Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy :: APPENDIX V TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY

APPENDIX V TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY

The following letter from Tolstoy to his daughter Alexandra and extracts from his diary give his own account of his going away, and will enable the reader to see something of his side of the question:

TOLSTOY'S LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER ALEXANDRA LVOVONA

29 October, 1910, Optina Monastery.

"...will tell you all about me, my dear friend Sasha. It is hard. I can't help feeling it a great load on me. The chief thing is—not to do wrong. That is the difficulty. Certainly, I have sinned and shall sin, but I should wish to sin less.

This is the chief thing above all others, that I wish for you, the more so that I know that the task is terrible and beyond your powers at your age. I have not decided anything, and I do not want to decide. I am trying to do only what I can't help doing; and not to do what I need not do. From my letter to Chertkov you will see, not how I look at this question, but how I feel about it. I hope very much that good will come from the influence of Tanya and Serge.[Q]

The chief thing is that they should realize and try to suggest to her (Countess S. A. T.) that this perpetual spying, eavesdropping, incessant complaining, ordering me about, as her fancy takes her, constant managing, pretended hatred of the man who is nearest and most necessary to me, with her open hatred of me and pretence of love,—that a life like this is not only unpleasant, but impossible; and if one of us is to drown himself, let it not be her on any account, but myself; that there is but one thing I want—freedom from her, from that falsehood, pretence, and spite with which her whole being is permeated.

Of course they cannot suggest this to her, but they can suggest to her that all her acts towards me not only do not express love but are inspired by the obvious wish to kill me, which she will achieve since I hope that the third fit which attacks me will save her as well as myself from the terrible state in which we have lived, to which I do not wish to return.

You see, my dear, how wicked I am. I do not conceal myself from you. I do not send for you yet, but I will as soon as I can, very shortly. Write and tell me how you are. I kiss you.

L. Tolstoy.

The following extracts from Tolstoy's diary which describe his actual flight and the circumstances that led up to it also throw light upon Countess Tolstoy's attitude to her husband, and completely refute the false accounts which she persisted in publishing everywhere from the day of Tolstoy's death until the present time.

FROM TOLSTOY'S DIARY

25 Oct. 1910.... Sophie Andreevna is as anxious as ever.

27 Oct. 1910. I got up very early. All night I had bad dreams. The difficulty of our relation is constantly increasing.

28 Oct. 1910. I went to bed at half past eleven. Slept till two. I woke, and again as on other nights heard steps and the opening of doors. On previous nights I did not look out of my door; now I looked and saw through a chink a bright light in my study and heard rustling. It is Sophie A. searching for something and probably reading my papers.

Yesterday she asked, indeed demanded, that I should not shut the door. Both her doors are open, so that my least movement is audible to her. Both during the day and during the night all my movements and words must be known to her and be under her control.

Again steps, a cautious opening of the door, and she passes by.

I do not know why this has roused in me such overpowering repulsion and indignation. I wanted to fall asleep, but could not, tossed about for an hour, lit the candle, and sat down.

The door opens and in comes S. A. asking about "my health," and surprised at seeing a light in my room.

The repulsion and indignation are growing. I am choking. I count my pulse: 97. I cannot lie down; and I suddenly come to a final decision to go.

I write a letter to her, and begin to pack only what things are needed for the journey. I wake Dushan[R] then Sasha[S] they help me with the packing. It is night, pitch dark, I lose my way to the ledge; get into the wood; I am pricked by the branches; knocked against the trees; fall; lose my hat; cannot find it; get out with difficulty; walk home; take my cap; and with a lantern go to the stable, give an order to harness the horses. Sasha, Dushan, Varya[T] come there. I tremble, expecting that S. A. T. will pursue me.

But we leave. In Schekino we wait an hour for the train, and every minute I expect her to appear. But now we are in the train; we start.

The fear passes. And pity for her rises in me, but no doubt at all but that I have done what I ought to do. Perhaps I am wrong to justify myself, but I believe that I am saving myself—not Leo N. T., but that which at times exists, though ever so feebly, in me....

29. Oct. 1910. Shamardino.... On the journey I have been thinking all the time about a way of escape from her and from my situation, but could think of none. But surely there will be some way, whether one likes it or not; it will come, but not in any way that one can foresee. What has to happen will happen. It is not my business. I got at Mashenka's 'the Krug Chtenia' and reading the quotation for the 28th, I was at once struck by the reply which seemed to be given purposely to refer to my situation. I need a trial; it is good for me....

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In the letters here quoted in full, as well as in S. A. T.'s autobiography, the spelling and punctuation of the original have been preserved, except in the case of obvious mistakes.

