Chapter II: Part 2

The difference between my husband and myself came about, not because _I_ in my heart went away from him. I and my life remained the same as before. It was _he_ who went away, not in his everyday life, but in his writings and his teachings as to how people should live. I felt myself unable to follow his teachings myself. But our personal relations were unaltered: we loved each other just as much, we found it just as difficult to be parted even temporarily, and, as an old and respected friend of our family expressed it in a letter to me: "Not a jot could be added to or taken from either of you without disturbing the wonderful harmony of your private spiritual life in the midst of the multitude of people surrounding you...."

Only rarely was our happiness clouded and the harmony broken by flashes of mutual jealousy, which had no ground at all. We were both hot-tempered and passionate; we could not bear the thought that anyone should alienate us. It was just this jealousy which woke up in me with terrible force when, towards the end of our life, I realized that my husband's soul, which had been open to me for so many years, had suddenly been closed to me irrevocably and without cause, while it was opened to an outsider, a stranger.{40}

VI

In four years we had suffered five losses in the family. The two aunts died, in 1874 Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii, and in 1875 Pelageya Ilinishna Yushkov. Also three of our young children died; I caught whooping-cough from them, and at the same time became ill with peritonitis which brought on child-birth prematurely and I was on the point of death.

Whether these events influenced Leo Nikolaevich or whether there were other causes, his discontent with life and his seeking for truth became acute. Everyone knows from his _Confession_ and other works that he even contemplated hanging himself, when he did not find satisfaction in his seeking. I could not feel as happy as before, when my husband, though without saying it frankly, threatened to take his life, as later he threatened to go away from his family. It was difficult for me to discover the causes of his despair or to induce myself to believe in them.{41} Our family lived its normal, good life, but it no longer satisfied him; he was looking for the meaning of life in something different; he was seeking for belief in God, he always shuddered at the thought of death, and he could not find that which might comfort him and reconcile him with it. At one time he would speak to Count Bobrinsky{42} of the teaching of Radstock,{43} at another to Prince S. S. Urusov{44} of the orthodox faith and church, at another with pilgrims and sectaries, and later with bishops, monks, and priests. But nobody and nothing satisfied Leo Nikolaevich or put his mind at rest. A spirit which rejected the existing religions, the progress, science, art, family, everything which mankind had evolved in centuries, had been growing stronger and stronger in Leo Nikolaevich, and he was becoming gloomier and gloomier. It was as though his inner eye was turned only to evil and suffering, as though all that was joyful, beautiful, and good had disappeared. I did not know how to live with such views; I was alarmed, frightened, grieved. But with nine children I could not, like a weather-cock, turn in the ever changing direction of my husband's spiritual going away. With him it was a passionate, sincere seeking; with me it would have been a silly imitation, positively harmful to the family. Besides, in my innermost heart and beliefs I did not wish to leave the church to which from my childhood I had always turned in prayer. Leo Nikolaevich was himself for nearly two years at the beginning of his seeking extremely orthodox and observed all rituals and feasts. At the time the family also followed his example. _When_ exactly we parted from him and over what, I do not know, I cannot remember.

Leo Nikolaevich's denial of the church and orthodoxy had a sharp contrast in his recognition of the efficacy and wisdom of Christ's teaching, which he considered incompatible with the doctrine of the church. Personally I could have no difference with him regarding the Gospel, since I considered the Gospel to be the foundation of the orthodox faith.{45} When he accepted Christ's teaching and tried to live in accordance with the Gospel, Leo Nikolaevich began to suffer through our apparently luxurious mode of life, which I could not alter. I simply did not understand why I should alter it, nor could I alter conditions which had not been created by ourselves. If I had given away all my fortune at my husband's desire (I don't know to whom), if I had been left in poverty with nine children, I should have had to work for the family--to feed, do the sewing for, wash, bring up my children without education. Leo Nikolaevich, by vocation and inclination, could have done nothing else but write.{46} He was always rushing off from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana; he lived alone there, read, wrote, and thought out his work. I bore these partings from him with difficulty, but I considered them necessary for my husband's intellectual work and peace of mind.

In my turn, as I grew older, the external and internal complexity of life made me look seriously into its demands, and again, as in my early youth, I turned to philosophy, to the wisdom of the thinkers who had preceded us. At that time, about 1881 or 1882, Prince Leonid Dmitrievich Urusov,{47} an intimate friend who often visited us and who was Deputy Governor of the Tula Province, translated into Russian _The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_ and brought us the book to read. The thoughts of that royal sage produced a great impression on me. Later Prince Urusov gave me the works of Seneca in a French translation. The brilliant style and richness of thought in that philosopher so attracted me that I read his works through twice. I then read in succession various philosophers, buying their books and copying out the ideas and sayings which struck me. I remember how impressed I was by Epictetus's thoughts on death. I found Spinoza very difficult to understand, but I became interested in his Ethics and especially in his explanation of the conception of God. Socrates, Plato, and other philosophers, but particularly the Greeks, enchanted me, and I can say that these sages helped me greatly to live and to think. Later on I also tried to read modern philosophers; I read Schopenhauer and others, but I much preferred the ancients. Of Leo Nikolaevich's philosophical works I liked and understood best his book _On Life_, and I translated it into French with the assistance of M. Tastevin. I worked hard at that translation, being particularly ill at the time and expecting the birth of our last child, Vanichka. While working conscientiously at the translation, I often went for advice to my husband and to the philosophers, N. Y. Grot and V. S. Solovev.

