to let it be published. Everyone will see this now. I have had various reports of the Tsar’s flattering comments about me. He told Countess Sheremeteva he was sorry he had had urgent work to attend to that day and was unable to spend longer with me, as he found our discussion so interesting and enjoyable, and he hadn’t realized I was still so young and pretty. All this flatters my female vanity, and avenges me for all the years in which my husband not only failed to promote me in society, but actually did his utmost to drag me down. I can never understand why.

It has been raining all day and it’s cold and windy. About three days ago we had a visit from a mother and her two sons who were selling koumiss. They weren’t the same people who came last year—they were quiet and looked very poor. Lyovochka keeps insisting he doesn’t want koumiss and refuses to drink it, but he has had a bad stomach upset these past few days.

 

3rd June. A German from Berlin came and spent the whole of yesterday with us.* He had come to “take a look at Tolstoy”, and ask Lev Nikolaevich for an article that he could take back and translate for his German Jews—Loewenfeld and the others. He himself is a merchant and travels around Russia buying wool. He was a most unpleasant, ingratiating fellow, and ruined the whole day. That evening Lyovochka, my sister Tanya and I had a discussion about abstract matters. Lyovochka maintained that there were certain actions which were simply impossible, and this was why some Christians were martyred; they were unable to worship sacrificial idols, the peasant was unable to spit out the communion wafer, and so on. I said that of course one couldn’t do such things, but for some cause, or to help or save a person close to one, anything was possible. “Like killing a child, you mean?” he said. “No, not that,” I said, “because that is the worst crime one could imagine, and there couldn’t be any possible justification for it.” He didn’t like this at all, and contradicted me in a terrible angry voice. Then he began shouting, and I grew so exasperated I said a lot of unpleasant things to him. I told him one could never hold a conversation with him—his friends had realized this long ago—for he always preached at people. I couldn’t talk to him when he shouted and made those horrible noises, I said, any more than I could talk to a barking dog…I was far too hard on him, but I was feeling very angry.

Lyovochka has only two “extreme” topics of conversation now: against heredity and in favour of vegetarianism. There is a third subject which he never mentions, but which I think he is writing about, and that is his ever more bitter denunciation of the Church.

 

5th June. A warm fine day. My soul is uneasy. Lyovochka and I went to the village to look in at the boot-maker’s and visit poor sick Timofei Fokanov.* I sometimes long to be close to Lyovochka and talk to him, but he makes this impossible at the moment. He has always been severe, but now one is always touching on old wounds—as happened last night. We started talking about the children and he said that twelve years ago he had undergone a great change, and that I too should have changed with him and brought up the children in accordance with his new beliefs. I replied that I could never have done so on my own—I simply wouldn’t have known how—and that he had always talked a lot, and over the years he had written a lot, but in fact he had not only not brought up the children himself, he had actually quite often forgotten about them altogether.

It ended quite amicably however, and we parted as friends. I have just finished yet another page of proofs for The Kreutzer Sonata. It is now 2 in the morning.

 

7th June. Lyovochka went to Tula at the request of one of his “dark ones”, some follower of his I don’t know by the name of Dudchenko, to visit this gentleman’s mistress who is being transported from Tula, where she has been in exile. They told her she could make the journey on her own if she wanted to, at her own expense, but she refused, so now she will travel with the other prisoners. Why is he going? So he can brag and boast about his “principles”, or from a sense of conviction? I won’t decide before seeing for myself. It turned out the girl wasn’t in Tula anyway, and Lyovochka was evidently pleased to have done his duty without actually having to see her. He went to the slaughterhouse again, and told us in great distress what a frightful spectacle it was, how terrified the bulls were when they were led out, and how the skin was ripped off their heads while their legs were still twitching and they were still alive. It is indeed terrible—but then all deaths are terrible! I’ve had a visit from Lyovochka’s sister Maria Nikolaevna, the nun. She talks only of monasteries, Father Ambrosius, priests and nuns, John of Kronstadt and the holy powers of this or that icon, but she herself likes to eat well and frequently loses her temper, and seems to have no love for anyone. We went swimming this evening. It was terribly hot all day. I was cutting Vanechka’s hair and accidentally nicked his head with the scissors. The blood spurted out and he cried and cried. “Forgive Maman, careless Maman,” I said, but he went on crying. Then I stretched out my hand to him and said: “There, hit it!” But he seized it and kissed it fervently, still sobbing. What a dear little boy he is. I fear he will not live long.

