  WHY TOLSTOY WENT AWAY CHAPTER ILIFE AT YASNAYA POLYANA A few days after the foregoing letter was written Leo Nikolaevitch left Yasnaya Polyana. At first sight it may seem that if he did well in remaining so long with his wife, he ought not to have abandoned her in the end; or, on the contrary, if he was right in going away, it was a mistake not to have done so sooner. That is how many do reason. Some—the majority—commend him for his departure, considering that thereby he "atoned" for his supposed weakness and inconsistency in the past. Others—a small minority—commend him, on the contrary, for remaining so many years with his wife, but consider his going away a proof of his inconsistency.[7] It seems to me that in any case Leo Nikolaevitch's friends who were able to estimate at its true value the self-sacrifice with which he remained a voluntary prisoner in his wife's house for so many years ought, more than anyone, to have that confidence in him of which he was worthy. They might at least be confident that if, after all this, he did decide to go away, he must have had good grounds for doing so; especially since such an explanation is far more natural and credible than the supposition that Leo Nikolaevitch, who had so successfully endured this prolonged ordeal and had displayed such striking stoicism and self-sacrifice, on the eve of his death suddenly, for some reason, broke down and was false to his conscience. In regard to the question of whether he was to remain with his wife or go away, Leo Nikolaevitch was guided not by any one impulse, but by many, and often contradictory, impulses. On the side of not leaving his wife he had various considerations which are touched on in my letter to Dosev. The chief of them was his consciousness that in remaining he was fulfilling the demands of love in regard to Sofya Andreyevna, and was trying to do her good, while he was performing an act of self-sacrifice for the benefit of his own soul. He had also, in the course of the last thirty years of his life, many grounds for going away; and though, until the time was ripe, they could not outweigh those that kept him with his family, yet in themselves they were very weighty. On one side he was painfully conscious—and ever more painfully as time went on—of all the injustice, all the sinfulness of the surroundings of his home life, which were those of a rich landowner in the midst of the poverty around him, and he never forgave himself for his participation in those surroundings. Some months before his death he wrote, as is well known, in the introduction to his novel, There are No Guilty in the World: "The complicated conditions of the past, my family and its demands, have not let me out of their clutches"; and, at once, with the fear of self-justification characteristic of him, hastened to add "or rather I had not the ability nor strength to free myself from them." But recognising at that time the hopelessness of his position, Leo Nikolaevitch found a good side in the fact that it was so painful to him. "Being without any desire for self-justification, or any fear of the liberated peasants, and also without the peasants' envy and bitterness against their oppressors, I am in the most favourable position for seeing the truth and being able to tell it. Perhaps it was just for this that I have been placed by fate in this strange position. I will try, as far as I know how, to take advantage of it. This at least to some extent, anyway, alleviates my condition." On the other hand, he was at times much distressed by the consciousness of the false position in which he was placed before men, and before the peasants especially, by the external conditions of his life, which were so directly opposed to his convictions. He was well aware that the majority of people condemned him for taking part in that life. But he was resigned even to that, finding a spiritual blessing in his humiliation before men. In his Circle of Reading[8] he said: "What is called religious folly, i.e. conduct which provokes censure and attack, is intelligible and desirable as the sole proof of one's love for God and one's neighbour." "The condemnation by man of your actions," he says in a private letter, "if your actions are not due to selfish motives, but to doing the will of God, is far from requiring you to justify them; on the contrary, this condemnation is a benefit, in that it gives you certain conviction that you do what you are doing not for the praise of men, but for the sake of your soul, for God."[9] But above all Leo Nikolaevitch had to suffer directly from his wife's antagonism and disagreement with regard to what was for him more precious than anything. This hostility on the part of his wife often reached the point of unconcealed hatred of him, making him at times despair of the possibility of softening her heart at all. As years went on the spiritual rift between them became complete. Leo Nikolaevitch had periods of such doubt and depression of spirit that he felt quite hopeless, and was ready to run away from home. One of these periods I have referred to above, but even at the beginning of the 'eighties Leo Nikolaevitch had moments when he could scarcely restrain himself from going away. It was so, for instance, in the summer of the year 1884. In his diary of that time we find such entries: "If only I could have confidence in myself.... I cannot go on with this savage life. Even for them" (the members of his family) "it would be a benefit. They will reconsider things if they have anything like a heart.... I said nothing, but I felt horribly depressed. I went away, and meant to go away altogether, but her being with child made me turn back half way to Tula.... It was horribly painful.... It was a mistake not to go away. I think it will be bound to happen sooner or later."[10] After 1884, as Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual forces developed further and gained strength, he did succeed to some extent in bearing patiently the insults and suffering inflicted upon him, and learnt to resign himself to the painfulness of his position, extracting gain for his inner life from all that he endured. But how hard it still was for him may be seen, for instance, from the confession that broke from him in conversation with a friend of his, the peasant M. P. Novikov, when the latter visited him on the 21st October, 1910: "I have never concealed from you that in this house I am boiling as in hell, and I have always dreamed of going away, and longed to go somewhere into the forest to a keeper's hut, or to a village to some lonely peasant's hut, where we could help one another. But God has not given me the strength to break away from my family. My weakness is perhaps a sin, but I could not for the sake of my personal satisfaction make others suffer, even although they are members of my family...." During this time everything that was painful in Leo Nikolaevitch's relations with Sofya Andreyevna, and which had grown with the decades, began to develop with increased rapidity. In this brief but terribly concentrated period of his life much which his goodwill towards her had prevented him from observing in Sofya Andreyevna before began to be apparent to him. At first it was very difficult for him to see his way in his complicated position and among all the varied feelings and impulses which rose up in his soul. He had not only to bear his old, long familiar cross, but also to deal with new, quite unforeseen trials before he had time to see clearly what attitude he ought to take up to them. These exceptionally complicated conditions must be kept in view in order to follow Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual experiences of that period with any degree of accuracy. It was difficult for him to understand his own state of mind, and he exercised the greatest circumspection in order not to act prematurely nor precipitately. It is all the more necessary for us to be extremely circumspect in examining the various spiritual states which followed each other and were interwoven in him at that time. It is impossible to approach the very complicated workings of his soul with ready-made theories, or to offer a rough-and-ready explanation of Leo Nikolaevitch's behaviour on the lines of one's personal bias—whether domestic, religious, social, or otherwise; and least of all can one be guided by information or argument coming from his domestic circle, whose vanity was so deeply wounded by his departure. In order really to understand Tolstoy and his behaviour in this most important period of his life, it is above all needful to free oneself from the slightest partiality, narrowness and one-sidedness, to be ready to look the truth in the face and as far as possible to weigh attentively all the conditions and circumstances, not taken separately, but in combination and in all their complex interaction. FOOTNOTES[7] I have come across references to my letter to Dosev as though it proved that, for all my devotion to Leo Nikolaevitch, I considered that he ought not to have left his wife. But there is nothing of the sort in my letter, the main drift of which is merely that no one has the right to set himself up as a judge of Leo Nikolaevitch in the matter. I indicated in detail how sound were the reasons impelling him to remain in Yasnaya Polyana while he did remain there; but at the same time, in the very same letter, though it was written before Leo Nikolaevitch went away, I made several allusions to the possibility that in the end he would think it necessary to go. [8] Circle of Reading, May 17. [9] 1907. [10] June 17-24, 1884. CHAPTER IICHANGE FOR THE WORSE IN HIS WIFE'S ATTITUDE TO HIM And so in the last few months before Leo Nikolaevitch left Yasnaya Polyana he was subjected in an intensified form to all the agonising conditions which had for many years made him long to get away from his family. What went on around him in Yasnaya Polyana, particularly in the management of the estate, seemed to be purposely calculated to wound, insult and revolt him more and more in his most sacred feelings. In her relations with the peasants Sofya Andreyevna, far from restraining herself through consideration for her husband, behaved with peculiar injustice and harshness as though to spite him.[11] At one time she would try to impress on the peasants that she was acting with the consent and approval of Leo Nikolaevitch himself; at another she would boast before him that his championship had no influence on her arrangements. It is easy to imagine how unutterably painful all this was for him. It is sufficient to recall how he sobbed when he chanced to come across a policeman on horseback dragging along a Yasnaya Polyana peasant caught in the Tolstoys' forest, an old man whom Leo Nikolaevitch knew well and respected. Fully realising that he would not in the least improve the position of the peasants by going away, Leo Nikolaevitch went on regarding such spectacles as a bitter trial laid upon him, and confining himself to protesting warmly on every possible occasion. In the same way, that is as a trial laid upon him, he continued to look upon the false position in which he was placed in the eyes of the public by his apparent acceptance of what was done in Yasnaya Polyana. On this subject he not only continually received abusive letters which he accepted as a useful exercise in humility, but also from time to time persons wishing him well addressed him with censure and exhortation. A letter written by Leo Nikolaevitch at the beginning of 1910 in answer to an unknown student who had written to persuade him to leave his privileged surroundings, is characteristic: "Your letter touched me," wrote Leo Nikolaevitch; "what you advise me to do is my cherished dream! That I should be living at home with my wife and daughter in horrible, shameful conditions of luxury in the midst of the poverty around us tortures me unceasingly and ever more and more; and not a day passes on which I do not think of carrying out your advice." At the same time a third and most painful trial, consisting in his wife's immediate attitude to him, was intensely accentuated. The mournful recital of those spiritual agonies which shattered his health, and which she systematically inflicted on him in the last months of his life, will be set forth in its time and place. No one can imagine what he had to endure and to suffer at that time. On one occasion, calling in D. P. Makovitsky,[12] Leo Nikolaevitch said to him: "Dushan Petrovitch, go to her" (Sofya Andreyevna) "and tell her that if she desires my death she is going the right way to bring it about."