I always very much liked writing of whatever kind. When Leo Nikolaevich was writing his _A. B. C._ and _Four Reading-Books_, he used to intrust to me the work of making up sentences and of re-telling and translating them so as to adapt them to the Russian language and customs. I also wrote the small story _Sparrows_ and others.

On the appearance of _Kreutzer Sonata_, which I never liked, I wrote a story from the woman's point of view, but I did not publish it. Later on I wrote a tale, _A Song without Words_. I got the idea for it by seeing girls at a concert behave strangely to a famous pianist. They kissed his goloshes, tore his handkerchief to pieces and altogether acted as if they were mad. What has music to do with all that? I wanted to convey the idea that our attitude towards art, as towards nature, must be chaste, _i. e._ pure, without any mixture of base human passions.

When I taught the children, I wrote a Russian grammar from which they quickly learnt to write correctly. Unfortunately the Russian teacher, who much approved of my work, lost it.

I used to invent stories to tell to my children, and I wrote some of them down and later published them with illustrations. In the first story, _Skeleton Aurelias_, I used an idea of Leo Nikolaevich's. He began to write the story, but the beginning was lost. Whether it was lost with his suit-case,{48} or whether it was carried off with the other MSS., I do not know.{49}

I always regarded my literary work with a certain contempt and irony, considering it in the nature of a joke. For instance, after reading various writings of the decadents, I tried to imitate them, and, for a joke, wrote prose poems under the title _Groans_. They were published, without my name, and without the author being known, in the _Journal Dlva Vsvekh_ for March, 1904.

I remember two others of my writings, translations which Leo Nikolaevich commissioned me to do. One was from the German, _The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_,{50} which he afterwards corrected himself, and the other from English, _On the Sect of the Bahaists_.{51}

I also published various articles in newspapers. The most important were: my appeal for funds for the famine-stricken on 3 November, 1891; my letter to the _Metropolitans_ and _Synod_ on Leo Nikolaevich's excommunication, which had deeply revolted and pained me.{52} I also published an article, _A Recollection of Turgenev_, in the _Orlovskii Vyestnik_, a critical article on Andreyev, and others.{53}

If I ever wrote anything of value, it was the seven thick note-books, under the title _My Life_.{54} In them I described all my long life up to 1897. When after the death of Leo Nikolaevich I was, quite illegally, forbidden access to the Historical Museum, where I had placed for safe keeping all my husband's papers, diaries, letters, note-books, as well as my own, I could not continue my work without materials, and three years of my life, which was drawing to a close, were lost to the work. And who knows better than I the life of Leo Nikolaevich? It was I myself who in 1894 placed those documents first in the Rumyantsev Museum, and later during its repair transferred them to the Historical Museum, where they now lie awaiting the verdict as to their fate from the courts of law.{55}

VII

In the summer of 1884 Leo Nikolaevich worked a great deal on the land; for whole days he mowed with the peasants, and when tired out he came home in the evenings, he used to sit gloomy and discontented with the life lived by the family. That life was in discordance with his teaching, and this tormented and pained him. At one time he thought of taking a Russian peasant woman, a worker on the land, and of secretly going away with the peasants to start a new life; he confessed this to me himself. At last, on 17 June, after a little quarrel with me about the horses, he took a sack with a few things on his shoulder and left the house, saying that he was going away for ever, perhaps to America, and that he would never come back. At the time I was beginning to feel the pains of childbirth. My husband's behaviour drove me to despair, and the two pains, of the body and of the heart, were unendurable. I prayed to God for death. At four o'clock in the morning Leo Nikolaevich came back, and, without coming to me, lay down on the couch downstairs in his study. In spite of my cruel pains I ran down to him; he was gloomy and said nothing to me. At seven o'clock that morning our daughter Alexandra was born. I could never forget that terrible, bright June night.

Once more in 1897 Leo Nikolaevich had the desire to go away; but no one knew of it. He wrote me a letter which, at his desire, was handed over to me only after his death.{56} But that time also he did not go away.

In the autumn of that year Leo Nikolaevich gave me a power-of-attorney to manage all his affairs, including the publication of his works. Inexperienced and without a farthing, I energetically began to learn the business of publishing books, and then of selling and subscribing L. N. Tolstoy's works. I had to manage the estates and in general all his affairs. How difficult it was, with a large family and with no experience! I had more than once to appeal to the censor, and for that purpose I had to go to Petersburg.

Once Leo Nikolaevich called me into his study and asked me to take over in full ownership all his property, including his copyrights. I asked him what need there was for that, since we were so intimate and had children in common. He replied that he considered property an evil and that he did not wish to own it. "So you wish to hand over that evil to me, the creature nearest to you," I said, in tears; "I do not want it and I shall take nothing." So I did not take my husband's property, but I managed his affairs under the power-of-attorney, and it was only some years afterwards that I agreed to a general division of the property, and the father himself apportioned the shares to each of the children and to myself. He renounced altogether the copyright of his books written after 1881.{57} But he retained until the end of his life the copyright of the previous books. The division was completed in 1891, and Yasnaya Polyana was given to our youngest son, Vanichka, and to myself.

In the same year 1891 an important event happened to me. I went to Petersburg to petition the authorities to remove the ban on the thirteenth volume of L. N. Tolstoy's works, which contained _Kreutzer Sonata_. I made an application to the Emperor Alexander III. He graciously received me, and, after I had left, he ordered the ban on the forbidden book to be removed, although he expressed a desire that _Kreutzer Sonata_ should not be sold as a separate volume. But some one secretly published the story, and envious persons calumniated me by telling the Tsar that I had disobeyed his will. The Sovereign was, naturally, highly displeased, and, as Countess A. A. Tolstoy told me he said: "If I was mistaken in that woman, then there are no truthful people in the world." I got to know about this too late to clear up the matter, and I was deeply grieved, the more so because the Tsar died that autumn without ever knowing the truth.

