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diff --git a/38027-h/38027-h.htm b/38027-h/38027-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38b5529 --- /dev/null +++ b/38027-h/38027-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4582 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:2%;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;margin:3% auto 15% auto;font-weight:bold;} + +.noind {text-indent:0%;margin:auto;} + +.r {text-align:right;margin:5% 5% 5% auto;text-indent:0%;font-size: 70%;} + +.rt {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;text-indent:0%;} + +small {font-size: 70%;} + + h1,h2 {margin:8% auto 2% auto;text-align:center;clear:both;} + + h3 {text-align:center;clear:both;} + + hr.full {width: 50%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} + + table {margin:2% auto 2% auto;border:none;text-align:left;} + + body{margin-left:2%;margin-right:2%;background:#fdfdfd;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:95%;} + + img {border:none;} + +.blockquot {margin:2% auto 2% auto;} + +.figcenter {margin:auto;text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.footnotes {border:dotted 2px gray;margin-top:15%;clear:both;} + +.footnote {width:95%;margin:auto 3% 1% auto;font-size:0.9em;position:relative;} + +.label {position:relative;left:-.5em;top:0;text-align:left;font-size:.8em;} + +.fnanchor {vertical-align:30%;font-size:.8em;} + +.nanchor {vertical-align:30%;font-size:.8em;} +</style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy, by +Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy + +Author: Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy + +Translator: S.S. Koteliansky + Leonard Woolf + +Release Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #38027] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COUNTESS TOLSTOY *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="350" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="" /> +</p> + +<p class="nind">AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF<br /> +COUNTESS TOLSTOY</p> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<h1> +AUTOBIOGRAPHY<br /> +OF<br /> +COUNTESS TOLSTOY<br /> +<small><small>[SOPHIE ANDREEVNA TOLSTOY]</small></small></h1> + +<p class="cb">TRANSLATED BY<br /> +S. S. KOTELIANSKY<br /> +AND<br /> +LEONARD WOOLF +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +<img src="images/colophon.png" width="82" height="125" alt="colophon" title="" /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +<small>NEW YORK</small> B. W. HUEBSCH, I<small>NC.</small> <small>MCMXXII</small><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a></p> + +<p class="r"> +COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY<br /> +B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.<br /> +<span style="margin-right: 5%;">——</span><br /> +PRINTED IN U. S. A.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><th colspan="2" align="center"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><big>CONTENTS</big></th></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#TRANSLATORS_NOTE">Translators' Note,</a> </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_007">7</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#PREFACE_BY_VASSILI_SPIRIDONOV">Preface by Vassili Spiridonov,</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_009">9</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#AUTOBIOGRAPHY">Autobiography,</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_027">27</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2"> <a href="#I">I, </a> +<a href="#II">II, </a> +<a href="#III">III, </a> +<a href="#IV">IV, </a> +<a href="#V">V, </a> +<a href="#VI">VI, </a> +<a href="#VII">VII, </a> +<a href="#VIII">VIII, </a> +<a href="#IX">IX, </a> +<a href="#X">X, </a> +<a href="#XI">XI, </a> +<a href="#XII">XII, </a> +<a href="#XIII">XIII</a> + +</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#NOTES">Notes,</a></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#APPENDIX_I">Appendix I.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Semen Afanasevich Vengerov,</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_143">143</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#APPENDIX_II">Appendix II.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov,</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_146">146</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#APPENDIX_III">Appendix III.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tolstoy's First Will,</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#APPENDIX_IV">Appendix IV.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tolstoy's Will of 22 July, 1910,</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_153">153</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#APPENDIX_V">Appendix V.</a><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tolstoy's Going Away,</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_155">155</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="TRANSLATORS_NOTE" id="TRANSLATORS_NOTE"></a>TRANSLATORS' NOTE</h2> + +<p class="noind">T<small>HE</small> circumstances under which this autobiography +of Tolstoy's wife has just been +discovered and published in Russia are explained +in the preface of Vassili Spiridonov +which follows. Spiridonov edited and published +it in the first number of a new Russian +review, <i>Nachala</i>. We have translated +his preface in full and also the greater number +of his notes, which contain much material +with regard to Tolstoy which has not previously +been available for English readers. +Such readers may perhaps consider that some +of these notes and the documentation generally +are over-elaborate. But they must +remember that the question of Tolstoy's +"going away" and of his relations with his +wife, Countess Sophie Tolstoy, and other +members of his family, has roused the most +passionate interest and controversy in Russia. +This is partly due, no doubt, to the<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> +dramatic and psychological interest of the +whole story, but is also due very largely to +the fact that Tolstoy's actions were bound up +with his teachings, and his numerous disciples +and opponents were watching the +struggle of the preacher to put his principles +in practice in his own life. The whole question +of the will and the going away of Tolstoy, +of the difference with his wife, and of +the subsequent dealings with his property, +has given rise to an immense literature in +Russia. As Spiridonov's preface shows, it is +treated as a kind of <i>cause célèbre</i> in which +the whole of humanity is to judge between +Tolstoy and his wife. The importance of +this book lies in the fact that in it for the +first time Countess Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy +herself states her own case in full. +The reader should, however, remember that +it is only one side of the case.</p> + +<p>We have added ourselves a few short appendices +giving some additional information +with regard to some of the more important +points and persons.</p> + +<p class="rt"> +S. S. K.<br /> +L. S. W.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="PREFACE_BY_VASSILI_SPIRIDONOV" id="PREFACE_BY_VASSILI_SPIRIDONOV"></a>PREFACE BY VASSILI SPIRIDONOV</h2> + +<p class="noind">T<small>HE</small> manuscript of the autobiography of +Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy exists among the +documents of the late director of the Russian +Library, Professor Semen Afanasevich Vengerov, +which, in accordance with the will of +the deceased, have been handed over to the +Library. The Library is now in the Petrograd +Institute of Learning, and the documents +form a special section in the Institute +under the title: "The Archives of S. A. Vengerov."</p> + +<p>The history of the manuscript is as follows. +At the end of July, 1913, S. A. Vengerov +sent a letter to S. A. Tolstoy asking +her to write and send him her autobiography +which he proposed to publish. We do not +know the details of S. A. Vengerov's letter, +but from the replies of S. A. Tolstoy which +are printed below we may conclude that +Professor Vengerov enclosed in his letter<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> +to S. A. Tolstoy a questionnaire, and that, +besides the usual questions which he was accustomed +to send out broadcast to authors +and men of letters, he put a number of additional +questions, especially for S. A. T., +asking for light upon certain moments in the +history of the life and creative activity of +Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and upon the time +and causes of the differences between the husband +and wife, the beginning of that formidable +drama which took place in the Tolstoy +family.</p> + +<p>S. A. T. answered immediately; she wrote +to Vengerov as follows:<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Yasnaya Polyana,<br /> +30 July, 1913.</span></p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="smcap">Much-respected Semen Afanasevich</span>: +I received your letter to-day, and hasten +to tell you that I will try to answer all your +questions soon; but in order to do it fully, +I need a little time. I shall hardly be able +to write an autobiography, even a brief one.<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> +At any rate, <i>whatever</i> I may communicate +to you, you have my permission to cut out +anything that you think superfluous. As to +your questions about my family, my sister, +Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii, could answer +you better than I; she and my first +cousin, Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, have +devoted a good deal of time to this matter +and have, in particular, tried to trace the +origin of my father's family, which came +from Saxony. We have the seal with its +coat-of-arms: a bear (hence <i>Bers</i>, i. e. <i>Bär</i> +in German) warding off a swarm of bees.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> +I will write to my sister to send me this information, +and I will let you have it.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> Please +also let me know roughly when you expect +me to send you the information you desire.<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a></p> + +<p>The most difficult thing for me will be to +fix the moment and the cause of our <i>differences</i><a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a>. +It was not a <i>difference</i>, but a gradual +<i>going-away</i> of Leo Nikolaevich from +everything in his former life, and thus the +harmony of all our happy previous life was +broken.</p> + +<p>Of all this I will try to write briefly, +after having thought it over as well and as +accurately as I can.</p> + +<p>Accept the assurance of my respect and +devotion for you,</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Sophie Tolstoy.</span></p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Yasnaya Polyana,<br /> +Station Zassyeka,<br /> +21 August, 1913.</span></p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="smcap">Much-respected Semen Afanasevich</span>: +This is a difficult task which you have set +me, writing my autobiography, and, although +I have already begun it, I am continually +wondering whether I am doing it +properly. The chief thing which I have +decided to ask you is to tell me what length +my article should be. If, for instance, you<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> +take a page of the magazine <i>Vyestnik Europa</i> +as a measure, how many full pages, approximately, +ought I to write? To-morrow I +shall be sixty-nine years old, a long life; +well, <i>what</i> out of that life would be of interest +to people? I have been trying to +find some woman's autobiography for a +model, but have not found one anywhere.</p> + +<p>Pardon me for troubling you; I want to +do the work you have charged me with as +well as possible, but I have so little capacity +and no experience at all.</p> + +<p>I shall hope for an answer.</p> + +<p>With sincere respect and devotion,</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="smcap">S. Tolstoy.</span></p></div> + +<p>It may be supposed that Vengerov again +came to the assistance of S. A. T. and solved +her doubts, after which she went on with her +work and finished it at the end of October, +1913. Being in Petersburg, she personally +handed it over to Vengerov.<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> The work did<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> +not satisfy Vengerov, as he did not find in +it what, evidently, particularly interested +him, namely, information as to the life in +Yasnaya Polyana during the time when +<i>War and Peace</i> and <i>Anna Karenina</i> were +written. Vengerov wrote to S. A. T. about +this, urging her to fill up the gap, to write a +new additional chapter. S. A. T. did this. +She sent the new material to Vengerov accompanied +by the following letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Yasnaya Polyana,<br /> +Station Zassyeka,<br /> +24 March, 1914.</span></p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="smcap">Much-respected Semen Afanasevich</span>: +You are perfectly right in your observation +that I left a great gap in my autobiography, +and I thank you very much for<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> +advising me to write one more chapter; I +have now done so. But the question is, +have I done it well, and is the new material +suitable? Hard as I tried, and carefully +as I searched for materials for that +chapter, I found very little, but I have made +the best use of it which I could.</p> + +<p>In the former manuscript which I gave +you in Petersburg, Chapter 3 should be cut +out and the new one which I enclose in this +letter substituted. The chapter had to be +corrected considerably, things altered, struck +out, and added.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a></p> + +<p>The chapter about the children in the new<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> +material has been slightly altered at the beginning, +and all the rest remains without +alteration, as in the former manuscript.</p> + +<p>Be so good as to note the Roman figures +marking chapters, but divide it up into +chapters anew at your discretion.</p> + +<p>As I have not the whole manuscript in its +final form before me, I cannot do it myself +and am obliged to trouble you. Please +also write me a word to say you have received +the new chapter and give me your +opinion, which I value greatly.<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a></p> + +<p>Accept the assurance of my sincere respect +and devotion.</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Sophie Tolstoy.</span></p></div> + +<p>The additional matter did not satisfy +S. A. Vengerov. He had long ago formed +an idea of Yasnaya Polyana, during the +period in which <i>War and Peace</i> and <i>Anna +Karenina</i> were created, as of a "home" in +which the interests of the family were such +that literary interests were removed to the +second floor. He hoped that S. A. T. in +her additional matter would turn her attention +to that particular side in the life +and activity of L. N. Tolstoy, making +use for that purpose of the very rich +material possessed by her. But S. A. T. +did not fulfil his hopes, as he told her in +a letter to her and as may be seen from her +reply.