[13] In a touching letter of July 14, 1910, to Sofya Andreyevna, Leo Nikolaevitch, after making her every concession he considered possible, adds in conclusion: "If you will not accept these conditions of a good and peaceful life, then I will go away.... I will certainly go away, because it is impossible to go on living like this." It will be readily understood that with such a position of affairs Leo Nikolaevitch began to foresee more and more definitely the possibility that in the end he would have to leave Yasnaya Polyana. In a moment of openness he said to his friend, the peasant Novikov: "Yes, yes, believe me, I tell you frankly I shall not die in this house. I have made up my mind to go to a strange place where I shall not be known. And perhaps I may come straight to die in your hut.... I want to prepare for death in peace, and here they think of me as worth so many roubles. I shall go away, I shall certainly go away." Only a final decisive shock was needed. In his same letter to the student he says about going away: "This can and ought only to be done when it is essential, not for the supposed external objects, but for the satisfaction of the inner need of the soul,—when to remain in the old position becomes as morally impossible as it is physically impossible not to cough when one cannot breathe.... And I am near to that position, and every day I get nearer and nearer to it." But Leo Nikolaevitch still did not go away, and remaining continued to be subjected on an increased scale to the tortures to which he had been subjected since the 'eighties. And he remained still for the same reasons as had restrained him for thirty years. He knew that he would not alleviate the position of the peasants of the district by going. From his painful position in the eyes of men he drew a profitable lesson in humility. His wife's attitude to him assisted in him the development of true love for those who hated his soul. And therefore the more intense these trials became with the passage of time, the more painfully they were reflected in his soul, the more difficult it became for him to deal with them—the more insistent from the spiritual point of view became the moral duty not to forsake his post, but to endure to the end. FOOTNOTES[11] At the beginning of the eighties of the last century, Leo Nikolaevitch's feeling against property in general, and the ownership of land in particular, began to take shape, though it was only somewhat later that it was fully fixed and confirmed. He renounced all property for himself personally in 1894, acting as though in that respect he were dead, that is, leaving the possession of his former property to those whom he regarded as his heirs, that is, his family. After this Sofya Andreyevna began to manage the estate of Yasnaya Polyana, while his children divided the land and property between them. Later on Leo Nikolaevitch felt, he said, that he had made a mistake in giving up the land to his "heirs" instead of to the local peasants, and at the desire of his family confirming the transfer by legal act. [12] An intimate friend who shared the views of Leo Nikolaevitch, a doctor who lived in the Tolstoys' house from the year 1904. He was of Slovak nationality, and in 1920 left Russia and returned to Czechoslovakia, where he died in 1921. [13] From one of the diaries and letters of Tolstoy's friends and household of the times. CHAPTER IIITHE HISTORY OF THE WILL In order to understand why Sofya Andreyevna's attitude to Leo Nikolaevitch was so exasperated, and what impelled her to treat him so cruelly, it is essential to have some conception why he found it necessary about this time to make a will, leaving all his writings free to the public. The story of Tolstoy's will is so complicated and full of details that a separate circumstantial account of it is required. Here I will only briefly state the most essential facts. At the beginning of the 'eighties, at the time when the spiritual regeneration of Leo Nikolaevitch was taking place, though his new attitude of completely disapproving of property was not yet fully defined, he made over to his wife an authorisation for the publication and sale of his collected works, the income from which was the principal source of the material means by which his family lived. Later on, when he came to realise that property of every kind was wrong, he did not, in spite of all his efforts, succeed in persuading Sofya Andreyevna to renounce this income voluntarily and to give him back the authorisation he had given her. He did not feel morally justified in forcibly depriving her of what she clung to so passionately, and what against the will of Leo Nikolaevitch she considered had been put at the disposal of the family for ever. This trading in his works by his wife against his wish was, in his own words, one of the most agonising sufferings of his life. All his new works, however, those that had appeared after 1881 and those destined to appear later, he thereupon freed from the monopoly of his family, announcing in a letter to the newspapers, that all who wished could reprint them without any fee. Sofya Andreyevna had, willy-nilly, to submit to this decision on the part of the author. But every time when, instead of articles of a religious and social character, which did not in the literary market command the immense value enjoyed by his artistic works, Leo Nikolaevitch undertook any work in artistic form, Sofya Andreyevna was so much excited and so persistently demanded that the publication of the new work should be handed over to her for the benefit of the family, that it completely destroyed the spiritual tranquillity which he needed for concentrated creative work. Many times repeated, these family scenes led him to decide to print no more works of art during his lifetime.[14] And this decision of his is the real reason why, during the latter period of his life, he gave so little to humanity in that sphere. In the end Sofya Andreyevna began quite openly to declare, even in the presence of Leo Nikolaevitch, that after his death, according to the advice of lawyers whom she had consulted, his renunciation of all literary property in the works of the second period would lose its validity, and that those works also would, like all the rest, become the property of his family. Besides this she began to insist that Leo Nikolaevitch should give her a fresh authorisation for the sale of his writings of the first period for a long time in the future and also give her the right to prosecute at law anyone who should infringe the copyright. In his diary for 1909 Leo Nikolaevitch writes: "Last night I felt wretched after talking to Sofya Andreyevna about publishing my works and prosecuting. If she only knew and understood how she alone poisons the last hours, days, months, of my life! I do not know how to say it to her and have no hope that anything one could say would produce the slightest effect upon her."[15] Becoming convinced that this greed of Sofya Andreyevna on behalf of the family would only increase with years, and that she really was capable of taking possession of all his works after his death and of depriving other publishers of the possibility of printing them, Leo Nikolaevitch felt himself morally bound to guard against such a monopolisation of his writings. And he was so firmly convinced that it was his duty before God and men to do this, that in spite of all that he had to endure on account of it afterwards, he remained unshaken upon this point right up to his death, which was brought about by the spiritual sufferings which were inflicted upon him in consequence of this.[16] After carefully thinking over all the circumstances of the case and taking advice of persons conversant with the subject, Leo Nikolaevitch came to the conclusion that if he really desired that his writings should be freely accessible to everyone after his death, he could not secure his object without making a formal will. And therefore, with this end in view, he decided to have recourse to that means. The editorship and first publication of all his posthumous works he entrusted to me, with the understanding that everything brought out by me should at once become public property. And in order to make the fulfilment of this task secure in practice, he made a formal will in favour of his younger daughter Alexandra Lvovna, which would make it possible for her to safeguard my task from any attempts to hinder it. The profit on the first issue of his works after his death he assigned in the first place for the redemption of the Yasnaya Polyana estate from the Tolstoy family in order to hand it over to the peasants, and this was duly carried out after his death. Of course the legal form of the will could not but be distasteful to Leo Nikolaevitch. But this was to some extent counterbalanced in his eyes by the fact that the object of the will was not prosecution of anyone in the future, but, on the contrary, the prevention of the possibility of legal proceedings being taken by persons who might put in claims to inherit proprietary rights in the works of Leo Nikolaevitch if there had been no such will. There was also another disagreeable side to this business for Leo Nikolaevitch. To avoid in connection with the will any altercations and dissensions, which would have been undesirable in themselves and would have made the position of Alexandra Lvovna, as legal heiress of his manuscripts, utterly impossible in the family, Leo Nikolaevitch resolved not to tell anyone of his will. Though to keep the fact of the existence of a will secret is a fairly usual thing to do in such circumstances, it will be readily understood that it was against the grain for Leo Nikolaevitch, and he resolved to act in this way solely because he saw no other alternative.