VIII

The year 1891 and the two following years were memorable for us because of the assistance given by the family to the famine-stricken Russian people. Distressed by the news which we received about the calamity, I decided to publish in the newspapers an appeal for subscriptions. What a joy to me was the ardent sympathy of the good people who sent generous donations, often accompanied by moving letters! The four younger children remained with me in Moscow. It was extraordinarily difficult for me to part from my husband and the elder children who were exposing themselves to many dangers. My only comfort was that I, too, was taking part in the good work. I bought trucks of corn, beans, onions, cabbage, everything needed for the feeding centres where the famine-stricken poor from the villages were fed. To pay for this I received money which was sent to me in considerable sums. From the material sent to me by textile manufacturers I had under-clothing made by poor women for small wages, and I sent it to the places where it was needed most, chiefly for those suffering from typhoid.

It might have been thought that this work would have satisfied Leo Nikolaevich. And at first it did, but he became disappointed with this too, and he began again to dream of a great act of renunciation, as he expressed it in his diary. He was annoyed with the family, though he did love us. He was often angry with me. We were what stood in the way of his carrying out his dream of a free, new life, of an act of renunciation. At times he would soften, and he wrote, for instance in his diary: "It is good to be with Sonya. Yesterday I thought, as I saw her with Andryusha and Misha, what a wonderful wife and mother she is in one sense." Remarks like that, when they were made directly to me, comforted me; but, on the other hand, his obstinate rejection of all our method of life pained and tormented me.

The famine relief work nearly cost my son Leo his life; he was at the time a young undergraduate and worked on his own account on famine relief in the Samara Province. His health, especially after an attack of typhus, broke down completely, and for a long time afterwards I suffered to see him sinking. But he recovered after being ill for two years. In 1895 our youngest son, Vanichka, died; he was seven years old, a general favourite, extraordinarily like his father, a clever, sensitive child, not long for this earth, as people say of such children. This was the greatest sorrow of my life, and for long I could find neither peace nor comfort.{58} At first I spent whole days in churches and cathedrals; I also prayed at home and walked in my garden, where I remembered the dear little slim figure of my boy. "Where are you, where are you, Vanichka?" I used often to cry, not believing in my loss. At last, after having spent nine hours one day in the Archangel Cathedral--it was a fast-day--I was walking home and got soaked in a violent storm of rain. I became very ill and my life was despaired of, but on Easter night at the ringing of the bells I came to myself and reentered upon my sorrowful existence. Everybody about me, and particularly my husband and two eldest daughters, looked after me with extraordinary goodness and tenderness. This gladdened and comforted me.

In the spring my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, arrived and took me off with her to Kiev, and that disposed me still more to religion and made a strong impression on me.[K] My depression and loss of interest in everything continued during the summer, and it was only by chance and quite unexpectedly that my state of mind was changed--by music. That summer there was staying with us a well-known composer and superb pianist.{59} In the evenings he used to play chess with Leo Nikolaevich, and afterwards, at the request of all of us, he often played the piano. Listening to the wonderful music of Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and others, superbly executed, I forgot for a time my sharp sorrow, and I used morbidly to look forward to the evening, when I should again hear that wonderful music.

Thus the summer passed, and in the autumn I engaged a music mistress and, at the age of fifty-two, began again to practise and learn to play. As time went on, I made little progress. But I went to concerts, and music saved me from despair. Leo Nikolaevich wrote somewhere about music: "Music is a sensual pleasure of hearing, just as taste is a sensual pleasure. I agree that it is less sensual than taste, but there is no moral sense in it." I could never share this view. He himself often cried, when his favourite pieces were played. Does the pleasure of taste make one cry? Music always acted upon me like something soothing and elevating. All the petty, everyday troubles lost their meaning. When I heard the Chopin sonata with the funeral march or certain Beethoven sonatas, I often had the desire to pray, to forgive, to love, and to think of the infinite, spiritual, mysterious, and beautiful, just as the sounds themselves do not say anything definite, but make one think, dream, and rejoice vaguely and beautifully.

IX

In August, 1896, Leo Nikolaevich suggested that I should go with him and his sister, Marie Nikolaevna, to the monastery near Shamardin. From there we went to the Optina Monastery, where I fasted. While I confessed, Leo Nikolaevich walked round the cell of the venerable monk, Father Gerasim, but he did not come in.

After Vanichka's death our family life was no longer happy. Gradually the other children married and the house became empty. The parting with our daughter was especially hard. Leo Nikolaevich's health began to be bad, and in September, 1901, the doctors after a consultation ordered him off to the south, to the Crimea. Countess Panin kindly lent us her magnificent house in Gaspra, where our whole family spent nearly ten months. Leo Nikolaevich's health not only did not improve, it grew worse. He was ill in Gaspra from one infectious disease after another, and it is with pain in my heart that I remember how I used to sit at night by my husband's bed during nearly the whole of those ten months. We took it in turns to sit by him, I, my daughters, the doctors, friends, and above all my son, Serge. How much I used to go through and think over during those nights!{60}

We did not go back again to our life in Moscow, and the doctors and I decided that it was best for Leo Nikolaevich to live in Yasnaya Polyana, where he was born and bred.