 

9th June. Whit Sunday. A heavenly summer day, bright, hot and beautiful, and a lovely, warm, moonlit evening. To think of all the Whitsuns I have lived through! The children went off to church this morning in the carriage, looking very solemn in their best clothes and carrying flowers. After I had had a rest and read, I took Vanechka and Mitechka into my room and told them fairy stories in bed. One must develop their minds. Then suddenly we heard the strains of peasant women singing as they approached the house, and we went out and followed the smartly dressed crowd to Chepyzh, where they wove crowns. There is something very moving about this endlessly repeated spectacle. Every summer, for almost thirty years, ever since I have been at Yasnaya, they have woven crowns and thrown them in the water. Almost three generations have grown up here before my eyes, and this is the one time in the year I see them all together. Today I felt such tenderness for these people with whom I have lived for so long, and for whom I have done so little.

Ilya came yesterday, and in the evening we had yet another discussion about the division of the property. Lyovochka is eating very badly and won’t touch eggs, milk or koumiss, just stuffs his stomach with bread, mushroom soup and chicory or rye coffee. He has made himself a spade and says he is going to dig the wheat field instead of ploughing it. Yet another mad scheme of his—wearing himself to death digging the dry earth, which is hard as stone. I should be happy to see him healthy again, instead of ruining his stomach (in the doctor’s words) with all this harmful food. I should be happy to see him an artist again, instead of writing sermons which masquerade as articles. I should be happy to see him affectionate, attentive and kind again, instead of this crude sensuality followed by indifference. And now this new fantasy of digging the earth—it will be the death of him! And in this heat! He is a continual torment to me with his perpetual dreams and his restless heart.

 

12th June. Yesterday we had a visit from two “dark ones”, called Khokhlov and Alekhin. Alekhin used to be a learned chemist and university teacher, but now wears a peasant shirt and wanders the country with his comrades in the faith. The same old Russian pilgrims served with another sauce—this wandering life is in the Russian blood. But it seems sad that he spent ten years working at the university and is now going to waste. Khokhlov is a technician, young and somewhat unformed. They are a silent, gloomy pair, like all the disciples; they won’t eat meat and wear rough peasant clothes. I cannot understand that scientist. He must realize this is no way to live, wandering about and living off others. Lyovochka keeps telling me that they do work, but I have yet to see any evidence of this: as far as I can see they do nothing but sit around in silence with downcast heads.

 

13th June. I got up at four this morning to see the children off to Ilya’s. It was a bright cold day. Then Lyovochka announced that he and his “dark ones” were setting off on foot to see young Butkevich, some 20 miles away. I am afraid it will exhaust him and I’m unhappy about the friendship, but I realize he’s in a restless mood and if it’s not this it will be something else—some wild venture he’ll think up just for a change I suppose. So they slung their rucksacks over their shoulders and all three set off in the blazing heat. The nights are very cold, but the days are hot and dry. It is dreadful to hear people complaining on all sides about the probability of famine. I can’t imagine how most Russians are going to get through this year. In places there has been an almost complete crop failure, and they’ve had to plough the land all over again. The situation at Yasnaya Polyana is still tolerable, but there are parts of the country where people have no crops for themselves or their cattle.

We all gathered on the veranda this evening to drink tea, shivering in the cold, while Masha told us in horrified tones about the debauchery that goes on among the servants. I was appalled that she and the little girls should know such things, but it could hardly be avoided I suppose, considering the sort of life she has led. She spends all her time with the common people, and they talk of little else.

 

14th June. I had a pleasant busy day, although I didn’t sleep at all last night. This morning I read some Russian stories in a journal, then tidied the house until it was all neat and clean. I don’t know why, but whenever Lyovochka is away I am always filled with energy. Then we all went for a swim. Before dinner I read the German proofs of a biography of Lyovochka that Loewenfeld had sent us. After dinner I gathered up the children and we all walked across the rye field, picking cornflowers as we went, to the Cherta forest. There we gathered bunches of night violets, then sat down to marvel at the evening. How extraordinarily lovely, peaceful and fresh it was! Then I took another turn around the park and examined the oaks and firs I had planted. I went into the house, read through the Russian proofs of the Second Reader, wrote some letters and drank tea with Tanya.

 

15th June. I went to Tula with my daughter Masha, to attend to the division of the property and apprentice the boy Filka to a boot-maker—which she did. The reason for our visit was her refusal to accept her share of the property. I realize that the poor girl doesn’t know what she is doing, and can’t imagine what it will be like to be left without a kopeck after the life she is used to, but she is acting under hypnosis, not conviction. She is waiting for her father to return so she can ask his advice, since she must at least sign some papers and accept my guardianship.