[17] Sofya Andreyevna's fears that Leo Nikolaevitch might make a will depriving his family of the copyright of his works were the underlying cause of her hostile attitude to him. It was on account of this that she made such efforts, on the one hand to wring out of him the complete transfer of all rights in his works to her, and on the other hand by incessant watchfulness over him to eliminate all possibility of his signing any business document without her knowledge. And it was for this same reason that she was filled with such hatred for me personally, assuming, though quite mistakenly, that the initiative in Leo Nikolaevitch's renunciation of his copyrights and the arrangements for carrying this out came from me. Leo Nikolaevitch was so firm in his resolution to leave his writings for the free use of all, that with his own hand he wrote a will in accordance with that idea, not once only but several times, owing to the fact that the legal form of the documents he composed were never sufficiently correct to secure the required authority for them. The last time he made his will while Sofya Andreyevna was watching over him most vigilantly, during a ride on horseback in the thickest part of the forest, having previously invited three persons of the circle of friends living with me at Telyatniki near Yasnaya Polyana to meet him there and witness his signature. By making this will Leo Nikolaevitch secured that after his death his writings became accessible to all, and not the property of his family. This result in itself is of vast social importance, seeing that it gave the working people—the poorest class of all countries—access to Tolstoy's works in the cheapest form, since it was open to any number of publishers to print them, and the competition between them would bring down the price of the books. But apart from this purely practical gain for the vast masses of mankind, the struggle between Leo Nikolaevitch and his wife for the copyright of his works,—the struggle which cost him his life,—had also a great significance from the ideal side. It displayed before the eyes of mankind, present and future, an extremely important truth in connection with the Christian doctrine of the non-resistance to evil by force which Tolstoy so vividly set forth and lighted up in his writings. Leo Nikolaevitch completely sacrificing himself showed in practice that this principle does not lead, as many suppose, to helplessly giving in to evil and allowing it to triumph unchecked. Unyieldingly maintaining his rejection of copyright in the interests of the working masses of mankind, he confirmed by his example, plain to the whole world, what the less eminent "non-resistants" are continually exemplifying in their life. He showed that people of such a theory of life do not give in to evil, but are continually struggling against it in the best and truest way, by refusing to take part in it. He showed also that to yield to the demand of others from meekness and love for them is only admissible up to the limit beyond which they try to make one do what is against one's conscience; and that when people's demands pass beyond those limits, one ought not to yield to them in any way in spite of any sufferings oneself or those one loves may have to bear. No insistence on the part of those nearest him, no sufferings of his own on account of it, were able to compel him in this case to depart from what he considered himself bound to do. Is it possible to find a more convincing proof that Tolstoy recognised it as morally necessary to resist evil in the most resolute way?—and it was just in consequence of this resistance to evil that he had to sacrifice both his peace and his life. In a letter to me of September 10, 1910, Leo Nikolaevitch writes of his inner experience in a way which is highly significant. He says: "Of late, not with my brains but with my sides, as the peasants say, I have come to a clear understanding of the difference between the resistance which is returning evil for evil and the resistance of refusing to yield in the line of conduct which one recognises as one's duty to one's conscience and God. I will try." At the same time by his attitude to the very idea of literary property Tolstoy, by the exceptional sincerity and consistency of his manner of action, has helped and still more will help his literary brethren to see clearly in this "delicate" question, to shut their eyes to which has now become impossible. As time passes a greater and greater number of writers will undoubtedly be troubled by doubts as to whether it is not as morally reprehensible to traffic in one's words, in one's soul, as to traffic in one's body, and Tolstoy's attitude will serve conscientious writers as a guiding star in illuminating this question. One cannot but recognise Tolstoy's conspicuous services in all this. And though he acted as he did without considering what bearing this would have on the consciousness of men, merely striving not to let himself be drawn into an action contrary to his conscience, nevertheless this first renunciation of literary property on the part of one of the greatest writers of the world undoubtedly has a vast significance for humanity. If in my present brief account of Tolstoy's leaving home I have had to dwell rather minutely upon the question of his will, it is because all the threads of the complicated conditions and circumstances which caused his departure meet about that central question. It is true that some of those near to Leo Nikolaevitch have tried to persuade themselves that Sofya Andreyevna's attitude to him, which made it impossible for him to remain longer with her, was chiefly provoked by property interests not connected with his will. They ascribe her conduct to various causes and principally to her neurotic condition and morbid, abnormal jealousy. Although putting the matter in such a light is undoubtedly due to affectionate goodwill to Sofya Andreyevna, I consider it my duty to protest against such an interpretation most decisively in the interests of truth, which here as everywhere is more important than anything. We ought not to hide from ourselves that there are more than a sufficient quantity of facts going to prove that Sofya Andreyevna in this case acted first of all, and most of all, under the influence of feelings and considerations immediately concerned with the material prosperity of her numerous family, consisting, as she was continually reminding people, of twenty-eight persons, counting children and grandchildren. It is essential to keep this circumstance in view in order to have a correct understanding of the attitude of Leo Nikolaevitch to his will. True love for people dead and alive alike is not shown by concealing their mistakes and failures from oneself and others, but in knowing how, in spite of all the undesirable qualities which every one of us has in sufficient quantity, to behave to one another with compassion and tolerance, recognising that everyone is responsible for all. Then we shall not try to pass by the weak spots without noticing them, or to smear over the cracks on the outside, but shall, on the contrary, display them in order that they may be corrected by the efforts of all. The above-mentioned circumstances and motives of the testamentary dispositions of Leo Nikolaevitch in regard to his writings must be kept in mind if one is to have a true conception of his position in the family at the period immediately preceding his "going away." An acquaintance with those circumstances and impulses makes it possible to understand the true character of the relations which have been formed between Leo Nikolaevitch and her with whom he had been connected for forty-eight long years and out of love and pity for whom he was ready to sacrifice all but his conscience. FOOTNOTES[14] This decision, which Leo Nikolaevitch reached alone with his conscience, he tried to keep a secret from everyone, and when, guessing from certain signs how it was, I told him on one occasion, he was much puzzled to know how I could have discovered his secret. To explain why this decision not to publish his artistic work during his lifetime put a stop to Leo Nikolaevitch's work upon them, it must be pointed out that it was his habit to make the chief revision of his first rough sketches on the proofs sent him from the printer's. Besides, if he had merely worked at them in manuscript he would have been subjected to the same persistent persecution which so distracted his peace and his concentration upon his work. (Sofya Andreyevna told me that she had actually exacted a promise from him not to give anyone but herself his manuscripts to copy.) [15] D. P. Makovitsky in his diary says the same thing: "In 1909 before the Stockholm Peace Congress, Sofya Andreyevna wanted to prosecute I. I. Gorbunov for publishing The Prisoner in the Caucasus, and sent Torba (a Court official, her helper in publishing Tolstoy's works) to see a lawyer. The lawyer asked what authority Sofya Andreyevna had for instituting proceedings. 'She has a deed of trust for transacting all Leo Nikolaevitch's affairs.' 'This is not enough, she must have a deed transferring the copyright to her.' Sofya Andreyevna asked Leo Nikolaevitch for it, but he refused point blank. Then Sofya Andreyevna had recourse to hysterics and did not let Leo Nikolaevitch go to Stockholm. In the summer of that year she started playing very cleverly the same game (this time against Tchertkoff), pretending to be ill in order to force Leo Nikolaevitch to give her the copyright. It was not Sofya Andreyevna who said the other thing, but Misha and Andryusha. They blurted out about the will."—(Sept. 14, 1910, Kotchety.) [16] A clear light is thrown upon what Leo Nikolaevitch had to endure in this connection by a letter which a relation of his, the lawyer I. V. Denisenko, wrote for my benefit when I was exiled from the province of Tula in 1909, and being unable to be at Yasnaya Polyana, did not know what was taking place there. I append a few abstracts from the letter to complete the picture: "In the July of 1909, when I was at Yasnaya Polyana, Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy was intending to go to the Peace Congress at Stockholm, and Sofya Andreyevna was opposed to this. This provoked a regular series of misunderstandings and Sofya Andreyevna fell ill, not wishing Leo Nikolaevitch to go to the Congress. "It happened once that she called me into her bedroom, and showing me a general authorisation for the management of their affairs given her long ago by Leo Nikolaevitch, asked me whether she could upon this authorisation sell to a third person the right of publishing his work, and, what was still more important, institute proceedings against Sergeyenko and some teacher in a military school for making books of extracts and anthologies from the works of Leo Nikolaevitch on the ground that these books of extracts would cause her, Sofya Andreyevna, considerable material damage.... "I believe it was on the day after that that I was in the park picking berries with my wife and children. My wife asked me to go for something to the lodge. I went along an avenue, passing between flower-beds, and there quite unexpectedly I came upon Leo Nikolaevitch. I was struck by his appearance. He was bowed and he looked worried and exhausted. His eyes were dim and he seemed weak as I had never seen him before. He caught hurriedly at my arm on meeting me, and said with tears in his eyes: 'Ivan Vassilyevitch, darling, what is she doing to me? What is she doing to me? She is insisting on having an authorisation for instituting proceedings. You know I can't do that.... It would be against my principles.' "Then walking a few steps with me he said: 'I have a great favour to ask of you, only let it be a secret between us. For the time don't speak of it to anyone, not even to Sasha. Please make up a deed for me by which I could announce publicly that I give all my works at whatever date they may have been written freely for the benefit of all.'" [17] There was even a moment when these two undesirable conditions associated with the