</p> + +<p>S. A. T. held a different view, and she +wrote to Vengerov:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Yasnaya Polyana,<br /> +Station Zassyeka,<br /> +5 May, 1914.</span></p> + +<p class="noind"><span class="smcap">Much-respected Semen Afanasevich</span>: +I have received your letter; you are not +quite satisfied with the new chapter, to +which I reply: you want more facts, but<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> +where am I to get them? Our life was +quiet, placid, a retired family life.</p> + +<p>You write about the 'home' interests +which must have been subordinated to Leo +Nikolaevich's writing of <i>War and Peace</i> +and <i>Anna Karenina</i>. But what was that +<i>home</i>? It consisted only of Leo Nikolaevich +and myself. The two old women had +become childish and took no interest at all +in Leo N.'s writings, but used to lose their +tempers over patience; a nd their only interests +were the children and the dinner.<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a></p> + +<p>In so far as I could tear myself from +domestic matters, I lived in my husband's +creative activity and loved it. But one can +not put into the background a baby who has +to be fed day and night, and I nursed ten +children myself, which Leo N. desired and +approved.<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a></p> + +<p>You mention among <i>professional</i> writers +Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, and I would +add Lermontov and others; all of them were +<i>bachelors without families</i>, and that is a +very different matter. This was reflected +in their work, just as Leo N.'s <i>family</i> +life was completely reflected in his works.</p> + +<p>It is perfectly true that Leo N. was generally +a <i>man</i>, and not merely a writer. But +it is <i>not</i> true, if you will pardon me, that he +wrote <i>easily</i>. Indeed, he experienced the +'tortures of creative activity' in a high degree; +he wrote with difficulty and slowly, +made endless corrections; he doubted his +powers, denied his talent, and he often said: +'Writing is just like childbirth; until the +fruit is ripe, it does not come out, and, +when it does, it comes with pain and +labour.'</p> + +<p>Those are his own words.</p> + +<p>And now, Semen Afanasevich, with regard +to your last remark, that Yasnaya +Polyana of the years 1862 to 1870 gives the +impression of a 'home' in which literary interests +had been removed to the second floor—I +repeat once more that there was no such<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> +'home'; it is true that I was quite a young +girl, in my eighteenth year, when I married, +and I only vaguely realized the great importance +of the husband whom I adored. Now +I have come to the end of the page.</p> + +<p>With respect and devotion,</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="smcap">S. Tolstoy.</span></p></div> + +<p>Nearly three years separate the going +away and death of Leo N. Tolstoy from the +writing of her autobiography by S. A. T. +It might have been expected that that interval +of time would have stilled the pain +in her heart and that her soul would have +found peace from her sufferings. But +S. A. T. is far from peace and reconciliation. +Pain, a void in her heart, a protest against +some one or something are felt in every word +of her autobiography. In her work she has +given new and interesting information +about her family; she has dwelt upon her +children, the guests who visited Yasnaya +Polyana, the literary works of her husband, +without giving us anything new; and then +she concentrated all her attention upon the<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> +domestic drama. The domestic drama is +the centre round which all the thoughts and +all the feelings of S. A. T. turn.</p> + +<p>In her story about this domestic drama +she has not sinned against the truth; she has +gone back again into the past deeply and +with sincerity—every one who reads her +work without prejudice will admit this. +And yet one feels that it is not for nothing +that she tells of family difficulties and pours +out before us the pain of her soul. Continual +references to the difficulties of her +position as a mother, insistent emphasis upon +the mutual love of herself and her husband, +and the allusions to "friends" who +entered the house, got possession of the +mind, heart, and will of Leo N., and disturbed +the harmony of their married life—all +this creates an impression in the reader's +mind that S. A. T., in writing her autobiography, +was guided by a definite purpose, +that of contradicting the unfavourable +rumours about her which circulated everywhere +and were getting into newspapers and +magazines.<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a></p> + +<p>This desire, which is masked in the autobiography, +is definitely expressed by S. A. T. +in another place, in her preface to Leo N. +Tolstoy's <i>Letters to His Wife</i>, published +in 1913. There she says frankly: "This, +too, has induced me to publish these letters, +that after my death, which in all likelihood +is near, people will, as usual, wrongly judge +and describe my relations to my husband +and his to me. Then let them study and +form their judgment upon living and genuine +data, and not upon guesses, gossip and inventions."</p> + +<p>We shall understand S. A. T.'s desire, if +we consider her position. It is true that the +great honour of being the wife of a genius +fell to the lot of S. A. T., but there also fell +to her lot the difficult task of creating favourable +conditions for the life and development +of that genius. She knew the joy +of living with a genius, but she also knew +the horror of living in public, so that her +every movement, smile, frown, incautious +word was in everyone's eyes and ears and +was caught up by the newspapers and spread<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> +over the whole world, recorded in diaries +and reminiscences as material for future +judgments upon her. Forty-eight years is +a long period. Many unnecessary words +were spoken in that time, many incautious +movements were made; and for every one +she will be made to answer before the court +of mankind. S. A. T. knew this, and with +an anxious heart she prepared herself for the +judgment. The <i>Autobiography</i> and L. N. +Tolstoy's <i>Letters to his Wife</i> are the last +words of the accused. We should listen to +them carefully and with attention, weighing +every word. If S. A. T. bears a responsibility +before all mankind, each of us +before our conscience has a responsibility +for whatever verdict he may pass +upon her. We must judge sternly, but +justly.</p> + +<p>S. A. T.'s wish has been carried out. In +the autobiography printed below two new +chapters are substituted for the first half of +Chapter III in the original draft, and an independent +Chapter V has been made out +of the last half of the original third chapter.<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> +Passages cut out of this third chapter are +given in full in notes 20, 38, and 43.</p> + +<p>Our notes are given at the end of the +autobiography.</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="smcap">Vassili Spiridonov.</span></p> + +<p><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a></p> + +<p class="cb"><br /><br /><a name="AUTOBIOGRAPHY" id="AUTOBIOGRAPHY"></a>A SHORT AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF<br /> +COUNTESS SOPHIE ANDREEVNA<br /> +TOLSTOY</p> + +<p><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<p class="noind">I <small>WAS</small> born on 22 August, 1844, in the +country, at the village of Pokrovskoye in +the Manor of Glyebov-Stryeshnev, and up +to the time of my marriage I spent every +summer there. In the winter our family +lived in Moscow, in the Kremlin at the +house near the Troizki Gate, which belonged +to the Crown, for my father was court +physician<a name="nanchor_001" id="nanchor_001"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_001">{1}</a></span> and also principal physician to +the Senate and Ordnance Office.<a name="nanchor_002" id="nanchor_002"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_002">{2}</a></span></p> + +<p>My father was a Lutheran, but my +mother belonged to the Orthodox Church. +The investigations of my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, +and of my brother, A. A. Bers,<a name="nanchor_003" id="nanchor_003"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_003">{3}</a></span> +show, with regard to my father's origin, +that it was his grandfather who emigrated +from Germany to Russia. During the +reign of the Empress Elisabeth Petrovna, regiments +were raised in Russia for which +new instructors were required. At the request<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> +of the Empress, the King of Prussia +sent four officers of the Horse Guards to +Petersburg; among them was Captain Ivan +Bers, who, after serving for several years +in Russia, was killed at the battle of Zorndorf. +He left a widow and one son, Evstafii. +All that is known about her is that she +was called Marie, that she was a baroness, +and that she died young, leaving a moderate +fortune to her son, Evstafii.</p> + +<p>Evstafii Ivanovich lived in Moscow and +married Elisabeth Ivanovna Wulfert, belonging +to an old, aristocratic, Westphalian +family.<a name="nanchor_004" id="nanchor_004"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_004">{4}</a></span> She had two sons, Alexander and +Andrey, my father. Both were medical +men and studied at the Moscow University.</p> + +<p>In 1812 all the property of Evstafii Ivanovich +was destroyed by fire, including all +his houses, documents, and his seal with his +coat-of-arms, a bee-hive with a swarm of +bees attacking a bear, from which we derive +our family name, Bers (Bär in German +means bear). The right to the coat-of-arms +was not restored to my father, though applications +were made by his descendants;<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> +permission was given only to use a bee-hive +and bees on the coat-of-arms.<a name="nanchor_005" id="nanchor_005"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_005">{5}</a></span></p> + +<p>After the war of 1812 the government +made a small grant of money to Evstafii +Ivanovich, and my grandmother, Elizabeth +Ivanovna, when she became a widow, managed +with difficulty to educate her sons. +After finishing their studies at the medical +schools of the university, the brothers Bers +began to earn their own living. The elder, +Alexander settled in Petersburg,<a name="nanchor_006" id="nanchor_006"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_006">{6}</a></span> the +younger lived with his mother in Moscow.</p> + +<p>At the age of thirty-four Andrey married +Lyubov Alexandrovna Islavin, who was +sixteen years old and the daughter of Alexander +Mikhailovich Islenev and of Princess +Sophie Petrovna Kozlovskii, née Countess +Zavadovskii.</p> + +<p>My mother's descent was as follows: +Count Peter Vasilevich Zavadovskii, my +mother's grandfather, was the well-known +statesman and favourite of the Empress +Catherine II. Under Alexander I he became +the first Minister of Education in Russia. +He was married to Countess Vera +Nikolaevna Apraxin, who was a maid-of-<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>honour, +a peeress in her own right, and a +remarkable beauty. The elder daughter, +Countess Sophie Petrovna Zavadovskii, at +the age of sixteen was married against her +will to Prince Kozlovskii; she had one son +by him, but, after a short and unhappy married +life, left him and had a liaison with +Alexander Mikhailovich Islenev, with whom +she lived for the remainder of her life. She +died in childbirth, but had previously borne +him three sons and three daughters, of whom +the youngest, Lyubov Alexandrovna, was my +mother.</p> + +<p>Sophie Petrovna lived permanently on my +grandfather's estate in the village Krasnoye,<a name="nanchor_007" id="nanchor_007"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_007">{7}</a></span> +and there she was buried near the church. +It was said that she induced a priest to marry +her to my grandfather. She used to say: +"I want to be the wife of Alexander Mikhailovich +at any rate in the sight of God, if +not in the view of man."</p> + +<p>My grandfather, Alexander Mikhailovich +Islenev,<a name="nanchor_008" id="nanchor_008"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_008">{8}</a></span> of an old aristocratic family, took +part in the battle of Borodino, after which +he was given a commission in the Preobrazhenskii +Guards. Subsequently he was aide-<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>de-camp +to Count Chernishov. The family +name "Islenev" was not given to his children +by Sophie Petrovna; the marriage was not +considered legal, and the descendants now +bear the name "Islavin." Many of them +rose to high rank.<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a><a name="nanchor_009" id="nanchor_009"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_009">{9}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<p class="noind">M<small>Y</small> father and mother had a large family, +and I was their second daughter.<a name="nanchor_010" id="nanchor_010"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_010">{10}</a></span> My +father had, besides his government posts, a +very large medical practice and often overworked. +He tried to give us the best education +and surrounded us with all the comforts +of life. My mother did the same, but +she also instilled into us the idea that, as we +had no fortune at all, and the family was +large, we must prepare ourselves in order +to earn our own livings. Besides learning +our own lessons we had to teach our younger +brothers, do sewing, embroidering, and +housekeeping, and later on prepare for the +examination of a private teacher.</p> + +<p>Our first governesses were German; we +were taught French first by mother, then by +governesses, and later by the French lecturer +of the university. We were taught the +Russian language and science by university<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> +students. One of them tried in his own way +to develop my mind and to make me a believer +in extreme materialism; he used to +lend me Blüchner and Feuerbach, suggested +that there was no God and that religion was +an obsolete superstition. At first I was fascinated +by the simplicity of the atomic explanation +and the reduction of everything in +the world to the correlations of atoms, but +I soon felt the want of the ordinary orthodox +faith and church, and I gave up materialism +for ever.