February—University of St Petersburg convulsed by student riots and demonstrations, which spread to Latvia and Poland. All universities in Russia closed. Students expelled and drafted into army.
8th January—Andrei Tolstoy marries Olga Dieterichs (the sister of Chertkov’s wife). 13th March—first part of Resurrection published in the journal The Cornfield, and the money sent to the Dukhobors. 14th November—Tanya Tolstaya marries Mikhail Sukhotin. End of the year—Tolstoy finishes Resurrection.
1st January. A disappointing start to the new year. We got up late, and I drove Sasha, Sonya Kolokoltseva and my grandchildren Misha and Annochka to the woods in the big sledge, with my camera. It was lovely in the woods, and the children were such fun. We laughed and took photographs; the shaft of the sledge broke, but strong Sasha repaired it. We got back for dinner. This afternoon I had tea with Dora and Lyova and lit the candles on the Christmas tree again. Back in our house the children and both sets of servants dressed up and danced, first to dance tunes on the piano, then to two concertinas. I went to sit with Masha, developed photographs and made a peasant shirt for Lev Nikolaevich.
Masha is recovering, thank God. Lev Nikolaevich’s work is going badly. He always ascribes every emotional state—his own, mine and everyone else’s—to physical causes.
4th January. More guests this evening—the three Cherkasskys, the two Volkhonskys and the Boldyryovs. Mary is utterly delightful. Accordions, dancing, some unsuccessful choral singing…Dreadful! The appalling Princess Cherkasskaya is an ageing sinner who doesn’t want to grow old. She and I woke Masha, who then had a hysterical attack. It was extremely regrettable, and it was partly my fault for making so much noise with that old harridan.
Lev Nikolaevich has again been in a good mood for work.
8th January. I spent the morning in Tula alone in my room in the Petersburg Hotel. It was so cheerless, and I felt depressed and upset about Andryusha’s wedding.* I read a French pamphlet about Auguste Comte, which was sent to Lev Nikolaevich and written as a letter to Émile Zola. It preached peace, brotherhood and sociology.
Then my sons arrived—poor thin Lyova, plump jolly Ilya, anxious Andryusha and wild Misha, incoherent, noisy and selfish, who hadn’t received his uniform and was searching for a tailcoat to wear.
Ilya and I blessed Andryusha there in the hotel room. He seemed to be in a dream, deeply affected, yet bewildered as to why he was getting married or what would happen. I still can’t make Olga out. A wedding is always a frightening, mysterious occasion. I kept wanting to cry.
We dined at the Kuhns’, got a little drunk, then took them to the station. Lev Nikolaevich rode there wearing his fur jacket. The public surrounded us: Tolstoy and a wedding; they were all fascinated. He has grown to love his fame. He loved the sight of those people at the station, I could see he did.
12th January (Moscow). Tanya’s name day. A lot of tedious guests arrived at midday with a great deal of chocolate and chatter and an endless number of boys—schoolfriends of Misha’s, etc. I feel even worse. I was expecting Sergei Ivanovich all day, but he didn’t come. I am told he is at Tchaikovsky’s estate in Klin, working on a production of his ballet The Sleeping Beauty with the composer’s brother. This afternoon Masha Kolokoltseva, Liza Obolenskaya and the pianist Igumnov came, just back from Tiflis. He played us the Chopin Tarantella and Nocturne, Rubinstein’s ‘Ballade’, the andante from a Schubert sonata and something by Mendelssohn—but I wouldn’t have recognized his playing, it was so lifeless. Either that or I was ill and I couldn’t listen properly.
I have seen almost nothing of Lev Nikolaevich all day. He wrote a lot of letters and was busy with his own writing. He still complains of a stomach ache and I gave him another massage.
13th January. Misha arrived; he was telling me that a crowd of drunken students, magistrates, old men and all sorts of other people had gathered yesterday at the Hermitage and Yar’s nightclub to celebrate St Tatyana’s Day (the university holiday), and 200 people had danced the trepak together. They ought to be ashamed of themselves! I spent half the day in bed.
14th January. We had a splendid evening: Lev Nikolaevich read us two Chekhov stories, ‘Darling’ and one whose name I have forgotten, about a suicide, more of a sketch really.