will, i.e. its legal form and the secrecy accompanying it, caused Leo Nikolaevitch to feel doubts as to the rectitude of his action. These doubts were aroused by a conversation with one of his intimate friends, who came in from outside and knew little of the circumstances of this complicated affair. Leo Nikolaevitch, who was distinguished by an extreme degree of touching sensitiveness to every criticism of his behaviour, agreed with his friend that he had acted, as the latter asserted, "inconsistently," and he told me of it, declaring, however, that he should nevertheless not change the dispositions he had made. On my side I was compelled to reply that in that case of course I should refuse to be his future executor for carrying out his testamentary dispositions, since only a conviction that I was accomplishing his definite and conscious desire could give me the necessary moral support for the performance of this difficult and responsible duty. At the same time, in accordance with his request, I reminded him of the circumstances and considerations which had induced him to have recourse to a will. In answer I received from him the following letter: "I write this on little scraps of paper because I am in the woods out for a walk. Ever since yesterday evening I have been thinking about your yesterday's letter. The two chief feelings which it aroused in me were repulsion for the manifestations of coarse greed and heartlessness which I either did not see or have seen and forgotten, and distress and repentance that I should have hurt you by the letter in which I expressed regret for what I had done. The deduction I have made from the letter is that N. N. was wrong, and also that I was wrong in agreeing with him, and that I fully approve your conduct, but all the same am not satisfied with my own: I feel that it was possible to act better, but I don't know how. Now I do not regret what I have done, i.e. that I have made the will I did make, and I can only be thankful to you for the interest you have taken in the matter. "I shall tell Tanya about it to-day, and that will be very pleasant to me. "Leo Tolstoy. "Aug. 12, 1910." In his private pocket diary on Aug. 11, 1910, Leo Nikolaevitch wrote as follows: "A long letter from Tchertkoff describing all that has gone before. Very sad. Painful to read and recall. He is perfectly right, and I feel to blame in regard to him. N. N. was wrong. I will write to both of them." Certain persons who, for one reason or another, do not sympathise with the testamentary dispositions of Leo Nikolaevitch, and especially those of them who took a personal share in the upsetting of them, continue to this day to assert that Leo Nikolaevitch saw in the end that he had made a mistake and regretted that he had made a will. In confirmation of this they quote a few words written by Leo Nikolaevitch in his pocket diary at the time of his doubts; but they are carefully silent with regard to the later note in the same diary which I have just quoted. In reality, of course, this incident of Leo Nikolaevitch's hesitation can only serve to prove how consciously from every point of view he weighed and considered all the circumstances of the case. If no doubts had ever assailed him it would have been possible to admit the supposition that it had never occurred to him to look at the question from the other side, and that therefore his attitude to it was one-sided. But now we know that he not only took a critical attitude as to his action, but that at one time he even doubted if it were right. If, even after such hesitation, he yet definitely confirmed his desire that the will should remain in force, what can be a better proof that this his final decision expresses his real and fully conscious will?—Cf. Diary, Vol. I. ed. 1916; Appendix, p. 260, "The Will," July 22, 1910. CHAPTER IVINTERVALS OF REST—IN OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES The only intervals of freedom and rest which Leo Nikolaevitch could enjoy from the indescribably painful conditions of life at Yasnaya Polyana at that period were afforded him by the rare occasions when he succeeded in getting away for a week or two to stay with some one of his more intimate friends. Thus during the last year of his life he stayed on two occasions with his daughter Tatyana Lvovna, in the Mtsensk district, and with me (I was in exile from the Tula province), the first time at Kryokshino in the Zvenigorodsky district near Moscow, and afterwards at Meshtcherskoe in the Serpuhovsky district. But he very rarely succeeded in arranging these visits, and only did so with great trouble, since Sofya Andreyevna opposed them in every way; and if, in spite of her opposition, he did make up his mind to go away, it would sometimes happen that at the last minute she would decide to go with him, which, of course, spoilt the chief object of the excursion. I remember on both occasions when he came to us how extremely shattered, worn out and ill Leo Nikolaevitch looked, and how perceptibly before our eyes he improved physically and revived spiritually. Even on the second or third day of a calm life, and in a circle of friends of the same way of thinking, who guarded his spiritual peace and fully respected his independence, he was completely changed. It was as though some crushing, agonising burden had fallen off him; his face was brighter in expression, his movements became vigorous, in the morning he worked with concentration for many hours on end at his writings, amazing us all by the number of written pages which he afterwards gave us to copy out. During his daily walks he went so rapidly and so far that it was difficult for people much younger to keep up with him. With the visitors of the most varied kind, of whom numbers were always flocking to see him, and from whom no one in our house shut him off as at home, he carried on lively conversations in his free time, in that way coming into direct contact with the surrounding world. In conversation with his friends no one interrupted him or contradicted him at every turn, an annoyance to which he was continually subjected at home, and therefore communion with those surrounding him here afforded him joyous spiritual relief. Everything showed what vast stores of energy were still preserved in him; it was clear that under favourable conditions he might for many years to come lead an active life to the joy and profit of humanity. His inner spiritual revival was shown very conspicuously in the fact that every day he became more and more drawn to artistic creation. At first he noted down characteristic meetings and conversations which took place during his walks. And each time before he went away he told me with confident eagerness that great, purely artistic works were stirring within him and taking shape in his soul, and that he hoped now to set to work upon them. But these plans were not destined to be realised, since on his return to Yasnaya Polyana the painful conditions which have been indicated already were renewed, and calm creative work was inconsistent with them. Altogether the difference between his condition, both physical and spiritual, when he arrived and when he left us was striking. I remember how I met him in the garden at the end of his last stay with us at Meshtcherskoe, where he had arrived almost in a state of collapse. He walked quickly and he looked remarkably vigorous and many years younger. With an air of lively surprise he greeted me with the words: "I don't understand what it is in your diet, but whenever I stay with you my digestion seems to become perfect." It is well known that the best conditions for a man suffering from defective digestion are simple, not elaborately prepared, food adapted to his requirements, and above all an even, untroubled spiritual atmosphere in all his home life. But Leo Nikolaevitch expected so little by way of attention from others to his needs and tastes, he attached so little significance for himself to the influence of external surroundings, that it seemed as though it did not enter his head to connect the state of his health with the conditions surrounding him. CHAPTER VTHE LAST PERIOD The last and most painful period of Leo Nikolaevitch's life at Yasnaya Polyana began in June 1910, when, on a visit at my summer bungalow at Meshtcherskoe, in the province of Moscow, he was suddenly summoned back to Yasnaya Polyana by a telegram from Sofya Andreyevna, informing him of her sudden illness; as it afterwards turned out, a sham one. On his return to Yasnaya Polyana, Sofya Andreyevna surrounded his life with new restrictions, finally depriving him of even the limited share of personal freedom which he had until that time enjoyed. She gave up respecting his hours of literary work, for which she had once shown consideration, and by continually bursting in upon him and making scenes, she made it impossible for him to devote himself to the literary work in which he recognised his service to men. His daily walks had become his sole recreation and solace, and now she began to hinder him from going where he wished to go, and from taking with him those whom he wanted to take. She insisted that he should completely give up seeing those of his most intimate friends whose supposed influence on him she feared.[18] Even inside the house she subjected all his actions and conversations to a control which was never relaxed, not disdaining even the most indelicate methods, as, for instance, eavesdropping, with her shoes off at doors, and altogether watching day and night over every action he took. As has already been mentioned, she was demanding from him such an authorisation for the disposal of his works as would give her the power to take legal proceedings in connection with them, and to retain the copyright over a prolonged period in the future. Apprehensive of what he might write in his diary, she tried to prevent his giving the manuscript books of his diary to anyone whatever, even to those whom he charged with work of one sort or another in connection with them, or in whose keeping he desired them to be preserved for the sake of greater security. She secretly stole from his pockets those very private diaries which he kept and carried about with him during the most painful periods of his life and scrupulously preserved from every human eye. Not only did she fail to conceal from him and others her distrust and—terrible to say—hatred for him, but openly in the hearing of all gave utterance to these feelings and often expressed them to him in so harsh a form that it brought on heart attacks and even fainting fits in him. She was jealous, or pretended to be jealous, of some of his most intimate friends, bound to him by the closest spiritual unity. In this connection also she openly expressed to those about her, and to outsiders and to Leo Nikolaevitch himself, such incredibly revolting suspicions as the tongue cannot bring itself to repeat, thereby reducing Leo Nikolaevitch almost to complete collapse and driving him to lock all the doors of his room. And with all this she did everything she could to prevent his going away from Yasnaya Polyana, even for the briefest visits which might have enabled him to have at least some rest from the atmosphere of his home, and to gain fresh strength to endure further tortures. All these requests and others similar to them Sofya Andreyevna did not merely put in words before Leo Nikolaevitch, but if he refused, tried by her whole behaviour to force him against his will to submit to her.