Furious arguments between the Tolstoys over possession of his diaries and the copyright to his works. January—Tolstoy writes ‘On Suicide’ (later titled ‘On Madness’). Summer—Tolstoy rewrites his will, leaving everything to his daughter Tanya, should Sasha die before him, and giving Chertkov sole power to change or publish anything after his death. His sons Andrei and Sergei contemplate certifying him as insane to invalidate his will. July—Tolstoy calls in a psychiatrist to examine Sofia. Diagnosis: paranoia and hysteria. A mounting crescendo of reproaches and recriminations. 28th October—Tolstoy leaves home with his daughter Sasha and his doctor. 7th November—Tolstoy dies at Astapovo station. His death triggers student riots across Russia.
26th June. Lev Nikolaevich, my husband, has given all his diaries since the year 1900 to Chertkov, and has started writing a new diary at Chertkov’s house, where he has been staying since 12th June. In this diary, which he started at Chertkov’s and gave me to read, he says amongst other things: “I must try to fight Sonya with love and kindness.” Fight?! What is there to fight, when I love him so passionately, when my one concern is that he should be happy? But to Chertkov, and to future generations who will read his diaries, he must present himself as unhappy and magnanimous, “fighting” some imaginary evil.
My life with Lev Nik. becomes more intolerable each day because of his heartlessness and cruelty to me. And it is Chertkov who has brought all this about, gradually and consistently. He has done everything in his power to take control of this unfortunate old man, he has separated us, he has killed the creative spark in L.N. and has kindled all the protest, castigation and hatred that one sees in these recent articles, which his stupid evil genius has reduced him to writing.
Yes, if one believes in the Devil, he has been embodied in Chertkov, and he has destroyed our life.
I have been ill these past few days. I am tired and depressed by life, and exhausted by my endless tasks; I live alone, without help, without love, and I pray for death—it is probably not too far off now. Lev Nikol. is an intelligent man, he knows the best way to get rid of me, and with the help of Chertkov he has been killing me gradually; soon it will be all over for me.
I fell ill all of a sudden. I was lying here on my own, as Lev Nikol., Sasha and the whole retinue—his doctor, secretary and servant—had left for Meshcherskoe to see the Chertkovs. For the sake of Sasha’s health (she has been ill), I was obliged to paint the house and repair the floors. I hired some workmen, and with the help of good Varvara Mikhailovna I moved out all the furniture, pictures and so on. There were also a lot of proofs to read, and things to attend to on the estate. All this exhausted me, and by that evening I was feeling very bad indeed. The spasms in my heart, my aching head and unbearable feelings of despair were making me shudder all over; my teeth were chattering, I was choking and sobbing, I thought I was dying. I was terrified, and in a desperate attempt to save myself I naturally threw myself on the mercy of the man I love, and sent him a telegram: “Implore you to come tomorrow, 23rd.” But on the morning of the 23rd, instead of taking the 11 a.m. train and coming to my help, he sent a telegram saying: “More convenient return morning 24th. If necessary will take night train.”
I detected the cold style of the hard-hearted despot Chertkov in that “more convenient”. My despair, my nervous anguish and the pains in my head and heart reached the limits of endurance.
The violinist Erdenko and his wife had come to visit the Chertkovs that day, and Chertkov had urged Lev Nikol. that it would be tactless to leave. And L.N. was only too happy to spend one more day with his beloved idol.
On the evening of the 23rd he returned, with his hangers-on, in a disgruntled, unfriendly mood. For while I regard Chertkov as having come between us, both Lev Nik. and Chertkov regard me as having come between them.
We had a painful talk, and I said everything on my mind. Lev Nik. sat on a stool looking hunched and wretched, and said almost nothing. Then a wild beast suddenly leapt out of him, his eyes blazed with rage, and he said something so cutting that at that moment I hated him and said: “Ah, so that is what you are really like!” He grew quiet immediately.
The next morning my undying love for him got the better of me, and when he came into the room I threw myself into his arms asking him to forgive me and take pity on me; he embraced me and wept, and we both decided that henceforth everything would be different, and we would love and cherish each other. I wonder how long this will last.
Today I read Lev Nik.’s diary that he gave me, and was again chilled and shocked to learn that he had given Chertkov all his diaries since 1900 so that he could copy out extracts from them for his future advantage. Lev Nik. has always deliberately represented me in his diaries—as he does now—as his tormentor, someone he has to fight and not succumb to, while himself he presents as a great and magnanimous man, religious and loving…
I must try to reach a higher spiritual plane, and see how petty are Chertkov’s intrigues and L.N.’s attempts to destroy me, in the face of death and eternity…
Evening. Yet another conversation, yet more anguish and heartache. No, it’s impossible, I must kill myself. When I asked Lev Nik. why he wanted to fight me, he replied: “Because you and I are in constant disagreement, about the land question, the religious questions, everything.” “But the land isn’t mine,” I say. “I consider it belongs to all of us, to the family.” “Well, you could give away your land,” he says. “But why aren’t you bothered by Chertkov’s million rubles and all his land?” I ask. “Oh, I’m not going to talk to you any more, leave me alone!…” First he shouted, then he withdrew into angry silence.
At first, when I asked him where his diaries since 1900 were, he mumbled something and admitted Chertkov had them. Then I asked him again: “So where are your diaries? Are they with Chertkov? What if his house is searched and they’re taken?” “He has taken all the necessary measures. They are in the bank,” he replied. “Which bank? Where?” “Why do you want to know?” “Because I am your wife, the person closest to you.” “Chertkov is the person closest to me, and I don’t know where my diaries are. Anyway, what does it matter?”
Everything is a plot against me, and it will end only with the death of this poor old man, who has been lead astray by the devil Chertkov.
Just before he left to visit Chertkov the other day, he was angrily criticizing the life we led, and when I asked: “But what is to be done?” he cried out indignantly: “Leave here, abandon everything, not live in Yasnaya Polyana, not see the beggars, the Circassian guard, the servants waiting at table, the petitioners, the visitors—it’s all loathsome to me!”
“Where can we old people go then?” I asked. “I’ll go with you wherever you want—Paris, Yalta, Odoev.”
I listened to his angry words, then took 30 rubles and went out, intending to go to Odoev and settle there.
It was terribly hot. I ran to the highway, gasping with agitation and exhaustion, and lay down in a ditch by the side of the road, beside a field of rye. Then I heard the coachman approach in the cabriolet, and I climbed in, defeated, and returned home. Lev Nikolaevich had been having palpitations while I was away. What was to be done? Where could we go? What should we decide?
So now I have returned home, back to the old life and its burdens. My husband keeps a sullen silence, and there are the proofs, the painters, the bailiff, the guests and the housekeeping…I am answerable to everyone, I have to satisfy everyone…
This evening, pacing the avenue in the park for the tenth time, I made up my mind: without any arguments or discussions I would abandon all my old responsibilities, my old life, and rent a small corner in someone’s hut and settle there, a poor old woman living in a hut with some children whom I would love. That is what I must try to do.
But when I told Lev Nikolaevich that not only was I ready to adopt a more simple life with him, I regarded this as a happy idyll, and asked him to tell me exactly where he wanted to go, he initially replied: “To the south, to the Crimea or the Caucasus,” then said: “All right, let’s go, but first…” And then he started telling me that the main thing was human goodness. Of course he won’t go anywhere as long as Chertkov is here.
Lev Nik. accused me today of disagreeing with him about everything. About what? I asked. The land question, the religious question, everything…But that is not true. It’s simply that I don’t understand Henry George’s ideas on the land question, and I consider it utterly unjust to give it away and deprive my children. It’s the same with the religious question. We both believe in God, in goodness, and in submitting to God’s will. We both hate war and capital punishment. We both love and live in the country. We both dislike luxury. The only thing I don’t like is Chertkov, and I love Lev Nik. And he doesn’t love me, he loves his idol.
30th June. I was watching Lev Nik. play chess with Goldenweiser, when Bulgakov came in and said Chertkov’s exile was over and he was going to stay with his mother in Telyatinki.* I jumped up as if bitten, the blood rushed to my head and heart and I couldn’t sleep all night.
He spent almost the whole day in bed, where he received Sutkovoy, Goldenweiser and Chertkov. I overheard his conversation with Sutkovoy, to whom he said, among other things, “I made a great mistake in getting married…” A mistake?
He considers it a “mistake” because his married life interferes with his spiritual life.
Later that evening he got up, played chess with Goldenweiser and corrected proofs of The Power of Darkness. We had a peaceful evening—without Chertkov.
1st July, evening. I spent the day correcting proofs for the new edition of The Fruits of Enlightenment, and felt wretched. Lev Nikolaevich didn’t like my letter to Chertkov,* but what could I do? One should always write the truth, and never mind the consequences, and I sent the letter all the same. Then this evening Lev Nik., Sasha and Chertkov all retired behind closed doors for some secret conversation, of which I overheard very little, apart from frequent mention of my name. Sasha came outside to check whether I was listening, and when she saw me she ran back to tell the others that I had probably heard their conversation—or confabulation—from the balcony. And again my heart froze and I felt unbearably hurt and sad. I then went into the room where they were all sitting, faced Chertkov and said to him: “What, another plot against me?” At which they all looked embarrassed, and L.N. and Chertkov both started talking at once about the diaries, but in such an incoherent and unclear fashion I never found out what they had been discussing, and Sasha went straight out of the room.
I then had a painful conversation with Chertkov. (Lev Nikol. went out to greet Misha, who had just arrived.) I repeated what I had written in my letter and asked him to tell me how many of the diaries he had, where they were and when he had taken them. At this Chertkov flew into a rage and said that since Lev Nikol. had trusted him he didn’t have to answer to me or anyone else, and that Lev Nik. had given him the diaries so he could cross out any unpleasant intimate details.
He soon calmed down and suggested we should work together to love and care for Lev Nikolaevich, and that we should both devote ourselves to his life and work. As if this wasn’t what I had done for almost my entire life—for the past 48 years! But no one came between us then, we lived one life. Chertkov then announced that he was Lev Nikol.’s “spiritual confessor” (?), and that I should eventually have to reconcile myself to this.
During our conversation, the crudest words and thoughts kept breaking into Chertkov’s speech. For instance, at one point he shouted: “You’re afraid I’ll use the diaries to unmask you! If I wanted to I could drag you and your family through the mud!” (a fine expression for a supposedly decent man!) “I have enough connections, the only thing that has stopped me is my love for Lev Nikolaevich.” And to show just what was possible, he cited the example of Carlyle, who had a friend who “unmasked” his wife and showed her in the worst possible light.
What a vile way Chertkov’s mind works! What do I care if some stupid retired officer “unmasks” me after my death to various ill-intentioned gentlemen? My business in life and the state of my soul concern me and God alone. I have devoted my entire life on this earth to my passionate, self-sacrificing love for Lev Nikolaevich, and no mere Chertkov could possibly wipe out the past, the half-century of my life I have given to my husband.
Chertkov also shouted that if he had such a wife as me he would have shot himself or run off to America long ago. Then as he was coming down the stairs with my son Lyova, I heard him say angrily: “I can’t understand a woman who spends her entire life murdering her husband.”
Well, this murder is certainly a slow business, considering that my husband has already lived to be 82. But he has now put this idea into Lev Nik.’s head, which is why we are so unhappy in our old age…
What is to be done now? Alas, I shall have to dissimulate if Lev Nikolaevich is not to be taken away from me entirely. I must be sweet and kind to Chertkov and his family; knowing what he thinks of me and me of him, I shall find this intolerably difficult. I must visit him and do my utmost not to upset Lev Nikolaevich, seeing that he has been coerced, controlled and enslaved by Chertkov. I have lost his love for ever if the Lord doesn’t see my plight. And I feel so sorry for him! He is so unhappy under the tyrannical Chertkov’s yoke—and he was happy when he was with me.
After the business with the stolen diaries, I managed to get Chertkov to write a note undertaking to finish his work on them as soon as possible and to give them straight back to L.N.*
I find Sasha’s behaviour very painful.* My daughter has betrayed me. If someone urged her to draw her father away from me, telling her this was for the sake of his peace of mind, she would do so at once. Today she shocked me by holding a secret whispered conversation with her father and Chertkov, constantly looking over her shoulder and running out of the room to see whether I had heard what they were saying about me. They have surrounded me with an impenetrable wall. I sit and pine in my solitary confinement and take this as a punishment “for my sins”, the cross I must bear.
2nd July. I am incapable of doing anything, I have been too upset by my recent discussions with Sasha. What spite, what coldness, what injustice! We are growing ever more estranged. How sad it is! Wise, impartial old Maria Schmidt talked to me, which I found a great help. She urged me to rise above Chertkov’s criticisms and curses; she said when my daughters pestered me to go and live “elsewhere” with Lev Nikolaevich, since he finds it intolerable now in Yasnaya, they were talking rubbish, as his visitors and petitioners would find him wherever he went, and it would make matters no easier, and it would be folly to disrupt our life in our old age.
Lev Nikolaevich rode over to visit the Chertkovs, and was evidently exhausted by the heat.
A crowd of people arrived after dinner, and my son Lyova got home in time for dinner in a lively, happy mood. He is delighted to be back in Russia and to see Yasnaya Polyana and his family again.
Chertkov’s mother came. She is a good-looking woman, extremely aged, very agitated and not quite normal. She is a “Radstockist”,* a kind of sectarian, and believes in redemption; she believes that Christ dwells within her and that religion is a kind of inspiration.