After making up our minds on our return from the Crimea to remain in the country, during the following years we lived quietly and peacefully, all occupied with our own work. I worked hard at writing my memoirs, under the title _My Life_; I often went to Moscow on business in connection with Leo Nikolaevich's publications, and then every day in the morning I used to sit in the Historical Museum, copying from the diaries, letters, and note-books the material which I wanted for my work. It gave me great pleasure, that work upstairs in the tower of the museum, in complete solitude, surrounded by such interesting papers. I did not arrange the MSS., thinking that I might leave that for others, and considering it more useful to write my reminiscences, as I did not anticipate a long life or that my memory would remain fresh.

Moreover by mere accident I took to painting passionately, for it always attracted me. In Petersburg in the Tauric Palace a very good and interesting exhibition of old and modern portraits was opened, and we were asked to lend all our family portraits from Yasnaya Polyana. It seemed to me most unpleasant to have the walls of the drawing-room bare, and with my usual boldness I began copying the portraits before they were removed. I had never studied painting, but I loved it, like all the arts, and I was terribly excited and worked for whole days, and often the nights as well. As formerly with music, I was completely carried away by painting. Leo Nikolaevich laughingly said that I had caught a disease called "portraititis," and that he was afraid for my sanity. The most successful of my attempts was a copy of Leo Nikolaevich's portrait by Kramskoi. Later I tried to paint landscapes and flowers from nature, but extreme short-sightedness put me at a great disadvantage, and I was dissatisfied with my want of skill. But I do not regret that I took up music and painting, however unskilfully, towards the end of my life. One only thoroughly understands any art when one practises it, however badly.

My last attempts were water-colour paintings of all the Yasnaya Polyana flora and of all the fungi of the Yasnaya Polyana woods.

X

In 1904 I had to endure the pain of my son, Andrey, leaving to fight in the war against Japan. In my heart I was opposed to war as to any other kind of murder, and it was with a peculiar pain in my heart that I saw my son off at Tambov and with other mothers looked at the carriages full of soldiers--our sons doomed to death.

A happy event for our family in 1905 was the birth of an only child to our daughter, Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin. This granddaughter, as she grew up, was a favourite of Leo Nikolaevich and of the whole family.

In 1906 I underwent a serious operation, performed by Professor V. F. Snegirev in Yasnaya Polyana. How quietly I prepared myself for death, how happy I felt, when the servants, saying good-bye to me, cried bitterly! I felt a strange sensation, when I fell asleep under the anaesthetic which was given to me: it was new and significant. All external life in its complicated setting, especially of towns, flashed before my inner vision like a quickly changing panorama. And how insignificant human vanity appeared to me! I seemed to be asking myself: what, then, is important? One thing: if God has sent us on to the earth and we are to live, then the most important thing is to help one another in whatever way possible. To help one another to live. I think the same now.

The operation was quite successful, but it seemed as though the will of fate, having aimed at taking my life, wavered and then removed its hand to our daughter Masha. I recovered, and that lovely, unselfish, spiritual creature, Masha, died of pneumonia in our house two and a half months after my operation. This sorrow was a heavy weight on our life and aging hearts. The previous rift, the reproaches and unpleasantness ceased for a while and we humbled ourselves before fate. The time passed in our usual occupations, and Leo Nikolaevich, as a distraction, played cards with his children and friends; he was very fond of whist. In the mornings he wrote, and every afternoon he rode; he lived the most quiet and regular life. He was, however, often worried by visitors who tired him, by applicants, and by letters in which people disagreed with his teaching and reproached him with his way of life, or asked him for money or to get them jobs.

These reproaches and the interference of outsiders in our peaceful family life ruined it. Even before this the influence of outside people was creeping in and towards the end of Leo Nikolaevich's life it assumed terrifying dimensions. For instance, these outsiders frightened Leo Nikolaevich with the prediction that the Russian Government would send the police and seize all his papers. On that pretext they were removed from Yasnaya Polyana, and, therefore, Leo Nikolaevich could no longer work at them, as he had not the _whole_ material. Eventually with difficulty I succeeded in getting back seven thick note-books containing my husband's diaries which are now in the possession of our daughter Alexandra; but the affair led to strained relations with the man who had them in his keeping and he ceased his daily visits.{61}

XI

In 1895 Leo Nikolaevich wrote a letter in which, as a request to his heirs, he expressed the desire that the copyright in his works should be made public property, and in which he entrusted the examination of his MSS. after his death to Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov, to Chertkov, and to me.{62} The letter was in the keeping of my daughter Masha and was destroyed,{63} and in its place in September, 1909, a will was made at Chertkov's house in Krekshino not far from Moscow, where Leo Nikolaevich and several other persons were staying at the time. The will turned out to have been drawn incorrectly and to be invalid, a fact which the "friends" soon found out.{64}

Our journey home from Krekshino through Moscow was terrible. One of the intimates had informed the press that on such and such a day at a certain hour Tolstoy would be at the Kursk Station. Several thousands of people came there to see us off. At moments it seemed to me, as I walked arm in arm with my husband and limped on my bad leg, that I should be choked, fall down, and die. In spite of the fresh, autumnal air, we were enveloped in a hot, thick atmosphere.

This had a very serious effect upon Leo Nikolaevich's health. Just after the train had passed Schekino station, he began to talk deliriously and lost all consciousness of his surroundings. A few minutes after our arrival at home he had a prolonged fainting fit and this was followed by a second. Luckily there was a doctor in the house. After this I suffered more and more from a painful, nervous excitement: day and night I watched my husband to see when he would go for a ride or a walk by himself, and I awaited his return anxiously, for I was afraid that he might have another fainting fit or simply fall down somewhere where it would be difficult to find him.