This evening we discussed death, premonitions, dreams, and all the things that affect our imagination. We were interrupted by a visit from a lady from the Caucasus, the wife of Doctor Kudryavtsov. She had come to see Lyovochka, and she missed him. Then my sister Tanya’s son Misha arrived, and told us some fascinating stories about a madwoman here. What had happened was that various things of Tanya’s had disappeared from the pavilion,* and there was clear evidence that it was the mad sister of Mitya’s wet nurse who had made off with them. So Misha went off with the wet nurse to see the woman, and tactfully asked what she had done with the things. It was a highly peculiar business. Gradually she showed him where everything was: she had buried the little work box with its keys in the cemetery near the church and covered it with stones; she hid two towels and a shirt under the bridge; she trampled her own peasant dress and a pair of her husband’s trousers into a muddy ditch; and she hung the antique silver ink pot on its chain from a tree in the orchard at Telyatinki. She remembered exactly where everything was, and slowly went round collecting it all except for the ink pot, which they couldn’t find in the dark. It rained this evening, and got a bit warmer. But it didn’t rain enough. God grant us more.

 

16th June. It rained all day and there was a thunderstorm; the countryside and people are looking more cheerful. Lyovochka has returned from the Butkeviches in a sombre, silent mood. My daughter Masha is learning the most frightful things from the workers and peasant girls in the village. All this moral corruption grieves and shocks her dreadfully, and she insists on bringing this filth home with her and telling us about it. It’s quite horrifying! When I told Lyovochka, he said we mustn’t turn away from such things, we must help them forsake their vile ignorance. Help them—yes indeed, he and I might possibly try to help them, but she is an innocent girl of 20!

 

18th June. Sasha’s seventh birthday. I gave her some presents this morning, and started on the translation of the preface to an English book on vegetarianism.*

This evening we packed some plates and crockery, the samovar, some berries and various other nice things to eat, and all went off to Chepyzh, where we made a bonfire and had a “picnic”, as the children say. The little girls played rather half-heartedly, but we had great fun. Then just as it was growing dark two women came rushing out of the Kuzminskys’ house and told us the bull had escaped and was charging towards Chepyzh. We gathered up our things in a flash and raced home. It turned out that the bull had gone for the cowherd, and very nearly gored him to death. I was worried about Lyovochka, who was out swimming. But he soon came back, put on his dressing gown and announced he had a stomach ache and a chill and wasn’t feeling well. It’s hardly surprising, considering his abominable diet recently—almost nothing but bread, stuffing his stomach with it despite the doctor’s warning that it won’t do him any good. He’s completely given up eggs, drinks enormous amounts of rye coffee—and on top of that he insists on walking to Butkevich’s, carrying a heavy rucksack that strains his stomach. I’ve never met anyone so stubborn once he gets some outrageous idea into his head.

 

16th July. I went to Moscow and ordered 20,000 copies of Volume 13; they had printed only 3,000, and had sold out almost immediately. I exhausted myself getting the paper and finding a printer prepared to do it in 2 weeks. I also ordered some silver for my niece Masha Kuzminskaya’s dowry. Her sister Vera and I went to the French exhibition.* I wanted to see the paintings, but it was closing for the evening when we got there so we hardly saw anything. I was terribly tired, and decided not to go up in a balloon as I didn’t want to waste 5 rubles.

Lyovochka wrote to me in Moscow saying he wanted to make Volumes 12 and 13 public property* so that anyone could print them. On the one hand I don’t see why my family should lose the money, and on the other, since the censored articles in these volumes have been allowed to appear only in the Complete Collected Works, I think it would be wicked to release these to the public, and would involve them in all sorts of expense and confusion. But it grieves me more than anything to annoy Lyovochka, so yesterday I told him he could do what he liked, print what he wanted, I wouldn’t stop him. He hasn’t mentioned it again and hasn’t yet done anything about it.

We have crowds of visitors. Repin left today. He has finished a small head-and-shoulders painting of Lyovochka writing in his study, and has started a larger full-length painting of him standing barefoot in the forest with his hands in his belt.* He is going to finish this one at home.

The sculptor Ginzburg is sculpting a large bust of him, which is most unsuccessful, but he has also done a smaller figure, writing at his desk, which isn’t so bad.*

It’s hot and terribly dry, the nights are cool, and people talk of nothing but this dreadful, terrible famine. It preys on my mind every moment of the day. The situation seems utterly hopeless.

Lyovochka is in poor health. He ate such quantities of peas and watermelon yesterday that I was quite alarmed. He paid for it in the night with an upset stomach. He still refuses to drink koumiss.

I took Vanya and Sasha for a walk yesterday evening and today; we went to the ravine at Zakaz, and today I walked to the well by the felled plantation. Vanya loves to exercise his imagination—he was pretending to be terrified that there were wolves in the forest, and that the water in the well was “special”.