Lev Nik. had a bath today; his stomach has been upset, but in general his health is not too bad, thank God!
3rd July. Before I was even dressed this morning I learnt that there had been a fire on Tanya’s estate at Ovsyannikovo.* The house where the Gorbunovs are living was burnt down, as was Maria Schmidt’s cottage. She had spent the night with us, and they had set fire to it while she was away. Everything was burnt, and what distressed her most was that her trunkful of manuscripts was destroyed. She had copied out everything Lev Nik. had ever written and stored it in a trunk, along with 30 letters to her from him.*
It breaks my heart when I remember her rushing up to me, throwing her arms round my neck and sobbing in despair. How could I comfort her? I could only sympathize with all my heart. All day I have been sadly recalling her last words to me: “Darling, we have such a heavenly life in Ovsyannikovo.” She called her cottage her “palace”, and she grieved too for her old three-legged mongrel dog who was burnt to death under the stove.
Tomorrow Sasha is going to Tula to buy things for her immediate needs. We shall replace her clothes and furniture as best we can, but as to where she will live I have no idea. She doesn’t want to live with us, for she is used to her independence, her cows and her dogs, her own kitchen garden and strawberry bed.
Goldenweiser and Chertkov came this evening, and Lev Nik. played chess with Goldenweiser, while Chertkov sat there looking haughty and unpleasant. Lyova is being sweet and sympathetic and gives me a lot of encouragement, yet I still feel so sad!
I have corrected proofs and am now going to send them off.
5th July. This is no life. Lev Nikolaevich’s heart is as cold as ice, Chertkov has taken complete control of him. This morning he went over to see him, and this evening Chertkov came to see us. Lev Nik. was sitting on a low sofa and Chertkov was sitting very close to him, and I was beside myself with rage and jealousy.
They then embarked on a conversation about madness and suicide. I left the room three times, but wanted to stay and drink tea with the others. And as soon as I came back Lev Nikol., turning his back on me and facing his idol, again started talking about suicide and madness, cold-bloodedly discussing it from every angle,* accurately and calculatedly analysing the condition in terms of my present suffering. This evening he cynically told me he had forgotten everything, everything he had ever written. “And what about your old life?” I asked. “And your old relations with those close to you? I suppose now you live only for the present?” “Well yes, I do live only for the present now,” replied Lev Nik. This had a terrible effect on me! I truly believe that a heartbreaking physical death, with our former love intact to the end of our days, would be preferable to this misery.
Something is hanging over me in this house, some great weight is crushing and destroying me.
I was determined to be calm and to be on good terms with Chertkov, but it was no good; still the same icy relations with Lev Nikol., still the same adoration of that idiot.
I called on his mother today, to return her visit and see my grandchildren.* She is a harmless old woman; I was particularly struck by her large ears, and the quantities of food she ate in my presence—sour milk, berries, bread: she simply never stopped.
I sewed some shirts for Maria Schmidt, made her a skirt on the machine and cut out some handkerchiefs. I had a headache.
6th July. I didn’t sleep all night. I kept seeing the hateful Chertkov before my eyes, sitting very close to Lev Nik.
I went for a swim on my own this morning, praying as I went. I prayed for this delusion to go away. If it doesn’t, I nurture the idea of drowning myself in my beloved Voronka. Today I was remembering that time long ago when Lev Nik. came to the river where I was swimming alone…All that is forgotten now; what we need is quiet, affectionate friendship, sympathy and closeness…
7th July, morning. Rain, wind and damp. I have proofread The Fruits of Enlightenment and finished sewing Maria Schmidt’s skirt. I took the proofs of Resurrection from Lev Nik.’s divan, before Chertkov could sniff them out and take them away. Lev Nik. went to see his idol today, despite the weather, and I realized that although his last diaries are very interesting, they have all been composed for Chertkov and those to whom it pleases Mr Chertkov to show them! And now Lev Nikol. never dares to write a word of love for me in them, for they all go straight to Chertkov and he wouldn’t like this. What made them valuable in my hands was their sincerity, their power of thought and feeling.
I have guarded Lev Nik.’s manuscripts very badly. But he never gave them to me—before he used to keep them with him, in the drawers of his divan, and never allowed anyone to touch them. When I decided to move them to the museum we weren’t living in Moscow, so I could only move them and couldn’t sort them out. And when we were living in Moscow I was preoccupied with my large family and business that couldn’t be ignored, which was our daily bread.
Lyova also quarrelled with that rude, uncouth idiot yesterday.
It’s pouring with rain, but despite this Lev Nikol. rode over to Chertkov’s, and I waited for him in despair on the porch, worrying and cursing that he lives so close to us.
Evening. No, Lev Nik. has not been taken from me yet, thank God! I went into his room as he was going to bed and said: “Promise me you won’t ever leave me without telling me.” And he replied: “I wouldn’t ever do such a thing—I promise I shall never leave you. I love you,” and his voice trembled. I burst into tears and embraced him, saying how afraid I was of losing him, and that despite some innocent, foolish passions in the past I had never stopped loving him for a moment, and still in my old age loved him more than anyone else in the world. Lev Nik. said he felt exactly the same, that I had nothing to fear, that the bond between us was too strong for anyone to destroy, and I realized this was true, and I felt happy. I went into my room, and returned a moment later and thanked him for taking this weight off my heart.
I said goodnight to him then, and went off to my room, and after a little while the door opened and he came in.
“Don’t say anything,” he said. “I just want to tell you our conversation made me happy too, so very happy…” He burst into tears again, embraced me and kissed me…“Mine! Mine!” I said in my heart. I shall be much calmer now, I shall come to my senses, I shall be kinder to everyone, and try to get on better with Chertkov.
The cocks are crowing, dawn is breaking. Night. The trains rumble, the wind rustles the leaves on the trees…
9th July. Lord, when will these vile episodes and intrigues end! My daughter-in-law Olga arrived, and there was yet another discussion about my relations with Chertkov. He was rude to me again, and I didn’t say one impolite word to him—and they all go into corners and pick over my bones, gossip about me and accuse me of I know not what. I cannot get used to the fact that some people simply lie—I find it quite astonishing. Sometimes one is horrified and tries naively to establish the truth, to remind them or explain…But all such attempts are useless; people often simply don’t want the truth, it is neither necessary nor to their advantage. But I shall say no more about it, I have enough worries as it is. Today Lev Nikol. and Lyova went for a ride through the woods. There was a large black rain cloud ahead, but they rode straight into it, and Lev Nikol. was wearing just a thin white shirt, and Lyova a jacket.
They arrived home soaked to the skin. I wanted to rub Lev Nikolaevich’s back, chest and legs with spirit of camphor, but he angrily rejected my help and only grudgingly agreed to let his valet Ilya Vasilevich give him a massage.
Olga got angry for some reason and took her children away without staying for dinner. I was feeling quite debilitated this afternoon and went to my room, where I fell asleep and unfortunately slept on and off all evening.
Chertkov and Goldenweiser came, and Lev Nik.’s follower, the economist Nikolaev, who evidently annoys him with his talk. L.N. played chess with Goldenweiser, who then played the piano for a while. That heavenly Chopin Mazurka transported my soul! My son Lyova is very anxious about his foreign passport; they wouldn’t give him one in Tula, demanding evidence from the police that he was free to leave Russia, and he is under arrest for publishing two pamphlets in 1905 called ‘What Is the Solution?’ and ‘The Construction of Hell’. It’s a very worrying business.
10th July. Lev Nikolaevich naturally didn’t dare write in his diary how he came into my room late at night, wept, embraced me and said how happy he was that we had reached some understanding and closeness. Instead he writes: “I must restrain myself.” What does this mean? No one could possibly love or care for him as I do, no one could desire his happiness as I do. Yet he gives his diaries to Chertkov, who will publish them and repeat to the whole world what he said to me—that a wife like me would make one want to shoot oneself or run off to America.
L.N. rode with Chertkov into the forest today, where they had some sort of discussion. They gave Bulgakov a horse too, but made sure he kept his distance as they didn’t want him to disturb their privacy. It is I who have to “restrain myself” every day at the sight of that odious figure.
In the forest they dismounted twice for some reason, and in the gulley Chertkov pointed his camera at Lev Nik. and took his photograph. As they were riding back, Chertkov noticed he had lost his watch, and got as far as the balcony before telling Lev Nik. where he thought he had lost it. And L.N., looking so pathetic and submissive, promised to go to the gulley after dinner to look for Mr Chertkov’s watch.
We had some very pleasant guests to dinner—Davydov, Salomon and the artist Gué. Davydov brought me Resurrection, which he had read for the new edition, but I still have a great deal of work to do on it. My son Seryozha is also working on it.
I thought Lev Nik. would be embarrassed to drag these respectable people off to the gulley in search of Mr Chertkov’s watch. But he lives in such fear of him that even the thought of being made to look ridiculous didn’t deter him from taking a crowd of 8 out to the forest. We all stamped around in the wet hay, but couldn’t find the watch—heaven knows where that absent-minded idiot lost it! Why did he have to take a photograph in the soft wet hay anyway? Then for the first time this summer Lev Nik. asked me out for a walk with him. I was overjoyed, and waited anxiously to get away from the gulley and the watch. But I was wrong, of course. The following morning Lev Nik. got up early, went to the village, summoned some peasant lads, went off to the gulley again and found the watch.
This evening I felt quite ill and was thrown into another fit of despair. I lay down on the bare boards of the balcony and remembered how it was on that same balcony 48 years ago, when I was still a girl, that I first became aware of my love for Lev Nikolaevich. It was a cold night, and I liked the idea that I should find my death where I had found his love. But I had evidently not earned this yet.
Lev Nikolaevich heard a rustle, came out to the balcony and shouted at me to go away, as I was preventing him from sleeping. I then went to the garden, and lay on the damp ground for two hours in my thin dress. I was chilled through, and longed to die—and I still do.
They raised the alarm, and Dushan Makovitsky, Gué and Lyova came out and shouted at me and helped me up off the ground. I was shaking all over from cold and nerves.
Well, what now! What is to be done! I cannot live without his love and tenderness, and he cannot give it to me. 4 in the morning…
I had already told Davydov and Salomon about Chertkov’s malicious intrigues against me, and they were sincerely horrified. They were astonished that my husband could tolerate these insults to his wife, and unanimously spoke of their dislike for this proud, spiteful fool. Davydov was particularly incensed that Chertkov had stolen all Lev Nik.’s diaries since the year 1900.
“But these should belong to you and your family,” raged dear Davydov. “And that letter Chertkov wrote to the newspapers when Lev Nik. was staying with him was the height of stupidity and insensitivity.”*
All this seems quite clear to everyone else—but what about my poor husband?…
11th July. I slept only from 4 to 7.30 a.m. Lev Nik. also slept very little. I am ill and exhausted, but my soul is happy. Relations with Lev Nik. are friendly and straightforward again. I love him so intensely and foolishly! He needs me to make concessions and heroic sacrifices, but I am incapable of doing this, especially at my age.
Seryozha came this morning. Sasha and her shadow, Varvara Mikhailovna, are cross with me—as if I cared! Lyova is being very sweet to me, and the clever fellow has started working on a sculpture of me.
We all went to bed early. L.N. himself asked Chertkov not to come this evening. Thank God! Just to breathe freely for one day is a rest for one’s soul.
12th July. I posed for Lyova; his bust of me is beginning to look quite lifelike. What a talented, good person he is. Alas, what a contrast with Sasha!
Lev Nik. waited in for Goldenweiser, as he wanted to go for a ride with him, but he didn’t appear. So he sent Filka the stable boy to Telyatinki, and Filka invited Chertkov by mistake instead of Goldenweiser. I didn’t know about this, but L.N. eventually decided not to wait any longer for Goldenweiser and went to the stable to saddle his horse and ride out to meet him. I thought he would be all on his own in this fierce heat and might get sunstroke again, so I ran to the stable and asked where he was going and if he was meeting anyone. Lev Nik. was trying to hurry up the coachman, and Doctor Makovitsky was there too, and as soon as he left the stable I saw the odious figure of Chertkov, approaching from under the hill on his white horse. I shrieked that I had been deceived again, that they were trying to hoodwink me, that they had lied about Goldenweiser and invited Chertkov instead, and I had a hysterical attack right there, in front of all the servants, and ran off to the house. Lev Nik. told Chertkov he wouldn’t ride with him, Chertkov went home and L.N. rode on with the doctor.
Fortunately it turned out there had been no plot, merely that Filka had been half-asleep and forgotten where he had been told to go, and had accidentally invited Chertkov instead of Goldenweiser. But I am in such a state of torment that the merest mention of Chertkov, and especially the sight of him, drives me into a state of frenzied agitation. When he arrived this evening I left the room and shook like a leaf for a whole hour. Goldenweiser and his wife were here, and were both very kind.
Chertkov’s mother, Elizaveta Ivanovna, wrote inviting me to call on her today. Two preachers have come to visit her; one is called Fetler, and the other was some Irish professor whom I could barely understand, but who ate very heartily and occasionally made religious pronouncements in a mechanical sort of way. But Fetler was a man of principle and spoke beautifully and tried to convert me to his faith in Redemption. He got down on his knees and started praying for me, for Lev Nikolaevich, for the peace and happiness of our souls and so on. It was a beautiful prayer, but it was so strange! Elizaveta Ivanovna was there all the time, and at one point she called me over to ask me why I hated her son. I told her about the diaries, and explained that her son had taken my beloved husband from me. To which she replied: “And I have been unhappy because your husband has taken my son from me!” And she is quite right.