</p> + +<p>Up to the time of the examinations we +daughters were educated at home. At the +age of sixteen I went in for the private +teacher's examination at the Moscow university, +taking Russian and French as my +principal subjects. The examiners were the +well-known professors, Tikhonravov, Ilovaiskii, +Davidov,<a name="nanchor_011" id="nanchor_011"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_011">{11}</a></span> Father Sergievskii,<a name="nanchor_012" id="nanchor_012"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_012">{12}</a></span> and +M. Paquaut. It was an interesting time. +I was working with a friend, the daughter of +the Inspector of the University, and therefore +moved in university circles, among intelligent +professors and students. It was +the beginning of the 'sixties, a time of intellectual<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> +ferment. The abolition of serfdom +had just been announced; every one +was discussing it, and we young people were +enthusiastic for the great event. We used +to meet, discuss, and enjoy ourselves.</p> + +<p>At that time a new type had just appeared +in life and in literature; there was the new +breath of nihilism among the young. I remember +how at a large party, when professors +and students were present, Turgenev's +<i>Fathers and Sons</i> was read aloud, and Bazarov +seemed to us to represent a strange +type, something new, something which contained +a promise for the future.</p> + +<p>I was not a good student, always concentrating +exclusively upon the subject which +I liked. For instance, I liked literature very +much. I was carried away by Russian literature +and read a great many books, getting +the oldest books and manuscripts from the +university library, beginning with the chronicles +and ending with the latest Russian +writers. I was fascinated and surprised that +the Russian tongue should have developed +out of the feeble beginnings in monastic +writings into the language of Pushkin. It<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> +was like the growth of a living creature.</p> + +<p>In my youth Tolstoy's <i>Childhood</i> and +Dickens's <i>David Copperfield</i> made the greatest +impression on me. I copied out and +learnt by heart passages in <i>Childhood</i> which +I particularly liked, for instance: "Will one +ever get back the freshness, the freedom +from care, the desire for love, and the power +of belief which one possessed in childhood?—" +When I finished <i>David Copperfield</i>, +I cried as though I were being separated +from a close friend. I did not like +studying history from the text-books; in +mathematics I only liked algebra, and that, +owing to a complete lack of mathematical +gifts, I soon forgot.</p> + +<p>I was successful in the university examinations; +in both Russian and French I received +the mark "excellent," and I was given +a diploma of which I was very proud. +Later, I remember, I was pleased at hearing +Professor Tikhonravov praise my essay +on "Music" to my husband; he added: +"That is just the wife you need. She has a +great <i>flair</i> for literature; in the examination +her essay was the best of the year."<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a></p> + +<p>Soon after the examination I began writing +a story, taking as the heroines myself +and my sister Tanya, and calling her Natasha. +Leo Tolstoy also called the heroine +in his <i>War and Peace</i> Natasha.<a name="nanchor_013" id="nanchor_013"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_013">{13}</a></span> He read +my story<a name="nanchor_014" id="nanchor_014"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_014">{14}</a></span> some time before our marriage +and wrote of it in his diary: "What force +of truth and simplicity." Before my marriage +I burnt the story and also my diaries, +written since my eleventh year, and other +youthful writings, which I much regret.</p> + +<p>Of music and drawing I learnt little; I +did not have enough time, though throughout +my life I have loved all the arts and have +more than once returned to them, using the +little leisure left to me from a life which, in +my girlhood and particularly during my +marriage, was always busy and hardworking.<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<p class="noind">C<small>OUNT</small> L<small>EO</small> N<small>IKOLAEVICH</small> T<small>OLSTOY</small> had +known my mother from his childhood and +was a friend of hers, though he was two and +a half years younger. Now and then on his +way to Moscow he used to pay a visit to +our family. His father, Count Nikolai +Ilitch Tolstoy was very friendly with my +grandfather, Alexander Mikhailovich Islenev, +and they used to visit each other at +the village Krasnoye and the hamlet Yasnaya +Polyana. In August, 1862, my mother +took us girls to see our grandfather at the +village of Ivitsi in Odoevski, and on our way +we stopped at Yasnaya Polyana which my +mother had not seen since she was a child; +at the time my mother's greatest friend, +Marie Nikolaevna Tolstoy, was staying +there, having just returned from Algiers.<a name="nanchor_015" id="nanchor_015"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_015">{15}</a></span></p> + +<p>On our way back Leo Nikolaevich accompanied<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> +us as far as Moscow, and he used to +come and see us almost daily at our country-house +in Pokrovskoye, and afterwards in +Moscow. On the evening of 16 September +he handed me a written proposal of +marriage.<a name="nanchor_016" id="nanchor_016"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_016">{16}</a></span> Up to that time no one knew +the object of his visits.<a name="nanchor_017" id="nanchor_017"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_017">{17}</a></span> There was a painful +struggle going on in his soul. In his +diary at the time he wrote, for instance:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>12 Sept. 1862.</p> + +<p>I am in love, as I did not think it was +possible to be in love.</p> + +<p>I am a madman; I'll shoot myself, if it +goes on like this. They had an evening +party; she is charming in everything....</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>13 Sept. 1862.</p> + +<p>To-morrow as soon as I get up, I shall +go and tell everything or shoot myself....</p></div> + +<p>I accepted Leo Nikolaevich and our engagement +lasted only one week. On 23 September +we were married in the royal church +of the Nativity of Our Lady, and immediately +afterwards left for Yasnaya Polyana +in a new carriage with a team of six horses +and a postillion. We were accompanied by<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> +Alexei Stepanovich,<a name="nanchor_018" id="nanchor_018"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_018">{18}</a></span> Leo Nikolaevich's devoted +servant, and the old maid-servant, +Varvara.</p> + +<p>After coming to Yasnaya Polyana, we decided +to settle down there with Aunt Tatyana +Alexandrovna Ergolskii.<a name="nanchor_019" id="nanchor_019"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_019">{19}</a></span> From the +very first I assisted my husband in the management +of the house and estate, and in copying +out his writings.<a name="nanchor_020" id="nanchor_020"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_020">{20}</a></span></p> + +<p>After the first days of our married life +had passed, Leo Nikolaevich realized that +besides his happiness he needed activity and +work. In his diary of December, 1862, he +wrote: "I feel the force of the need to write." +That force was a great one, creating a great +work which made the first years of our married +life bright with joy and happiness.</p> + +<p>Soon after our marriage Leo Nikolaevich +finished <i>Polikushka</i>, finally completed <i>The +Cossacks</i> and gave it to Katkov's <i>Russkii +Vyestnik</i>. He then began to work on the +Decembrists whose fate and activity interested +him a great deal. When he began +to write about that period, he considered it +necessary to relate who they were, to describe +their origin and previous history, and<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> +so to go back from 1825 to 1805. He became +dissatisfied with the Decembrists, but +<i>The Year 1805</i> served as a beginning for +<i>War and Peace</i> and was published in <i>Russkii +Vyestnik</i>.<a name="nanchor_021" id="nanchor_021"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_021">{21}</a></span> This work, which Leo Nikolaevich +did not like to be called a novel, he +wrote with pleasure, assiduously, and it filled +our life with a living interest.</p> + +<p>In 1864 a good deal of it was already +written, and Leo Nikolaevich often read +aloud to me and to our two cousins, Varya +and Lise, the daughters of Marie Nikolaevna +Tolstoy, the charming passages as soon as he +had written them. In the same year he +read a few chapters to friends and to two +literary men, Zhemchuzhnikov and Aksakov, +in Moscow, and they were in raptures over +it.<a name="nanchor_022" id="nanchor_022"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_022">{22}</a></span> Generally Leo Nikolaevich read extraordinarily +well, unless he was very excited, +and I remember how pleasant it was +in Yasnaya Polyana to listen to him reading +Molière's comedies, when he had not +anything new from <i>War and Peace</i>.</p> + +<p>During the first years at Yasnaya Polyana +we lived a very retired life. I could +not recall anything of importance during that<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> +time in the life of the people, society, or +State, because everything passed us by; we +lived the whole time in the country, we +followed nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing—it +did not interest us. I desired nothing +else but to live with the characters of +<i>War and Peace</i>; I loved them and watched +the life of each of them develop as though +they were living beings. It was a full life +and an unusually happy one, with our +mutual love, our children, and, above all, +that great work, beloved by me and later by +the whole world, the work of my husband. +I had no other desires.</p> + +<p>Only at times in the evenings, when we +had put the children to bed and sent off the +MSS. or corrected proofs to Moscow, as a +recreation we would sit down at the piano +and till late at night play duets. Leo +Nikolaevich was particularly fond of Haydn's +and Mozart's symphonies.<a name="nanchor_023" id="nanchor_023"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_023">{23}</a></span> At that +time I played rather badly, but I tried very +hard to improve. Leo Nikolaevich too, it +was clear, was satisfied with his fate. In +1864 he wrote in a letter to my brother: "It +is as though our honeymoon had only just<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> +begun." And again: "I think that only one +in a million is as lucky as I am." When his +relation, Countess Alexandra Andreevna +Tolstoy, complained that he wrote little and +rarely to her, he replied: "<i>Les peuples heureux +n'out pas d'histoire</i>; that is the case +with us."<a name="nanchor_024" id="nanchor_024"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_024">{24}</a></span> Every new idea or the successful +carrying out of some creation of his +genius made him happy. Thus, for instance, +he writes in his diary on 19 March, 1865: +"A cloud of joy has just come upon me at the +idea of writing the psychological history of +Alexander and Napoleon."<a name="nanchor_025" id="nanchor_025"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_025">{25}</a></span></p> + +<p>It was because he felt the beauty of his +own creations that Leo Nikolaevich wrote: +"The poet takes the best out of his life and +puts it into his writings. Hence his writing +is beautiful and his life bad." But his life +at that time was not bad; it was as good and +as pure as his work.</p> + +<p>How I loved copying <i>War and Peace</i>! I +wrote in my diary: "The consciousness +of serving a genius and a great man has +given me strength for anything." I also +wrote in a letter to Leo Nikolaevich: "The +copying of <i>War and Peace</i> uplifts me very<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> +much morally, <i>i. e.</i> spiritually. When I sit +down to copy it, I am carried away into a +world of poetry, and sometimes it even seems +to me that it is not your novel that is so good, +but I that am so clever." In my diary I also +wrote: "Levochka all the winter has been +writing with irritation, often with tears and +pain. In my opinion, his novel, <i>War and +Peace</i>, must be superb. Whatever he has +read to me moves me to tears." In 1865, +when my husband was in Moscow looking +up historical material, I wrote to him: "Today +I copied and read on a little ahead, what +I had not yet seen nor read, namely, how the +miserable, muffled-up old Mack himself arrives +to admit his defeat, and round him +stand the inquisitive aides-de-camp, and he +is almost crying, and his meeting with Kutuzov. +I liked it immensely, and that is what +I am writing to tell you."</p> + +<p>In November, 1866, Leo Nikolaevich +used to go to the Rumyantsev Museum and +read up everything about the freemasons. +Before leaving Yasnaya Polyana he always +left me work to copy. When I had finished +it, I sent it off to Moscow, and I wrote to my<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> +husband: "How have you decided about the +novel? I have got to love your novel very +much. When I sent the fair-copy off to +Moscow, I felt as if I had sent off a child +and I am afraid that some harm may come +to it."</p> + +<p>In copying I was often astonished and +could not understand why Leo Nikolaevich +corrected or destroyed what seemed so beautiful, +and I used to be delighted if he put +back what he had struck out. Sometimes +proofs which had been finally corrected and +sent off, were returned again to Leo Nikolaevich +at his request in order to be recorrected +and recopied. Or a telegram would be sent +to substitute <i>one</i> word for another. My +whole soul became so immersed in copying +that I began myself to feel when it was not +altogether right, for instance, when there +were frequent repetitions of the same word, +long periods, wrong punctuation, obscurity, +etc. I used to point all these things out to +Leo Nikolaevich. Sometimes he was glad +for my remarks; sometimes he would explain +why it ought to remain as it +was: he would say that details do not<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> +matter, only the general scheme matters.</p> + +<p>The first thing which I copied out in my +clumsy, but legible writing was <i>Polikushka</i>, +and for years afterwards that work delighted +me. I used to long for the evening when +Leo Nikolaevich would bring me something +newly written or recorrected. Some passages +in <i>War and Peace</i>, and also in his other +works, had to be copied over and over again. +Others, for instance the description of the +uncle's hunting party in <i>War and Peace</i>, +were written once and for all and were not +corrected. I remember how Leo Nikolaevich +called me down to his study and read +aloud to me that chapter just after he had +written it, and we smiled and were happy +together.