[B] There is a contradiction here. In the autobiography printed below, S. A. T. says that the seal with the coat-of-arms of the Bers family was burnt in the Moscow fire of 1812, and that the Bers were not again granted the right to that seal in spite of their applications, but were only allowed to have on their coat-of-arms a hive of bees.

[C] It is unknown whether S. A. T. fulfilled her promise, since the documents of S. A. Vengerov, among which the information should be, if sent, are at present being removed from the late Vengerov's house to the Institute of Learning, and the examination and cataloguing have not yet begun.

[D] These and all other italics in the letters and autobiography are in the original.

[E] The manuscript of the work, as was said above, is among Vengerov's documents. It is catalogued in the first "collection" of autobiographies under N 2740, and in a special catalogue its card has a short abstract of the most important biographical data. (Professor S. A. Vengerov, Critical Biographical Dictionary of Russian Authors and Men of Letters, second edition, Vol. I; Preliminary List of Russian Authors and Men of Letters and Preliminary Information about Them, Petrograd, 1915, pages xix and xxv.) The manuscript is in a cover of ordinary writing-paper on which is written in S. A. T.'s handwriting: A Short Autobiography of Countess Sophie Tolstoy. The manuscript itself is typewritten and occupies twelve half-sheets of ordinary writing-paper written on both sides, or twenty-four pages, of which the last page contains only four lines. At the end of the manuscript is the date: "28 October, 1913"; place: "Yasnaya Polyana," and signature: "Countess Sophie Tolstoy." All this is in typewriting.

[F] This is a mistake of S. A. T. She did not strike out anything in the former manuscript. She only made a few alterations, adding considerably, however, to the first half of Chapter 3, making that half a separate chapter. She re-wrote Chapter 4. In her new manuscript, after the beginning of Chapter 5, about the children, there is a note in pencil. "Go on without change as in the former manuscript." In the first manuscript the story about the children formed the second and greater part of Chapter 3. Thus in the new manuscript, Chapter 3 was greatly enlarged and became three separate chapters. Therefore S. A. T. would have been more correct if she had said that she would strike out of the first manuscript the first half of Chapter 3 and substitute the two new chapters for it, making a separate chapter of the second half. The Roman figures IV and V, marking the chapters, are in pencil in the new manuscript and are followed by question-marks. As her letter shows, S. A. T. roughly indicated the division into three new chapters, but left the final decision to Vengerov.

[G] The manuscript of the additional material is not included in either the first or the second "collection" of autobiographies, nor is it catalogued; it is kept separately among the documents of S. A. Vengerov. We must suppose that Vengerov intended to include it in the first manuscript, but was prevented from doing so. It is, like the first, typewritten on five half-sheets of ordinary writing-paper. At the beginning and end of the manuscript are pencil notes by S. A. T.—at the beginning: "Substitute for former Chapter 3," and at the end: "Go on as in former manuscript." The manuscript has no date or signature. Both manuscripts have been corrected by S. A. T. herself and in her own handwriting.

[H] Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii and her friend, Natalya Petrovna, who was homeless and lived with her. Leo N. writes about them in his Reminiscences of Childhood. They are also mentioned in Ilya Tolstoy's My Reminiscences. (Moscow, 1914.) Of Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii, who died on 20 June 1874, Leo N. T. wrote to Countess A. A. Tolstoy: "She died practically of old age, i.e. she slowly faded away, and as far back as three years ago she had ceased to exist for us." See note 19 below.

[J] The old oak forest near the house. S. A. T.

[K] Kiev is famous for its churches and monasteries.

[M] Chertkov.

[N] The story of the making of the will is related by F. A. Strakhov, Petersburgkaya Gazetta, November, 1911. S. A. T.

[P] This extract from L. N. T.'s diary under date of March 27, 1895, is from his first will. The wishes expressed in this diary are again expressed by him in his diary for 1907. It was only in September 1909 in Krekshino that he drew up for the first time a legal will, attested by witnesses. Three copies of the diary of March 27, 1895 were kept; one by Marie Lvovna Obolensky; one by V. G. Chertkov; and one by Serge L. Tolstoy.

[Q] Tatyana L. Sukhotin and Count Serge L. Tolstoy are L. N. T.'s eldest children.

[R] Doctor D. P. Makovitsii, one of the most intimate friends of the Tolstoy family, a doctor who lived with the Tolstoy's and who remained with L. N. T. until his death.

[S] L. N. T.'s daughter, Alexandra.

[T] Varvara Feskritov, S. A. T.'s late secretary.

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