13th July. After sending Chertkov away yesterday for my sake while he was out riding, Lev Nik. spent the whole evening waiting for him to come so he could explain the reason. Chertkov didn’t come for a long time. Sensitive to my husband’s moods, I saw him anxiously looking for him, waiting like a lover, and becoming more and more agitated, sitting out on the balcony downstairs staring at the road. Eventually he wrote a letter, which I begged him to show me. Sasha brought it, and soon I had it in my hands. It was “dear friend”, of course, and endless endearments…and I was again in a frenzy of despair. Nevertheless he gave this letter to Chertkov when he arrived. I took it under the pretext of reading it, then burnt it. He never writes me tender letters, I am becoming even more wicked and unhappy and close to my end. But I am a coward. I didn’t want to go swimming yesterday, because I was afraid of drowning. I need only one moment of determination, and am incapable of even that.
Lev Nik. went for a ride with Goldenweiser and the Sukhotins, and I looked for his last diary but couldn’t find it. We are like two silent enemies, constantly suspecting, spying and sneaking up on each other! Lev Nik. hides everything he can from me by giving it to that “spiteful pharisee”, as Gué called him. Maybe he gave his last diary to Chertkov yesterday.
Lord take pity on me and save me from sin!…
Night of 13th—14th July. Let us assume I have gone mad, and my “fixation” is that Lev Nik. should get his diaries back and not allow Chertkov to keep them. Two families have been thrown into confusion, there have been painful arguments—I have been driven to the very limits of my endurance. (I haven’t eaten a thing all day.) Everyone is depressed, and my tormented appearance annoys everyone like a bothersome fly.
What can be done to make everyone happy again and put an end to my sufferings?
Get the diaries back from Chertkov, all those little black oilcloth notebooks, and put them back on the desk, letting him have them, one at a time, to make excerpts. That’s all!
If I do eventually summon up the courage to kill myself, everyone will look back and realize how easy it would have been to grant my wish.
When they explain my death to the world they won’t give the real reason. They’ll say it was hysteria, nerves and my wicked nature—and when they look at my dead body, killed by my husband, no one will dare say that the only thing that could have saved me was the simple expedient of returning those four or five oilcloth notebooks to my husband’s desk.
Where is their Christianity? Where is their love? Where is their “non-resistance”? Nothing but lies, deception and cruelty.
Those two stubborn men, Chertkov and my husband, have joined forces and are crushing me, destroying me. And I am so afraid of them; their iron hands crush my heart, and I long to tear myself from their grip and escape. But I am still so afraid…
Thoughts of suicide are growing stronger all the time. Thank God my sufferings will soon be over!
What a terrible wind! It would be good to go now…I must try once more to save myself…for the last time. If they refuse, it will be even more painful, and even easier to deliver myself from my suffering; I should hate to keep making threats, then pester with my presence all the people whose lives I have made a misery…But I should love to come back to life so I could see my husband carrying out my wishes, and see that gleam of love that has warmed and saved me so many times in my life, but which Chertkov now seems to have stifled for ever. Without that love my life is over.
14th July. I haven’t slept all night. These expressions of my suffering, however extreme, can’t possibly do them justice. Lev Nikol. came in, and I told him in terrible agitation that everything lay in the balance: it was either the diaries or my life, he could choose. And he did choose, I’m thankful to say, and got the diaries back from Chertkov. In my nervousness I have made a bad job of pasting into this diary the letter he gave me this morning;* I am very sorry about this, but there are several copies, including the one I made for the collection of Lev Nikolaevich’s letters to me, and the one our daughter Tanya has.
Sasha drove over to Chertkov’s to fetch the diaries and give him a letter from Lev Nikolaevich. But the thought of suicide, clear and firm, will always be with me the moment they open the wounds in my heart again.
So this is the end of my long and once happy marriage!…But it is not quite the end yet; Lev Nik.’s letter to me today is a scrap of the old happiness, although such a small, shabby scrap!
My daughter Tanya has sealed up the diaries, and tomorrow she and her husband will take them to the bank in Tula. They will fill out a receipt for them in the name of Lev Nik. and his heirs, and will give this receipt to L.N. I hope to God they do not deceive me, and that Jesuit Chertkov doesn’t wheedle the diaries out of Lev Nik. on the sly.
Not a thing has passed my lips for three days now, and this has worried everyone terribly for some reason. But this is the least of it…It’s all a matter of passion and the force of grief.
I bitterly regret that I have made my children Lyova and Tanya suffer, especially Tanya; she is being so sweet and kind and compassionate to me again! I love her very much. Chertkov must be allowed to come here, although this is very, very difficult and unpleasant for me. If I don’t let them meet, there will be page upon page of secret, tender letters, and that would be much worse.
15th July. Another sleepless night. I kept thinking if it was so easy for Lev Nik. to break his promise in his letter not to leave me, then it would be equally easy for him to break all his promises, and where would all his “true and honest” words be then? I have good reason to worry! First he promised me in front of Chertkov that he would give me his diaries, then he deceived me by putting them in the bank. How can one keep calm and well when one lives under the constant threat of “I’ll leave, I’ll leave!”
I had another frightful nervous attack and longed to drink opium, but again lacked the courage, and instead told Lev Nik. a wicked lie and said I had taken it. I confessed immediately, and wept and sobbed, and made a great effort to regain my self-control. How ashamed and wretched I felt. But…no, I shall say no more: I am sick and exhausted.
My son Lyova and I went out in the cabriolet to look at a house in Rudakovo to replace Tanya’s house in Ovsyannikovo.* Lev Nik. went for a ride with Doctor Makovitsky. I thought we were going together, but L.N. deliberately went in the opposite direction. I shall go along the highway, he said, and home via Ovsyannikovo. He then went a completely different way, turning off just before Ovsyannikovo, as though quite by chance. But I notice everything, remember everything and suffer deeply.
I forced myself to let Chertkov visit us, and behaved correctly with him, but I suffered terribly as I watched their every movement and glance. How I loathe that man!
Chertkov’s son Dima was here too, a sweet, straightforward boy accompanied by his English friend who drives motorcars. The papers have published a short article by L.N. called ‘From My Diary’, about his conversation with a peasant.
A mass of dull people here: the Englishman, Dima and his comrade (they aren’t so bad), the tedious Nikolaev, Goldenweiser and Chertkov. And since none of these gentlemen had anything to talk about, they played the gramophone. I tried to read some proofs—but couldn’t. Lyova is sculpting me: I feel calmer with him. He understands everything and loves and pities me.
Taking these diaries from Chertkov has cost me dear, but I would do it again if I had to; I would gladly give the rest of my life to ensure they never went back to Chertkov, and I don’t regret the health and strength I have lost in rescuing them. This must now lie on the conscience of Chertkov and my husband, who clung to them so stubbornly.
They will be deposited in the bank in Lev Nik.’s name, and he will have the sole right to take them out. What an insensitive, distrustful attitude—and how unkind to his wife!
16th July. Now they have discovered I am keeping a diary every day, they have all started scribbling their diaries. They are out to attack me, condemn me and bring all sorts of malicious evidence against me for daring to defend my conjugal rights, asking for a little more love and trust from my husband, and for the diaries to be taken away from Chertkov.
God be with them all: I need my husband, while I am still not completely frozen by his coldness; I need justice and a clear conscience, not the judgements of others.
I went to Tula with Tanya and we deposited Lev Nikolaevich’s seven notebooks in the State Bank. This is a half-measure, i.e. a partial concession to me. They have been removed from Chertkov, thank God, but now I shall never be able to see or read them in Lev Nik.’s lifetime. This is my husband’s revenge on me. When they were brought back from Chertkov’s I took them frantically and leafed through them to see what he had written (even though I had already read most of them before), and I felt as though my beloved lost child had just been returned to me and was about to be taken away again. I can imagine how furious Chertkov must be with me! This evening he visited us again. I am still tormented by hatred and jealousy of him. A mother whose child is lured away by the gypsies must feel what I felt today.
I know hardly anything about his work; at night I go into the so-called “office”, where Sasha and her companion Varvara Mikhailovna are copying for him, and look through his papers.
There are various letters there, an introduction to the kopeck booklets, the article about suicide, several beginnings, but nothing important.*
There was the most terrible thunderstorm all evening. Lord, what rain! The noise of the storm and wind and the leaves on the trees makes it impossible to sleep…
17th July. My daughter Tanya left this morning. The storm has passed. I went to bed late and slept till 12; I got up feeling exhausted, and my first thought was of Lev Nikolaevich’s diaries. Last night I read Tanya my letter to Chertkov, which is affixed to this diary, and I thought if Chertkov really loved Lev Nik. he would have given me the diaries when I asked him to, seeing what a desperate state I was in, instead of making us all so unhappy.
So are things better now? This business has brought grief to our entire family for the past two weeks; the diaries are completely inaccessible now, and Lev Nik. has offered never to see Chertkov again if I wish. Chertkov is now openly at war with me. I am winning so far, but I confess honestly that I have paid for those diaries with my life, and I know there is more to come. When Lev N. told me he was coming this evening too, I protested with all my strength, then eventually had to accept the idea. But then Lev Nik. himself asked Varvara Mikhailovna to drive over to Chertkov’s and tell him not to come.*
Lev Nikolaevich told me today that his diaries had first been hidden with our daughter Sasha, and that, at Chertkov’s insistence, she had given them to young Sergeenko, who had taken them to Chertkov behind my back on 26th November.
What vile, secretive behaviour! What a web of plots and intrigues against me! Lies! Isn’t my daughter Sasha a traitor? What a sham that was, when I asked Lev Nikol., “Where are the diaries?” and he took my arm and led me to Sasha, as though he didn’t know, but she might know where they were. And Sasha too said she didn’t know, and she too was lying. Though Lev Nikol. had probably forgotten that he had given them to Chertkov.
All these people surrounding Lev Nik. have grown so skilled in lying, cheating, justifying themselves and planning endless conspiracies! I hate lies; it’s not for nothing they say the Devil is the father of lies. It was never like this before in our bright, honest family atmosphere; it has only started since Chertkov’s devilish influence appeared in this house. For good reason his name derives from the word “devil”.*
It is he who has filled our house with this stench that is choking us all, and this gentleman accuses me of “murdering” him. He wants his revenge, but this doesn’t frighten me.
19th July. They break my heart and torture me, and now they call for the doctors—Nikitin and Rossolimo. Poor men! They have no idea how to cure someone who has had wounds inflicted on her from all sides! The chance reading of a page from his old diary has disturbed my soul and opened my eyes to his present infatuation with Chertkov, and irrevocably poisoned my heart. First they suggest the following remedy: that Lev N. should live in one place, and I in another; he would go to Tanya’s and I would go who knows where. When I realized everyone around me was intent on separating me from Lev Nikolaevich, I burst into tears and refused. Then seeing how weak I was the doctors began prescribing baths, walks, no excitement…It was absurd! Nikitin was amazed to see how thin I had become. It’s all because of my grief and my wounded loving heart—and all they can say is leave him! Which would be more painful than anything else.
I drove to the river for a swim, and felt even worse. The water is very low in the Voronka, like my life, and it would be hard to drown in it at present; I went there mainly to estimate how much deeper it might get.
I washed Lev Nik.’s cap. He went over to Ovsyannikovo in the heat and ate no dinner. He now looks very tired. No wonder! 14 miles on horseback in 36 degrees, in the glare of the sun! This evening he played chess with Goldenweiser. I didn’t say a word to him all day as I am afraid to upset him, and myself too. I posed for Lyova; I always enjoy being with him. I then corrected proofs, but still haven’t sent them off—I cannot work…It is late now and I must go to bed, although I am not sleepy.
20th July. We have had two peaceful days without Chertkov. The doctors left earlier on. I suppose they were asked here to testify that I am mad, just in case. Their visit was completely pointless. I would be quite well if every day was like the past few days.
Lev Nik. went for a ride with Filka, our stupid, good-natured stable boy, then sat on the balcony outside his room all evening, quietly writing, reading and resting. Goldenweiser came and they played a quiet game of chess, then we all drank tea on the balcony together. I feel so sorry for Lyova. He has been sad and preoccupied all day. Has he suddenly recalled some painful experience in Paris, or is he worried they won’t give him his documents for a foreign passport, or are all the painful problems of our life here too much for his nerves?…
I went swimming with Liza Obolenskaya, Sasha and Varvara Mikhailovna, and we drove home together. Insufferable heat, a lot of white mushrooms, the rye is being harvested.
I read some proofs—the new edition of the Collected Works in Russian, and Maude’s biography of Lev Nik. in English—and posed for Lyova.
21st July. Lev Nik. has a bad pain in his liver, his stomach is upset and the bile isn’t flowing. But the main reason I feel so tormented is that it is my fault he is not getting better.
This evening he played chess with Goldenweiser on the balcony upstairs. Then Chertkov came. The moment I heard his cabriolet approaching I began to tremble all over. Earlier I had walked round the garden for an hour and a half trying to regain my self-control.