[19] For this purpose she resorted to simulated fits of hysteria and madness, threatened to commit suicide, pretended that she would swallow or had swallowed poison, ran half dressed out of doors in the rain or snow or at night, making them search for her all over the park, and running in to him at any time of the day or the night, even when, utterly exhausted, he had dropped asleep, and waking him up with the object of worrying the concessions she wanted out of him. There is no recounting all the unutterably cruel means to which she unhesitatingly resorted for the sake of forcibly compelling him. And when the members of her family told her that she would kill him by such conduct, she answered coldly that his soul had long been dead for her and that she did not care for his body; and if she were asked what she would do and how she would feel if he really did die of her treatment, she would say, "I shall go at last to Italy; I have never been there." Leo Nikolaevitch for his part, so long as he thought it right to remain with his wife, tried with strikingly touching meekness to gratify all her wishes and to comply with all her demands which did not run counter to his conscience. When he considered them unreasonable, at first he refused, but as she obstinately insisted and resorted to her usual methods, in the end he often gave way in those cases also; at one time regarding her as quite insane, and being apprehensive that in a moment of frenzy she really might do herself some mischief. He was only unhesitating in his resistance when his conscience told him that he ought not to give way. Thus, in spite of all Sofya Andreyevna's importunities and strategy, he made his will and did not change it to the end; he did not give her the authority to take legal proceedings; he did not hand over his diaries to her, but put them in a place of safety (in the bank at Tula). But since what was most necessary for her object was just that in which he found it impossible to give way to her, it was precisely with these demands that she persecuted him most. And so all his concessions, instead of pacifying her, only encouraged her in more persistent importunities and still more cruel means of oppression. [18] The members of Tolstoy's household who were most intimate with him—Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy, D. P. Makovitsky and Varvara Mihailovna Feokritova—were convinced that Sofya Andreyevna's hatred of me was a sham. This is proved, for instance, by the following extract from Makovitsky's diary: "While I was riding with Leo Nikolaevitch to-day, I was thinking of Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour since June 24, and I came to the conclusion that in reality she is not, and never has been, jealous of Tchertkoff. She pretended to be jealous simply in order to separate him from Leo Nikolaevitch, and prevent him from influencing Leo Nikolaevitch; she thought it was due to Tchertkoff's influence that Leo Nikolaevitch wanted to give away his works to the public.... "And how well she played the part and deceived L. N., Tchertkoff, Tatyana Lvovna, and me (we were all convinced that she was jealous of Tchertkoff). I spoke of this to-day, and Varvara Mihailovna and Alexandra Lvovna answered that they had noticed the same thing long ago (that is, that there was no jealousy), and had put it down in their diaries" (October 13, 1910). [19] D. P. Makovitsky records the following incident: "The day before yesterday she made a scene again: fell at Leo Nikolaevitch's feet and begged him to give her the keys of the safe in the bank where his diaries or the will were kept. Leo Nikolaevitch said that he could not do it and went out. As he passed under her windows Sofya Andreyevna leaned out and cried, 'I have taken opium.' Leo Nikolaevitch rushed upstairs to her, but she met him with the words, 'That was not true, I did not take any.' This scene upset Leo Nikolaevitch very much, and he said to Sofya Andreyevna, 'You are doing all you can to make me leave home.' After this he had palpitations and almost fainted. He had attempted to run up the stairs, and during those moments of terror and agitation was living through his wife's death" (July 19, 1910) CHAPTER VIMENTAL AGONY It will be readily understood that no health could hold out against such torments lasting over several months at a stretch, no less severe, it may be said, than the tortures of the Inquisition, and exceeding them in their uninterrupted persistence and prolongation. And indeed, returning to Yasnaya in a vigorous and excellent state of health, Leo Nikolaevitch began visibly fading away before her eyes in the nightmare period of the last months of his life: in the course of a few weeks he looked so old and drawn, so weak and thin, so pale and in every respect so physically run down as to be unrecognisable. In the course of those months he had several attacks of faintness. By the day of his departure he looked only the shadow of himself: his heart, his nerves, all his forces were utterly undermined, and of course, under such conditions, the slightest ailment was sure to carry him off, as happened indeed with the first cold he chanced to catch immediately after he went away. All Sofya Andreyevna's conduct during those last months of their life together revealed to Leo Nikolaevitch much in her that he had never noticed before. He was not only led to doubt of his cherished dream of softening her heart by his all-forgiving love; he began even to feel uncertain whether he were doing her harm or good by being near her, and whether the doctors were not right who in her interests advised them to live apart.[20] And in the end he became convinced that his presence really was a direct incitement to evil for her, calling out and accentuating all the worst sides of her character. Speaking of his departure with that same Novikov a week before it took place, Leo Nikolaevitch said: "For my own sake I have not done this and could not do it, but now I see that it would be better for my family, there would be less dispute among them on my account, less sin." Another reason that had previously restrained him from going away lay in the fact that he considered that the ordeal to which he was continually exposed in his wife's company was profitable for his own soul, and found in it a spiritual satisfaction. But in the end Sofya Andreyevna, as she herself expressed it after his death, "overdid it" in her behaviour with him, putting him in such a position that instead of satisfaction he began to experience the sense of awkwardness and shame which one feels in taking part in something unbecoming, unseemly. Two days before he went away he wrote to me: "I feel something unbefitting, something shameful in my position." And in the letter to Alexandra Lvovna the day after he went away he says: "I do not feel that shame, that awkwardness, that lack of freedom which I always used to feel at home." In his last letter to Sofya Andreyevna from Shamardino he states even more definitely that to return to her when she is in such a state of mind would be equivalent to committing suicide, and he did not consider that he had a right to do that. So by now he no longer believed that staying with Sofya Andreyevna was profitable for his own soul, and recognised it as undesirable. In the course of the later years his hesitation had increased with every day, and at times he seemed to be on the very point of flight.[21] He only stayed through not feeling as yet that irresistible impulse which, as he so well recognised, was essential in order that he might take this momentous step, not through rational considerations alone, but with all his soul, confidently and inevitably. And so long as this impulse was lacking and he was more or less weighing the pros and cons of his departure, the consideration that for him personally to go away would be a relief, and that there would be more self-sacrifice in remaining, retained its force. Thus I have been told that two days before his departure, when he informed his old friend, the old lady Marya Alexandrovna Schmidt (who, by the way, later on fully understood and approved his departure), that he thought of leaving Yasnaya Polyana, and she thereupon exclaimed: "Leo Nikolaevitch darling, it will pass, it is a moment's weakness," he hastened to reply: "Yes, yes, I know that it is a weakness and I hope that it will pass." So that in spite of the fact that Leo Nikolaevitch had now become aware of a new phase in Sofya Andreyevna's relations to him, which in reality removed any reasonable purpose in his remaining at her side, and justified his departure, since his presence was becoming bad for her and unprofitable for him, nevertheless he still lingered on, dreading to act prematurely, and as it were waiting for the last decisive shock. And this shock was not long in coming with startling abruptness. FOOTNOTES[20] At the advice of all his friends and members of his household Leo Nikolaevitch went in September to stay with his daughter Tatyana Lvovna Suhotin (at Kotchety) in order to have a rest from family scenes. But Sofya Andreyevna would not leave him in peace even there. This is what we read in Makovitsky's diary: "This is the third day that Sofya Andreyevna is perfectly frantic. Leo Nikolaevitch sent me to her several times during the day; in the morning she was in her room; she complained of headache and said that she had taken no food for two days; in the afternoon she ran off into the garden. "Sofya Andreyevna spent the whole day by herself in the park. Leo Nikolaevitch sent me to find her. "'Oh, Dushan Petrovitch!' he said to me, 'it's worse than ever; everything is going to the worst. Sofya Andreyevna insists that I should go away with her. But I simply cannot do it, for her demands go crescendo and crescendo. I don't know what to do!'" (September 11, 1910, Kotchety.) [21] Thus in D. P. Makovitsky's diary we read: "Leo Nikolaevitch spoke to Alexandra Lvovna of how heavy their family atmosphere was, and said that if it had not been for her he would have gone away. He is on the alert. Yesterday morning he asked me what were the morning trains to the south. He had said to Marya Alexandrovna, and before that to us, that he has not been able to work for the last four months and that Sofya Andreyevna keeps running in to him, and always suspecting that some secrets are being concealed from her, written documents and conversations" (October 26, 1910). CHAPTER VIITHE NIGHT OF TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY It happened very simply. On the night of the 27th October, at a time when it was supposed that Leo Nikolaevitch was asleep, as he lay in bed he heard and saw through a crack in his door Sofya Andreyevna steal softly into his study and search among the papers on his writing-table. Then as she was going away, noticing the light in his room, she went in and began with an anxious face inquiring how he was. This cold hypocrisy on her part apparently destroyed the last illusion of Leo Nikolaevitch. Only a few days before he had been touched by the solicitude with which Sofya Andreyevna, coming into his bedroom in the same way at night, had climbed on to a chair and had set right the movable frame which had been insecurely fastened. Now he remembered that he had heard a rustle the night before too, and the real value of Sofya Andreyevna's care of him was suddenly revealed to him. Chance had unmasked the awful, systematic comedy which was being played from day to day around him, and in which he had unconsciously to play the central part. In his diary he describes what he endured that night as follows:—