</p> + +<p>In copying I sometimes allowed myself to +make remarks and to ask him to strike out +anything which I thought not sufficiently +pure to be read by young people, for instance +in the scene of the beautiful Ellen's cynicism, +and Leo Nikolaevich granted my request. +But often in my life, when copying +the poetical and charming passages in my +husband's works, I have wept, not only because<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> +they moved me, but simply from the +artist's pleasure which I felt together with +the author.</p> + +<p>It used to grieve me much when Leo +Nikolaevich suddenly became depressed and +disappointed with his work, and wrote to +me that he did not like the novel and was +miserable. This was particularly the case +in 1864, when he broke his arm, and I wrote +to him in Moscow: "Why have you lost +heart in everything? Everything depresses +you; nothing goes right. Why have you +lost heart and courage? Haven't you the +strength to rouse yourself? Remember +how pleased you were with the novel, how +well you thought it all out, and suddenly +you don't like it. No, no, you must not. +Now, come to us, and instead of the Kremlin's +walls you will see our <i>Chepyzh</i>,<a name="FNanchor_J_9" id="FNanchor_J_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_9" class="fnanchor">[J]</a> lighted +up by the sun, and the fields ... and with +a happy face you will begin telling me the +ideas for your work, you will dictate to me, +and ideas will again come to you, and the +melancholy will pass away." And so it was +after he had come home.<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> + +<p>If Leo Nikolaevich stopped working, I +used to feel dull and wrote to him: "Prepare, +prepare work for me." In Moscow +he sold the first part of <i>War and Peace</i> to +Katkov for the <i>Russkii Vyestnik</i>, and he +handed the MS. over to the secretary, +Lyubimov.<a name="nanchor_026" id="nanchor_026"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_026">{26}</a></span> Somehow or other it made +me sad, and I wrote to my husband: "I felt +so sorry that you had sold it. Terrible! +Your thoughts, feelings, your talent, even +your soul—sold!"</p> + +<p>When Leo Nikolaevich had finished <i>War +and Peace</i>, I asked him to publish that beautiful +epic in book form, and not to publish +it in magazines, and he agreed. Soon afterwards +N. N. Strakhov's brilliant review of +it came out, and Leo Nikolaevich said that +the place which Strakhov gave to <i>War and +Peace</i> by his appreciation would remain permanent. +<a name="nanchor_027" id="nanchor_027"></a><a href="#note_027">{27}</a>But apart from this Tolstoy's +fame grew with great rapidity, and his reputation +as a writer rose higher and higher +and soon extended to all countries and all +classes.</p> + +<p>Princess Paskevich was the first to +translate <i>War and Peace</i> into French for<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> +some charitable purpose, and the French, although +surprised, appreciated the work of +the Russian writer. Among my papers I +have a copy of I. S. Turgenev's letter to +Edmond About, in which Turgenev gives the +highest praise to <i>War and Peace</i>. Among +other things, he says on 20 January, 1880: +"<i>Un des livres les plus remarquables de +notre temps</i>." And again: "<i>Ceci est une +grande œuvre d'un grand écrivain et c'est +la vraie Russie</i>."<a name="nanchor_028" id="nanchor_028"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_028">{28}</a></span></p> + +<p>In 1869 the printing of the first edition of +<i>War and Peace</i> was completed; it was +quickly sold out and a second printed. The +writer Shedrin's opinion of <i>War and Peace</i> +was strange; he said with contempt that it +reminded him of the chatter of nursemaids +and old ladies.</p> + +<p>After finishing his great work, Leo +Nikolaevich's need for creative activity did +not come to an end. New ideas sprang up +in his mind. In working at the period of +Peter the Great, despite all his efforts, he +was unable to describe the period, particularly +its every-day life. I wrote to my sister +about it:<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a></p> + +<p>"All the characters of the time of Peter +the Great he now has ready; they are dressed, +arranged, sitting in their places, but they +don't breathe yet. Perhaps they will begin +to live."</p> + +<p>But these characters did not come to life. +The beginning of this work on the time of +Peter the Great still remains unpublished.</p> + +<p>At one time Leo Nikolaevich intended to +write the history of Mirovich, but he did +not accomplish that either.<a name="nanchor_029" id="nanchor_029"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_029">{29}</a></span> He always +shared with me his plans about work, and +in 1870 he told me that he wanted to write +a novel about the fall of a society woman +in the highest Petersburg circles, and the +task which he set himself was to tell the +story of the woman and of her fall without +condemning her. The idea was later +carried out in his new novel, <i>Anna Karenina</i>. +I well remember the circumstances in which +he began to write that novel.</p> + +<p>In order to amuse old Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna +Ergolskii, I sent my son Serge, +who was her godson, to read aloud to her +Pushkin's <i>Tales of Byelkin</i>. She fell asleep +while he was reading, and Serge went up to<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> +the nursery, leaving the book on a table in +the drawing-room. Leo Nikolaevich took +up the book and started to read a passage +beginning with the words: "The guests were +arriving at the country-house of Count +L——"<a name="nanchor_030" id="nanchor_030"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_030">{30}</a></span> "How good, how simple," said +Leo Nikolaevich. "Straight to business. +That's the way to write. Pushkin is my +master."<a name="nanchor_031" id="nanchor_031"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_031">{31}</a></span> That same evening Leo Nikolaevich +began to write <i>Anna Karenina</i> and +read the opening chapter to me; after a +short introduction about the families he had +written: "Everything was in a muddle in +the house of the Oblonskiis." That was on +19 March, 1872.</p> + +<p>When he had written the first part of +<i>Anna Karenina</i> and had given me the second +part to be copied, Leo Nikolaevich suddenly +stopped working at it and became interested +in education. In 1874 he wrote to Countess +Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoy: "I am +again deep in education, as I was fourteen +years ago. I am writing a novel, but I cannot +tear myself away from the living in +order to describe imaginary people."<a name="nanchor_032" id="nanchor_032"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_032">{32}</a></span></p> + +<p>However difficult I might find it to combine<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> +the copying with my maternal and other +duties, when I had not got it, I missed it +and waited impatiently for my husband's +artistic work to begin again.</p> + +<p>The conditions under which <i>Anna Karenina</i> +was written were much more difficult +than those under which <i>War and Peace</i> was +written. Then we had undisturbed happiness, +now there died in succession three of +our children<a name="nanchor_033" id="nanchor_033"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_033">{33}</a></span> and two aunts.<a name="nanchor_034" id="nanchor_034"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_034">{34}</a></span> I became +ill, grew thin, coughed blood, and suffered +from pains in the back. Leo Nikolaevich +became alarmed, and in Moscow, on the way +to get kumiss, he consulted Professor Zakharin, +who said: "It is not yet consumption, +but her nerves may be shattered"; and +he added reproachfully: "You have neglected +her, though." He forbade me to +teach the children or do the copying, and he +prescribed a régime of silence. For a long +time I got no better, especially as we had to +spend the summer on the Samara steppes +in very inconvenient surroundings and living +on kumiss, which I could not drink. Miserable +and ill, I wrote to my sister: "Levochka's +novel is published and is said to be a<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> +great success. In me it arouses strange feelings; +there is so much sorrow in our house, +and we are everywhere made so much of."</p> + +<p>After <i>Anna Karenina</i>, Leo Nikolaevich, +wishing to purify the literature read by +simple folk and to introduce more morality +and art into it, wrote a series of stories and +legends which I admired very much; I sympathized +keenly with their idea and object. +I remember being present at the university +when these legends were read aloud, and I +wrote to Leo Nikolaevich at Yasnaya Polyana:</p> + +<p>"The legends were a tremendous success. +They were beautifully read by Professor +Storozhenko. The majority of the audience +were students. The impression which the +stories makes on one is that the <i>style</i> is remarkably +severe, concise, not a single unnecessary +word, everything true and pointed—a +harmonious whole. Much meaning, +few words; it gives one satisfaction right +up to the end."</p> + +<p>I mention these works, as I have done +those which were created during the happiest +years of our life.<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<p class="noind">D<small>URING</small> the first years of our married life +we had few people to stay with us. I remember +that Count Sollogub, the author of +<i>Tarantas</i>, with his two sons, used to come +and visit us. He was a clever and amiable +man, and we all liked him very much; he +won my heart by saying to Leo Nikolaevich: +"Lucky man to have such a wife." To me +he once said: "You are, in fact, the nurse +of your husband's talent, and go on being +that all your life long." I always remembered +this wise and friendly advice of Count +Sollogub, and I tried to follow it as well +as I could.</p> + +<p>Very often Fet used to come to us; Leo +Nikolaevich was fond of him and Fet was +fond of us both. On his journeys between +Moscow and his estate he used to stay with +us, and his good wife, Marie Petrovna, often<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> +came with him; he used to make the house +ring with his loud, brilliant, often witty, and +sometimes flattering, talk.</p> + +<p>In the early summer of 1863, he was at +Yasnaya Polyana when Leo Nikolaevich was +tremendously interested in bees and used to +spend whole days among the hives; sometimes +I used even to bring the lunch out +there. One evening we all decided to have +tea in the apiary. Everywhere in the grass +glow-worms began to shine. Leo Nikolaevich +took two of them and laughingly held +them to my ears, saying: "Look, I always +promised you emerald ear-rings; could anything +be better than these?" When Fet +left, he wrote me a letter in verse, ending +as follows:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">In my hand is yours,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">What a marvel!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And on the earth are two glow-worms,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two emeralds.<a name="nanchor_035" id="nanchor_035"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_035">{35}</a></span></span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Almost always after a visit Afanasii +Afanasevich Fet sent me a poem, and many +of them were dedicated to me.<a name="nanchor_036" id="nanchor_036"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_036">{36}</a></span> In one of +them I was pleased by the, perhaps, undeserved<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> +description of the qualities of my +soul in the following stanza:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">And, behold, enchanted</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">By thee, here, remote,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">I understand, bright creature,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">All the <i>purity</i> of thy soul.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>When we settled down in Moscow, Fet +bought a house near us and often visited us, +saying that in Moscow all he wanted was a +<i>samovar</i>. We laughed at this unexpected +desire of Fet's, and he explained: "I must +be certain that in such and such a house, in +the evening, the samovar is boiling and that +there is sitting there a sweet hostess with +whom I can spend a pleasant evening."</p> + +<p>Among the interesting visitors at Yasnaya +Polyana was Turgenev, who came twice. +The first time was in 1878, and the second +when he came to ask Leo Nikolaevich to be +present at the opening of the Pushkin memorial. +He was amiable and lively and liked +our happy family life, and he said to +Leo Nikolaevich: "How well you did +for yourself, my dear, in marrying your +wife."<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a><a name="nanchor_037" id="nanchor_037"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_037">{37}</a></span></p> + +<p>I thank those dear, dead, <i>real</i> friends of +ours for their invariable goodness and kindness +to me. Many of them were more than +twenty years older than I and treated me, +as a young woman, with kindliness.</p> + +<p>Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov often came +to us on long visits; he was for all of us a +loved and respected friend and he was always +deeply touched by our life and was fond of +the children. He used to say: "I must +write about Yasnaya Polyana and the life +here." But his intention remained unfulfilled.</p> + +<p>Many other guests came to us at Yasnaya +Polyana and in Moscow. Among them +were foreigners, Riepin, the famous artist, +Gué, Syerov, Ginsburg, Truberskoi, Aronson +who painted and sculptured Leo Nikolaevich +and myself. My portraits for some reason +were never like me.</p> + +<p>A great deal could be written about this +happy period of my life, when everything +was so full of joy, interest, and occupation. +I regret that at the time I kept few records +of events and the interesting conversation of +visitors and of Leo Nikolaevich himself;<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> +now I remember little, for I have passed +through different experiences in which I had +to pay with sorrow and tears for former +happiness, experiences caused by painful circumstances +and by wicked people.<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<p class="noind">W<small>HEN</small> children began to appear upon the +scene, I could no longer devote myself +entirely to my husband's service and to the +constant sympathy with his work. We had +many children: I bore thirteen. Ten of +them I nursed myself, on principle and because +I wanted to do so. I did not want to +have wet-nurses. Owing to difficulties, I +had to give up the principle on three occasions.