 

21st July. I must write down the whole foolish, sad story of what happened today. I don’t know whether it is I who am foolish, or the life I am forced to live, but I now feel crushed, exhausted in body and soul.

Just before dinner today Lyovochka told me he was sending his letter to various newspapers renouncing the copyright on his latest works.* The last time he mentioned doing this I decided to endure it meekly, and that is what I would have done this time too. But when he mentioned it again I simply wasn’t prepared, and my immediate feeling was of outrage. I felt how terribly unfair he was being to his family, and I realized for the first time that this protest of his was merely another way of publicizing his dissatisfaction with his wife and family. It was this more than anything else that upset me. We said a great many unpleasant things to each other. I accused him of being vain and greedy for fame. He shouted at me, saying I only wanted the money, and that he had never met such a stupid, greedy woman. I told him he had humiliated me all my life, and he had never learnt how to behave towards a decent woman. He told me I would only spoil the children with the money. It ended with him shouting “Get out! Get out!” So I went out and wandered about the garden not knowing what to do. The nightwatchman saw me crying and I was so ashamed. I went to the apple orchard, sat down in the ditch and signed his statements with a pencil I had in my pocket. Then I wrote in my notebook that I was going to Kozlovka to kill myself. I was exhausted by these endless quarrels with Lev Nikolaevich and no longer had the strength to settle all our family business on my own, so I was going to put an end to my life.

When I was younger, I remember I always felt like killing myself after an argument, but I never thought I could. Today though I would have done it—if circumstances hadn’t saved me. I ran to Kozlovka completely deranged. When I had almost reached the footbridge across the great ravine, I lay down to get my breath back. It was growing dark but I wasn’t at all afraid. It was strange, but my main feeling was that I would be ashamed to go home without carrying out my plan. So I got up and walked on, in a calm, dispirited way and with the most frightful headache, as if my head were in a vice. Then suddenly I caught sight of a figure in a peasant shirt, walking towards me from Kozlovka. I was overjoyed, thinking it was Lyovochka and we would be reconciled. But it turned out to be my brother-in-law Alexander Kuzminsky. I was furious that my plan had been thwarted, and felt sure he wouldn’t let me go on alone. He was greatly surprised to meet me, and saw from my face that I was upset. I certainly hadn’t expected to see him, and tried to persuade him to go home and leave me, assuring him I would soon be back myself. But he wouldn’t go, and urged me to walk with him, pointing to a crowd of people in the distance and saying they might frighten me. God knows who was wandering in these parts.

Then he told me he had intended to take the roundabout route back, through Voronka and Gorelaya Polyana, but he was attacked by a swarm of flying ants, and had to run for cover into a thicket and take off his clothes. After waiting there for a while he decided to set back along the same road. Realizing that God didn’t want me to commit this sin, I had no choice but meekly to follow him. But I didn’t want to go home and decided to walk alone through Zaseka and go for a swim. There is another way out, I thought, I can drown myself; for I was still pursued by the dull despairing desire to leave this life with all its impossible problems. By then it was quite dark in the forest. Then all of a sudden, just as I was approaching the ravine, a wild beast leapt at me across the path. I couldn’t see what it was, a fox or a wolf—I’m so short-sighted I can see nothing from a distance—but I screamed at the top of my voice. The animal jumped away and darted off with a great rustling of leaves, and at that point all my courage deserted me and I set off home. I got back and went straight in to Vanechka, who was already in bed. He kissed me and said, “My Maman! My Maman!” over and over again. In the past, when I used to go to my children after these episodes, they seemed to give meaning to my life. Today I realized to my horror that on the contrary, my despair merely grew deeper, and the children made me even more sad and hopeless.

I lay down in my bed, then was seized with anxiety about Lyovochka, who had gone out, and went into the garden to lie in the hammock and listen for his returning footsteps. One by one all the others came out to the veranda, and eventually Lyovochka returned. Everyone was chattering, shouting and laughing, and he was as merry as if nothing had happened; for him these are rational issues, in the name of some idea, which have no effect whatsoever on his heart. As for the pain he caused me—he has already hurt me so often in the past. As for the fact that I was close to killing myself—he will never know about that, and if he did he wouldn’t believe it.

Exhausted by the emotional and physical torment I had endured, I dozed off in the hammock. Masha then came looking for something with a candle and woke me up, so I went in for tea. We all gathered together and read Lermontov’s play A Strange Man. Later on, Lyovochka came up to me, kissed me and tried to make peace. I begged him to print his statement and say no more about it. He said he would print it only when I understood why it had to be. I said I had never lied and never would, and I would never “understand”. Days like these are hastening my death. Something inside me has broken, and left me feeling sad, hard and old. “Let them strike but let them finish me off quickly!” I thought.