As Alexandra Lvovna described, she and her companion Varvara Mihailovna (the amanuensis) were awake that night. She kept fancying that someone was walking about and talking overhead. She was afraid that discussions were taking place between her father and mother. They fell asleep towards morning, but soon heard a knock at the door. Alexandra Lvovna went to the door and opened it. "Who is it?" she asked. "It is I, Leo Nikolaevitch.... I am going away at once ... for good.... Come and help me pack." Alexandra Lvovna said afterwards that she would never forget his figure in the doorway, in a blouse, with a candle in his hand and a bright face resolute and beautiful. In haste to get away, Leo Nikolaevitch dreaded one thing only: that Sofya Andreyevna might come upon him before he succeeded in getting off, and the calm realisation of his unalterable decision might thereby be troubled. "I tremble at the thought that she will hear, will come out—a scene, hysterics, and no getting away in the future without a scene. By six o'clock everything has been packed after a fashion. I go to the stable to order the horses; Sasha and Varya finish the packing.... It is night, pitch dark. I get off the path to the lodge, fall into the bushes, get scratched, knock against trees, fall down, lose my cap, cannot find it; with difficulty make my way out, go home, take a cap, and with a lantern make my way to the stable and order the horses to be harnessed. Sasha, Dushan, Varya come. I tremble, expecting pursuit. But at last we get off. At Shtchekino we wait an hour, and every minute I expect her to appear. But at last we are in the railway carriage and set off. Alarm passes, and pity for her rises, but no doubt as to whether I have done what I ought. Perhaps I am mistaken in justifying myself but it seems to me that I have saved myself not as Leo Nikolaevitch, but have saved what at times at least to some small degree there is in me." CHAPTER VIIITOLSTOY'S RELATION TO HIS WIFE After his departure Leo Nikolaevitch never for a minute repented what he had done, and never considered the idea of his return to Sofya Andreyevna. When his daughter Alexandra Lvovna several days afterwards asked him whether he could regret his action, he answered: "Of course not. Can a man regret something when he could not act differently?" And why he could not act differently he told her openly in his letter of the 29th October: "For me, with this spying, eavesdropping, everlasting reproaches, disposing of me according to caprice, everlasting control, pretence of hatred for the man who is nearest and most necessary to me, with this obvious hatred for me and affectation of love ... such a life is not merely unpleasant for me, but utterly impossible. If anyone is to drown oneself it is not she but I.... I desire one thing only, freedom from her, from the falsity, hypocrisy and malice with which her whole being is saturated.... All her behaviour to me not only shows a lack of love, but seems to have been unmistakably aimed at killing me...." These words broke from Leo Nikolaevitch like the irrepressible shriek from the tortured soul of a man who had for long years been accustomed to hide in himself the deepest and most poignant of his sufferings. And therefore after giving vent for once to his need to speak out to his favourite daughter, he at once hastens to comment: "You see, dear, how bad I am. I do not conceal myself from you."[22] This letter is important for us, Leo Nikolaevitch's friends, because it raises a little corner of the curtain with which for the last ten years of his life he scrupulously covered from the eye of man the inner tortures he experienced. Were it not for this "human document" it might have been supposed that, having attained the marvellous height of spiritual illumination which distinguished the latter period of his life, Leo Nikolaevitch was thereby saved from the possibility of feeling insult and experiencing spiritual pain. Now we know that if in his diary, in his correspondence and in conversation with his friends he abstained for the most part from any complaints of the bitterness of his position, preferring to note his own mistakes and weaknesses, he did this not because he was at that time free from the common human characteristic of feeling pain inflicted upon him. We now see that to the very end of his days he had not ceased to be for us ordinary people a comrade capable of feeling the same mortifications and sufferings as we. For that reason we ought to be grateful to fate which for one instant revealed before us in that letter the deep spiritual wound which Leo Nikolaevitch bore away with him when he left his wife. But at the same time it would be quite a mistake to suppose that though he left Sofya Andreyevna he retained any evil feeling towards her and was not capable of forgiving her. On the contrary, almost at the same time as the letter to his daughter which we have quoted, he wrote his wife a touching, warm-hearted letter which leaves not the slightest doubt of his real love for her. And on the following day he wrote to his two elder children: "Please try and soothe your mother, for whom I have the most sincere feeling of compassion and love." And he not only pitied Sofya Andreyevna, but had so much real love for her that he could with a pure heart forgive her, and himself beg her forgiveness. Altogether the last letters of Leo Nikolaevitch to his wife, which have, by the way, been published by her,[23] strikingly reveal some characteristic peculiarities in his relations with her during the latest period of their life together. The most conspicuous peculiarity is that in spite of the very painful crises Leo Nikolaevitch had passed through in his family relations, the habitual and extremely delicate consideration in his behaviour to Sofya Andreyevna never left him for one minute. Consequently when telling her the causes of his departure, he does not without necessity touch upon those of his impulses which were disagreeable to her. Avoiding them as far as possible, he accentuates those of his motives which had a general character and did not wound her vanity. He only alludes to the points in which she had been to blame towards him when it is quite unavoidable, and touches on those questions as gently and carefully as possible. I will quote those of his letters which directly concern his departure, beginning with one written thirteen years before he actually went away, at a time when he was intending to leave his family but did not do so. He directed that this letter should be given to his wife after his death, which was done. I"June 8, 1897. "Dear Sonya, "For a long time past I have been worried by the inconsistency of my life with my convictions. To make you change your life, your habits in which I have trained you, I could not; go away from you hitherto I could not either, thinking that I should deprive the children while they were small of at least that little influence I might have on them, and should be grieving you; nor can I any longer continue to live as I have lived these sixteen years, at one time struggling and irritating you, at another myself, succumbing to the temptations to which I am accustomed, and by which I am surrounded; and I have determined now to do what I have long wanted to do—go away: in the first place, because for me with my advancing years this life becomes more and more oppressive, and I long more and more for solitude; and secondly, because my children are grown up, my influence is not now needed in the house, and all of you have interests more vital to you which will make you feel my absence less. "The chief thing is that just as the Hindus when close on sixty go away into the forest, as every religious old man longs to devote the last years of his life to God, and not to jests, to puns, to gossip and to tennis, so I, entering on my seventieth year, long with my whole soul for peace, for solitude, and if not for complete harmony, at least not the glaring discord between one's life and one's convictions, one's conscience. "If I were to do this openly there would be entreaties, upbraidings, arguments, complaints; I should lose courage, perhaps, and not carry out my decision although it ought to be carried out. And therefore please forgive if my action hurts you, and in thy soul do thou, Sonya, especially, let me go with a good will; do not look for me, don't lament over me, or complain against me; do not blame me. "That I have gone away from you does not show that I was displeased with you. I know that you literally could not see and feel as I do, and therefore could not and cannot change your life and make sacrifices for what you do not recognise. And therefore I do not blame you, but, on the contrary, with love and gratitude remember the thirty-five long years of our life, especially the first half of the time, when with a motherly self-sacrifice, which is part of your nature, you so vigorously and firmly bore that which you considered your vocation. You have given me and the world what you could give—you have given a great deal of motherly love and self-sacrifice, and one cannot but value you for it. But in the later period of our life—the last fifteen years—we have grown apart. I cannot think that I am to blame, because I know that I have changed neither for my own sake nor for other people's, but because I could do nothing else. I cannot blame you either for not following me, but I thank you and think of you, and always shall think of you, with love for what you have given me. "Farewell, dear Sonya, (Cf. Letters to his Wife, p. 524.) II"Yasnaya Polyana. "My going away will grieve you. I am sorry for it, but do understand and believe that I cannot act differently. My position in the house is becoming, has become, unbearable. Apart from everything else, I cannot any longer live in the conditions of luxury in which I have been living, and I am doing what old men of my age commonly do—they retire from worldly life to spend their last days in solitude and quiet. Please understand this and do not come after me if you find out where I am. Your coming in that way would only make your and my position worse and would not alter my decision. "I thank you for these forty-eight years of faithful life with me, and beg you to forgive me for anything in which I have been to blame towards you, even as I with all my soul forgive you for anything in which you may have been to blame towards me. I advise you to resign yourself to the new position in which my departure places you, and not to have any ill-feeling against me. "If you want to communicate with me, give everything to Sasha. She will know where I am and will forward anything that is necessary; she cannot tell you where I am, because I have made her promise not to tell anyone." (Letters to his Wife, p. 590.) III"Shamordino. "A meeting between us and still more my return is now utterly impossible. For you it would be, as everyone declares, highly injurious, and for me it would be awful, since now, in consequence of your excitement, irritation and morbid condition, my position would, if that is possible, be worse than ever. I advise you to resign yourself to what has happened, to settle down in your new position, and above all to attend to your health. To say nothing of loving, if you don't absolutely hate me you ought to enter a little into my position. And if you do that you not only will not blame me, but will try to help me to find peace and the possibility of some sort of human life, to help me by controlling yourself, and you will not wish me to come back now. Your mood as at present, your desire to commit suicide and efforts to do so, show more than anything your loss of self-control, and make my return unthinkable at present. No one but yourself can save all who are near you, me and above all yourself, from sufferings such as we have endured in the past.