</p> + +<p>The children were growing up, and at that +time we were of one mind with regard to +their education. Leo Nikolaevich always +himself engaged or found teachers and +governesses for them. We parents taught +them a great deal ourselves. Their father +wanted to give them a most refined education, +and to the boys an exclusively classical +one. He learnt Greek himself with<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> +great labour in order to teach our eldest son, +Serge, whom Leo Nikolaevich wanted to go +to the university. "By that time Tanya will +be grown up," he would say, "and we shall +have to bring her out." I had to teach the +children those subjects for which at the time +there were no teachers, French, German, +music, drawing, Russian literature, and even +dancing. I knew very little English. Leo +Nikolaevich, who also at that time had a +poor knowledge of the language, began +teaching it to me, and the first book which +we read together in English was Wilkie Collins's +<i>The Woman in White</i>.<a name="nanchor_038" id="nanchor_038"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_038">{38}</a></span> Later on I +easily acquired the language from the English +governess whom we had for the children.</p> + +<p>What we were chiefly concerned for in the +education of the elder children, we obtained +in 1881 when we moved to Moscow for the +winter. Our eldest son, Serge, entered the +university; our two other sons, Ilya and Leo, +were sent by Leo Nikolaevich to L. I. Polivanov's +classical school. He sent our +daughter, Tanya, to the School of Painting +and Sculpture, and he took her out to her +first fancy-dress ball at the Olsufevs, as I<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> +was expecting my eighth child, Alesha, born +on 31 October, and did not go out anywhere.</p> + +<p>The move to Moscow and our life in the +town turned out for both of us to be much +more difficult than we could have anticipated. +It is true that Leo Nikolaevich wrote +to me from the Samara steppes, where he had +gone for a kumiss cure: "If God will, I +shall come and help you in your Moscow +affairs willingly—you have only to give me +the order"; but he was unable to carry out his +word and he suddenly fell into despondency. +Now that he was away from the country +and nature, the impressions of town life, +which he had forgotten, but which now came +fresh to him, with its poverty on the one side +and its luxury on the other, threw him into +despondency, so that it often made me cry +to see his moods which became much worse +after he took part in the Moscow census. +City life was for the first time presented, +as it were, to his impressionable mind. But +a return to our previous life was impossible, +as the children's education had just been begun +and had become the principal problem<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> +in our life. With sadness I had to look +back and recognize that the nineteen years +which we had spent continuously at Yasnaya +Polyana were the happiest time of our lives. +Besides the family and the copying for Leo +Nikolaevich, what a number of good occupations +I had in the country! Sick peasants +used to come to me and, as far as I +could, I used to treat them, and I was fond +of the work. We planted apple trees and +other trees and took pleasure in watching +them grow. Once we had a school in the +house and the village children were taught +with ours as they grew up. But this did +not last long, because we had to have our +own children educated and we wanted to +make their life as varied as possible. In the +winter the whole family, including us +parents, the tutors, and governesses, skated +on the ice or tobogganed on the hills, and +we cleared the snow from the pond ourselves. +Every summer, for twenty years, the family +of my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, came to Yasnaya +Polyana, and our life was so merry that +the summer with us was a continuous holiday. +There were various games like croquet<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> +and tennis, amateur theatricals, and +other amusements like bathing, gathering +mushrooms, boating, and driving, and besides +these, the summer was devoted to music, +and concerts arranged by the children +and grown-ups, with piano, violin, and +singing.</p> + +<p>One summer all the young people worked +on the land, and with Leo Nikolaevich +gathered in the crops for the poor peasant +women. Already at the same time, <i>i. e.</i> at +the end of the 'seventies and beginning of +the 'eighties, he felt in him that inner crisis, +that desire for a different, more simple and +spiritual, life which never left him until the +end of his life. But there also came an +end to the undisturbed happiness with which +we had lived so many years. At the beginning +of his spiritual crisis Leo Nikolaevich, +as is well known, gave himself ardently to +the orthodox faith and church. He saw +himself united in it with the people. But +gradually he left it, as his later writings +show. It is difficult to trace the steps of +this crisis in Leo Nikolaevich, and when it<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> +was exactly that I, with my intensely hardworking +life and maternity, could no longer +live so completely in my husband's intellectual +interests, and he began to go further +and further away from family life. We +had already nine children, and the older they +grew, the more complicated became the problem +of their education and our relations to +them. But their father was withdrawing +himself more and more from them, and at +last he refused altogether to have anything +to do with the education of his children, on +the plea that they were being taught according +to principles and a religion which he considered +harmful for them.</p> + +<p>I was too weak to be able to solve the +dilemma, and I was often driven to despair; +I became ill, but saw no way out. What +could be done? Go back to the country +and give up everything? But Leo Nikolaevich +did not seem to want that either. Against +my will he bought a house in Moscow, +and thus seemed to fix our life in the town.<a name="nanchor_039" id="nanchor_039"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_039">{39}</a></span></p> + +<p>The difference between my husband and +myself came about, not because <i>I</i> in my heart<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> +went away from him. I and my life remained +the same as before. It was <i>he</i> who +went away, not in his everyday life, but in +his writings and his teachings as to how +people should live. I felt myself unable to +follow his teachings myself. But our personal +relations were unaltered: we loved each +other just as much, we found it just as difficult +to be parted even temporarily, and, as +an old and respected friend of our family expressed +it in a letter to me: "Not a jot +could be added to or taken from either of +you without disturbing the wonderful harmony +of your private spiritual life in the +midst of the multitude of people surrounding +you...."</p> + +<p>Only rarely was our happiness clouded +and the harmony broken by flashes of mutual +jealousy, which had no ground at all. +We were both hot-tempered and passionate; +we could not bear the thought that anyone +should alienate us. It was just this jealousy +which woke up in me with terrible force +when, towards the end of our life, I realized +that my husband's soul, which had been open<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> +to me for so many years, had suddenly been +closed to me irrevocably and without cause, +while it was opened to an outsider, a +stranger.<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a><a name="nanchor_040" id="nanchor_040"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_040">{40}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<p class="noind">I<small>N</small> four years we had suffered five losses in +the family. The two aunts died, in 1874 +Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii, and in +1875 Pelageya Ilinishna Yushkov. Also +three of our young children died; I caught +whooping-cough from them, and at the same +time became ill with peritonitis which +brought on child-birth prematurely and I was +on the point of death.</p> + +<p>Whether these events influenced Leo +Nikolaevich or whether there were other +causes, his discontent with life and his seeking +for truth became acute. Everyone +knows from his <i>Confession</i> and other works +that he even contemplated hanging himself, +when he did not find satisfaction in his seeking. +I could not feel as happy as before, +when my husband, though without saying +it frankly, threatened to take his life, as<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> +later he threatened to go away from his +family. It was difficult for me to discover +the causes of his despair or to induce myself +to believe in them.<a name="nanchor_041" id="nanchor_041"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_041">{41}</a></span> Our family lived its +normal, good life, but it no longer satisfied +him; he was looking for the meaning of life +in something different; he was seeking for +belief in God, he always shuddered at the +thought of death, and he could not find +that which might comfort him and reconcile +him with it. At one time he would speak +to Count Bobrinsky<a name="nanchor_042" id="nanchor_042"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_042">{42}</a></span> of the teaching of +Radstock,<a name="nanchor_043" id="nanchor_043"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_043">{43}</a></span> at another to Prince S. S. Urusov<a name="nanchor_044" id="nanchor_044"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_044">{44}</a></span> +of the orthodox faith and church, at +another with pilgrims and sectaries, and later +with bishops, monks, and priests. But nobody +and nothing satisfied Leo Nikolaevich +or put his mind at rest. A spirit which rejected +the existing religions, the progress, +science, art, family, everything which mankind +had evolved in centuries, had been +growing stronger and stronger in Leo Nikolaevich, +and he was becoming gloomier and +gloomier. It was as though his inner eye +was turned only to evil and suffering, as +though all that was joyful, beautiful, and<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> +good had disappeared. I did not know how +to live with such views; I was alarmed, +frightened, grieved. But with nine children +I could not, like a weather-cock, turn in the +ever changing direction of my husband's +spiritual going away. With him it was a +passionate, sincere seeking; with me it would +have been a silly imitation, positively harmful +to the family. Besides, in my innermost +heart and beliefs I did not wish to leave the +church to which from my childhood I had +always turned in prayer. Leo Nikolaevich +was himself for nearly two years at the beginning +of his seeking extremely orthodox +and observed all rituals and feasts. At the +time the family also followed his example. +<i>When</i> exactly we parted from him and over +what, I do not know, I cannot remember.</p> + +<p>Leo Nikolaevich's denial of the church +and orthodoxy had a sharp contrast in his +recognition of the efficacy and wisdom of +Christ's teaching, which he considered incompatible +with the doctrine of the church. +Personally I could have no difference with +him regarding the Gospel, since I considered +the Gospel to be the foundation of the<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> +orthodox faith.<a name="nanchor_045" id="nanchor_045"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_045">{45}</a></span> When he accepted +Christ's teaching and tried to live in accordance +with the Gospel, Leo Nikolaevich began +to suffer through our apparently luxurious +mode of life, which I could not alter. I +simply did not understand why I should +alter it, nor could I alter conditions which +had not been created by ourselves. If I had +given away all my fortune at my husband's +desire (I don't know to whom), if I had +been left in poverty with nine children, I +should have had to work for the family—to +feed, do the sewing for, wash, bring up my +children without education. Leo Nikolaevich, +by vocation and inclination, could have +done nothing else but write.<a name="nanchor_046" id="nanchor_046"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_046">{46}</a></span> He was +always rushing off from Moscow to Yasnaya +Polyana; he lived alone there, read, wrote, +and thought out his work. I bore these +partings from him with difficulty, but I considered +them necessary for my husband's intellectual +work and peace of mind.</p> + +<p>In my turn, as I grew older, the external +and internal complexity of life made me look +seriously into its demands, and again, as in +my early youth, I turned to philosophy, to<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> +the wisdom of the thinkers who had preceded +us. At that time, about 1881 or 1882, +Prince Leonid Dmitrievich Urusov,<a name="nanchor_047" id="nanchor_047"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_047">{47}</a></span> an intimate +friend who often visited us and who +was Deputy Governor of the Tula Province, +translated into Russian <i>The Meditations of +Marcus Aurelius</i> and brought us the book +to read. The thoughts of that royal sage +produced a great impression on me. Later +Prince Urusov gave me the works of Seneca +in a French translation. The brilliant style +and richness of thought in that philosopher +so attracted me that I read his works through +twice. I then read in succession various +philosophers, buying their books and copying +out the ideas and sayings which struck me. +I remember how impressed I was by Epictetus's +thoughts on death. I found Spinoza +very difficult to understand, but I became +interested in his Ethics and especially in his +explanation of the conception of God. +Socrates, Plato, and other philosophers, but +particularly the Greeks, enchanted me, and +I can say that these sages helped me greatly +to live and to think. Later on I also tried +to read modern philosophers; I read Schopenhauer<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> +and others, but I much preferred +the ancients. Of Leo Nikolaevich's philosophical +works I liked and understood best +his book <i>On Life</i>, and I translated it into +French with the assistance of M. Tastevin. +I worked hard at that translation, being particularly +ill at the time and expecting the +birth of our last child, Vanichka. While +working conscientiously at the translation, +I often went for advice to my husband and +to the philosophers, N. Y. Grot and V. S. +Solovev.</p> + +<p>I always very much liked writing of whatever +kind. When Leo Nikolaevich was +writing his <i>A. B. C.</i> and <i>Four Reading-Books</i>, +he used to intrust to me the work of +making up sentences and of re-telling and +translating them so as to adapt them to the +Russian language and customs. I also +wrote the small story <i>Sparrows</i> and others.