16th January. A telegram from Sulerzhitsky saying he has arrived safely in Canada with the Dukhobors, and they like the country and have been well received there. Our Seryozha ought to be there in six days’ time. I am waiting impatiently for his telegram, I think constantly about him and tell his fortune.
I went with Modest Tchaikovsky to a rehearsal of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty. Lovely music, but I am too old for ballet now, and I soon grew bored and left.
17th January. Lev Nikolaevich had a visit from Myasoedov and the inspector of the Butyrki prison fortress, who gave him a lot of technical information about prison affairs, the prisoners’ lives and so on for Resurrection.*
20th January. I didn’t sleep all night. We had some good news this morning—a telegram from Seryozha in Canada saying he has arrived safely with the Dukhobors. Three died on board, a baby was born and there was an outbreak of smallpox, which means they are all in quarantine.
Lev Nikolaevich has been entertaining some dark ones—Nikiforov, Kuteleva, a midwife who did famine relief work, a certain Zonov, Ushakov…
22nd January. I paid seven calls today, and this evening endless guests arrived. I am exhausted. I called on Sergei Ivanovich to thank him for giving us such pleasure yesterday and to enquire about his fingers, which he hurt when he was playing for us yesterday.
The Annenkovs, taciturn Rostovtsov, dear Davydov, pathetic Boratynskaya, Sukhotin the student and Butyonev père. My temple aches insufferably, which makes me depressed and listless, and my soul is melancholy.
A friendly letter from Andryusha, to which Olga added a few lines. At the moment they are quite happy. Who knows what the future holds!
I have no contact with Lev Nikolaevich all day. He writes all morning, then takes a walk. This afternoon he went off to see Misha at the Lycée, then this great wall of guests separates us, which is very depressing. Misha is bored, he cannot sleep at the Lycée and I fear he won’t last long there.
23rd January. I spent a quiet day on my own, and found time for everything—I read a little of The Greek Conception of Death and Immortality, did some work, played the piano for about four hours, sat with Lev Nikolaevich, did a little copying from the revised proofs for him. Not a soul here all evening—heavenly! Tanya took Sasha to a dance and Misha went too—Misha Mamonov that is, such a nice intelligent boy. I love children, I never really grew up myself and joined the adults, and children are so grateful, so forgiving, they observe God’s world with such eager, inquisitive eyes.
24th January. 10 degrees of frost, fine. This morning I paid some unsuccessful calls, and this evening a crowd of guests came—the Naryshkins, Princess Golitsyna, Count Sollogub, Stakhovich, Olsufiev, Ermolova, the boys and so on—30 people in all. I was in bed with neuralgia when Tanya got me up and called me to them. Lev Nikolaevich was there throughout, reading Chekhov’s ‘Darling’ to the ladies and chatting animatedly to everyone. Then Goldenweiser played a Mozart sonata and some things by Chopin. We went to bed late, then Misha called me out to tell me he didn’t know how much longer he could go on living at school. I’m sure he’ll leave.
25th January. I stayed in all day, but couldn’t do a thing because of all the visitors. The Olsufiev brothers came, read Resurrection and drank tea. Then Stakhovich came to dinner. He seems rather gloomy. Tanya went to see Chekhov’s The Seagull with Trepova.
Wind, frost, fires on the street. Sitting at the dinner table today I scolded myself for being unable to be happy. There was a heated discussion. Lev Nikolaevich said it was important to have principles and to strive for spiritual perfection, but that one’s actions might nevertheless be inadequate, the result of human passions. I said if despite all these principles it was still possible to sin and succumb morally, then what could I stake my faith on in future? It was better to have no principles at all, I said, just an inner sense that would lead one to the right path. Lev Nikolaevich said the desire for spiritual perfection automatically led one to the right path. And I said that while a man was perfecting himself he could sin twenty times or more. No, I said, better to know what is right and what is wrong and not sin, rather than expect some sort of perfection.
It is almost two a.m. Lev Nikolaevich has just sent for Maklakov for some reason, and has ordered some food to be heated up for him. What a lot of trouble he makes for others without realizing it.