I am haunted again and again by thoughts of The Kreutzer Sonata. Today I again told him I could no longer live with him as his wife. He assured me this was exactly what he wanted too, but I didn’t believe him.

He is asleep now and I cannot go in to him. Tomorrow is my niece Masha Kuzminskaya’s name day, and I have got the children to rehearse a game of charades. I hope to God nothing goes wrong and no one quarrels.

 

23rd July. This latest quarrel has broken something in me that will never mend. I went in twice to ask him publicly to renounce the copyright on his recent works. Let him tell the world about our family arguments! I am not afraid of anyone, my conscience is clear. I spend all the money from his books on his children; I merely regulate the amount I give them, since if they had it all at once they might spend it unwisely. Now I have but one desire: to clear myself of this charge, this crime I am accused of. I have too much on my shoulders already: the division of the property, foisted on me against my will, the education of the boys, for whose sake I should go to Moscow, all the business with the publishers and the estate, and the entire emotional responsibility of my whole family. These past two days I have felt crushed by the weight of my life; were it not for the flying ants that attacked Kuzminsky and forced him to return, I might not be alive on this earth today. I was never so calmly determined about it as I was then.

Yet despite this stone on my heart, I organized the children’s charades yesterday. We did “horse-pond”. Masha, Sanya, Vasya Kuzminsky, Boris Nagornov, Andryusha and Misha all joined in. Sasha appeared briefly as an angel, and also made a tableau vivant. They all played nicely together; these games are essential for the boys I think, for they develop their imaginations and occupy their minds.

 

26th July. A young peasant woman died in the village—the wife of Pyotr, Fillip the coachman’s son. Masha, who was looking after her, had mentioned she had a bad sore throat, and eventually told us she thought it was diphtheria. I told her she wasn’t to go there again. But if she has been infected it will be too late anyway. I was so sorry for that dear little peasant woman, but also very angry with Masha for exposing two families and several small children to the risk of infection. Judging from her reports it certainly seems like diphtheria, but she was keeping it to herself in her usual sly way. Now she is distraught, complains of a sore throat and is obviously terrified. This daughter of mine brings nothing but grief, anxiety, irritation and pity; she was sent to me as the cross I must bear.

I spent all day working on the proofs for ABC. The Academic Committee has not approved it in view of various words, such as “lice”, “fleas”, “bedbugs” and “devil”.

 

27th July. Horribly dissatisfied with myself. Lyovochka woke me this morning with passionate kisses…Afterwards I picked up a French novel, Bourget’s Un cœur de femme, and read in bed till 11.30, something I normally never do. I have succumbed to the most unforgivable debauchery—and at my age too! I am so sad and ashamed of myself! I feel sinful and wretched and can do nothing about it, although I do try. Because of all this, I didn’t get up early, see off the Bashkirs and make sure they didn’t miss their train, write to the notary and send for the papers, or visit the children to see what they were doing. Sasha and Vanya romped with me for a long time on the bed, laughing and playing. Then I told Vanya the story about Lipunyushka,* which he loved.

What a strange man my husband is! The morning after we had that terrible scene, he told me he loved me passionately. He was completely in my power, he said; he had never imagined such feelings were possible. But it is all physical—that was the secret cause of our quarrel. His passion dominates me too but I don’t want it, my whole moral being cries out against it, I never wished for that. All my life I have dreamt sentimental dreams, aspired to a perfect union, a spiritual communion, not that. And now my life is over and most of the good in me is dead, at any rate my ideals are dead.

Bourget’s novel fascinated me because I read in it my thoughts and feelings. A woman of the world loves two men at the same time: her former lover (virtually her husband, though not officially), noble, affectionate and handsome; and her new lover, who is also handsome and also loves her. I know how possible it is to love two men, and it is described here very truthfully. Why must one love always exclude another? And why can one not love and remain honest at the same time?

 

29th July. Nikolai Strakhov is here, wonderfully pleasant and clever as always, as well as some woman student from Kazan, who asked Lyovochka all sorts of questions about life and morality.*

 

15th August. Marvellous weather. The children lured me outside to pick mushrooms and I was out for 4 hours. How beautiful it was! The earth smelt heavenly and the mushrooms were so lovely: shaggy caps, sturdy brown caps and wet milk caps glistening in the moss. The soothing forest silence, the fresh dewy grass, the bright clear sky, the children running about with happy faces and baskets full of mushrooms—this is true happiness!

 

20th August. Two Frenchmen have arrived,* Richet, a learned psychologist, and a relative of his.

 

19th September. It always happens that when life is most eventful I have no time to write my diary, yet this is just when it would be most interesting.

