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

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

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

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

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