But then they all sat out on the terrace together with Maria Schmidt, and I felt wretched that everyone but me was enjoying Lev Nik.’s company, and here we were, coming to the end of our life together on earth, and I couldn’t be with him. Three times I tried to go out on the terrace to drink tea with the others, and when I eventually summoned up the courage to go, what happened? I was so agitated that the blood rushed to my head, my pulse was barely perceptible, I could hardly stand and couldn’t see Chertkov. I tried to say something, and it was as though my voice wasn’t mine but that of some wild creature. Everyone stared at me. I struggled desperately to be calm, to avoid creating a scandal and distressing Lev Nikolaevich, but with little success. Lord help me! How sad and painful it is!
22nd July.* Early this morning the doctor applied leeches to the small of my back to stop the blood rushes to my head. I got up, reeling after a night without sleep.
Lev Nik. again lost his temper with me at dinner today, after I had voiced my chagrin at never being shown any copies of his latest works to read, since Chertkov immediately takes away all his manuscripts. I again burst into tears, left the table and went upstairs to my room. He thought better of it and came after me, but our conversation soon turned acrimonious again. Eventually though he invited me to take a stroll around the garden with him, which I always appreciate, and all our resentment seemed to pass.
Chertkov came after receiving a note from me to say he could visit Lev Nikolaevich if he wished; I want to be magnanimous to him, despite his rude and unpleasant behaviour. I managed to conquer my feelings and sat down to a game of draughts with my granddaughter Sonya, which distracted me from thinking about him.
Lev Nik. is listless, his liver is aching, he has no appetite and his pulse is quick. I implored him to take some rhubarb and apply a compress, but he became irritable and stubbornly refused.
23rd July. Lev Nik. was much worse this morning. But I did have one great joy—my darling grandchildren visited: first Sonyushka and Ilyushok with their mother, then Lyova, Lina and Misha came from Chifirovka with Vanechka and Tanechka. They are all such sweet, loveable children. But I couldn’t spend much time with them, as I was looking after Lev Nik., watching over him and listening for his call, which made me sad.
When I learnt Chertkov was coming again, I burst into tears and started trembling all over, and Sasha virtually spat in my face as she went past, shouting, “Oh, what the devil is it now! I’m so sick of these scenes!”
What a horribly rude creature. And what a terrible, wicked expression she had on her face when she said it. Oh, how one longs for death in the midst of all this evil, deception and hatred.
I read the little two-act play Lev Nik. wrote in Kochety after his peasant pals had put on his play The First Distiller, and asked him to write something else for them. It’s just raw material so far, but he has thought it all out and parts of it are very good. I kept being reminded of The Power of Darkness.
In the past, when I used to copy everything for Lev Nikol., I used to point out the mistakes and clumsy bits, and we would correct them together. Nowadays the others do all his copying for him, very accurately, but like machines.
24th July. Chertkov came again this evening, and I overheard Lev Nik. whispering to him: “Do you agree with what I wrote?” And he replied: “Of course I agree!” Yet another plot! Lord have mercy!
When I asked Lev Nik. with tears in my eyes to tell me what “agreement” they were talking about, he made a spiteful face and stubbornly refused to tell me anything. He is unrecognizable! And once more I am in the throes of despair. There is a phial of opium on my table, and the only reason I haven’t drunk it is because I don’t want to give them all, including Sasha, the satisfaction of seeing me dead. But how they persecute me! Lev Nik.’s health is much better now and he will certainly do everything he can to survive me so as to continue his life with Chertkov. I long to drink that phial and leave a note for Lev Nik. saying, “Now you are free.”
This evening he said to me spitefully: “I have decided today that I want to be free, so I am not going to pay attention to anything any more.” We shall see who will be the winner if he does declare open war on me. My weapon and my revenge is death, and it will be his and Chertkov’s disgrace if they kill me. “She is mad!” they will say. Yet who is it who drove me mad?
25th July. He has been writing something with Chertkov. Today he gave him some large documents, probably a new will depriving his family of his works after his death. He has renounced money, yet he always has several hundred rubles on his desk to give away. He has renounced traveling, yet he has already made three journeys this summer, he visited his daughter Tanya in Kochety twice this year, he has been to see Chertkov in Kryokshino and Meshcherskoe, and his son Seryozha with me—and now he wants to go to Kochety again.
On the evening of the 24th I sat down at my desk in a state of great agitation, and stayed there all night in just a light summer dress, without once closing my eyes. At five in the morning I decided to go outside for some fresh air, even though it was pouring with rain. But then my daughter-in-law Olga ran out of the room next door, grabbed me with a strong arm and said: “Now where are you going? I know you’re about to do something silly and I’m going to stay with you!” And that dear, sweet, kind woman sat up with me all night, without sleeping a wink, poor thing, and tried to comfort me…Stiff with cold, I moved to a stool and dozed off. (Olga told me I moaned pitifully in my sleep.) The next morning I decided to leave so as not to see Chertkov and simply to get some rest and give Lev Nikolaevich a rest from my presence and my suffering soul. I packed my case, took some money, and writing work and my permit, and decided either to move into a hotel in Tula or to my house in Moscow.
I drove to Tula in the trap which was being sent to collect Andryusha and his family. I met him at the station and decided that after seeing them off to Yasnaya I would go on to Moscow that evening. But Andryusha immediately sensed my state of mind and firmly announced he wouldn’t leave me on my own for a moment. There was nothing to be done, and I agreed to return to Yasnaya with him, although all the way back I was shuddering at the memory of my recent experiences.
I straight away lay down in bed, for fear of meeting my husband and being the butt of his jibes. But in fact, to my great joy, he entered my room with tears in his eyes and thanked me tenderly for returning: “I realized I couldn’t live without you,” he said weeping. “I felt shattered, I went to pieces…We are so close, we have grown so used to each other…I am so grateful to you for coming back darling, thank you…”
26th July. Sad news this morning from Tanya, who is ill in bed. She begs Lev Nikolaevich (but not me) to go to Kochety.
My sons have been splendid, and have united to defend me. Sasha looks maliciously at me, like all guilty people. Having insulted me and spat in my face, she is now sulking and unconsciously wants to take her father away from me; but of course for his sake I would abandon everything and leave here.
It is a warm damp day, with a lot of little clouds but no rain. They are cutting the oats now, although the rye has still not been harvested and some of it has been stolen.
27th July, morning. Another sleepless night. Anxiety is gnawing at my heart. I cannot bear not knowing about the conspiracy with the document Lev Nik. has just signed (evidently a supplement to his will, drafted by Chertkov and signed by Lev Nik.). That document is his revenge on me for the diaries and for Chertkov. Poor old man! What sort of memories will he leave behind after his death?!
The moment I got up this morning I took Vanechka’s basket and wandered off to the woods, and who should I see there but L.N., sitting on his shooting stick and scribbling something. He seemed taken aback to see me, and hurriedly covered up his piece of paper. I suspect he was writing to Chertkov.
I was out for two and a half hours, and it was good to be with nature, far away from cunning, spiteful people. Silly little Parasha who watches our calves is such a happy, kind-hearted creature; she had picked some inedible mushrooms which she gave me, but with such good nature! Two shepherds greeted me amiably as they drove our cattle past. I gazed into the cows’ eyes and realized they were just nature, and had no soul.
The boys were out picking mushrooms, such cheerful, artless fellows…In the barn the men who guard our orchards and the girl labourers (who have come from far away) were all sitting down on the threshing floor for their dinner. They looked so bright and cheerful; not one of them had ulterior motives, or was drawing up plots and documents with sly fools like Chertkov. Everything is simple and honest with them! We should learn to merge with nature and the common people; our lives would be much simpler without the stench of false non-resistance.
29th July. We have regained our old calm existence again, and life has returned to normal. Thank God! Chertkov hasn’t visited us for five days now, nor Lev Nik. him. But at the mere memory of him, and the possibility of their renewed intimacy, something rises from the depths of my soul and torments me. Well at least it’s a rest!
Zosya Stakhovich has cheered us all up and is very pleasant company. Lev Nik. went out for a ride, even though it is still pouring with rain. I have been working on the proofs and was delighted by The Cossacks. How weak his later stories are by comparison!
I wrote to my daughter Tanya and my nieces Liza Obolenskaya, Varya Nagornova and Marusya Maklakova. Nikolaev came after dinner and Lev Nik. talked to him about Henry George and “justice”. I heard snatches of their conversation, which evidently exhausted him. Zosya Stakhovich talked animatedly about Pushkin, whom she has just been reading, and recited some of his poems. Then they played a game of vint; Sasha wanted to exclude me, and when I firmly took a card she pulled a face and left the room, whereupon Lev Nik. and I cheerfully took a grand slam no trumps. I don’t really like cards, but it’s so depressing sitting on my own when my family are enjoying themselves at the card table. The day passed quietly, without Chertkov. Lev Nik. was in better spirits today.
30th July. I have been unable to do a thing all day: nothing but humdrum tasks, tedious worries about food, making guests comfortable, supervising the rye harvest and the repairs to the storeroom and so on and so on, and nothing in return but endless criticisms and homilies about my “materialism”.
31st July. How hard it is to move from reading proofs to ordering dinner, to buying rye, to reading Lev Nik.’s letters—and finally to writing my diary. How fortunate are those people who have leisure, and can spend their entire lives concentrating on one abstract topic.
While I was reading through L.N.’s letters to various people I was struck by his insincerity. For instance he writes frequently and with apparent affection to a Jew named Molochnikov*—a carpenter from Nizhny Novgorod. Yet my daughter-in-law Katya and I were remembering just today that Lev Nik. once said: “I am always careful to be friendly to Molochnikov, which is hard for me as I dislike him and have to make great efforts to behave well with him.” L.N. also writes to his wife, who he has never met. And all this because Molochnikov was sent to prison, apparently for distributing Tolstoy’s books—although I am told he is simply an embittered revolutionary.
I was also struck by his frequent laments in these letters that “it is hard to live in luxury as I do, against my will…” Yet who but he needs this luxury? There are doctors for his health, two typewriters and two copiers for his writings, Bulgakov for his correspondence, Ilya Vasilevich, his valet, to look after a weak old man, and a good cook for his weak stomach.
And the entire burden of finding the money for this, supervising the estate and getting his books published rests on my shoulders, in order that he can have the comfort and leisure he needs for his work. If anyone took the trouble to examine my life, any honest person would realize that I personally need nothing. I eat once a day, I go nowhere. I have just one maid, a girl of eighteen, and I dress quite shabbily. Where is all this luxury I am supposed to have forced on him? How cruelly unjust people can be! May the sacred truth contained in this diary survive to cast light on all these matters that have been obscured.
The Lodyzhenskys came, bringing with them the Russian Consul to India.* He had little of interest to say, but the Lodyzhenskys have travelled widely, have been to India and Egypt and studied religion, and are interesting, lively people.
1st August. I have felt very ill all day; again everything torments and worries me. Lev Nik. is being cold and withdrawn and is evidently pining for his idol. I am trying to work out whether I can bear the sight of Chertkov—and I realize I cannot, I cannot…
Three villagers came to visit Lev Nik.; we had asked them for the names of our poorest peasants so we could buy rye seeds for them with the money the Englishman Maude sent us in aid of the starving. The peasants had a talk with Lev Nik. and promised to make a list of the poorest peasants. He told me the names of two of them, but not the third—it must be Timofei, his son by that peasant woman. (In fact it was Alexei Zhidkov.)
I told fortunes with the cards tonight. For Lev Nikolaev. I drew that he would live with a young woman (Sasha) and the King of Diamonds (Chertkov), and that he would have love, marriage and happiness (all hearts). I drew death (the Ace of Spades and the Nine). For the heart I drew an old man (the King of Spades) or a villain. Then I drew all four tens, which means that my wish will be granted, and my wish is to die, although I should hate to yield Lev Nikolaevich to Chertkov when I do. And how they would gloat and rejoice after my death! The first blow against me was well aimed and has done its work. It is these sufferings that will bring about my death.
2nd August. Writing his diaries has lost all meaning for Lev Nikolaevich now. His life and his diaries—with their revelations of both the good and bad impulses of his soul—have become two completely separate things. His diaries are now composed for Mr Chertkov, whom he doesn’t see, although from the evidence I assume they are corresponding, and their letters are passed on by Bulgakov and Goldenweiser, who come here every day.
Last time Chertkov was here, Lev Nikol. asked him if he “received his letter, and whether he agreed with it”. To what new abomination has Mr Chertkov given his approval now? If his visits put a stop to this clandestine correspondence, then let him visit here by all means; but they continue to write even when they are meeting, so it’s better they don’t see each other—they just have their letters now, and no meetings. L.N.’s love for Chertkov intensified after he stayed with him this summer without me, and it weakens with distance and time.
Lev Nik. rode alone to Kolpna today to inspect the rye that we are buying for the peasants. I couldn’t do a thing; my heart was pounding wildly, my head was aching, and I was terrified he had arranged to meet Chertkov and they would go there together. Eventually I ordered the cabriolet to be harnessed and drove out to meet him. He was alone, thank God, followed, it so happened, by a peasant of ours called Danila Kozlov.
I have such a lot of work to do and proofs to read, but can do nothing while Chertkov is in the neighbourhood, and I am afraid of getting things in a muddle. I forced myself to go to dinner, but immediately afterwards felt so ill I had to go to my room and lie down. Lotions and mustard plasters on my head eased the pain, and I eventually dropped off to sleep.