26th January. I was copying the revised proofs of Resurrection and was repelled by the desire to shock when he describes the Orthodox service. For instance: “The priest extended to the people the gilt image of the cross on which Jesus Christ was executed—instead of the gallows.” The sacrament he calls “kvas soup in a cup”. It’s scurrilous and cynical, a crude insult to those who believe in it, and I hate it. I read a little today, and copied out a little of his diaries. There were no guests—what a blessing!
29th January. I don’t remember the past two days: I paid visits with Tanya, played a little, pined and fretted for my absent children. I cut out and sewed today and am very tired. I thought about my son Seryozha and remembered him composing and playing for me his song that begins: “We met once again after a long parting…” and ends: “…we pressed each other’s cold hands and wept…”* I know he was expressing his own fears, his emotional state at the time. He is awkward but so profound in his feelings, and in all his other faculties too. He just hasn’t been able to make the best of his good qualities. We women—and especially his wife—love to act like characters out of a novel, even at times with our husbands; we love sentimental strolls, we love to be emotionally cherished. But one doesn’t expect this from the Tolstoys. So often one feels an outburst of tenderness for one’s husband—but if, God forbid, it is expressed, he recoils with such disgust one feels mortified and ashamed of one’s feelings. He only cherishes me when his passions are aroused—which alas is not the same!
30th January. I sewed all morning, first a sash for the coachman, then a silk skirt for myself on the machine. Lev Nikolaevich had a visit from old Soldatenkov, the publisher, who brought him 5,000 silver rubles for the Dukhobors. I greatly dislike this business of asking rich people for money—considering that L.N. wrote an article denouncing the evils of money and refusing to have anything to do with it. It doesn’t bother him that while he now curses music, just to be contrary, Modest Tchaikovsky told me that he once wrote a letter to Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky saying he considered music the supreme art, and gave it first place in the world of art.
I often think: Lev Nikolaevich should be ashamed of living a life of such contradictions. Everything with him is ideological, everything is for a purpose—the main purpose being to describe everything, as he did in that wonderful article of his about the famine last summer. Maybe he’s right: to each his own path and his own cause.
I visited the Lycée the other day and talked with the director. This splendid man, Georgievsky, treats Misha better than his own father does. Misha is in good spirits; he has left the boarding house again to be a day boy, but has started to work.
31st January. Lev Nikolaevich, much to my disapproval, continues to ask rich merchants for money for the Dukhobors.
1st February. Dunaev, Almazov and the student Strumensky came this evening and there were discussions again: about disarmament and whether the Tsar was sincere in his talk of peace, about Marxism, about music. I wasn’t bored, for they talked very interestingly and without acrimony.
3rd February. I was pacing about aimlessly, with an anxious heart, then at dinner, what joy, a letter from Seryozha in Canada. There was an outbreak of smallpox on the boat, and Seryozha and the Dukhobors were put down on a small island and quarantined for nineteen days. About himself he writes almost nothing, but is evidently exhausted by his role as interpreter, and worn out by seasickness, anxiety and so on.
There was a special symphony concert this evening in honour of Paderewski, the famous and utterly loathsome pianist. Sergei Ivanovich was there.
4th February. A hectic day. I went this evening to a concert. I met Sergei Ivanovich as we were taking off our coats, and we had a most unpleasant exchange: he said he had walked there yesterday and had driven back with M.N. Muromtseva, telling me all this with a foolish laugh. I was seething with rage—what business was it of mine?
When I got home I found Lev Nikolaevich standing at the long table in the drawing room which had been laid for tea, and around it was a group of Molokans who had arrived from Samara. Dunaev, Annenkova, Gorbunov, Nakashidze and some peasant or other were all there drinking tea, Lev Nikolaevich was explaining something about St John’s Gospel to them, and I overheard a discussion about religion going on.
I don’t understand religious discussions: they destroy my own lofty relations with God, which cannot be put into words. There is no precise definition of eternity, infinity and the afterlife—there are no words for these things, just as there are no words to express my attitude and feelings about the abstract, indefinable, infinite deity and my eternal life in God. But I have no objection to the Church, with its ceremonies and icons; I have lived among these things since I was a child, when my soul was first drawn to God. I love attending mass and fasting, and I love the little icon of the Iversk Mother of God hanging over my bed, with which Aunt Tatyana blessed Lev Nikolaevich when he went to war.