Before 25th August, we were all cheerfully preparing for my niece Masha Kuzminskaya’s wedding. We went shopping and made lanterns, decorations for the horses, flags, and so on. On the morning of the 25th, my brother Sasha and I blessed Vanechka Erdeli, and I then drove with him in the carriage to the church. We were both very moved. I felt so sorry for this gentle boy, so pure, so young to be taking on all these responsibilities and so alone in the world. I wasn’t there to see Masha being blessed, but they told me she cried a lot, and so did her father. Then there was the ceremony. I kept swallowing the tears.

We had dinner on the croquet lawn. It was a heavenly day, fine and warm, and everyone—family, neighbours and relatives—was in high spirits. We spent the evening playing games, dancing and singing. The party went on very late, and I sat up until dawn with the guests.

It wasn’t until the 29th that I again raised the question of the move to Moscow, and whether we should send the boys to the gymnasium. I told Lyovochka I realized how hard it was for him and that I just wanted to know how much of his life he was prepared to sacrifice for me by living in Moscow with me. “I am definitely not going to Moscow,” he said.

“Splendid,” I said. “The question is decided. I won’t go either in that case and won’t take the boys, but I’ll look for tutors instead.”

“But I don’t want that!” he said. “You must go to Moscow and send the boys to school, for that’s what you think is right.”

“Yes but that means a separation—you wouldn’t see me or your five children all winter.”

“I see little enough of the children as it is, and you can always come and visit me here.”

“Me? Not for anything!”

At that moment I felt overwhelmed with regrets: all my life I had loved nobody but him, belonged to him alone, and even now, when I was being thrown out like a threadbare garment, I was still in love with him and couldn’t leave him.

My tears embarrassed him. If he had one iota of the psychological understanding which fills his books, he would have understood the pain and despair I was going through.

“I feel sorry for you,” he said. “I see you suffering but I don’t know how to help you.”

“Well I know!” I said. “I consider it immoral to tear your family in two, there’s no reason for it. I shall sacrifice Lyova’s and Andryusha’s education and stay with you and our daughters here in the country.”

“You keep talking of sacrificing the children—then blame me for it.”

“Well what should I do then? Tell me what I should do!”

He was silent for a moment, then said: “I cannot tell you now. Let me think it over until tomorrow.”

We parted on the Grumond field, and he went off to visit a sick man in Grumond while I walked home. The heartless, cynical way he had thrown me out of his life hurt me deeply. Yet another funeral of my happiness. I walked home sobbing. It was growing dark. Some peasant men and women drove past, looking at me in amazement. I walked through the forest terrified, and eventually reached the house. There the lights were on and everyone was drinking tea. The children ran up to meet me.

The following day Lyovochka calmly said: “You go to Moscow and take the children. I shall naturally do whatever you want.” Whatever I want? Why, the word was ridiculous. When did I last want something for myself, rather than thinking only of their health and happiness?

That evening I packed my things and the children’s and collected my papers, and on the evening of Sunday 1st September the boys and I travelled to Moscow. I am still beset with doubts and fears as to whether I have done the right thing, but I really had no choice. Just before we set off, Lyova told me the most terrible story about my nephew Misha Kuzminsky, who has sinned with Mitechka’s wet nurse—and my boys apparently know all the details. One blow after another. My heart was filled with disgust, grief for my sister and anxiety for my innocent boys. The pain went with me when I left, and was with me throughout my stay in Moscow. But material worries and the need to help the boys in their new life had a somewhat soothing effect on me. Lyova told me my sister had taken the news very hard and was in despair, and Tanya was hurt because she felt my response was cool and insufficiently sympathetic. But this was unfair. Calm compassion can be just as genuine as passionate sympathy, which is all very well at the time, but may last no longer than a couple of days.

I stayed with them in Moscow for two weeks, had the house papered and painted, the furniture reupholstered and the rooms rearranged, made sure the children had settled in, and then left. My three sons are still there, with their tutors M. Borel and Alexei Mitrofanovich.

I arrived home on the morning of the 15th, and that same morning Lyovochka accused me of leaving the children “in a cesspit”. Another argument flared up, but it soon calmed down for this was no time for quarrels. I told Tanya how disgusted I was with Misha, and mentioned the possibility of us living apart until the following summer—Lyova had assured me that this would be best for the children’s sake, but I found the idea terribly painful, and I knew Tanya would too. She flushed and said: “Don’t, Sonya! You’ve made me suffer quite enough as it is.” So we have decided to leave it until next spring, and see how Misha behaves in the meantime. Then Lyovochka and I discussed the letter he had written to the newspaper on the 16th, renouncing the copyright on the articles published in Volumes 12 and 13. The source of all he does is vanity, the greed for fame and the desire for people to talk about him all the time. Nobody will persuade me otherwise.