Lev Nik. was kind and solicitous. But later on, when I heard Bulgakov had come with some mail, and I asked if there was a letter from Chertkov, he grew furious, and said: “I think I have the right to correspond with whomever I please…He and I have a vast amount of business connected with the printing of my works and various writings…”
Ah yes, but if it was only that sort of business, then there wouldn’t be any of this secret correspondence. When things are secret there is bound to be something bad hidden away. Christ, Socrates—none of the ancient philosophers did things in secret; they preached openly on the squares before the people, fearing nothing and no one. And they were killed for it too—but then they joined the gods. Criminals—conspirators, libertines, thieves—always do things in secret. And Chertkov has inveigled poor saintly Tolstoy into this situation which is alien to his nature.
3rd August. When Lev Nikol. learnt that Mr Maude had revealed in his biography of him various loathsome things about Chertkov (even though he didn’t name him and merely referred to him as “X”), he stooped so low as to write to Maude begging him to delete these vile truths and remove an excerpt from a letter written by our late daughter Masha, which refers contemptuously to him. I received two letters from Maude today, one to me, the other to Lev Nikolaevich. What a terrible thing it is that L.N. should love Chertkov so much that to protect him he is prepared to humiliate himself to the point of lying.
I wanted to explain to Lev Nik. the source of my jealousy of Chertkov, so I showed him the page of his old diary, for 1851, in which he writes that he has never fallen in love with a woman but has frequently fallen in love with men. I thought he would understand my jealousy and reassure me, but instead he turned white and flew into a terrible rage such as I haven’t seen for a long, long time. “Get out! Get out!” he shouted. “I said I’d leave you and I will!” He rushed from room to room and I followed him horrified. Then he went to his room, slammed the door and locked me out. I stood there stunned. Where was his love? His non-resistance? His Christianity?
When the others had gone to bed, Lev Nik. came to my room and said he had come to apologize. I trembled for joy. But when I followed him out and suggested we should try to live out the end of our lives in a more friendly fashion, he refused to listen and said if I didn’t go away he would regret coming in to see me. What is one to make of him!
4th August. Today passed without any mention of Chertkov, thank God! Things have become slightly easier and the air has cleared somewhat. I am grateful to my dear Lyovochka for taking pity on me. If everything started all over again I don’t think I would have the strength to endure it. I hope everyone will leave Telyatinki soon, so I can stop living in terror of their secret meetings, trembling with anxiety every time Lev Nikol. goes out for a ride.
There is an evil spirit in Chertkov, and he frightens and disturbs me.
5th August. I heard today that there are 30 people at Telyatinki furiously copying something. What can it be? Didn’t Lev Nikol. take his diaries back yesterday? It’s impossible to discover what is happening! With sly, malicious obstinacy Lev Nikolaevich hides everything from me, and we are strangers.
I am to blame for a great deal, of course. But I have suffered such remorse that a kind husband would forgive me the wrongs I have done him. How happy I should be if he would only draw me closer and say nice things to me. But this will never happen—even if Chertkov is kept away from him!
6th August. Yet another sleepless night. Each morning I wake in terror at what the day will bring. And this is what happened today. I looked into Lev Nikolaevich’s room at 10 o’clock and he wasn’t there, and had gone out for his walk. I dressed hurriedly and ran to the fir plantation, where he usually takes his morning walk. I met some village children and asked them: “Have you seen the old Count, my little ones?” “Yes, we saw him sitting on the bench.” “Alone?” “Yes, alone.” I took myself in hand and calmed down a little. The children were so sweet, and seeing that I couldn’t find any mushrooms they gave me five brown caps, saying pityingly: “You can’t see a thing, can you! You’re completely blind!” Lyova came into the plantation—I don’t know if he was looking for me or it was by chance; and a little later he met me again on horseback by the swimming pool.
I stayed out for four hours and grew a little calmer. The house has been invaded by the apple merchant, the guards, bearing apples and bowing—and later on the baker. Lev Nik. is being cold and severe; when I see him so cold I keep hearing that cruel cry: “Chertkov is the person closest to me!” Well, at least Chertkov isn’t closer to him physically.
7th August. Still the same weight hanging over us, the same gloomy atmosphere in the house. The rain pours incessantly and has beaten down the oats in the field, which have sprouted. Our peasants came and we distributed Maude’s money amongst them.
I have no idea if the Chertkovs will go soon, or if L.N. wants to see him again. He says nothing and does nothing. Anger and grief are written all over his face. Oh, to melt the ice in his heart!
We lived quite happily without Chertkov for several decades, and what now? We are the same people, but now sisters quarrel with their brothers, the father is ill-disposed towards his sons, the daughters towards their mother, the husband hates his wife, his wife hates Chertkov, and all because of that gross, stupid, corpulent figure who has insinuated himself into our family and ensnared the old man, and is now destroying my life and happiness…
8th August. I lay awake all night thinking I should suggest to Lev Nikol. that he sees Chertkov again. When he got up this morning I said this to him, and he waved his arm, and said he would discuss it later, then went out for his walk. At 9 o’clock I went out too, wandered all over the woods and parks of Yasnaya and tripped and fell on my face, scattering all my mushrooms; I then gathered a big bundle of oak branches and grass, laid them on a bench and lay down, weeping and exhausted, until I eventually dozed off into fantastic dreams. The oak branches were wet from the rain, and I was soaked, but I lay there in the silence, gazing at the pine trees, for more than an hour. I was out for more than 4 hours altogether—without eating anything, of course.
When I got back, Lev Nik. called me into his room and said (and by then I was so happy to hear his voice): “You suggest I see Chertkov again, but I don’t want to. What I want more than anything is to live out the end of my life as calmly and peacefully as possible. I cannot be calm if you are agitated. So I think it would be best if I were to visit Tanya for a week and for us to part for a little while, to give us both the chance to calm down.”
At first the idea of another parting was unbearable to me. But after a while I realized Lev N.’s separation from Chertkov was the best possible alternative and what a good idea it was, for it would give both of us a rest from this emotional aggravation.
Today he wrote an appeal to young people wanting to refuse military service.* It was very good, and Sasha has already copied it out, but where has the original gone? Can they have given this too to Chertkov?
I did some work on the new edition, wrote to Maude about the peasants’ money, and to the accountant. This afternoon I slept. Goldenweiser played a Beethoven sonata, which I didn’t hear unfortunately; but I did hear him play a Chopin waltz and a Mazurka beautifully.
9th August. I have been sewing for Lyovochka all day; first I altered his shirt, then his white cap, and it soothed me. I deliberately did no other work today, to give my nerves a rest. It would all be perfect if it weren’t for these extraordinary outbursts of vile rudeness from Sasha. She keeps going to see the Chertkovs, and they do all in their power to turn her against me for making my husband sever connections with the Telyatinki clique. I could never have imagined it possible that my daughter would dare to treat her mother like this. When I told her father about her intolerable rudeness, he said sadly: “Yes, it’s a great shame, but this rudeness is in her nature. I shall speak to her about it.”
10th August. Tanya arrived at four a.m. today. I was listening out for her all night but didn’t hear her arrive. This morning I had another long talk with her about the same thing, and I became so upset that we eventually agreed not to talk any more about this subject that so torments us all.
Some soldiers came today to Yasnaya to see us for some reason. Four of them managed to slip into the house to see Lev Nik., although I never did discover what he discussed with them. He has such a strange attitude to my presence on such occasions. If I am interested in what he is talking about and go into his room, he looks at me angrily, as if I was in the way. And if I don’t go in and seem uninterested, he takes this as a sign of indifference, and even outright disagreement. So I often don’t know what to do.
I read Christianity and Patriotism for the new edition, and regretfully deleted some passages that hadn’t yet been censored.* I find all this so hard to understand!
12th August. I was out picking mushrooms for 3½ hours today with Ekaterina Vasilevna, Andryusha’s new wife. It was delightful in the fir plantation, with the red saffron milk caps nestling amongst the green moss, and everything so fresh, peaceful and secluded. Then I worked on the new edition. What hard work it is!
This evening Tanya made a number of painful accusations against me, almost all of which were unfounded, and I detected Sasha’s suspicions and lies there, for she is trying to slander me in every way she can, turn everyone against me and separate me from her father. She is the greatest cross I have to bear. Such a daughter is worse than all the Chertkovs in the world; she can’t be sent away, and no one will marry her with her frightful character. I often come in through the courtyard merely to avoid having to see her, for I never know if she is going to spit in my face again, or viciously attack me with a choice selection of oaths and lies. What a grief in one’s old age! How has it happened?
I have just read through my diary and was horrified—alas!—by both myself and my husband. No, it’s impossible to go on living like this.
14th August. Agitation much worse, blood rushes, pounding heart all day. The thought of parting from Lev Nik. is unbearable. I hesitated between staying in Yasnaya and going with him to see Tanya in Kochety, and eventually decided on the latter and hastily packed. I am very sorry to be leaving Lyova, who is awaiting trial in St Petersburg for his pamphlet, ‘The Construction of Hell’,* which means they won’t give him a foreign passport. But I simply won’t be parted from my husband again, I can’t bear it.
I went to the woods with Katya, but the saffron milk caps had all been picked. Lev Nik. wrapped up warmly and went for a two-hour ride through Zaseka with Dushan Makovitsky. He is much better.
This evening Goldenweiser played Beethoven’s sonata ‘Quasi una Fantasia’, but his playing was cold and lifeless. He also played two Chopin pieces excellently, and Schumann’s ‘Carnaval’, which wasn’t bad technically, although he failed to convey the different character of each separate piece.
I felt so ill all day that I went without dinner. A lot of people came—Dima Chertkov, a simple, good-natured lad, quite unlike his father; Goldenweiser and his wife, Maria Schmidt, and a stranger called Yazykova. I finished packing and went to bed late.
15th August (Kochety). We got up early and drove to Zaseka, seen off by a great many people including Lyova; then we set off for Kochety with Tanya, Sasha and Doctor Makovitsky. It was a long and difficult journey, and we had to change trains at Oryol for the Blagodatnaya line. Lev Nik. slept most of the way, hardly ate a thing and seemed very weak. But this evening in Kochety he played vint with great enthusiasm until midnight—then complained of feeling weak.
Our little granddaughter Tanechka met us touchingly at Kochety. What a sweet, adorable, loving child! How affectionately she kissed and caressed me—at least someone was pleased to see me! That sacred innocence is always so moving in a child. So unlike us adults! When I went to say goodnight to my husband this evening, he was asking Sasha (in my presence) for his notebook. She mumbled something, and I realized there was yet another plot afoot. “What are you asking for?” I said. Lev Nik. realized I had guessed something and told me the truth, thank God, otherwise I would have been terribly upset. “I am asking Sasha for my diary,” he said. “I give it to her to hide, and she copies my thoughts out of it.”*
They are hiding it from me, of course, copying out his thoughts for Chertkov.
Dear Tanya unselfishly gave me her room, which makes me feel guilty; I shall worry all night.
16th August. How can there be any joy or happiness in life when Lev Nik. and Sasha, at his wishes, are taking enormous pains to hide his diaries from me. I didn’t sleep all night, my heart was pounding, and I kept devising new ways of reading what L.N. is so frantic to hide from me. If there is nothing there, wouldn’t it be simpler to say: “There, take them, read them and calm down.” But he would die rather than do that, because that is his nature.
He complained of feeling drowsy and weak today, lay in his room, then went for a walk. I saw him for a moment though, and handed him a scrap of paper on which I had written that I considered it quite fair and reasonable to hide the diaries from everyone, and not let anyone read them. But to give them to Sasha to read and copy for Chertkov, and then furtively hide them in cupboards and desks from me, his wife, was hurtful and insulting. “Let God be your judge,” I ended my note, and I shall say no more about it.*
There are crowds of people here; it is all rather tiring, but a relief not to have any responsibilities for the housework. It is hard work for poor Tanya though, and I feel badly that the four of us have come when she already has her own large family to look after. This evening we all played vint, and I was grateful to spend an evening with my husband. He is a keen player and is always scolding me for playing so badly and tries to exclude me from the game. But yesterday I beat them all.
17th August. I spent the day hard at work correcting the proofs of Childhood. It’s astonishing to see exactly the same traits of character in his youth as in his old age—his worship of beauty (Seryozha Ivin), the way he suffers such agony from his ugliness and longs to be beautiful in exchange for being a good, clever boy. The chapter ‘Grisha’ has an extraordinary passage in the manuscript version, omitted from the book: that sensual scene in the storeroom with Katenka directly after they witness Grisha the holy fool alone in his room in a state of tender, exalted religious ecstasy.
Beauty, sensuality, sudden changes of emotion, the eternal search for religion and truth—that is my husband through and through. He tells me his growing indifference to me is due to my “lack of understanding”. But I know that what he actually dislikes is that I understand him all too well, and see all too clearly things I hadn’t seen before.
He took a walk round the park, and was visited by a skopets,* with whom he talked for more than two hours. I don’t generally like sectarians, especially the skoptsy, but this one seemed intelligent enough, even though he boasted disagreeably of his time in exile.
Lev Nikolaevich seemed sad and distant again today. I expect he is pining for his idol. I should remind him of the wise words: “Thou shalt not make graven images.” But there’s nothing you can do with a person’s heart if they love someone intensely.