Owing to these agitations and to the difficult and responsible work connected with L. N. Tolstoy's publications, I continually grew more nervous and worried, and my health broke down completely.{65} I lost my mental balance, and, owing to this, I had a bad effect upon my husband. At the same time Leo Nikolaevich began continually to threaten to leave the house and his "intimate" friend[M] carefully prepared, together, with the lawyer M., a new and correct will[N] which was copied by Leo Nikolaevich himself on the stump of a tree in the forest on 23 July, 1910.{66}

* * * * *

This was the will which was proved after his death.

In his diary he wrote at the time, among other things: "I very clearly see my mistake; I ought to have called together all my heirs and told them my intention; I ought not to have kept it secret. I wrote this to----, but he was very annoyed--"

On 5 August he writes of me:

"It is painful the constant secrecy and fear for her...."

On 10 August he writes:

"It is good to feel oneself guilty, as I do...." And again: "My relations with all of them are difficult; I cannot help desiring death...."

Clearly the pressure brought to bear upon him tormented him. One of his friends, P. I. B..V,{67} was of opinion that no secret should be made of the will, and he told Leo Nikolaevich so. At first he agreed with the opinion of this true friend, but he went away and Leo Nikolaevich submitted to another influence though at times he was obviously oppressed by it. I was powerless to save him from that influence, and for Leo Nikolaevich and myself there began a terrible period of painful struggle which made me still more ill. The sufferings of my hot and harassed heart clouded my reasoning powers, while Leo Nikolaevich's friends worked continually, deliberately, subtly upon the mind of an old man whose memory and powers were growing feeble.{68} They created around him who was dear to me an atmosphere of conspiracy, of letters received secretly, letters and articles sent back after they had been read, mysterious meetings in forests for the performance of acts essentially disgusting to Leo Nikolaevich; after their performance he could no longer look me or my sons straight in the face, for he had never before concealed anything from us; it was the first secret in our life and it was intolerable to him. When I guessed it and asked whether a will was not being made, and why it was concealed from me, I was answered by a "no" or by silence. I believed that it was not a will. It meant, therefore, that there was some other secret of which I knew nothing, and I was in despair with the perpetual feeling that my husband was being carefully set against me and that a terrible and fatal ending was in front of us.{69} Leo Nikolaevich's threats to leave the house became more and more frequent, and this threat added to my torment and increased my nervousness and ill-health.

I shall not describe in detail Leo Nikolaevich's going away. So much has been and will be written about it, but no one will know the real cause. Let _his_ biographers try to find out.

When I read in the letter which Leo Nikolaevich sent me through our daughter Alexandra that he had gone away finally and for ever, I felt and clearly understood that without him--and especially after all that had happened--life would be utterly impossible, and instantly I made up my mind to put an end to all my sufferings by throwing myself into the pond in which some time before a girl and her little brother had been drowned. But I was rescued, and, when Leo Nikolaevich was told of it, he wept bitterly, as his sister, Marie Nikolaevna, wrote to me, but he could not get himself to return.{70}

After Leo Nikolaevich's going away an article appeared in the newspapers expressing the joy of one of his most "intimate" friends at the event.{71}

XII

All my children came to Yasnaya Polyana and called in a specialist on nervous diseases and had a nurse to be with me. For five days I ate nothing and did not take a drop of water.

I felt no hunger, but my thirst was acute. In the evening of the fifth day my daughter Tanya persuaded me to drink a cup of coffee, by saying that, if father summoned me, I would be so weak that I should be unable to go.

Next morning we received a telegram from the newspaper _Russkoye Slovo_ that Leo Nikolaevich had fallen ill at Astapovo and that his temperature was 104. The "intimate" friend had received a telegram before this and had already left, carefully concealing from his family the place where the patient was lying. We took a special train at Tula and went to Astapovo. Our son Serge on his way to his estate had been overtaken by a telegram from his wife who had sent it at our daughter Alexandra's request, and he was already with his father.

This was the beginning of new and cruel sufferings for me. Round my husband was a crowd of strangers and outsiders, and I, his wife who had lived with him for forty-eight years, was not admitted to see him. The door of the room was locked, and, when I wanted to get a glimpse of my husband through the window, a curtain was drawn across it. Two nurses who were told off to look after me held me firmly by the arms and did not allow me to move. Meanwhile Leo Nikolaevich called our daughter Tanya to him and began asking all about me, believing me to be in Yasnaya Polyana. At every question he cried, and our daughter said to him: "Don't let us talk about mama, it agitates you too much." "Ah, no," he said, "that is more important to me than anything." He also said to her, but already indistinctly: "A great deal of trouble is falling upon Sonya; we have managed it badly."

No one ever told him that I had come, though I implored every one to do so. It is difficult to say who was responsible for this cruelty. Every one was afraid of accelerating his death by agitating him; that was also the doctors' opinion.{72} Who can tell? Perhaps our meeting and my ways of looking after him to which he was accustomed, might have revived him. In one of his letters to me, which I have recently published, Leo Nikolaevich writes that he dreads falling ill without me.

The doctors allowed me to see my husband when he was now hardly breathing, lying motionless on his back, with his eyes already closed. I whispered softly some tender words in his ear, hoping that he might still hear how I had been all the time there in Astapovo and how I loved him to the end. I don't remember what more I said to him, but two deep sighs, as though the result of a terrible effort, came as an answer to my words, and then all was still....