Then that evening a letter arrived from Leskov with a cutting from New Times, headed ‘L.N. Tolstoy and the Famine’. Leskov had taken extracts referring to the famine from a letter Lyovochka had written to him, and had allowed them to be published. Lyovochka’s letter was extremely clumsy in parts, and quite unsuitable for publication.* He was terribly upset that they had printed it, and didn’t sleep that night. Next morning he said he was tormented by thoughts of the famine; we should organize canteens where the hungry could be fed, he said, but above all people should take some personal initiatives. He hoped I would donate money (after his letter renouncing the copyright, which meant there wouldn’t be any! What one is to make of him!) and said he was going immediately to Pirogovo to organize and publicize the campaign. Since he couldn’t write about something of which he had no first-hand experience, he would start by setting up two or three canteens, with the help of his brother and some local landlords, and then publicize them.

Before going off he said to me: “Please don’t imagine I’m only doing this to be talked about. It’s just that one cannot stand aside and do nothing.”

Yes indeed, if he were doing it because his heart bled for the suffering of the starving, I would throw myself on my knees before him and give him everything I had. But I don’t feel, and never have, that he was speaking from the heart. Well at least he can move people’s hearts with his pen and his brain!

Yesterday my husband again aroused violent passions in me; today everything is bright, holy, quiet and good. Purity and clarity—these are my ideals.

 

8th October. I couldn’t wait, and went to Moscow to collect the boys. It happened like this: my sister Tanya and I had a falling out over the Misha business. She thought I didn’t show her enough sympathy or concern, and I was very hard on Misha, for I was furious with him for corrupting my boys. Tanya left for Moscow and I decided to accompany her. Everyone was well at home, and Liza Obolenskaya and her daughter Masha were staying. On 26th September we set off. Our own separate carriage was attached to the train at Tula, the Tsar’s suite was made available to us at the station, and Zinoviev saw us off. In Moscow my three boys soon returned from an exhibition in a lively, cheerful mood, and on Saturday the 28th I took them back to Yasnaya with me.

Now the nerves of my heart are so exhausted that I had an asthma attack and neuralgia in my temple. I cannot sleep, speak, enjoy myself, do my work—nothing. I go off and weep for hours on end, weeping for everything that has happened to me, weeping for this period of my life that is over. And if I was asked what was at the heart of my grief, I would say it was Lyovochka’s lack of affection. We were talking about the various letters we had written and he started by reading his—to some dark ones. I asked him where Popov was, and Zolotaryov, and Khokhlov. The former is a retired officer of Oriental appearance, and the other two are young men from the merchant class. All of them call themselves disciples of Lev Nikolaevich. “Well, Popov is with his mother,” he replied, “because that was what she wanted. Khokhlov is at the technological institute, because that was what his father wanted. And Zolotaryov is stuck in some small town in the south with his father, who is an Old Believer, and is having a very hard time of it!”

So they are all having a “hard time”, living with their parents because that is what their parents want. Now I know that this Popov, whose mother is an extremely coarse woman, found it hard to live with his good and beautiful wife, so he left her. He then went to live with Chertkov for a while, but Chertkov couldn’t abide him and he found it hard there too. I know for a fact that Lyovochka has a “hard time” living with me—his peculiar principles make it hard for him wherever he is and whoever he’s with. There have been a number of Tolstoyan communities, but they all collapsed because people had such a “hard time” living together. It was on this unpleasant note that our discussion ended.

I was looking at an earlier passage in my diary, where I wrote about Lyovochka and Tanya’s visit to the famine-stricken areas around Pirogovo.* Lyovochka’s brother Seryozha greeted them very coldly and said they had come to lecture him: you’re much richer than I am, you can afford to help, he said, I am a pauper, and so on and so on. Lyovochka and Tanya travelled on to the Bibikovs’, where they wrote down the names of all the starving people. Tanya stayed with the Bibikovs while Lyovochka went on to visit Svechin and a certain woman landowner.* This woman and Bibikov both responded very coolly to the idea of canteens for the starving. They are preoccupied with their own affairs and say they have no money to spare, although the Svechins were more sympathetic.

When they came back and announced that they wouldn’t be going to Moscow but would be spending the winter on the steppes, I was appalled. This means us being separated all winter, them living 15 miles from the nearest station—with his indigestion and bad intestines—the little girls alone in the middle of nowhere, and me endlessly worrying about them. I felt particularly crushed by the news since, with a great deal of pain and effort, we had just settled one question, and I had agreed, so as to make it easier for Lyovochka to live in Moscow, that he should print his announcement about Volumes 12 and 13. It made me quite ill. And on top of this, Lyova wrote urging us all to remain in Yasnaya, saying my presence in Moscow would disturb the three boys in their studies and that I wasn’t needed there. This was yet another grief. For 29 years I have lived only for my family, denying myself all the joys and pleasures of youth, and now nobody needs me. I have cried so much recently! I suppose I must be very bad, yet I have loved so much, and love is said to be a noble feeling…

I have no idea what Lyovochka and the girls intend to do. Personally I have doubts about these canteens. It’s the free, strong, healthy people who will go there for food, while the children and old people, the pregnant women and those with babies won’t go, and it’s they who need it most.