18th August. I read some terrible news in the papers today: the government has given Chertkov permission to stay in Telyatinki!* Lev Nikolaevich instantly cheered up; he looks years younger and his gait is brisk and sprightly. But I am aching with unbearable anguish, my heartbeat is 140 a minute, and my head and chest are aching.
This cross I have to bear is God’s will; it was sent to me by His hand, and he has chosen Chertkov and Lev Nikolaevich to be the instruments of my death. Maybe the sight of me lying dead will open L.N.’s eyes to my enemy and murderer, and he will grow to hate him and repent of his sinful infatuation with the man.
Tanechka’s nurse has been a marvellous comfort to me. “Pray to your guardian angel to soothe and calm your heart,” she said firmly, “and everything will turn out for the best. You must take care of yourself,” she added.
We went to the village school, where the peasant children were performing The Screw by Chekhov, adapted from a short story of his. It was stuffy and tedious.
19th August. I awoke early, and at the thought of Chertkov living so close to Yasnaya all the old suffering started up again. But then my husband managed to console me. He came into my room before I got up and asked how I had slept and how my health was, and he didn’t ask in his usual cold manner, but with genuine concern. Then he repeated his promise:
1) Never to see Chertkov again,
2) To give his diaries to no one,
3) To let neither Chertkov nor Tapsel take his photograph. This was at my request. I found it most distasteful that his idol should photograph him in forests and gulleys like some old coquette, despotically dragging the old man here, there and everywhere so he could build up a collection of photographs to add to his archive.
“But I shall remain in correspondence with Chertkov,” he added, “it’s essential for my work.”
I went with Tanya to pick mushrooms, of which there were masses, then played with the children and cut out paper dolls for them. I cannot work, my heart is physically aching, and the blood keeps rushing to my head. L.N. and Chertkov between them have half-killed me already—another two or three heart spasms like the one yesterday will finish me off. Or I shall have a nervous attack. That would be good! They will certainly torment me to death at this rate—I don’t want to kill myself and yield Lev Nik. to Chertkov.
20th August. Two bulky parcels were posted this afternoon addressed to Bulgakov—i.e. for Mr Chertkov.* Having given up all meetings with him for my sake, Lev Nikol. is now consoling his idol with all sorts of papers for his collection, and sending these to him via Bulgakov. Lev Nik. took a long ride through the forest to Lomtsy today; this evening he played vint but was very sleepy.
21st August. Childhood is now ready for the printers. I reread the chapter ‘The Ivins’ and was struck by the words: “Seryozha made a great impression on me the moment I saw him. His unusual beauty astonished and captivated me. I felt irresistibly attracted to him…” And further on: “Just the sight of him was enough to make me happy, and at one time the whole strength of my soul was focused on that desire. If by chance I didn’t see that lovely little face for three or four days I would fret and become sad and cry. All my dreams were of him…” And so on.
Night…I cannot sleep. I prayed and wept for a long time, and realized that what I am going through must be the means by which I appeal to God and repent of my sins—maybe too it spells the return of happiness and inner peace…
22nd August. My 66th birthday. I still have all my old energy and passion, the same acute sensitivity and, I am told, the same youthful appearance. But these past two months have aged me considerably and, God willing, have brought me closer to my end. I got up exhausted after a sleepless night and went for a walk round the park. It was delightful: the old avenues of various trees, the wild flowers, the saffron milk caps and the silence, the solitude. Alone with God, I walked and prayed. I prayed for reconciliation, prayed that I might with God’s help stop suffering, and that He might return my husband’s love to me before we died.
Lev Nik. rode a long way off to see the eunuch who was here previously and had earlier visited Chertkov while Lev Nikolaevich was there. He played vint again this evening. I played at the other table with Tanya’s stepdaughter Lyolya, who had asked me to teach her the game.
25th August. This morning I had the unexpected joy of seeing Lev Nikolaevich at my door. I couldn’t go to him at once, as I was washing, but I hastily flung a dressing gown over my wet shoulders and ran up to him. “What is it, Lyovochka dear?” I asked. “Nothing, I just came to ask how you slept and how you were feeling,” he said. A few moments later he was back again. “I wanted to tell you that at midnight last night I kept thinking about you and wanted to come in and see you,” he said. “I thought you might be lonely on your own, and wondered what you were doing—I felt so sorry for you…” At this the tears came into his eyes and he began to weep. I was overcome with joy, and this sustained me through the day, even though my imminent departure for Yasnaya and Moscow fills me with alarm.
I spent the day working on Resurrection for the new edition. Some uncensored passages have to be deleted, some omitted passages have to be inserted—all important and responsible work.
I enjoy myself with Tanyushka, take walks and grieve for my daughters’ unjust attitude to me and the way they favour Chertkov.
26th August. I haven’t read any of L.N.’s letters to Chertkov, or from Chertkov to him, but can deduce everything in them from the way he refers to me: “S.A. (Sofia Andreevna) is very pathetic, I try to stand my ground and remember the role I have been called on to fulfil…More than ever I realize how spiritually close to you I am…I think of you constantly, I should like to see you…but this is not necessary if we know that our souls are in communion and we both serve the Father…I pray to God for patience, I kiss you…” and other tender words of this pharisaical nature, in which, with the genius of a writer, he laments the suffering he has to endure from his wicked wife. And this correspondence between him and Chertkov, based entirely on that theme, will be preserved for future generations to read…
They all treat me as though I were abnormal, hysterical, even mad, and everything I do is attributed to my morbid condition. But other people, and the Lord above, will judge for themselves.
27th August, morning. My jealousy for Chertkov is a living wound! Why did it please God to open my eyes to these things?
I woke sobbing this morning from an agonizing dream. I dreamt Lev Nik. was sitting there wearing a new fur jacket with a hood at the back, and a tall sheepskin hat, and an unpleasant, hostile look on his face. “Where are you going?” I asked him. “To see Chertkov and Goldenweiser,” he said in an offhand manner. “I have to look through an article with them and clear up a few things.”
I was in despair that he had broken his promise, and I burst into agonizing sobs that woke me up. And now my heart and hands are trembling and I can hardly write.
Evening. I took a walk on my own in a state of great agitation, praying and weeping. I am terrified of the future. Lev Nik. has promised never to see Chertkov, to have his photograph taken at his bidding or give him his diaries. But he now has a new excuse that he uses whenever it suits him. He just says “I forgot”, or “I never said that”, or “I take back my promise”. So that one is afraid to believe a word he says.
I have done a lot of work on the proofs, correcting On Art, ‘On the Census’ and Resurrection. Mine is a hard task! I have a terrible headache—and oh, the depression, the depression!
When I said goodnight to Lev Nik. I told him everything on my mind: I told him I knew he was writing letters to Chertkov addressed to Bulgakov, Goldenweiser and the other spies, and said I hoped he wouldn’t go back on his promises behind my back, and asked him whether he wrote to Chertkov every day. He told me he had written to him twice, once in a note he had added to a letter of Sasha’s, and once on his own. That is still two letters since 14th August.
28th August. Lev Nikolaevich’s 82nd birthday. A marvellous, bright summer day. I got up feeling very anxious after another sleepless night, and felt even more so after going in to greet him. I wished him a long life, without secrets, tricks or plots—and said I hoped he would soon be completely at peace with himself, now that he is reaching the end of his life.
At this he pulled an angry face. The poor man is possessed—he considers that he and Chertkov have already reached the pinnacle of spiritual perfection. Poor, blind, proud man! How much more spiritually exalted he was a few years ago! How sincerely he aspired to live simply, to sacrifice all luxuries and to be good, honest, open and spiritually pure! Now he enjoys himself quite openly, loves good food, a good horse, cards, music, chess, cheerful company and having hundreds of photographs taken of himself.
He is kind to people only if they flatter him, look after him and indulge his weaknesses. All his old responsiveness is gone. Is it merely his age?
Evening. When he was out walking today, L.N. gave apples to all the village children, and this evening he spent two hours playing chess, and another two hours playing vint. He soon grows bored without these entertainments, and all this talk of living in a hut is merely an excuse to rage at me, so that with his writer’s skill he can describe his disagreements with his wife in such a way as to present himself in the role of a martyr and saint.
29th August. Lev N.’s anger yesterday affected me so badly I didn’t sleep a wink; I prayed and cried all night, and first thing this morning I went out to wander about the park and the wood. Then I called on a dear young nurse called Anna Ivanovna, and she and her sweet, sympathetic mother comforted me.
I received a telegram from Lyova saying his trial had been fixed for September the 3rd, and that he was leaving on 31st August. I was glad of the excuse to leave, and I badly wanted to see my son, say goodbye to him and give him some encouragement. So Sasha and I travelled to Oryol on the Blagodatnaya line, and from there we went on to Yasnaya. L.N. and I bade each other a tender, loving farewell, and we both cried and asked each other’s forgiveness.
I was sleepy and exhausted on the train—I felt shattered. It was terribly cold, only 2 degrees, and Sasha and I were shivering and yawning all the way. We arrived home at five in the morning.
1st September. Bulgakov and Maria Schmidt were here for lunch, as well as Liza Rizkina (née Zinger) with her two boys. She is well educated and no fool, but I find her erudition and materialism rather alien. I didn’t take a walk today; I didn’t want to wash my favourite haunts at Yasnaya with my tears. For most of my life I have darted about with a light step and a light heart, conscious of nothing but the beauties of nature and my own joy! And now too it’s all extraordinarily beautiful, and the days are clear and brilliant, but my soul is sad, so sad!
I did a lot of work on the proofs and various other things connected with the new edition, and gave orders around the estate. But nothing is going well. I was intending to go to Moscow, but I have no energy and haven’t prepared anything, and it all seems futile and unimportant.
2nd September. Today I sent for the priest, who performed a service with holy water.* The prayers were lovely, apart from the last one: “Victory to the Lord our emperor”, and so on. After all those prayers about the softening of hearts and the deliverance from griefs and troubles, it seemed utterly inappropriate to pray for victory, i.e. the murder of people.
In Lev Nik.’s room I found Chertkov’s letter to the Tsar begging to be allowed to return to Telyatinki. It’s a truly pharasaical letter, but what struck me most was his desire to be close to Lev Nikolaevich. What has happened though is that the Tsar allowed him to return, and now Tolstoy’s wife has driven him away. He must be furious with me! And I am delighted!
Still the same enchanting weather—bright days, cool nights and a dazzling variety of greens on the bushes and trees. The potatoes are being dug now, the painters are finishing work on the roofs and outhouses, the earth is being removed from the hothouses, and here and there in the woods there are still a few mushrooms.
4th September. I am becoming increasingly impatient to see my husband, and shall go to Kochety tomorrow without fail. Today I went for a walk on my own, feeling sad at heart; I received a sweet letter from Lyova saying his trial would now be on the 13th. I worked on Resurrection with Sasha’s companion Varvara Mikhailovna, and took a stroll round the estate. It’s warm, with a light breeze and little clouds in the sky, with wild flowers everywhere and the most marvellous garden flowers and bright coloured leaves—how good it is! But how sad to be alone! I like people and movement and life…That is why it’s better at the Sukhotins’, where there are a lot of people and life is simpler. Lev Nik. is more cheerful there too; he plays chess for a couple of hours after dinner with Sukhotin or the local doctor, then takes a walk, reads letters, goes into the dining room, asks where everyone is and for the table to be laid as soon as possible. Then he plays a game of vint, and that goes on in the most lively fashion for about three hours, until 11.30 p.m. He doesn’t have to strike attitudes, since none are expected of him; there are no petitioners, no beggars, no responsibilities—he just lives, writes, plays, talks, sleeps, eats and drinks…
I am very afraid he will miss all this in Yasnaya Polyana. I shall try to make sure there are more people here. But we have managed to drive everyone away from our house, and now I have driven away Chertkov and co.
5th September (Kochety). I left for Kochety early on the morning of the 5th, travelling via Mtsensk. Deep in my heart I hoped Lev Nik. would return to Yasnaya with me, as I am tied to this essential work on the new edition and must stay close to Moscow, where I have all the books and materials to hand.
I travelled the 20 miles from Mtsensk in a strong wind and driving rain, and the muddy road and the ferry crossing and the agitation left me exhausted.
I had a cold reception in Kochety from my husband and my daughter. Lev Nik. had just ridden over to visit the eunuch, 16 miles there and back, and in this appalling weather!
But how warmly I was met by the two little five-year-olds, my granddaughter Tanechka and her little cousin Mikushka Sukhotin!
6th September. Lev Nik.’s big toe is red and swollen after yesterday’s ride, and he keeps saying: “It’s senile gangrene and I shall surely die.”
8th September. I felt much calmer when I arrived in Kochety, but now it has all started again. I didn’t sleep all night and got up early. Drankov filmed us all again for the cinematograph, then filmed a village wedding they had put on especially for his benefit.
When I eventually plucked up the courage to ask Lev Nik. when he was returning home, he grew furious, shouting angrily about his “freedom”, waving his hands and making the most unattractive gestures. Then to cap it all he said he regretted his promise to me never to see Chertkov.
I received a letter from Chertkov—a lying pharisaical letter in which he asked for a reconciliation with the evident desire that I should let him into the house again.
9th September. I wept and sobbed all day; I ache all over, my head, my heart and my stomach hurt, and my soul is torn apart by suffering!* Lev Nik. tried to be a little kinder to me, but his egotism and malevolence won’t let him concede to me in anything—not for anything will he tell me if he is planning to return to Yasnaya, and if so, when.*
I wrote a letter to Chertkov, but haven’t posted it yet. This man is the cause of all my suffering and I cannot reconcile myself to him.