The Molokans are staying the night here, unfortunately.
5th February. Paid calls this morning. An interesting conversation with Maslov and Scriabin about music. Terrible depression all day: I can’t bear to think I have brought about a break with Sergei Ivanovich. I didn’t sleep all night.
7th–27th February. I haven’t written my diary for twenty days. On the morning of Sunday 7th I received a telegram from my niece Vera Kuzminskaya in Kiev: “Pneumonia. Maman very ill.” I left for Kiev on Monday morning* and found my sister Tanya with pneumonia of both lungs; she was very weak, her face was inflamed and she was in great pain, but she was delighted to see me. I shall not describe her illness here, or the effect my presence had on her, the terror I felt at the prospect of losing my best friend and the sudden insight I had into the question “what is death?” One’s feelings can only be truly described directly, and this I have done in my letters.
I returned to Moscow on the 19th, visiting Yasnaya Polyana on the way to see Lyova’s little nest which I love so much, with Dora and Levushka. In Moscow I found everyone well. But no sooner had I arrived than Lev Nikolaevich reduced me to tears by saying: “Well, I’m glad you’re back, now I can go off to the Olsufievs’.” I was worn out by the journey from Kiev, and it was more than I could endure. “But I was looking forward to living quietly with you again!” I sobbed. He was alarmed by my tears, and said of course he was pleased to see me too and wouldn’t leave for a while. I am painfully sorry for my daughter Tanya. She has to syringe out her nose through the hole left by the teeth she had taken out, and it has broken her spirits. She still pines terribly for Sukhotin, and cannot forget him. Her life is poisoned by misfortunes. An interesting letter from Seryozha about his life in quarantine with the Dukhobors. They haven’t been cleared yet to enter Canada.
10th March. Lev Nikolaevich goes to the Myasnitskaya art school every day to visit Trubetskoy in his studio, who is doing two sculptures of him simultaneously, one a small statuette and the other of him sitting astride an unfamiliar horse.* It is very tiring for him and I am amazed he agreed to pose. He works away every morning on Resurrection, and is well and cheerful. He still stubbornly and silently eats his breakfast on his own, at two in the afternoon, and dines, also on his own, at about 6.30, sometimes as late as 7. We never see him; the cook just has to seize the opportunity to give “the Count” his food, and the servants never get any peace or free time.
Today three young ladies came wanting to help the starving peasants in the Samara region. My sympathies are with the starving Russians and the wretched Kazan Tartars, who are dying of scurvy and swollen with hunger; they need help far more urgently than the Dukhobors, whose hard lives have been of their own making.
11th March–21st June. I fainted at a symphony concert on 11th March and was confined to my bed until 8th April. I was very weak for a long time afterwards. I haven’t really been well since my return from Kiev. On 27th February I collapsed with influenza, forced myself to get up, then took to my bed again.
21st June. I haven’t written my diary for almost three months, and have been more dead than alive, sick in mind and body. The doctors talked about a “weakening of the heart”, and at times my pulse rate was just 48; I was fading away, and was filled with a quiet joy at this gradual departure from life. I had a lot of love and sympathy from my family, friends and acquaintances during my illness. But I didn’t die; God ordained that I should live. For what?…We shall see.
Can I remember anything of significance in these three months? Not really. Seryozha has returned safely from Canada, which is a relief. Then there were three magnificent concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Nikish, which were a great pleasure.
On 14th May Lev Nikolaevich went off to the country, travelling with Tanya first to Pirogovo, then on the 19th to Yasnaya. Sasha and I left for Yasnaya on the 18th. On 20th May poor Tanya left with Marusya for Vienna. Hajek operated on her; she suffered greatly, and I suffered doubly for her.
On 30th May Lyova, Dora and Levushka left for Sweden. We are in Yasnaya with Andryusha, and his wife Olga, Sasha, Miss Welsh, Nikolai Gué (who copies Resurrection for Lev Nikolaevich), Misha and his teacher, and a young student called Arkhangelsky.