All the days and nights that followed, until his body was removed, I spent by the dead, and in me too life became cold. The body was taken to Yasnaya Polyana; a multitude of people came there, but I saw and recognized no one, and the day after the funeral I collapsed with the same illness, pneumonia, though in a less dangerous form, and I was in bed for eighteen days.

A great comfort to me at the time was the presence of my sister Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii, and of Leo Nikolaevich's cousin, Varvara Valeryanovna Nagornaya. My children, tired out, returned to their families.

XIII

And then there began my lonely life in Yasnaya Polyana, and the energy which I used to spend on life was and is directed only to this, that I may endure my sorrowful existence worthily and with submission to the will of God. I try to occupy myself only with what in some way or another concerns the memory of Leo Nikolaevich.

I live in Yasnaya Polyana keeping the house and its surroundings as they were when Leo Nikolaevich was alive, and looking after his grave. I have kept for myself two hundred desyatins of land with the apple orchard and the plantations, the making of which had given us such pleasure. The greater part of the land (475 desyatins), with the fine, carefully preserved woods, I sold to my daughter Alexandra to be transferred to the peasants.{73}

I also sold my Moscow house to the municipality,{74} and I sold the last edition of the works of Leo Tolstoy, and gave all the proceeds to my children. But they, and particularly the grandchildren, are so numerous! Including the daughters-in-law and myself, we are now a family of thirty-eight, and my help was, therefore, far from satisfactory.

I always feel in my heart profound gratitude to the Sovereign Emperor for granting me a pension, which allows me to live in security and to keep the manor of Yasnaya Polyana.

Three years have now passed. I look sadly on the havoc in Yasnaya Polyana, how the trees which we planted are being cut down, how the beauty of the place is gradually being spoiled, now that everything has been handed over to the timber-merchants and peasants who frequently have painful quarrels, now about the land and now about the woods. And what is going to happen to the manor and the house after my death?

Almost daily I visit the grave; I thank God for the happiness granted to me in early life, and as to the last troubles between us, I look upon them as a trial and a redemption of sin before death. Thy will be done.{75}

COUNTESS SOPHIE TOLSTOY.

OCTOBER 28, 1913. YASNAVA POLYANA.

NOTES

{1}. In _The Book of Genealogies of the Nobility of the Moscow Government_, Vol. I, page 122, it is said of S. A. T.'s father: "Andrey Evstafevich, son of a chemist, born 9 April, 1808, a physician on the staff of the Moscow Palace Control, collegiate assessor 1842, State Councillor 1864."

{2}. This was the former name of the Commandant's Board.

{3}. Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, first cousin of S. A. T.

{4}. Born 3 December, 1789, died 25 March, {1855}. Buried in Petersburg in the Volkov Lutheran Cemetery. _Peterburgskii Necropol, Petersburg_, 1912, Vol. I, page 204.

{5}. In _The Book of Genealogies of the Nobility of the Moscow Government_, Vol. I, page 122, the Bers are included under Section III, _i. e._ among those families which were promoted to the title of nobility through the civil service. The year of their promotion was 1843. The right to the coat-of-arms was granted by Supreme Order to the father of S. A. T. in 1847. See V. Lukomskii and S. Troinizkii, _List of persons to whom has been granted by H. I. M. the right to coats-of-arms and the title of nobility of the All-Russian Empire and of the Kingdom of Poland_, Petersburg, 1911, page 14.

{6}. Alexander Evstafevich Bers, born 18 February, 1807, died 6 September, 1871. See _Peterburgskii Necropol_, Vol. I, page 204; also V. Lukomskii and S. Troinizkii, page 14.

{7}. In the Tula Province, twenty-five versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

{8}. A. M. Islenev, born 16 July, 1794, died 23 April, 1882. Leo Tolstoy, who knew him well, described him as the father in _Childhood Boyhood and Youth_. See P. Sergeenko, _From the Life of L. N. Tolstoy_ and _How Count L. N. Tolstoy Lives and Works_, Moscow, 1898, page 40.

{9}. The well-known Vladimir Alexandrovich Islavin, State Councillor, born 29 November, 1818, died 27 May, 1895, author of the _The Samoyeds, their Domestic and Social Life_, Petersburg, 1847, which at the time was much discussed in newspapers and magazines. See V. I. Maezkov's _Systematic Catalogue of Russian Books_, A. F. Basunov, Petersburg, 1869, page 404.

{10}. There were five sons and three daughters, _The Book of Genealogies_, Vol. I, pages 122 and {123}. The best known of these, besides Sophie Andreevna, were: Tatyana Andreevna (by marriage Kuzminskii) born 24 October 1846, the author of _My Reminiscences of Countess Marie Nikolaevna Tolstoy_, Petersburg, 1914; Stepan Andreevich Bers, born 21 July 1855, author of _Reminiscences of L. N. Tolstoy_, Smolensk, 1894; Peter Andreevich Bers, born 26 August 1849, died 19 May 1910, the editor of _Detskyii Otdikh_ (1881-1882), and co-editor with L. D. Obolenskii of the collection of _Stories for Children by I. S. Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy_, 1883 and 1886; Vacheslav Andreevich Bers, born 3 May 1861, died 19 May, 1907, an engineer who was killed for no obvious reason by workmen during the revolutionary days in Petersburg. Leo N. Tolstoy was very fond of him. See P. Biryukov, _How L. N. T. Composed the Popular Calendar_, {1911}.

{11}. A. Y. Davidov, 1823-1885, professor of mathematics in the University of Moscow, author of popular text-books on algebra and geometry.