10th September. I stayed in bed all morning, then took a long walk round the garden. Lev Nik. flew into a rage with me again today and said: “I shall never give in to you on anything ever again! I bitterly regret my promise never to see Chertkov, it was a terrible mistake!”
Then he got up, and taking both my hands in his, he stared at me, smiled so sweetly, then burst into tears. “Thank God!” I said to myself. “He still has a glimmer of love for me in his soul!”
12th September. I avoided meeting Lev Nik. all day. His stubborn refusal to tell me approximately when he might be leaving has made me feel desperate. His heart has turned to stone! By the time I left I had suffered so deeply from his coldness and was sobbing so wildly that the servant who was seeing me off started crying too. I didn’t even look at my husband, my daughter and the others. But then Lev Nik. suddenly came round to the other side of the trap and said to me with tears in his eyes: “Well, give me another kiss then, I’ll be back very, very soon…”
13th September. I have been working hard on the proofs, and try to be calm and remind myself of Lev Nik.’s words: “I’ll be back very, very soon.” Annenkova and Klechkovsky came to visit me.
It’s hard to talk to anyone, for they all consider me abnormal and think I am being unjust to my husband. But I only write true facts in my diary. People can draw their own conclusions from them. I am tormented by life and material concerns.
17th September. My dream that my husband would return for my name day has been dashed; he hasn’t even written, nor have any of the rest of them from Kochety—apart from my dear granddaughter Tanechka, who sent me a greetings card. The others just sent an impersonal collective telegram!
My name day was the day when Lev Nik. proposed to me. What did he do to that eighteen-year-old Sonechka Behrs, who gave him her whole life, her love and her trust? He has tortured me with his coldness, his cruelty and his extreme egotism.
I went to Taptykovo with Varvara Mikhailovna. Olga and her children, Ilyushok and my granddaughter and namesake Sofia Andreevna, were very sweet to me.
19th September (Moscow). I corrected proofs, packed my suitcase and left this afternoon for Moscow on business. In Tula I met my son Seryozha, to my great joy, and he said his wife and sons were travelling to Moscow in the same carriage.
21st September. I was preoccupied with business in Moscow on the 20th and 21st. I also paid a visit to Taneev’s old nurse to find out how he was. He was still in the country. I should love to see him and hear him play. But this is not possible now; I no longer love him as I did, we don’t see each other any more for some reason, and I have done nothing for a very long time to bring this about.
22nd September. I arrived back in Yasnaya this morning. It is a bright frosty day, and my soul is a hell of grief and despair. I went round the garden and wept myself senseless, yet I am still alive, walking, breathing and eating—although I cannot sleep. The frost has withered the flowers, like my life. It looks so desolate, and my soul is desolate too. Will the spark of joy and happiness be rekindled in our lives?
Not a word from Lev Nik. He couldn’t give me one day of his epicurean life at the Sukhotins’, with his daily games of chess and vint. So when he, Sasha and Nakovitsky returned tonight I met him with reproaches instead of joy, burst into tears, then went off to my room to let him rest after the journey.
23rd September. Our wedding anniversary. I stayed in my room for a long time this morning, weeping on my own. I wanted to go in to my husband, but opening the door to his room I heard him dictating something to Bulgakov, and went off to wander about Yasnaya Polyana recalling the happy times—what few of them there were—in my 48-year marriage.
I then asked Lev Nik. if we could have our photograph taken together. He agreed, but the photograph didn’t come out, as Bulgakov is inexperienced and didn’t know how to do it.
L.N. was a little nicer to me this evening, and I felt easier in my mind. It was a comfort to feel I had found my “other half” again.
24th September. Lev Nikol.’s kindness to me didn’t last long, and he shouted at me again today. Olga’s former French governess told me in Taptykovo that they had read a tale by L.N. called ‘Childhood Wisdom’ at the Chertkovs’, so I asked him to let me read it. When it transpired that there wasn’t a copy of it in the house, even in Lev Nik.’s personal possession, I said of course Chertkov was in a hurry to take the manuscript, as he is nothing but a collector. This made Lev Nikol. frightfully angry and he shouted at me. I started crying inconsolably and went off to the fir plantation, where I sawed some branches, then developed photographs and read proofs, and saw almost nothing of my husband for the rest of the day.
25th September. I am happy he is actually here with me, and am beginning to feel calmer. But his soul is so distant!
He is reading Malinovsky’s Blood Revenge* with great interest at the moment, and went for a ride today.
26th September. As I was passing Lev N.’s study today I saw that Chertkov’s portrait, which I had removed to the far wall while he was away and replaced with a portrait of his father, was again hanging in its former place above the armchair where he always sits.
The fact that he had put it back drove me to despair—he can’t bear to part with it now he isn’t seeing Chertkov every day—so I took it down, tore it into pieces and threw it down the lavatory. Lev Nik. was furious of course, and quite rightly accused me of denying him his freedom. He is possessed by the idea at present, although never in his life has he bothered about it before—he never gave it a thought. What did he need his “freedom” for when we always loved each other and wanted to make each other happy?
I went to my room, found a toy pistol and tried to fire it, thinking I would buy myself a real one. I fired it a second time when Lev Nik. returned from his ride, but he didn’t hear.
Maria Schmidt, thinking I was planning to kill myself, without finding out what was really happening, wrote to Sasha in Taptykovo begging her to come home as her mother had shot herself—or some such story.
I knew nothing about this until that night, when I heard a carriage approaching the house and someone knocking at the door. It was very dark and I couldn’t imagine who it might be. I went downstairs and to my amazement saw Sasha and Varvara Mikhailovna standing there. “What has happened?” I asked. And all of a sudden two voices were showering me with such angry words and foul names that I was stunned. I went upstairs, followed by Sasha and Varvara Mikhailovna, still shouting at me. Eventually I lost my temper with them. What have I ever done to those two? Why was I to blame?
Unfortunately I started shouting too—I said I would throw them both out of the house tomorrow, and dismiss Varvara Mikhailovna, who merely lives off us and licks Sasha’s boots. Maria Schmidt, realizing her mistake, began to cry and begged the two loud-mouths to leave the room.
But these shrews were in no hurry to calm down, and next morning they packed their things, took a couple of horses, the dogs and the parrot, and set off for Sasha’s house at Telyatinki. It is they who are in the wrong; they lost their tempers and acted disgracefully.
29th September. Relations with Lev Nik. are calmer and I am happy! I sat with him after he had had his lunch today, and I ate something too—pancakes with curd cheese. It was wonderful to see the joy on his face when after asking who the pancakes were for, I said, “For myself.” “Ah, how glad I am that you’re eating again!” he said. Then he brought me a pear and tenderly begged me to eat it. When other people aren’t here he is generally kind and affectionate to me, just as he used to be, and I feel he is mine again. But he hasn’t been cheerful lately, and this worries me. I was very active all day: I sawed some dry branches off the young fir trees, then drove to Kolpna to buy rye and flour. A lovely bright frosty autumn day.
1st October. Goldenweiser came this morning, and played chess with Lev N. this afternoon. Sasha arrived too, and took Goldenweiser back to the Chertkovs. I was going to suggest that L.N. went there too, but the moment I mentioned the idea to my husband, I started choking back the tears and shaking with agitation; the blood rushed to my head and I felt I was being flayed alive. When I saw the joy on Lev N.’s face at the prospect of seeing Chertkov again, I felt desperate, and went off to my room to cry. But my dear husband didn’t visit Chertkov, bless him, and instead took another ride through the woods and gulleys, and exhausted himself. I finished work on Childhood and read the proofs of ‘On Money’.* It is windy and pouring with rain.
2nd October. This morning dear Pavel Biryukov arrived; he is always so kind, gentle, intelligent and understanding, and I wept as I told him of my grief. He dislikes Chertkov too, and understood me completely. Lev Nik. had a stomach upset, ate nothing, didn’t leave the house and slept all day. After dinner we had a good talk, my son Seryozha arrived and everyone played chess.
3rd October. Lev Nik. took a walk this morning, then went for a short ride and returned stiff with cold; his legs were numb and he felt so weak he collapsed on the bed and fell asleep without taking off his cold boots. He was so late for dinner I grew worried and went to see him. He looked vacant, kept picking up the clock and checking the time, talking about dinner, then falling into a doze. Then to my horror he started to rave and things went from bad to worse! Convulsions in his face, terrible shuddering in his legs, unconscious, delirious raving. Three men couldn’t hold down his legs, they were thrashing so violently. But I didn’t lose my composure, thank God. I filled hot-water bottles at desperate speed, put mustard plasters on his calves and wiped his face with eau de Cologne. Tanya gave him smelling salts to sniff, we wrapped his cold legs in a warm blanket and brought him rum and coffee to drink. But the paroxysms continued, and he had five more convulsions. As I was clasping my husband’s feet I felt acute despair at the thought of losing him.
I brought the little icon with which his Aunt Tatyana blessed her Lyovochka when he went off to war, and attached it to his bed. He regained consciousness during the night, but could remember nothing of what had happened to him. His head and limbs ached, and his temperature was 37.7 at first, then 36.7.
All night I sat beside my patient on a chair and prayed for him. He slept quite well, groaning occasionally, and the shuddering stopped. My daughter Tanya arrived in the night.
4th October. Tanya’s birthday; we all celebrated. The others went off to visit the Chertkovs. Lev Nik. has regained consciousness and has his memory back now, although he keeps asking what happened and what he said. His tongue is coated, his liver hurts slightly and he has eaten nothing. We summoned Doctor Shcheglov from Tula, who gave him Vichy water and rhubarb with soda. I made him a vodka compress for the night.
Sasha and I had a moving and heartfelt reconciliation, and decided to forget our quarrel and both work to make Lev Nik.’s life as peaceful and happy as possible. But my God! How hard this will be if it means resuming relations with Chertkov. It is impossible, I am afraid this sacrifice will be beyond me. Well, everything is in God’s hands! Meanwhile the joy of Lev Nik.’s recovery has made us all calmer and kinder to one another.
5th October. Lev N. has been better today. He ate some rusks and a whole gingerbread, and drank so much coffee and milk I grew quite alarmed. He took some Vichy water, then had dinner with the rest of us. Seryozha left this morning, and Tanya spent the day at Ovsyannikovo. Sasha and Varvara Mikhailovna have returned, and life is now more cheerful. Tanya is being very harsh; she keeps scolding and threatening us, then assuring us she wants to help make the peace. I feel shattered; the left side of my stomach is hurting and I have a headache.
6th October. Lev Nik. is better, but still very weak, and says he has heartburn and an aching liver. He got out of bed this morning and was going out for a walk later, but he hankered after his daily ride, and rode off to Bulgakov without telling me, which upset me terribly.
We had visitors. It’s better when there are guests, it isn’t so depressing. I asked them for some advice on the new edition, and we spent the evening chatting quietly. Sasha went to see Chertkov during the day, and with my consent she invited him to come and visit Lev Nikol. Chertkov wrote a mean and characteristically unclear letter*—and didn’t come. Thank God for at least one day without that loathsome man!
7th October. There was yet another discussion about Chertkov, then Tanya and Sasha went to see him and he promised to come at 8 this evening. But I arranged with the doctor that he would order Lev Nik. to take a bath this evening—for this would be good for his liver and would shorten his visit.
So that is what happened. I spent the day preparing myself for this dreaded visit, worrying and unable to concentrate on anything, and when I heard the sound of his sprung carriage through the ventilation window I had such palpitations I thought I would die. I rushed to the French window and took out the binoculars, straining to catch any special expressions of joy. But L.N., realizing that I was watching, merely shook Chertkov’s hand with a blank expression. Then they had a long talk about something and Chertkov leant closer to L.N. and showed him something. Meanwhile I started his bath, and sent Ilya Vasilevich to tell him the water was ready and would get cold if he didn’t hurry. Chertkov then said goodbye and left.
I felt terribly shaken all evening. What an effort it cost me to let that idiot come, and how I struggled to control my feelings!
8th October. I got up early to see my daughter Tanya off, then went back to bed feeling ill and exhausted. When I had got up, Lev Nikolaevich came in to see me, and as I was already dressed I followed him out. He was flustered and evidently displeased about something. He asked me to listen to him in silence, but I couldn’t help interrupting him several times. What he had to say, of course, concerned my jealous, hostile behaviour to Chertkov. He put it to me, in an extremely agitated and angry manner, that I had made a fool of myself and must now stop, that he didn’t love Chertkov exclusively, and there were many other people who were much closer to him in every way, such as Leonid Semyonov, for instance, and some complete stranger called Nikolaev, who has just sent him a book and lives in Nice.* This of course is simply not true. I have now released him from his promise not to see Chertkov again, but he saw what his meeting with that repulsive idiot cost me yesterday, and he reproached me for never giving him any peace of mind, as he has my disapproving attitude to Chertkov constantly hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles. But why do they have to meet at all?
9th October. I tidied the books—a dull chore!—and was so tired I spent the whole afternoon asleep, or rather in bed. I read a small part of the book by this unknown Nikolaev from Nice, and liked it very much. It is logical and well thought-out—what a pity L.N. doesn’t have people like that around him.