</p> + +<p>On the appearance of <i>Kreutzer Sonata</i>, +which I never liked, I wrote a story from the +woman's point of view, but I did not publish +it. Later on I wrote a tale, <i>A Song +without Words</i>. I got the idea for it by +seeing girls at a concert behave strangely to<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> +a famous pianist. They kissed his goloshes, +tore his handkerchief to pieces and altogether +acted as if they were mad. What +has music to do with all that? I wanted to +convey the idea that our attitude towards +art, as towards nature, must be chaste, <i>i. e.</i> +pure, without any mixture of base human +passions.</p> + +<p>When I taught the children, I wrote a +Russian grammar from which they quickly +learnt to write correctly. Unfortunately +the Russian teacher, who much approved of +my work, lost it.</p> + +<p>I used to invent stories to tell to my children, +and I wrote some of them down and +later published them with illustrations. +In the first story, <i>Skeleton Aurelias</i>, I used +an idea of Leo Nikolaevich's. He began +to write the story, but the beginning was +lost. Whether it was lost with his suit-case,<a name="nanchor_048" id="nanchor_048"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_048">{48}</a></span> +or whether it was carried off with +the other MSS., I do not know.<a name="nanchor_049" id="nanchor_049"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_049">{49}</a></span></p> + +<p>I always regarded my literary work with +a certain contempt and irony, considering it +in the nature of a joke. For instance, after +reading various writings of the decadents, I<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> +tried to imitate them, and, for a joke, wrote +prose poems under the title <i>Groans</i>. They +were published, without my name, and +without the author being known, in the +<i>Journal Dlva Vsvekh</i> for March, 1904.</p> + +<p>I remember two others of my writings, +translations which Leo Nikolaevich commissioned +me to do. One was from the +German, <i>The Teaching of the Twelve +Apostles</i>,<a name="nanchor_050" id="nanchor_050"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_050">{50}</a></span> which he afterwards corrected +himself, and the other from English, <i>On the +Sect of the Bahaists</i>.<a name="nanchor_051" id="nanchor_051"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_051">{51}</a></span></p> + +<p>I also published various articles in newspapers. +The most important were: my appeal +for funds for the famine-stricken on +3 November, 1891; my letter to the <i>Metropolitans</i> +and <i>Synod</i> on Leo Nikolaevich's +excommunication, which had deeply revolted +and pained me.<a name="nanchor_052" id="nanchor_052"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_052">{52}</a></span> I also published an article, +<i>A Recollection of Turgenev</i>, in the +<i>Orlovskii Vyestnik</i>, a critical article on Andreyev, +and others.<a name="nanchor_053" id="nanchor_053"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_053">{53}</a></span></p> + +<p>If I ever wrote anything of value, it was +the seven thick note-books, under the title +<i>My Life</i>.<a name="nanchor_054" id="nanchor_054"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_054">{54}</a></span> In them I described all my +long life up to 1897. When after the death<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> +of Leo Nikolaevich I was, quite illegally, +forbidden access to the Historical Museum, +where I had placed for safe keeping all my +husband's papers, diaries, letters, note-books, +as well as my own, I could not continue my +work without materials, and three years of +my life, which was drawing to a close, were +lost to the work. And who knows better +than I the life of Leo Nikolaevich? It was +I myself who in 1894 placed those documents +first in the Rumyantsev Museum, and later +during its repair transferred them to the +Historical Museum, where they now lie +awaiting the verdict as to their fate from +the courts of law.<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a><a name="nanchor_055" id="nanchor_055"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_055">{55}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<p class="noind">I<small>N</small> the summer of 1884 Leo Nikolaevich +worked a great deal on the land; for whole +days he mowed with the peasants, and when +tired out he came home in the evenings, he +used to sit gloomy and discontented with +the life lived by the family. That life was +in discordance with his teaching, and this +tormented and pained him. At one time he +thought of taking a Russian peasant woman, +a worker on the land, and of secretly going +away with the peasants to start a new life; +he confessed this to me himself. At last, +on 17 June, after a little quarrel with me +about the horses, he took a sack with a few +things on his shoulder and left the house, +saying that he was going away for ever, perhaps +to America, and that he would never +come back. At the time I was beginning to +feel the pains of childbirth. My husband's<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> +behaviour drove me to despair, and the two +pains, of the body and of the heart, were +unendurable. I prayed to God for death. +At four o'clock in the morning Leo Nikolaevich +came back, and, without coming to me, +lay down on the couch downstairs in his +study. In spite of my cruel pains I ran +down to him; he was gloomy and said +nothing to me. At seven o'clock that morning +our daughter Alexandra was born. I +could never forget that terrible, bright June +night.</p> + +<p>Once more in 1897 Leo Nikolaevich had +the desire to go away; but no one knew of it. +He wrote me a letter which, at his desire, +was handed over to me only after his +death.<a name="nanchor_056" id="nanchor_056"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_056">{56}</a></span> But that time also he did not go +away.</p> + +<p>In the autumn of that year Leo Nikolaevich +gave me a power-of-attorney to manage +all his affairs, including the publication +of his works. Inexperienced and without a +farthing, I energetically began to learn the +business of publishing books, and then of +selling and subscribing L. N. Tolstoy's +works. I had to manage the estates and in<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> +general all his affairs. How difficult it +was, with a large family and with no experience! +I had more than once to appeal to +the censor, and for that purpose I had to go +to Petersburg.</p> + +<p>Once Leo Nikolaevich called me into his +study and asked me to take over in full +ownership all his property, including his +copyrights. I asked him what need there +was for that, since we were so intimate and +had children in common. He replied that +he considered property an evil and that he +did not wish to own it. "So you wish to +hand over that evil to me, the creature +nearest to you," I said, in tears; "I do not +want it and I shall take nothing." So I did +not take my husband's property, but I managed +his affairs under the power-of-attorney, +and it was only some years afterwards that I +agreed to a general division of the property, +and the father himself apportioned the +shares to each of the children and to myself. +He renounced altogether the copyright of +his books written after 1881.<a name="nanchor_057" id="nanchor_057"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_057">{57}</a></span> But he retained +until the end of his life the copyright +of the previous books. The division was<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> +completed in 1891, and Yasnaya Polyana +was given to our youngest son, Vanichka, +and to myself.</p> + +<p>In the same year 1891 an important event +happened to me. I went to Petersburg to +petition the authorities to remove the ban +on the thirteenth volume of L. N. Tolstoy's +works, which contained <i>Kreutzer Sonata</i>. +I made an application to the Emperor Alexander +III. He graciously received me, and, +after I had left, he ordered the ban on the +forbidden book to be removed, although he +expressed a desire that <i>Kreutzer Sonata</i> +should not be sold as a separate volume. +But some one secretly published the story, +and envious persons calumniated me by +telling the Tsar that I had disobeyed his +will. The Sovereign was, naturally, highly +displeased, and, as Countess A. A. Tolstoy +told me he said: "If I was mistaken in that +woman, then there are no truthful people in +the world." I got to know about this too +late to clear up the matter, and I was deeply +grieved, the more so because the Tsar died +that autumn without ever knowing the truth.<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<p class="noind">T<small>HE</small> 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<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> +method of life pained and tormented me.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="nanchor_058" id="nanchor_058"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_058">{58}</a></span> 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<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_K_10" id="FNanchor_K_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_10" class="fnanchor">[K]</a> 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.<a name="nanchor_059" id="nanchor_059"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_059">{59}</a></span> +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,<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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,<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> +and beautiful, just as the sounds themselves +do not say anything definite, but +make one think, dream, and rejoice vaguely +and beautifully.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<p class="noind">I<small>N</small> August, 1896, Leo Nikolaevich suggested +that I should go with him and his sister, +Marie Nikolaevna, to the monastery near +Shamardin. From there we went to the +Optina Monastery, where I fasted. While +I confessed, Leo Nikolaevich walked round +the cell of the venerable monk, Father +Gerasim, but he did not come in.</p> + +<p>After Vanichka's death our family life +was no longer happy. Gradually the other +children married and the house became +empty. The parting with our daughter was +especially hard. Leo Nikolaevich's health +began to be bad, and in September, 1901, +the doctors after a consultation ordered him +off to the south, to the Crimea. Countess +Panin kindly lent us her magnificent house +in Gaspra, where our whole family spent +nearly ten months. Leo Nikolaevich's<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> +health not only did not improve, it grew +worse. He was ill in Gaspra from one infectious +disease after another, and it is with +pain in my heart that I remember how I +used to sit at night by my husband's bed +during nearly the whole of those ten months. +We took it in turns to sit by him, I, my +daughters, the doctors, friends, and above +all my son, Serge. How much I used to +go through and think over during those +nights!<a name="nanchor_060" id="nanchor_060"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_060">{60}</a></span></p> + +<p>We did not go back again to our life in +Moscow, and the doctors and I decided that +it was best for Leo Nikolaevich to live in +Yasnaya Polyana, where he was born and +bred.</p> + +<p>After making up our minds on our return +from the Crimea to remain in the country, +during the following years we lived quietly +and peacefully, all occupied with our own +work. I worked hard at writing my +memoirs, under the title <i>My Life</i>; I often +went to Moscow on business in connection +with Leo Nikolaevich's publications, and +then every day in the morning I used to sit +in the Historical Museum, copying from<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> +the diaries, letters, and note-books the material +which I wanted for my work. It gave +me great pleasure, that work upstairs in the +tower of the museum, in complete solitude, +surrounded by such interesting papers. I +did not arrange the MSS., thinking that I +might leave that for others, and considering +it more useful to write my reminiscences, +as I did not anticipate a long life or that my +memory would remain fresh.</p> + +<p>Moreover by mere accident I took to +painting passionately, for it always attracted +me. In Petersburg in the Tauric Palace a +very good and interesting exhibition of old +and modern portraits was opened, and we +were asked to lend all our family portraits +from Yasnaya Polyana. It seemed to me +most unpleasant to have the walls of the +drawing-room bare, and with my usual boldness +I began copying the portraits before +they were removed. I had never studied +painting, but I loved it, like all the arts, and +I was terribly excited and worked for whole +days, and often the nights as well. As formerly +with music, I was completely carried +away by painting. Leo Nikolaevich laughingly<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> +said that I had caught a disease called +"portraititis," and that he was afraid for my +sanity. The most successful of my attempts +was a copy of Leo Nikolaevich's portrait by +Kramskoi. Later I tried to paint landscapes +and flowers from nature, but extreme short-sightedness +put me at a great disadvantage, +and I was dissatisfied with my want of skill. +But I do not regret that I took up music +and painting, however unskilfully, towards +the end of my life. One only thoroughly +understands any art when one practises it, +however badly.</p> + +<p>My last attempts were water-colour paintings +of all the Yasnaya Polyana flora and +of all the fungi of the Yasnaya Polyana +woods.<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + +<p class="noind">I<small>N</small> 1904 I had to endure the pain of my son, +Andrey, leaving to fight in the war against +Japan. In my heart I was opposed to war +as to any other kind of murder, and it was +with a peculiar pain in my heart that I saw +my son off at Tambov and with other +mothers looked at the carriages full of soldiers—our +sons doomed to death.</p> + +<p>A happy event for our family in 1905 +was the birth of an only child to our +daughter, Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin. This +granddaughter, as she grew up, was a favourite +of Leo Nikolaevich and of the whole +family.</p> + +<p>In 1906 I underwent a serious operation, +performed by Professor V. F. Snegirev in +Yasnaya Polyana. How quietly I prepared +myself for death, how happy I felt, when +the servants, saying good-bye to me, cried<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> +bitterly! I felt a strange sensation, when +I fell asleep under the anaesthetic which was +given to me: it was new and significant. +All external life in its complicated setting, +especially of towns, flashed before my inner +vision like a quickly changing panorama. +And how insignificant human vanity appeared +to me! I seemed to be asking myself: +what, then, is important? One thing: +if God has sent us on to the earth and we +are to live, then the most important thing +is to help one another in whatever way possible. +To help one another to live. I think +the same now.