{12}. N. A. Sergievskii, 1827-1892, a writer on theology, author of many scholarly theological books, founder and editor of _The Orthodox Review_, professor of theology in the University of Moscow.

{13}. In the Natasha of _War and Peace_ there are many characteristics of S. A. T. and of her sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii. According to S. A. T., Leo Nikolaevich made the following remark about his heroine: "I took Tanya, ground her up with Sonya, and there came out Natasha." See P. Biryukov, _Biography of L._ N. T., Vol. II, page 32.

{14}. In S. A. T.'s story _Natasha_ L. N. T. recognized himself in the hero, Dublitskii, and he wrote to her in September, 1862: "I am Dublitskii, but to marry merely because I needed a wife--that I could not do. I demand something tremendous, impossible from marriage; I demand that I should be loved as much as I am able to love." L. N. T. doubted whether a woman could fall in love with him deeply and completely, as he was not good-looking. On 28 August, 1862, he put down in his diary: "I got up in the usual despondency. I thought out a society for apprentices. A sweet, placid night. Ugly face, don't think of marriage, your vocation is different and much has been given you instead." _L. N. T.'s Letters to his Wife_, edited by A. E. Gruzinskii, 1913. P. Biryukov, _Biography of L. N. T._, Vol. I, page 471.

{15}. M. N. Tolstoi, 7 March, 1830--6 April, 1912, sister of L. N. T. In the 'sixties she went abroad with her brother Nikolai and lived with him at Hyeres in the South of France. After her brother's death, M. N. T., overcome with grief, did not wish to return to Russia and settled for a short time in Algiers. She returned from there in 1862 and visited Yasnaya Polyana for a short time and met S. A. T. and her mother there. See T. A. Kuzminskii, _My Reminiscences of Marie N. Tolstoy_, Petersburg, 1914. P. Biryukov, _Countess Marie N. Tolstoy_, in "_Russkaya Vedomostii_," 1912, Moscow. A. Khiryakov, _L. N. Tolstoy's Sister_, in "_Solitse Rossii_," 1912. S. Tolstoy, _To the Portrait of Countess Marie N. Tolstoy_ in _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, 1912. L. N. Tolstoy's Letters to Marie N. Tolstoy in _New Collection of Letters of L. N. Tolstoy_, collected by P. A. Sergeenko, edited by A. E. Gruzinskii, Moscow, 1912, and Complete works of L. N. Tolstoy, Vols. XXI-XXIV, edited by P. I. Biryukov, Moscow, 1913.

{16}. S. A. T. here leaves out some curious details. According to her own account, Leo Nikolaevich followed the Bers family, first to Ivitsa, Tula Province, fifty versts from Yasnaya Polyana, and then to Moscow. Leo Nikolaevich's proposal to S. A. T., which was like Levin's to Kitty in _Anna Karenina_, took place at Ivitsa. See "The Marriage of L. N. Tolstoy," from the reminiscences of S. A. T. under the title "My Life," in _Russkoye Slovo_, 1912. Also P. Biryukov, _Biography of L. N. Tolstoy_, Vol. I, pages 464-473, and L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_, pages 1-3.

{17}. The Bers family were convinced that L. N. T. was in love with Liza, the elder sister of S. A. T., and expected him to propose to her. This misunderstanding worried L. N. T. as he said in his letter to S. A. T. See L. N. Tolstoy's Letters to his Wife, pages 1-3.

{18}. Orekov, a serf of Yasnaya Polyana, L. N. T.'s inseparable companion during the war in Sevastopol, and later steward at Yasnaya Polyana. See I. Tolstoy, _My Reminiscences_, Moscow, 1914, pages 18, 22-23.

{19}. T. A. Ergolskii, born 1795, died 20 June 1874, a remote relation brought up in the Tolstoy family, taught Marie, Leo and his brothers, who lost their mother at an early age. In Tolstoy's house she was called aunt. See _Reminiscences of Childhood_ and L. N. T.'s _Letters to T. A. Ergolskii_; also L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters_, 1848-1910, collected and edited by P. A. Sergeenko, L. N. Tolstoy's _Diary_, Vol. I, 1847-1852, edited by V. G. Chertkov, Moscow, 1917.

{20}. The beginning of Chapter II, ending with the words "and in copying out his writings," is incorporated literally by S. A. T. from the first MS. There is also written in pencil by her "This is new." The statement is not quite accurate. In the remainder of Chapter III, which is new, a small part of the original Chapter III, slightly altered, is incorporated. We shall quote this part in full:

"The first thing which I copied in my clumsy, but legible handwriting was _Polikushka_. For many, many years afterwards that work delighted me. I used to long for the evening when Leo N. would give me something newly written or corrected for me to copy.

"I was carried away by the newly created scenes and descriptions, and I tried to understand and watch the artistic development and growth of ideas and creative activity in my husband's works...."

{21}. The beginning was published in two numbers of _Russkii Vyestnik_, 1865 and 1866, and under the title of _The Year 1805_ was later published in book form, Moscow, 1866. Tolstoy returned to the Decembrists when he had finished _Anna Karenina_, but was again disappointed. "My Decembrists are again God knows where; I don't even think of them," he wrote to Fet in April, 1879, (Fet, _My Reminiscences_, Vol. II, page 364). The first three chapters of the Decembrists were published in a miscellaneous volume called _Twenty-five Years_, 1859-1884, Petersburg, 1884. But towards the end of his life Tolstoy again became interested in the Decembrists and began to study the period, see A. B. Goldenweiser, Diary, _Russkie Propilei_. Vol. II, pages 271-272, Moscow, 1916.