Sergei Ivanovich and Lavrovskaya visited us on the way from Moscow. He played my favourite Beethoven sonata in D Major, the Chopin Nocturne with six sharps—he picked out all my favourite pieces—and something else; next day he played his new quartet and interpreted it so interestingly for my son Seryozha. It was an absolute joy.
Then on 14th June Lev Nikolaevich fell ill with a stomach ache and was in great pain, and he still hasn’t recovered.
A cold, rainy summer.
Lev Nikolaevich leads a monotonous life at present, working every morning on Resurrection, correcting now the proofs, now his manuscript. He is drinking Ems and is thin and quiet and has aged much this year.
Relations between us are good—peaceful and considerate, without reproaches or fault-finding. If only it could always be like this! Although I am occasionally saddened by a certain coldness and indifference on his part.
I had a depressing experience yesterday: he gave some self-educated peasant a number of books to bind, and in one of these he had accidentally left a letter, which I saw. Something was written in L.N.’s hand on a blue envelope, which was sealed. I was horrified when I saw what it said: he wrote on the envelope that he had decided to take his life as he could see I didn’t love him and loved another, and he couldn’t endure it…I wanted to open the letter and read it, but he snatched it out of my hands and tore it into pieces.
It transpired he had been so jealous of my relationship with T—that he wanted to kill himself. Poor darling! As if I could ever love anyone as I love him! But how I have suffered from this mad jealousy of his throughout my life! And how much I have had to give up because of it—friendships with good people, travelling, improving myself and generally everything interesting, valuable and important.
I fainted again the day before yesterday. I welcome death and am ready for it—I don’t feel this to be the end. For me it’s the replacement of one moment of eternity (our earthly life) by another; and this other is interesting, as my friend said to me.
My soul is torn and tormented. I have accumulated so much depression and remorse, such powerful longings for love and a different life, that I don’t think I can bear the strain much longer.
“Grant me the spirit of wisdom, humility, patience and love.”
Very hot. I swam today for the first time.
26th June. Yet another warning. Yesterday I choked several times, and that evening I had such a bad asthma attack it almost killed me. I had a terrifying, uncontrollably violent burst of hiccups and yawning—I was suffocating, gasping for air, couldn’t breathe. Then it passed. There were plenty of reasons for it: Lev Nikolaevich’s suicide letter, and Misha’s flood of reproaches two evenings ago that no one understood or sympathized with him.
I have exercised all my maternal devotion, all my energy and skill, and I have achieved nothing. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to—I have evidently been unable to do so.
I haven’t been able to educate my children (having married as a young girl and spent 18 years shut up in the country), and this torments me.
While I was playing the Beethoven Variations yesterday, I remembered Andryusha saying half-jokingly the other day: “Do give me a music lesson, Maman, then you can slap me again…” It made me unbearably sad to remember this. If I had children now I would be far too tender-hearted to lift a finger to them, but when I was young I had goals to achieve, the children were stubborn and lazy, it was hard to teach them, I wanted them to know everything and more, I had such a lot to do, such a lot of time was wasted and I would get upset and lose my temper and slap them—lightly of course, for a mother would never hurt her children badly. Yet they still remember it, and I longed to say: “Forgive me, children, I’m so sorry I hit your soft little heads. I wouldn’t do it now—but it’s too late!”
Lev Nikolaevich is stuck at the Senate trial in his Resurrection. He badly needs to ask someone about sessions of the Senate, and jokingly says to us: “Quick, find me a senator!” He might as well not exist: he lives completely alone, immersed in his work. He walks alone, sits alone, emerges halfway through dinner or supper merely to eat, then disappears again. His mind is obviously working all the time and it exhausts him—he is working too hard and I have advised him to take a break. He swam yesterday for the first time.
4th October. Tanya’s birthday. She went yesterday to Moscow where Sukhotin is staying, and now feels she must decide once and for all whether to marry him or not. My poor Tanya! 35 years old, brilliant, clever, talented, happy and loved by all—and she hasn’t found happiness. She is miserable—thin, pale, nervous. Her treatment in Vienna did no good at all in my view. She still has to keep rinsing out her nose through the cavity in her mouth and forehead, and her general health is wretched.
11th October. Yet more busy monotonous days have passed at Yasnaya. We had a letter from Tanya, saying she is calm and happy in the knowledge that she is in good hands. That means she has decided to marry Sukhotin.