</p> + +<p>The operation was quite successful, but +it seemed as though the will of fate, having +aimed at taking my life, wavered and then +removed its hand to our daughter Masha. +I recovered, and that lovely, unselfish, spiritual +creature, Masha, died of pneumonia in +our house two and a half months after my +operation. This sorrow was a heavy weight +on our life and aging hearts. The previous +rift, the reproaches and unpleasantness +ceased for a while and we humbled ourselves +before fate. The time passed in our<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> +usual occupations, and Leo Nikolaevich, as +a distraction, played cards with his children +and friends; he was very fond of whist. +In the mornings he wrote, and every afternoon +he rode; he lived the most quiet and +regular life. He was, however, often worried +by visitors who tired him, by applicants, +and by letters in which people disagreed +with his teaching and reproached him with +his way of life, or asked him for money or +to get them jobs.</p> + +<p>These reproaches and the interference of +outsiders in our peaceful family life ruined +it. Even before this the influence of outside +people was creeping in and towards the end +of Leo Nikolaevich's life it assumed terrifying +dimensions. For instance, these outsiders +frightened Leo Nikolaevich with the +prediction that the Russian Government +would send the police and seize all his +papers. On that pretext they were removed +from Yasnaya Polyana, and, therefore, Leo +Nikolaevich could no longer work at them, +as he had not the <i>whole</i> material. Eventually +with difficulty I succeeded in getting +back seven thick note-books containing my<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> +husband's diaries which are now in the possession +of our daughter Alexandra; but the +affair led to strained relations with the man +who had them in his keeping and he ceased +his daily visits.<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a><a name="nanchor_061" id="nanchor_061"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_061">{61}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + +<p class="noind">I<small>N</small> 1895 Leo Nikolaevich wrote a letter in +which, as a request to his heirs, he expressed +the desire that the copyright in his works +should be made public property, and in +which he entrusted the examination of his +MSS. after his death to Nikolai Nikolaevich +Strakhov, to Chertkov, and to me.<a name="nanchor_062" id="nanchor_062"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_062">{62}</a></span> The +letter was in the keeping of my daughter +Masha and was destroyed,<a name="nanchor_063" id="nanchor_063"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_063">{63}</a></span> and in its +place in September, 1909, a will was made +at Chertkov's house in Krekshino not far +from Moscow, where Leo Nikolaevich and +several other persons were staying at the +time. The will turned out to have been +drawn incorrectly and to be invalid, a fact +which the "friends" soon found out.<a name="nanchor_064" id="nanchor_064"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_064">{64}</a></span></p> + +<p>Our journey home from Krekshino +through Moscow was terrible. One of the +intimates had informed the press that on<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> +such and such a day at a certain hour Tolstoy +would be at the Kursk Station. Several +thousands of people came there to see +us off. At moments it seemed to me, as I +walked arm in arm with my husband and +limped on my bad leg, that I should be +choked, fall down, and die. In spite of +the fresh, autumnal air, we were enveloped +in a hot, thick atmosphere.</p> + +<p>This had a very serious effect upon Leo +Nikolaevich's health. Just after the train +had passed Schekino station, he began to +talk deliriously and lost all consciousness +of his surroundings. A few minutes after +our arrival at home he had a prolonged fainting +fit and this was followed by a second. +Luckily there was a doctor in the house. +After this I suffered more and more from a +painful, nervous excitement: day and night +I watched my husband to see when he would +go for a ride or a walk by himself, and I +awaited his return anxiously, for I was afraid +that he might have another fainting fit or +simply fall down somewhere where it would +be difficult to find him.</p> + +<p>Owing to these agitations and to the<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> +difficult and responsible work connected with +L. N. Tolstoy's publications, I continually +grew more nervous and worried, and my +health broke down completely.<a name="nanchor_065" id="nanchor_065"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_065">{65}</a></span> I lost my +mental balance, and, owing to this, I had a +bad effect upon my husband. At the same +time Leo Nikolaevich began continually to +threaten to leave the house and his "intimate" +friend<a name="FNanchor_M_11" id="FNanchor_M_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_11" class="fnanchor">[M]</a> carefully prepared, together, +with the lawyer M., a new and correct will<a name="FNanchor_N_12" id="FNanchor_N_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_12" class="fnanchor">[N]</a> +which was copied by Leo Nikolaevich himself +on the stump of a tree in the forest on +23 July, 1910.<a name="nanchor_066" id="nanchor_066"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_066">{66}</a></span></p> + +<p> +<br /> +</p> + +<p>This was the will which was proved +after his death.</p> + +<p>In his diary he wrote at the time, among +other things: "I very clearly see my mistake; +I ought to have called together all my +heirs and told them my intention; I ought +not to have kept it secret. I wrote this +to——, but he was very annoyed—"</p> + +<p>On 5 August he writes of me:<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a></p> + +<p>"It is painful the constant secrecy and +fear for her...."</p> + +<p>On 10 August he writes:</p> + +<p>"It is good to feel oneself guilty, as I +do...." And again: "My relations +with all of them are difficult; I cannot help +desiring death...."</p> + +<p>Clearly the pressure brought to bear upon +him tormented him. One of his friends, +P. I. B..<small>V</small>,<a name="nanchor_067" id="nanchor_067"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_067">{67}</a></span> was of opinion that no secret +should be made of the will, and he told Leo +Nikolaevich so. At first he agreed with the +opinion of this true friend, but he went +away and Leo Nikolaevich submitted to another +influence though at times he was obviously +oppressed by it. I was powerless +to save him from that influence, and for +Leo Nikolaevich and myself there began a +terrible period of painful struggle which +made me still more ill. The sufferings of +my hot and harassed heart clouded my +reasoning powers, while Leo Nikolaevich's +friends worked continually, deliberately, +subtly upon the mind of an old man whose +memory and powers were growing feeble.<a name="nanchor_068" id="nanchor_068"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_068">{68}</a></span> +They created around him who was dear to me<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> +an atmosphere of conspiracy, of letters received +secretly, letters and articles sent back +after they had been read, mysterious meetings +in forests for the performance of acts +essentially disgusting to Leo Nikolaevich; +after their performance he could no longer +look me or my sons straight in the face, for +he had never before concealed anything +from us; it was the first secret in our life +and it was intolerable to him. When I +guessed it and asked whether a will was not +being made, and why it was concealed from +me, I was answered by a "no" or by silence. +I believed that it was not a will. It meant, +therefore, that there was some other secret +of which I knew nothing, and I was in despair +with the perpetual feeling that my husband +was being carefully set against me and +that a terrible and fatal ending was in front +of us.<a name="nanchor_069" id="nanchor_069"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_069">{69}</a></span> Leo Nikolaevich's threats to leave +the house became more and more frequent, +and this threat added to my torment and +increased my nervousness and ill-health.</p> + +<p>I shall not describe in detail Leo Nikolaevich's +going away. So much has been and +will be written about it, but no one will<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> +know the real cause. Let <i>his</i> biographers +try to find out.</p> + +<p>When I read in the letter which Leo +Nikolaevich sent me through our daughter +Alexandra that he had gone away finally +and for ever, I felt and clearly understood +that without him—and especially after all +that had happened—life would be utterly +impossible, and instantly I made up my mind +to put an end to all my sufferings by throwing +myself into the pond in which some +time before a girl and her little brother had +been drowned. But I was rescued, and, +when Leo Nikolaevich was told of it, he +wept bitterly, as his sister, Marie Nikolaevna, +wrote to me, but he could not get +himself to return.<a name="nanchor_070" id="nanchor_070"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_070">{70}</a></span></p> + +<p>After Leo Nikolaevich's going away an +article appeared in the newspapers expressing +the joy of one of his most "intimate" +friends at the event.<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a><a name="nanchor_071" id="nanchor_071"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_071">{71}</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + +<p class="noind">A<small>LL</small> my children came to Yasnaya Polyana +and called in a specialist on nervous diseases +and had a nurse to be with me. For +five days I ate nothing and did not take a +drop of water.</p> + +<p>I felt no hunger, but my thirst was acute. +In the evening of the fifth day my daughter +Tanya persuaded me to drink a cup of coffee, +by saying that, if father summoned me, I +would be so weak that I should be unable to +go.</p> + +<p>Next morning we received a telegram +from the newspaper <i>Russkoye Slovo</i> that +Leo Nikolaevich had fallen ill at Astapovo +and that his temperature was 104. The +"intimate" friend had received a telegram +before this and had already left, carefully +concealing from his family the place where +the patient was lying. We took a special<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> +train at Tula and went to Astapovo. Our +son Serge on his way to his estate had been +overtaken by a telegram from his wife who +had sent it at our daughter Alexandra's +request, and he was already with his +father.</p> + +<p>This was the beginning of new and cruel +sufferings for me. Round my husband was +a crowd of strangers and outsiders, and I, +his wife who had lived with him for forty-eight +years, was not admitted to see him. +The door of the room was locked, and, when +I wanted to get a glimpse of my husband +through the window, a curtain was drawn +across it. Two nurses who were told off to +look after me held me firmly by the arms +and did not allow me to move. Meanwhile +Leo Nikolaevich called our daughter Tanya +to him and began asking all about me, believing +me to be in Yasnaya Polyana. At +every question he cried, and our daughter +said to him: "Don't let us talk about +mama, it agitates you too much." "Ah, no," +he said, "that is more important to me than +anything." He also said to her, but already +indistinctly: "A great deal of trouble<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> +is falling upon Sonya; we have managed it +badly."</p> + +<p>No one ever told him that I had come, +though I implored every one to do so. It +is difficult to say who was responsible for +this cruelty. Every one was afraid of accelerating +his death by agitating him; that +was also the doctors' opinion.<a name="nanchor_072" id="nanchor_072"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_072">{72}</a></span> Who can +tell? Perhaps our meeting and my ways +of looking after him to which he was accustomed, +might have revived him. In one +of his letters to me, which I have recently +published, Leo Nikolaevich writes that he +dreads falling ill without me.</p> + +<p>The doctors allowed me to see my husband +when he was now hardly breathing, +lying motionless on his back, with his eyes +already closed. I whispered softly some +tender words in his ear, hoping that he +might still hear how I had been all the +time there in Astapovo and how I loved him +to the end. I don't remember what more I +said to him, but two deep sighs, as though +the result of a terrible effort, came as an +answer to my words, and then all was +still....<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a></p> + +<p>All the days and nights that followed, +until his body was removed, I spent by the +dead, and in me too life became cold. The +body was taken to Yasnaya Polyana; a multitude +of people came there, but I saw and +recognized no one, and the day after the +funeral I collapsed with the same illness, +pneumonia, though in a less dangerous form, +and I was in bed for eighteen days.</p> + +<p>A great comfort to me at the time was the +presence of my sister Tatyana Andreevna +Kuzminskii, and of Leo Nikolaevich's +cousin, Varvara Valeryanovna Nagornaya. +My children, tired out, returned to their +families.<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + +<p class="noind">A<small>ND</small> then there began my lonely life in +Yasnaya Polyana, and the energy which I +used to spend on life was and is directed +only to this, that I may endure my sorrowful +existence worthily and with submission +to the will of God. I try to occupy myself +only with what in some way or another concerns +the memory of Leo Nikolaevich.</p> + +<p>I live in Yasnaya Polyana keeping the +house and its surroundings as they were +when Leo Nikolaevich was alive, and looking +after his grave. I have kept for myself two +hundred desyatins of land with the apple +orchard and the plantations, the making of +which had given us such pleasure. The +greater part of the land (475 desyatins), +with the fine, carefully preserved woods, I +sold to my daughter Alexandra to be transferred +to the peasants.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a><a name="nanchor_073" id="nanchor_073"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_073">{73}</a></span></p> + +<p>I also sold my Moscow house to the municipality,<a name="nanchor_074" id="nanchor_074"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_074">{74}</a></span> +and I sold the last edition of the +works of Leo Tolstoy, and gave all the proceeds +to my children. But they, and particularly +the grandchildren, are so numerous! +Including the daughters-in-law and myself, +we are now a family of thirty-eight, +and my help was, therefore, far from satisfactory.