Before Lyovochka published his statement about the copyright, I had intended to give 2,000 rubles to the starving; I wanted to choose one district and give every starving family there so many pounds of flour, bread or potatoes per month. Now I simply don’t know what to do. If I do donate money it will be for Seryozha to dispose of, for he is the secretary of our local Red Cross. He has a clear duty to do famine-relief work; he is free, young and honest, and is here on the spot.

 

16th October. It was snowing all day. I drove to Tula in the large sledge, harnessed to a pair of horses, and when I came back it was 8° below freezing. Some gypsies had put up their tents and were camping just outside our estate, with children, hens, pigs, about 40 horses and a large crowd of people. The girls went to see them and brought them back to the side kitchen. Last night Lyovochka sent off his article ‘On the Famine’ to Grot’s journal Questions of Philosophy and Psychology.* Sasha and Vanya have just drawn lots for the property: Sasha drew her own, and got the left half of Bistrom. Vanechka drew for Misha and Andryusha; Misha has got the land at Tuchkov and Andryusha the right half of Bistrom and…

The directors of the St Petersburg theatres have refused to hand over the royalties for The Fruits of Enlightenment, and I was furious with them and with Lev Nikolaevich for depriving me of the pleasure of giving this money to the starving. Yesterday I wrote to the Minister of the Court, Vorontsov, requesting that this money be paid to me, but I don’t know what will come of it.* We are packing our things and preparing for the journey to Moscow. Wherever I look—in our family, all over the place—I see nothing but arguments and strife. Everything and everyone is oppressed by this famine.

 

19th October. Petya Raevsky is here, as well as Popov (a dark one) and some other itinerant intellectual, sent here by Syutaev. A glum, dissatisfied, disillusioned, sickly fellow.* Lyovochka is strangely, selfishly cheerful—physically cheerful, but not emotionally.

 

12th November. I have been in Moscow since 22nd October, with Andryusha, Misha, Sasha and Vanya. On the 26th my husband Lyovochka left with his daughters for the Dankovsky district to visit I.I. Raevsky at his estate in Begichevka, and on the 25th my son Lyova left for the village of Patrovka, in the province of Samara. We all had one thing on our mind: to help the starving people. For a long time I didn’t want them to go, and hated the idea of parting with them, but I knew in my heart that this had to be and at last agreed. I even sent them 500 rubles when they had gone, on top of the 250 I had already given then; Lyova took just 300 and I sent another 100 to the Red Cross.* But how little this is compared to what is needed! I felt terribly homesick when I arrived in Moscow, and was in the most frightful emotional state. Words cannot describe how I felt. My health was shattered and I was close to suicide.

One night I was lying in bed unable to sleep, and I suddenly decided to issue a public appeal for charity. The next morning I jumped out of bed, wrote a letter to the editors of the Russian Gazette and set off at once to deliver it. On the following day, Sunday, it was published. Suddenly I began to feel well and cheerful again. Donations poured in from all sides. I was so moved by people’s compassion; some were crying when they brought the money in. Between the 3rd and the 12th I received no less than 9,000 rubles, of which I sent 1,273 to Lyovochka, and 3,000 yesterday to Pisaryov to buy rye and maize. I am now waiting to hear from Seryozha and Lyova, who will tell me what to do with the rest of the money. All morning I receive donations, record it in the books and talk to people, and it is all very absorbing. But there are times when I suddenly lose heart and long to see Lyovochka and Tanya, even Masha, although I know she is always much happier when she is away from me.

Andryusha and Misha are studying at the Polivanov gymnasium; Misha is doing poorly, Andryusha is average. I always feel sorry for them; I want to cheer them up and entertain them, and in general am prone to spoil them, which is no good. I was sitting down to dinner with the children today when I thought how selfish, fat and sleepy our bourgeois city existence was, without contact with the people, never doing anything for others! I couldn’t eat. I felt so wretched thinking of all those at that moment dying of hunger, while the children and I were mentally dying in this atmosphere, without any useful work to do. But what can we do?

I received a reply from the Minister of the Court. In view of the fact that I want the money for charity, he has promised to give me the royalties on The Fruits of Enlightenment, and I have written to the director about this.