{22}. A. M. Zhemchuznikov and I. S. Aksakov visited Leo Nikolaevich in the middle of December, 1864, in Moscow at his father-in-law's house where he came to have his arm medically treated. It was then that he read to them some chapters from _War and Peace_. See L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_, page 41.

{23}. There were a number of musical works which always made a deep impression upon Tolstoy. See list of musical works loved by L. N. Tolstoy, given by A. B. Goldenweiser, _Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik_, pages 158-160; also musical works loved by L. N. Tolstoy, in S. L. Tolstoy's _Reminiscences_.

24. Countess A. A. Tolstoy reproached Leo Nikolaevich for his long silence in a letter of 1 May 1863. Leo Nikolaevich wrote a four page letter in reply, but did not send it; later in the autumn of 1863 he wrote another letter, which he sent. The quotation referred to is, evidently, from the letter which was not sent, and which, as far as we know, has not appeared in print.

{25}. This quotation from L. N. T.'s Diary is also given in Biryukov's Biography, but in somewhat different form. He also gives a detailed sketch of the work, which Tolstoy wrote in his diary; see Biryukov, Vol. II, pages 27-28.

{26}. N. A. Lyubimov, 1830-1897, well-known professor of physics at the University of Moscow, a collaborator with Katkov and K. Leontev in editing the _Russkii Vyestnik_ and _Moskovskaya Vedomesti_.

{27}. Strakhov's articles on _War and Peace_ were published in _Zarya_, 1869 and 1870, and in book form in 1871. His articles on Tolstoy and Turgenev appeared in book form under the title, _Critical Articles on I. S. Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy_, second edition, 1887.

{28}. Edmond About, 1828-1885, the French writer to whom Turgenev sent a copy of _War and Peace_, translated by Princess Paskevich, and a letter from which the above quotation is taken. M. About published the letter in _Le XIX e Siecle_, 23 January, 1880, under the title "_Une Lettre de Tourgueneff_."

{29}. Vasilii Yakoblevich Mirovich, 1740-1764, a lieutenant in the Smolenskii infantry regiment, executed for his attempt to rescue Ivan Antonovich from prison. His story formed the plot of G. P. Danilevskii's novel _Mirovich_ (Petersburg, 1886).

{30}. From the sketch of the year 1831-2: "The guests were arriving at the country-house." See Pushkin, edited by S. A. Vengerov, Petersburg, 1910, Vol. IV, pages 255-258.

{31}. In P. Biryukov's Biography, Vol. II, page 205, the words are given thus: "That is how one should begin. The reader is at once made to feel the interest of the plot. Another writer would begin to describe the guests, the rooms, but Pushkin goes straight to the point."

{32}. This quotation is a combination of two passages from L. N. T.'s letter to Countess A. A. Tolstoy of December, 1874. In the beginning of this letter he says that he has written a letter to her, but has torn it up and is writing another. It is possible that S. A. T. is quoting from the original letter.

{33}. Peter, eighteen months old, 18 November, 1873; Nikolai, two months old, February, 1875; and the daughter born prematurely, November, {1875}.

{34}. T. A. Ergolskii (see note 19), and Pelageya Ilinishna Yushkov, the sister of L. N. T.'s father, died 22, December, 1875. This death particularly affected Tolstoy. He wrote to Countess A. A. Tolstoy: "It is strange, but the death of this old woman of eighty affected me more than any other death.... Not an hour passes without my thinking of her." _Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 262-3.

{35}. From Fet's poem: "I repeated: 'When I will....'" Later Fet evidently re-wrote the poem; his last four lines are:

In my hand--what a marvel--
Is your hand.
And on the grass--two emeralds.
Two glow-worms.

See A. A. Fet, Complete Works, Vol. I, page 427, Petersburg, 1912.

{36}. Five poems are known to have been dedicated by Fet to S. A. Tolstoy, see Complete Works, Vol. I, pages 413, 414, and 449.

{37}. A few months after his visit to Yasnaya Polyana Turgenev wrote to Fet: "I was very glad to make it up again with Tolstoy, and I spent three pleasant days with him; his whole family is very sympathetic and his wife is a darling." See Fet, _My Reminiscences_, Vol. II, page 355, Moscow, {1890}.

{38}. Wilkie Collins, 1824-1889; his novel _The Woman in White_, was translated into Russian under the same title, Petersburg, 1884.

{39}. The house was bought in 1882 in the Khamovnicheskii Pereulok.

{40}. An allusion to V. G. Chertkov who became acquainted with Tolstoy in 1883. See P. A. Boulanger, _Tolstoy and Chertkov_, Moscow, 1911; A. M. Khiryakov, "Who is Chertkov?" in _Kievskava Starina_, 1910; P. Biryukov, Biography, Vol. II, pages 471-3, 479-480; V. Mikulich, _Shadows of the Past_, Petersburg, 1914; Ilya Tolstoy, _My Reminiscences_, pages 234-5, 247, 265, 269-275; Countess A. A. Tolstoy, "Reminiscences" in _Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 36-38.

{41}. S. A. T. for a long time did not believe in the seriousness of Leo Nikolaevich's searchings, considering them a weakness, a disease due to over-work and the playing of a part. See Biryukov, Biography, pages 474-478; L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_, pages 196-8.

{42}. A. P. Bobrinskii, Minister of Transport 1871-1874, and a disciple of Radstock; Tolstoy was struck by "the sincerity and warmth of his belief." See _Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 245, 265, 268, and 275.