[24] "Try to direct all your energies not to bringing about what you desire—at present my return—but to bringing peace to your soul, and you will get what you desire. "I have spent two days at Shamordino and Optina Pustyn, and am going away. I will post this letter on the way. I do not say where I am going, because I consider separation essential both for you and for me. Do not think that I am going away because I do not love you: I love and pity you with all my soul, but I cannot do otherwise than I am doing. "Your letter I know was written sincerely, but you are not capable of doing what you would wish to. And what matters is not the fulfilment of any of my desires or demands, but only your balance, your calm, reasonable attitude to life. And while that is lacking my life with you is not thinkable. To return to you while you are in such a state would be equivalent to committing suicide. And I do not consider that I have a right to do that. Farewell, dear Sonya. God help you. Life is no jesting matter, and we have no right to throw it away at our own will, and it is unreasonable, too, to measure it by length of time. Perhaps those months which we have left to live are more important than all the years lived before, and we must live them well." And from the touching interest which Leo Nikolaevitch displayed after he went away in everything relating to Sofya Andreyevna, questioning everyone about her with the greatest emotion and solicitude, it was perfectly clear that, though he recognised before his conscience that to live together with her any longer was impossible, yet in his soul he was fully reconciled with her. FOOTNOTES[22] I permit myself to quote this letter without asking Alexandra Lvovna's permission to do so, because it has already, without our previous knowledge, appeared in print in the historical journal, Facts and Days (Petrograd, 1920), and because it makes a less one-sided impression in connection with the other contents of the present book. [23] "Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoy to his wife, 1862-1910" (Kushnerev & Co., 1915). [24] The words "sufferings such as we have endured in the past" have been left out of Tolstoy's letters by Sofya Andreyevna without any indication of an omission. CHAPTER IXTHE MOTIVES THAT DECIDED HIS GOING AWAY For us, the nearest friends of Leo Nikolaevitch, who watched step by step what was taking place at Yasnaya Polyana during the last days of his presence there, the reason why he could do nothing but go away was easy to understand. But the reader who is not so closely acquainted with all the circumstances may ask, Why exactly did Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour on the last night have such an influence on Leo Nikolaevitch? What did she do then that was new and not to be expected from her previous behaviour? Of course Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour on that night only gave the final impetus to Leo Nikolaevitch's going away. In reality the question of leaving home had already been decided in his soul, and, as it seems to me, he was, as it were, instinctively only awaiting the inevitable final impulse for carrying out his intention. And the key to the understanding of Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual state at the time is hidden in the words with which he concluded the note in his diary concerning his departure: "I feel that I have saved myself, not as Leo Nikolaevitch, but have saved what at times at least to some small degree there is in me." These words are marvellous in their touching humility on the lips of a man whose soul was filled to overflowing and was the reflection of the highest principle, and at the same time remarkable from the light which they throw on the deeper motives of his departure. In these words one is conscious of the dread—under the conditions beginning to exist about him—of being deprived of the spiritual independence essential for the preservation of the inviolability of his "holy of holies"—the dread of being deprived of the possibility of resisting the ever-persisting attacks from outside—which might very naturally come to pass, considering Leo Nikolaevitch's extreme age and the gradual weakening of his physical powers. It must not be forgotten also that by this time he had become convinced of the complete uselessness, even undesirability, of his remaining longer with Sofya Andreyevna, and that therefore the various impulses to go away which he had before so scrupulously repressed in his soul were now set free. The painful consciousness of luxury and privilege in which his life was spent in the midst of the poverty around him, the yearning for peace and solitude before death, and many other causes began without hindrance to impel him in the same direction. Thus the cup was already full and only the last drop was lacking. And just at this time suddenly the new element in his wife's behaviour which provided that last impulse to departure was revealed to Leo Nikolaevitch. What was new to him was the sudden revelation of the atmosphere of lying and hypocrisy in which he saw himself entangled. He unexpectedly became the involuntary witness of how Sofya Andreyevna, when she thought he was asleep, secretly stole up to his papers, and of how, as soon as she found out that he was not asleep, she began again at once as though nothing were the matter, expressing solicitude for his health. His eyes were at once opened and he saw what had long been well known to his intimate friends, but what the remnant of confidence in and respect for his wife which were still preserved in his soul, forbade him even to admit in his thoughts: that is, that she was acting a farce with him. Together with this discovery everything was transformed for Leo Nikolaevitch, and indeed that was inevitable. It was of little moment that the incident which opened his eyes may seem in itself not to be of much importance. For married people who have lived together fifty years the first incident which reveals hypocrisy in one of them is always of importance. This incident at once threw quite a new light for Leo Nikolaevitch on all that had passed between him and Sofya Andreyevna. Till that time he had supposed that he had to do with sincere egoism and ill-will, with open wilfulness and innate coarseness and with morbid abnormality. And meeting this with unvarying mildness, patience and love, he recognised that he was doing as he ought, and therefore felt an inner satisfaction. Now all this was turned upside down. In the past the position had been clear; before him was a definite evil which laid on him as definite a duty to meet the evil with good. Now he had to do with a sort of tangle in which there was so much falsity that it was impossible to make out where reality ended and deception began; so that instead of his former satisfaction Leo Nikolaevitch suddenly felt the ambiguous position in which he found himself. So at least I explain to myself the extreme emotion which Leo Nikolaevitch felt at his final decision to go away. It is true that even before this he knew of Sofya Andreyevna's insincere behaviour. A month before he went away he wrote of Sofya Andreyevna in this diary: "I cannot get accustomed to regarding her words as the ravings of delirium. All my trouble comes from that. It is impossible to talk to her, because she does not recognise the obligation of truth nor of logic, nor of her own words, nor of conscience. It is awful. I am not speaking now of love for me, of which there is no trace. She does not want my love for her either; all she wants is that people should think that I love her, and that is so awful." (Diary, September 10, 1910.) Yet apparently Leo Nikolaevitch still had no idea of the degree of insincerity and deception of which Sofya Andreyevna was capable in her relations with him personally. But on that night he was involuntarily brought face to face with the manifestation of it, and he was the more revolted because he had hitherto so scrupulously striven in his soul to preserve some sort of trust in his wife. Finally, convinced that he was incapable of changing the spiritual condition of Sofya Andreyevna, he saw now that his presence at her side could only serve as a cause of offence for her, exciting the worst side of her nature. And so the former obstacles to his departure were removed from him, and his soul demanded release from the unbefitting position in which he found himself. It is easy to understand that under such conditions the first serious occasion was sufficient to impel him to carry out his long-cherished intention, and he went away.[25] FOOTNOTE[25] I have heard—it is true, from very few persons, and those chiefly belonging to Leo Nikolaevitch's family—regret expressed that he did not die peaceably at Yasnaya Polyana in the midst of his family. The picture imagined by these people of the death-bed of Leo Nikolaevitch in the home of his ancestors, surrounded by all his family, and giving his blessing to his grief-stricken wife, may perhaps be very touching. But such a scene would in reality be impossible, since Sofya Andreyevna was in such a condition of mind that, apart from a simulated exaggeration of feeling and the basest preoccupation with the material heritage, nothing more would have happened than on previous occasions when Leo Nikolaevitch was taken with the attacks and fainting fits to which he was liable, and it would have been painful for him. We ought, on the contrary, to rejoice that circumstances gave Leo Nikolaevitch the chance of spending the last days of his life and the last hours of his consciousness in a quiet, genuine atmosphere, among intimate friends who truly loved and understood him, and who strenuously watched over his spiritual peace and did not pester him in those last minutes with any worldly cares or material considerations. In this I cannot but see an immense happiness and blessing for Leo Nikolaevitch. Some people lay stress on the spiritual pain which Sofya Andreyevna must have experienced when she learned that Leo Nikolaevitch had left her. There is no doubt that this pain must have been very severe, particularly at first. But one must not blame others for the sufferings which are the work of the sufferer himself. If my own negligence is the cause of a man slipping off the roof and falling on my head I cannot blame him for the bruises he has caused me by his fall. It is as unjust to blame Leo Nikolaevitch for the suffering caused to Sofya Andreyevna by his departure, which was provoked by herself. Moreover, sufferings which are the result of our own mistakes are often beneficial. So in this instance, if Sofya Andreyevna, toward the end of the life of Leo Nikolaevitch, ever displayed the faintest gleams of consciousness of the great wrong she had done him, it was only at the time of her heaviest suffering on account of his leaving her. And therefore one may regret the causes which called forth Leo Nikolaevitch's departure, but not that the emotional shock given