Two days ago Lev Nikolaevich went for a walk in the afternoon without telling me where he was going. I thought he had gone for a ride—when he had just had such a bad cough and cold. Then a storm blew up. It rained and snowed, roofs and trees were smashed, the window frames rattled, it grew dark—there was no moon—and still he didn’t appear. I went out to the porch and stood on the terrace, waiting for him with a spasm in my throat and a sinking heart, as I used to when I was young and he went out hunting and I would wait hour after hour in an agony of suspense. Eventually he returned, tired and sweating after his long walk. It had been hard going through the mud, and he was worn out but in good spirits. I burst into tears, reproaching him for not looking after himself and not telling me he was going out and where he was going. And to all my passionate and loving words his ironic reply was: “So what if I went out? I’m not a little boy, I don’t have to tell you.”
31st December. The last day of a sad year! What will the new one bring?
On 14th November our Tanya married to Mikhail Sukhotin. We should have expected this. One had the feeling she had simply come to the end of her unmarried life.
For her parents this marriage was a tragic blow, such as we hadn’t experienced since Vanechka’s death. Lev Nikolaevich lost all his outward calm. When Tanya, tormented and grieving, went upstairs in her simple little grey dress and hat to say goodbye to him before leaving for the church, he sobbed as though he was losing the most precious thing in his life.
Neither of us went to the church, but we couldn’t be together either. After seeing Tanya off I went into her empty room and sobbed.
There were almost no guests, just our children, minus Lyova and Misha, and his children, and one or two others.
As they were unable to get a sleeping compartment on the train, Tanya and Sukhotin couldn’t leave for the continent that day and she spent another night in her parents’ house, while Sukhotin went off to stay with his sister.
The following day we saw them off for Vienna, which they have now left for Rome. Is she happy, I wonder? I cannot tell from her letters, which are very long, but more descriptive than personal.
Lev Nikolaevich grieved and wept terribly for Tanya, and on 21st November he fell ill with bad stomach and liver pains; his pulse was very weak for two days, and his temperature was 35.5. We gave him stimulants: wine, Hoffman drops, caffeine—which we sprinkled into his coffee without telling him. He was treated by dear kind Doctor Usov, who had treated me last spring. I won’t describe how we looked after him, and the emotional and physical effort it cost me. Spoilt by the flattery and admiration of the whole world, he accepts my backbreaking labours for him as his due…But it’s not fame we women want in our husbands, it’s love and affection.
Almost six weeks have passed now, and he is better, but not fully recovered yet. He still has weak intestines, a sick liver and bad catarrh of the stomach.
We gave him Ems water, Ceria powder, sparkling Botkin powder, caffeine and wine. Then some Kissingen Rakóczí. Oh, yes, and I forgot—for the first three days he drank Karlsbad water, and once, with great difficulty (after I had wept and pleaded with him), we got him to drink some bitter Franz-Josef water.
Throughout his illness I found distraction in painting. I had never painted in watercolours before or had any lessons, but at my son Ilya’s request I copied Sverchkov’s two paintings of horses—young Kholstomer, and Kholstomer as an old horse. They came out so well that everyone praised them excessively and I was delighted.
I suffered a great deal emotionally. For the first time in my life I realized I might lose my husband and be left alone in the world, and that was an agonizing realization. If I thought about it too much I might fall ill myself.
Masha and Kolya are staying, as well as Andryusha and Olga, who is five months pregnant and has just lost her father.
And here too there is nothing but suffering. Andryusha is so rough, despotic and critical with dear, clever, compliant Olga. I can’t bear to see her suffer; I am forever scolding and shouting at him, but he is more like a madman than a normal person at present, for he has a bad liver. The poor girl will have to suffer a lot more from that wretched inherited complaint. Lev Nikolaevich also suffered a lot from his liver, and I suffered too because of it.
I live from day to day, without any goal or serious purpose in life, and I find this exhausting. I am writing a novel,* which interests me. If I cannot please those around me I try not to poison their lives, and to bring peace and love to my family and friends.
My eyes ache, I am losing my sight. But in this, as in everything else: “Thy Will Be Done!” The end of 1899.