Lev N. and I have lived lives of such moral and physical purity! And now he has revealed the most intimate details of our life to Chertkov and co., and this repulsive man draws his own conclusions and observations from his letters and diaries, which are often written merely to please him—often in his tone of voice too—and then he writes to Lev N. about it, for instance:
1st October 1909
I am particularly anxious to collect all such letters relevant to your life, so that I may in due course provide an explanation of your position for the benefit of those who have been seduced by hearsay and rumour…
I can well imagine the sort of “explanation” he will provide, and what sort of “selection” he will make when he launches his attack on L.N.’s family—concentrating especially on the moments of struggle…
11th October. I went out to the fir plantation and sawed some branches, then sat down exhausted on the bench and listened to the silence. How I love my plantation! I used to come and sit here with Vanechka. I have done very little work. I am in too much pain.
My daughter-in-law Sonya has left. She too has suffered with her husband, poor woman, for Ilya has fallen in love with someone else and ruined himself—and he has 7 children! We had a good talk to each other as wives and mothers, and we understood each other perfectly. The writer I. Nazhivin has left too. I told him everything I had endured with Chertkov, my husband and my daughters.
12th October. Chertkov has now persuaded Lev N. to give instructions that the copyright shouldn’t go to his children after his death, but should be public property,* as are his last works. And when L.N. said he would talk to his family about it, Chertkov was hurt and wouldn’t let him! Scoundrel and despot! He has taken this poor old man in his dirty hands and forced him into these despicable deeds. But if I live, I shall have my revenge, and he won’t be able to do any such thing. He has stolen my husband’s heart from me and the bread from my children’s and grandchildren’s mouths,* while his son has millions of stray rubles in an English bank, quite apart from the fact that those rubles were partly earned by me, because of all the help I gave L.N. Today I told Lev Nikol. I knew about these instructions of his, and he looked sad and guilty but said nothing. Yes, an evil spirit has guided Chertkov’s hand; it is no coincidence that Lev Nik. wrote in his diary: “Chertkov has drawn me into a struggle. And this struggle is painful and hateful to me.”* I am in a hurry to publish the new edition before Lev Nik. does something desperate; he is capable of anything in his present mood.
13th October. Thoughts of suicide are growing again, but I nurture them in silence. Today I read in the newspapers about a little girl of fifteen who took an overdose of opium and died quite easily—she just fell asleep. I looked at my big phial—but lacked the courage.
Life is unbearable. It has been like living under bombardment from Mr Chertkov ever since Lev Nik. visited him in June and succumbed to his influence.
Monster! What business has he to interfere in our family affairs?
Lev N. has been infected by Chertkov’s vile suggestion that my main motive was self-interest. What “self-interest” could there possibly be in a sick old woman of 66, who has a house and land, and forests and capital—not to mention my ‘Notes’, my diaries and my letters, all of which I can publish?!
I went for a long walk—4 degs. below freezing—then drove to Yasenki to the post.
14th October. I woke early and straight away sat down and wrote my husband a letter.
When I timidly opened the door to his study, he said, “Can’t you leave me in peace?” I said nothing, closed the door and didn’t go in again. He came to see me later, but there were yet more reproaches, a blank refusal to answer my questions, and such hatred!*
He is reading Dostoevsky’s Karamazovs at present and says it is no good; the descriptions are excellent, he says, but the dialogue is very bad—it’s always Dostoevsky speaking, rather than the individual characters, and their words are simply not characteristic of them.
I have done a lot of work on the new edition, and am feeling weak, my head is aching, and I keep falling asleep over my books and papers. Yesterday evening I wrote to Andryusha. Magnificent weather, clear, starry, frosty and bright, but I didn’t go out.
16th October. I woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep for worrying about how to retrieve Lev Nik.’s diaries from the Tula State Bank. I went down to breakfast, and he announced he was off to see Chertkov.
I cannot express what I felt! I ran out to the woods and clambered down some gulleys where it would have been hard to find me had I been taken ill. Then I came out into the field and raced to Telyatinki (carrying the binoculars, so as to be able to see everything from a long way off). When I got to Telyatinki I lay in the ditch near the gates leading to Chertkov’s house and waited for Lev Nik. to arrive. I don’t know what I would have done if he had—I kept imagining I would lie down on the bridge across the ditch and let his horse trample over my body.
Fortunately though he didn’t come. I saw young Sergeenko and Pyotr, who had gone to fetch water. (Chertkov, in the name of some sort of Christian charity, has recruited various young men to work for him, as our servants work for us.)
At 5 o’clock I wandered off again. I entered our grounds as it was growing dark, went to the lower pond and lay down for a long time on the bench under the large fir tree. I was in agony at the thought of Lev Nikolaevich’s exclusive love for Chertkov, and a resumption of their relations. I could just imagine them locked away together in some room with their endless secrets, and these frightful imaginings turned my thoughts to the pond, in whose icy water I could that very moment have found eternal deliverance from my tormenting jealousy! Then I lay on the ground and dozed off.
When it was completely dark and I could see Lev N.’s light through the windows, they came out to search for me with lanterns. Alexei the yard-keeper found me. I got up, beside myself with cold and exhaustion, and sat down on my bed without undressing and stayed there like a mummy, without eating dinner or taking off my hat, jacket or galoshes. This is how you kill people—without weapons but with perfect aim!
When I asked L.N. why he made me so unhappy, and whether he would be going to see Chertkov later, he started shouting in a rage: “I want my freedom, I won’t submit to your whims and fancies, I’m 82 years old, not a little boy, I won’t be tied to my wife’s apron strings!…” and many more harsh and hurtful things besides.
He cannot live without Chertkov, of course, and this is why he gets so angry with me: because I simply cannot force myself to endure a resumption of relations with that scoundrel.
I went in to see Lev Nik. twice during the night, in a desperate state, and tried somehow to repair our relations. I managed with great difficulty to do so, and we forgave each other, kissed and said goodnight. He said, among other things, that he would do all he could not to grieve me and to make me happy. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?
17th October. A quiet day. I managed to do a lot of work on the proofs and the new edition. Lev Nikolaevich, in his Gospel for children, writes among other things about anger (quoting from the Gospel): “If you think your brother has done you a wrong, choose a time and a place to talk to him eye to eye, and tell him briefly about your grievance. If he listens to you, then instead of being your enemy he will be your friend for life. If he doesn’t listen, take pity on him and have nothing more to do with him.”
This is exactly what I want from Chertkov—I want nothing more to do with him and an end to our relations.
I have decided not to go anywhere, neither to Moscow nor to concerts. I now treasure every moment of my life with Lev Nik. I love him intensely, like the last flicker of a dying fire, and I couldn’t possibly leave him. Maybe if I am gentle with him he will grow more fond of me too, and won’t want to leave me. God knows!
18th October. I got up late feeling shattered, haunted by new fears of some quarrel or unpleasantness. When I look back on the past four months of my ordeal, I am reminded of a cat-and-mouse game. It tortured me that his seven diaries were with Chertkov, and I begged him to get them back. But he kept refusing to do so. He went on torturing me for three weeks, by which time he had driven me to despair, then he took them back, only to deposit them in the bank. I had fallen ill with a nervous disorder long before this episode with the diaries.
Then he deliberately stayed on in Kochety because he knew I had to be near Moscow for the new edition. The separation and worry were agony for me, yet he stubbornly stayed on and wouldn’t return to Yasnaya. And when, at the end of my stay there, I begged him with tears in my eyes to tell me roughly when he might return, even if only for my name day, he grew furious and stubbornly refused.
Terrible weather—a driving blizzard and thick snow. By this evening it was completely white and 6 degs. of frost.
19th October. E.V. Molostvova came to visit. She has made a study of various religious sects and is writing a book about them. She is a sensitive intelligent woman, and understands a great deal. I told her about my woes, and she dismissed much of what I said, insisting that beside me, Lev Nik.’s wife, Chertkov represented such an insignificant figure that I demeaned myself by imagining he could ever occupy my place in his relations with him. But I wasn’t convinced; I am still terrified they will resume their friendship.
Last night I grew very anxious when I saw his diary had disappeared from the table where it invariably lies in a locked attaché case. And when he woke in the night, I went into his room to ask him if he had given it to Chertkov. “The diary is with Sasha,” he said, and I grew a little calmer.
Clear, frosty weather. It is now 8 degs. below freezing, and starry and silent. Everyone is asleep.
20th October. Sasha was busy looking after her sick horses and writing for her father; she also went to a meeting in our village to talk to the local peasants about the consumers’ store in Yasnaya Polyana.
Lev Nikol. worked on his writing and played patience, rode over to Zaseka, came into my room several times and spoke kindly to me. Some peasants came to see him—Novikov,* a clever peasant from Tula who writes articles, and some of our villagers, one of whom went to prison for two years for being a revolutionary.*
How avidly he reads everything about himself in the newspapers! He obviously couldn’t do without this now!
21st October. Today I saw in the newspaper Spark the photograph taken of Lev N. and me on our last wedding anniversary. Thousands of people can see us there together, hand in hand, as we have lived all our lives. I had a long talk with Sasha today. She knows nothing of life and people, and there is an enormous amount she doesn’t understand. Telyatinki is her entire world; she has her beloved little home there, and nearby live the dull-witted Chertkovs.
I am continuing to read Lev Nik.’s pamphlets for the new edition, and find them terribly monotonous. I warmly sympathize with his denunciation of war, violence, punishments and murders, but I don’t understand his denunciation of governments. People need leaders, masters and rulers; any sort of human organization is unthinkable without them. It is essential however, that the ruler is wise, just and self-sacrificing in the interest of his subjects.
23rd October. Now that he lacks Chertkov’s closeness, Lev Nikol. seems to have grown closer to me. He occasionally talks to me, and today I had two joys—my dear husband, the old Lyovochka, noticed my existence twice. Early this morning when guests were leaving and there was a great deal of bustle and commotion, he thought it was me walking about and came and told me how worried he had been. Later on he ate a delicious pear and brought one for me to share with him.
Recently he has started writing articles about socialism, suicide and something about madness. What he was working on this morning I don’t know. This evening he was frantically sorting out his kopeck booklets for distribution, dividing them into good, middling and bad, as well as deciding which ones were for the most intelligent and which were for the less educated.
I took the dogs Belka and Marquise for a walk to Zakaz, following the horses’ hoofprints in the direction where Lev Nik. and Doctor Makovitsky had ridden.
Thawing, no roads, grey and windy.
I have done a lot of reading for the new edition. My eyes are bad, I soon grow tired and am worried about the uncensored state of Lev Nikolaevich’s later works.
24th October. We had a visit from a young lady called Natalya Almedingen, who edits children’s magazines. Also Gastev, a longstanding Tolstoyan who lives in the Caucasus, and Bulgakov.
I went for a walk with the young lady, and suddenly on the hillock in front of the swimming pool we saw two riders, Lev Nikol. and Bulgakov. I was delighted to see L.N. as I had been thinking about him, wondering if he would go home without me and worrying he might have an accident on the slippery road.
Towards evening it poured with rain and grew warmer. There was no mention of Chertkov today, but every day when L.N. sets off for his walk I wait in terror for him to return, in case he has gone to see him. I fret and cannot work, and calm down only when I see him approaching from the other direction, and am then happy for the rest of the day.
25th October. I got up early, spent the morning with Almedingen and read six pages of proofs. Then I went to our village school, where one young, inexperienced teacher is in charge of 84 girls and boys. This evening our son Seryozha came; he played chess with his father, then played the piano. I read Almedingen the ‘Notes’ I wrote about my girlhood and marriage, and she seemed to like them.
Lev Nik. exchanged letters with Chertkov’s wife Galya today. I asked what they were about, and he made another excuse and pretended to have forgotten. I asked to see Galya’s letter, and he said he didn’t know where it was, which wasn’t true. Why not just say, “I don’t want to show it to you”? But recently it’s nothing but endless lies, excuses and evasions…How morally weak he has become! Where is his kindness, his clarity, his honesty?
An evil spirit rules our house and my husband’s heart.
I am coming to the end of this terrible diary, the history of my sad sufferings, and shall seal it up for a long, long time!
Curses on Chertkov, curses on the person who was the cause of it all!
Forgive me, Lord.
7th November. On 7th November, at 6 o’clock in the morning, Lev Nikol. died.
9th November. I have not recorded the events of October the 26th and 27th, but on the 28th, at 5 in the morning, he slipped out of the house with Doctor Makovitsky. His excuse for leaving was that I had been rummaging through his papers the previous night. I had gone into his study for a moment, but I didn’t touch one paper—there weren’t any papers on his desk. In his letter to me (written for the entire world) the pretext he gave for leaving was our luxurious life and his desire to be alone and live in a hut, like the peasants.* But then why did he have to write telling Sasha to come with her hanger-on, Varvara Mikhailovna?
When I learnt from Sasha and the letter about his flight, I jumped into the pond in despair. Sasha and Bulgakov pulled me out, alas!* Then nothing passed my lips for the next five days, and on 31st October at 7.30 a.m. I received a telegram from the editors of Russian Word: “Lev Nikolaevich in Astapovo. Temperature 40°.” Andrei, Tanya and I travelled by special train from Tula to Astapovo. They didn’t let me in to see Lev Nik.* They held me by force, they locked the door, they tormented my heart. On 7th November, at 6 in the morning, Lev Nik. died. On 9th November he was buried at Yasnaya Polyana.