Sofya Andreyevna by it opened her eyes, if only for a few instants, to the true significance of her behaviour to her husband. If it should seem strange to anyone that Leo Nikolaevitch, even after he had left home, so dreaded an interview with Sofya Andreyevna, that is only because the mental condition in which, as Leo Nikolaevitch well knew, she was at that time is too little known. When he left Yasnaya Polyana Leo Nikolaevitch firmly and unhesitatingly decided to cut himself off from his family, and therefore while he was still hoping to live independently, he naturally avoided interviews with Sofya Andreyevna, who would with all her energies, and without scruple as to the means employed, have hindered his realising his plan. When he was laid up at Astapavo and foresaw the possibility of death being at hand, it was just as natural that he should have felt the need of that spiritual tranquillity to which every dying man has a right. And that Sofya Andreyevna's condition at that time really was such that she could have brought nothing to his death-bed but deception, vanity, material importunities, fuss and noise, that is well known by all who have had the opportunity of watching at close quarters her behaviour not only in all Leo Nikolaevitch's serious illnesses in later years and during the last months of his life at Yasnaya Polyana, but also during the first days after he had gone away, and during her stay in his neighbourhood at Astapovo, and by his bedside during the last unconscious moments, and during the first hours after his death. Anyone who saw Sofya Andreyevna under all these conditions cannot but acknowledge that Leo Nikolaevitch showed great foresight in so persistently avoiding interviews with her while she was in that condition. A personal interview between them at that time could not only add nothing to what he had told her in his last letters, which were permeated with forgiveness, pity and love, but, judging from the mental condition in which Sofya Andreyevna still was, it could only have evoked in her a renewal too painful for him of the same insincerity, hypocrisy and importunities which had provoked his departure. CHAPTER XTHE SIGNIFICANCE OF TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY AND OF THE WHOLE SPIRITUAL ACHIEVEMENT OF HIS LIFE In an indirect way Leo Nikolaevitch's going away performed a great service in a social sense by manifesting clearly that his living beforehand for so long with his family was not due to the comforts of a rich man's life, nor to his weakness and lack of will where his wife was concerned. If circumstances had so fallen out that he had not left his family up to the day of his death, the value of the great example of his life would not, of course, have been one jot less in reality. But it would have been hard for many to believe that there was not a considerable share of egoism or weakness of character in his living with his wife in the surroundings in which his family lived. His departure from it revealed openly to contemporary and future generations that his life in Yasnaya Polyana really was surrounded by the most painful conditions. This event at once threw the true light on all that he must have suffered before that in his home surroundings, which many had been disposed to regard as peaceful and agreeable for him. Now it had become evident to all that Leo Nikolaevitch had remained with his family at Yasnaya Polyana for nearly thirty years after the whole manner of life had become distasteful and oppressive in the extreme for him,—and that he remained not at all because he wanted to enjoy the comfort of a wealthy landowner's life, nor because he was weak and wanting in will where his wife was concerned. Now it is easy to understand that during the whole of that time he was consciously sacrificing his preferences and inclinations for the sake of doing what he regarded as his duty to God and his family. And such an example of self-sacrifice and consistency on the part of such a man as Tolstoy doubtless has a conspicuous social value. Many of the most various opinions have been expressed as to whether Tolstoy was right in leaving his family. To the friends of Leo Nikolaevitch who respected his soul and recognise the freedom of conscience and independence of human personality in all, the question in regard to Leo Nikolaevitch's going away is not whether he was right or wrong in taking that step. A man is really answerable not to the conscience of another, but only to his own. It is enough for us that it was not with a light heart that Leo Nikolaevitch came to his final decision to leave his wife. Once more I repeat that since he restrained himself for thirty years from going away, during the whole of that period patiently bearing the most poignant spiritual sufferings which often brought him to the verge of the grave,—and in the end he did die indeed from not having gone away sooner,—then surely we might do homage to the undoubted purity of his motives, and recognise that he had the right to decide the question in the end not in accordance with our views, but in accordance with his own judgment. I at least for my part—carefully calling up before my imagination all that I heard with my own ears from Leo Nikolaevitch himself, and what I saw with my own eyes, amplifying this with what he wrote in his diary and said in various writings and intimate letters, and finally collating all this with contemporary communications, diaries and notes of most intimate friends who were, just as I was, witnesses of the great drama of the last months of his life—I do not see the possibility even from the most critical standpoint of seeing the slightest inconsistency in the fact that Leo Nikolaevitch remained so long with his wife and then thought it necessary to leave her. In this as in all else one can follow the inevitable, fully consistent and independent reaction of his inner life to external circumstances as they gradually opened out before him and suddenly took definite shape towards the end. In all Leo Nikolaevitch's impulses and actions after the religious revolution which took place in him in the 'eighties, the same fundamental and guiding principle is all the time conspicuous; that is, the perpetual effort which persisted to the day of his death, to do not his own will nor the will of those surrounding him, but the will of God as he interpreted it according to his best understanding. What more can we expect of a man? If some or other of Leo Nikolaevitch's actions during the last months of his life were not to the taste of some of his family, such, for instance, as his depriving them of the inheritance of his literary rights, his making a will without their knowledge and participation, his leaving his manuscripts and diaries to other people, and lastly his departing from amongst them; and if the material loss or their wounded vanity leads them mistakenly to ascribe all this to the supposed mental enfeeblement, the weakness of old age, and the fatal influence on him of the circle of his "followers," at least there is no necessity for people who are in no way personally affected to follow the example of those of Leo Nikolaevitch's family who consider themselves injured and repeat their unfair charges, which come in reality to this, that Leo Nikolaevitch at the end of his life was in his dotage and did a whole series of bad and stupid things. Some of Leo Nikolaevitch's family wrongly imagined that since he had remained with his family so long he had lost all freedom of choice, and ought not to have moved from the spot until his death, like a thing laid on a shelf which cannot move of its own initiative. Leo Nikolaevitch was not only a living man, but a man of exceptionally strong and active inner life, which was continually growing and developing and spurring him on to new external manifestations which were often a surprise to those who watched him. On all the important occasions of his life he always acted without following any programme imposed on him from outside, or being affected by any personal influence; he was independently guided only by the prompting of his inner consciousness and entirely free from pose or any striving after effect. But at the same time he never drew back before the most extreme decisions when it was a question of obeying the dictates of his conscience. And so he had continually to do what was not foreseen or understood by others, and often not approved even by the majority of those about him. At one time people were enthusiastic over Tolstoy's creative genius, and thought that he would do nothing all his life but write novels for them. He brooded over the meaning of life, devoted himself to the service of God, and began to point out to men how godlessly they lived. Then they, struck by his inspired indictment of social life, expected that he would abandon his family and go about the world preaching like a prophet. But, manifesting love first of all to those nearest to him, and despising the censure of men, he remained almost thirty years with his wife and children under conditions most distressing for himself, hoping to be at least some little help in bringing them to a reasonable life. People became accustomed to the thought that old Tolstoy, physically weakened and professing the doctrine of non-resistance, would end his life at Yasnaya Polyana. But becoming convinced that being by his wife's side had in the end only become a stumbling-block to her and a restriction on his own spiritual life, to the surprise of all he left Yasnaya Polyana, at eighty-two, with shattered health, in order to live amidst poor surroundings, near to the working people so dear to his heart. With Tolstoy everything was original and unexpected. The setting of his end was bound to be the same. Under the circumstances in which he was placed, and with the marvellously delicate sensitiveness and responsiveness to impressions which distinguished his exceptional nature, nothing else could or should have happened than just what did happen. There happened just what was in harmony with the external circumstances and the inner spiritual characteristics of Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy and no other. Any other solution of his domestic relations, any other surroundings of his death, even though in harmony with a certain traditional pattern, would have been false and artificial. Leo Nikolaevitch went away and died without affected sentimentality and emotional phrases, without loud words and eloquent gestures; he went away and died as he had lived, truthfully, sincerely and simply; and a better, truthful, more befitting end to his life could not be imagined, for just that end was the natural and inevitable one. As time erases all the personal element which has hitherto played so great a part in the criticisms of Leo Nikolaevitch, all the purity of his impulses and deep wisdom of his decisions in the most complicated and difficult circumstances which could fall to the lot of man will stand out before the eyes of men in all their force. And then his life, especially its second period, from his spiritual awakening to his death, will serve as a bright and an increasing example of how we ought and can, guided by the voice of God in our souls, combine in our actions the greatest warmth of heart and gentleness toward those who injure us with an unalterable firmness where fidelity to that higher principle which one serves is concerned. Telyatniki, |
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