</p> + +<p>I always feel in my heart profound gratitude +to the Sovereign Emperor for granting +me a pension, which allows me to live in +security and to keep the manor of Yasnaya +Polyana.</p> + +<p>Three years have now passed. I look +sadly on the havoc in Yasnaya Polyana, +how the trees which we planted are being cut +down, how the beauty of the place is gradually +being spoiled, now that everything has +been handed over to the timber-merchants +and peasants who frequently have painful +quarrels, now about the land and now about +the woods. And what is going to happen +to the manor and the house after my death?</p> + +<p>Almost daily I visit the grave; I thank +God for the happiness granted to me in<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> +early life, and as to the last troubles between +us, I look upon them as a trial and +a redemption of sin before death. Thy +will be done.<a name="nanchor_075" id="nanchor_075"></a><span class="nanchor"><a href="#note_075">{75}</a></span></p> + +<p class="rt"> +<span class="smcap">Countess Sophie Tolstoy.</span> +</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">October 28, 1913.</span><br /> + <span class="smcap">Yasnava Polyana.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="NOTES" id="NOTES"></a>NOTES</h2> + +<p><a name="note_001" id="note_001"></a><a href="#nanchor_001">{1}</a>. In <i>The Book of Genealogies of the Nobility +of the Moscow Government</i>, Vol. I, page 122, it +is said of S. A. T.'s father: "Andrey Evstafevich, +son of a chemist, born 9 April, 1808, a physician +on the staff of the Moscow Palace Control, collegiate +assessor 1842, State Councillor 1864."</p> + +<p><a name="note_002" id="note_002"></a><a href="#nanchor_002">{2}</a>. This was the former name of the Commandant's +Board.</p> + +<p><a name="note_003" id="note_003"></a><a href="#nanchor_003">{3}</a>. Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, first cousin +of S. A. T.</p> + +<p><a name="note_004" id="note_004"></a><a href="#nanchor_004">{4}</a>. Born 3 December, 1789, died 25 March, +1855. Buried in Petersburg in the Volkov Lutheran +Cemetery. <i>Peterburgskii Necropol, Petersburg</i>, +1912, Vol. I, page 204.</p> + +<p><a name="note_005" id="note_005"></a><a href="#nanchor_005">{5}</a>. In <i>The Book of Genealogies of the Nobility +of the Moscow Government</i>, Vol. I, page 122, +the Bers are included under Section III, <i>i. e.</i> among +those families which were promoted to the title of +nobility through the civil service. The year of +their promotion was 1843. The right to the coat-of-arms +was granted by Supreme Order to the +father of S. A. T. in 1847. See V. Lukomskii and<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> +S. Troinizkii, <i>List of persons to whom has been +granted by H. I. M. the right to coats-of-arms and +the title of nobility of the All-Russian Empire and +of the Kingdom of Poland</i>, Petersburg, 1911, +page 14.</p> + +<p><a name="note_006" id="note_006"></a><a href="#nanchor_006">{6}</a>. Alexander Evstafevich Bers, born 18 February, +1807, died 6 September, 1871. See <i>Peterburgskii +Necropol</i>, Vol. I, page 204; also V. +Lukomskii and S. Troinizkii, page 14.</p> + +<p><a name="note_007" id="note_007"></a><a href="#nanchor_007">{7}</a>. In the Tula Province, twenty-five versts +from Yasnaya Polyana.</p> + +<p><a name="note_008" id="note_008"></a><a href="#nanchor_008">{8}</a>. A. M. Islenev, born 16 July, 1794, died +23 April, 1882. Leo Tolstoy, who knew him +well, described him as the father in <i>Childhood +Boyhood and Youth</i>. See P. Sergeenko, <i>From the +Life of L. N. Tolstoy</i> and <i>How Count L. N. +Tolstoy Lives and Works</i>, Moscow, 1898, page 40.</p> + +<p><a name="note_009" id="note_009"></a><a href="#nanchor_009">{9}</a>. The well-known Vladimir Alexandrovich +Islavin, State Councillor, born 29 November, +1818, died 27 May, 1895, author of the <i>The +Samoyeds, their Domestic and Social Life</i>, Petersburg, +1847, which at the time was much discussed +in newspapers and magazines. See V. I. Maezkov's +<i>Systematic Catalogue of Russian Books</i>, A. F. +Basunov, Petersburg, 1869, page 404.</p> + +<p><a name="note_010" id="note_010"></a><a href="#nanchor_010">{10}</a>. There were five sons and three daughters, +<i>The Book of Genealogies</i>, Vol. I, pages 122 and +123. The best known of these, besides Sophie +Andreevna, were: Tatyana Andreevna (by marriage +Kuzminskii) born 24 October 1846, the<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> +author of <i>My Reminiscences of Countess Marie +Nikolaevna Tolstoy</i>, Petersburg, 1914; Stepan +Andreevich Bers, born 21 July 1855, author of +<i>Reminiscences of L. N. Tolstoy</i>, Smolensk, 1894; +Peter Andreevich Bers, born 26 August 1849, +died 19 May 1910, the editor of <i>Detskyii Otdikh</i> +(1881-1882), and co-editor with L. D. Obolenskii +of the collection of <i>Stories for Children +by I. S. Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy</i>, 1883 and +1886; Vacheslav Andreevich Bers, born 3 May +1861, died 19 May, 1907, an engineer who was +killed for no obvious reason by workmen during +the revolutionary days in Petersburg. Leo N. +Tolstoy was very fond of him. See P. Biryukov, +<i>How L. N. T. Composed the Popular Calendar</i>, +1911.</p> + +<p><a name="note_011" id="note_011"></a><a href="#nanchor_011">{11}</a>. A. Y. Davidov, 1823-1885, professor of +mathematics in the University of Moscow, author +of popular text-books on algebra and geometry.</p> + +<p><a name="note_012" id="note_012"></a><a href="#nanchor_012">{12}</a>. N. A. Sergievskii, 1827-1892, a writer on +theology, author of many scholarly theological +books, founder and editor of <i>The Orthodox Review</i>, +professor of theology in the University of +Moscow.</p> + +<p><a name="note_013" id="note_013"></a><a href="#nanchor_013">{13}</a>. In the Natasha of <i>War and Peace</i> there +are many characteristics of S. A. T. and of her +sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii. According +to S. A. T., Leo Nikolaevich made the +following remark about his heroine: "I took +Tanya, ground her up with Sonya, and there came<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> +out Natasha." See P. Biryukov, <i>Biography of L.</i> +N. T., Vol. II, page 32.</p> + +<p><a name="note_014" id="note_014"></a><a href="#nanchor_014">{14}</a>. In S. A. T.'s story <i>Natasha</i> L. N. T. recognized +himself in the hero, Dublitskii, and he +wrote to her in September, 1862: "I am Dublitskii, +but to marry merely because I needed a wife—that +I could not do. I demand something tremendous, +impossible from marriage; I demand that I should +be loved as much as I am able to love." L. N. T. +doubted whether a woman could fall in love with +him deeply and completely, as he was not good-looking. +On 28 August, 1862, he put down in +his diary: "I got up in the usual despondency. I +thought out a society for apprentices. A sweet, +placid night. Ugly face, don't think of marriage, +your vocation is different and much has been given +you instead." <i>L. N. T.'s Letters to his Wife</i>, +edited by A. E. Gruzinskii, 1913. P. Biryukov, +<i>Biography of L. N. T.</i>, Vol. I, page 471.</p> + +<p><a name="note_015" id="note_015"></a><a href="#nanchor_015">{15}</a>. M. N. Tolstoi, 7 March, 1830—6 April, +1912, sister of L. N. T. In the 'sixties she went +abroad with her brother Nikolai and lived with +him at Hyères in the South of France. After her +brother's death, M. N. T., overcome with grief, +did not wish to return to Russia and settled for a +short time in Algiers. She returned from there in +1862 and visited Yasnaya Polyana for a short +time and met S. A. T. and her mother there. See +T. A. Kuzminskii, <i>My Reminiscences of Marie N. +Tolstoy</i>, Petersburg, 1914. P. Biryukov, <i>Countess<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> +Marie N. Tolstoy</i>, in "<i>Russkaya Vedomostii</i>," +1912, Moscow. A. Khiryakov, <i>L. N. Tolstoy's +Sister</i>, in "<i>Solitse Rossii</i>," 1912. S. Tolstoy, <i>To +the Portrait of Countess Marie N. Tolstoy</i> in +<i>Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik</i>, 1912. L. N. Tolstoy's +Letters to Marie N. Tolstoy in <i>New Collection of +Letters of L. N. Tolstoy</i>, collected by P. A. Sergeenko, +edited by A. E. Gruzinskii, Moscow, 1912, +and Complete works of L. N. Tolstoy, Vols. XXI-XXIV, +edited by P. I. Biryukov, Moscow, 1913.</p> + +<p><a name="note_016" id="note_016"></a><a href="#nanchor_016">{16}</a>. S. A. T. here leaves out some curious details. +According to her own account, Leo Nikolaevich +followed the Bers family, first to Ivitsa, Tula +Province, fifty versts from Yasnaya Polyana, and +then to Moscow. Leo Nikolaevich's proposal to +S. A. T., which was like Levin's to Kitty in <i>Anna +Karenina</i>, took place at Ivitsa. See "The Marriage +of L. N. Tolstoy," from the reminiscences of +S. A. T. under the title "My Life," in <i>Russkoye +Slovo</i>, 1912. Also P. Biryukov, <i>Biography of +L. N. Tolstoy</i>, Vol. I, pages 464-473, and L. N. +Tolstoy's <i>Letters to his Wife</i>, pages 1-3.</p> + +<p><a name="note_017" id="note_017"></a><a href="#nanchor_017">{17}</a>. The Bers family were convinced that +L. N. T. was in love with Liza, the elder sister of +S. A. T., and expected him to propose to her. +This misunderstanding worried L. N. T. as he +said in his letter to S. A. T. See L. N. Tolstoy's +Letters to his Wife, pages 1-3.</p> + +<p><a name="note_018" id="note_018"></a><a href="#nanchor_018">{18}</a>. Orekov, a serf of Yasnaya Polyana, L. N. +T.'s inseparable companion during the war in<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> +Sevastopol, and later steward at Yasnaya Polyana. +See I. Tolstoy, <i>My Reminiscences</i>, Moscow, 1914, +pages 18, 22-23.</p> + +<p><a name="note_019" id="note_019"></a><a href="#nanchor_019">{19}</a>. T. A. Ergolskii, born 1795, died 20 June +1874, a remote relation brought up in the Tolstoy +family, taught Marie, Leo and his brothers, who +lost their mother at an early age. In Tolstoy's +house she was called aunt. See <i>Reminiscences of +Childhood</i> and L. N. T.'s <i>Letters to T. A. Ergolskii</i>; +also L. N. Tolstoy's <i>Letters</i>, 1848-1910, collected +and edited by P. A. Sergeenko, L. N. Tolstoy's +<i>Diary</i>, Vol. I, 1847-1852, edited by V. G. +Chertkov, Moscow, 1917.</p> + +<p><a name="note_020" id="note_020"></a><a href="#nanchor_020">{20}</a>. The beginning of Chapter II, ending with +the words "and in copying out his writings," is +incorporated literally by S. A. T. from the first +MS. There is also written in pencil by her "This +is new." The statement is not quite accurate. In +the remainder of Chapter III, which is new, a +small part of the original Chapter III, slightly +altered, is incorporated. We shall quote this part +in full:</p> + +<p>"The first thing which I copied in my clumsy, +but legible handwriting was <i>Polikushka</i>. For +many, many years afterwards that work delighted +me. I used to long for the evening when Leo N. +would give me something newly written or corrected +for me to copy.</p> + +<p>"I was carried away by the newly created scenes +and descriptions, and I tried to understand and<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> +watch the artistic development and growth of ideas +and creative activity in my husband's works...."</p> + +<p><a name="note_021" id="note_021"></a><a href="#nanchor_021">{21}</a>. The beginning was published in two numbers +of <i>Russkii Vyestnik</i>, 1865 and 1866, and +under the title of <i>The Year 1805</i> was later published +in book form, Moscow, 1866. Tolstoy returned +to the Decembrists when he had finished +<i>Anna Karenina</i>, but was again disappointed. "My +Decembrists are again God knows where; I don't +even think of them," he wrote to Fet in April, +1879, (Fet, <i>My Reminiscences</i>, Vol. II, page 364). +The first three chapters of the Decembrists were +published in a miscellaneous volume called <i>Twenty-five +Years</i>, 1859-1884, Petersburg, 1884. But towards +the end of his life Tolstoy again became +interested in the Decembrists and began to study +the period, see A. B. Goldenweiser, Diary, <i>Russkie +Propilei</i>. Vol. II, pages 271-272, Moscow, 1916.</p> + +<p><a name="note_022" id="note_022"></a><a href="#nanchor_022">{22}</a>. A. M. Zhemchuznikov and I. S. Aksakov +visited Leo Nikolaevich in the middle of December, +1864, in Moscow at his father-in-law's house +where he came to have his arm medically treated. +It was then that he read to them some chapters +from <i>War and Peace</i>. See L. N. Tolstoy's <i>Letters +to his Wife</i>, page 41.</p> + +<p><a name="note_023" id="note_023"></a><a href="#nanchor_023">{23}</a>. There were a number of musical works +which always made a deep impression upon Tolstoy. +See list of musical works loved by L. N. Tolstoy, +given by A. B. Goldenweiser, <i>Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik</i>, +pages 158-160; also musical works loved<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> +by L. N. Tolstoy, in S. L. Tolstoy's <i>Reminiscences</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="note_024" id="note_024"></a><a href="#nanchor_024">{24}</a>. Countess A. A. Tolstoy reproached Leo +Nikolaevich for his long silence in a letter of +1 May 1863. Leo Nikolaevich wrote a four +page letter in reply, but did not send it; later in +the autumn of 1863 he wrote another letter, which +he sent. The quotation referred to is, evidently, +from the letter which was not sent, and which, as +far as we know, has not appeared in print.</p> + +<p><a name="note_025" id="note_025"></a><a href="#nanchor_025">{25}</a>. This quotation from L. N. T.'s Diary is +also given in Biryukov's Biography, but in somewhat +different form. He also gives a detailed +sketch of the work, which Tolstoy wrote in his +diary; see Biryukov, Vol. II, pages 27-28.</p> + +<p><a name="note_026" id="note_026"></a><a href="#nanchor_026">{26}</a>. N. A. Lyubimov, 1830-1897, well-known +professor of physics at the University of Moscow, +a collaborator with Katkov and K. Leontev in +editing the <i>Russkii Vyestnik</i> and <i>Moskovskaya +Vedomesti</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="note_027" id="note_027"></a><a href="#nanchor_027">{27}</a>. Strakhov's articles on <i>War and Peace</i> were +published in <i>Zarya</i>, 1869 and 1870, and in book +form in 1871. His articles on Tolstoy and Turgenev +appeared in book form under the title, +<i>Critical Articles on I. S. Turgenev and L. N. +Tolstoy</i>, second edition, 1887.</p> + +<p><a name="note_028" id="note_028"></a><a href="#nanchor_028">{28}</a>. Edmond About, 1828-1885, the French +writer to whom Turgenev sent a copy of <i>War and +Peace</i>, translated by Princess Paskevich, and a +letter from which the above quotation is taken.<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> +M. About published the letter in <i>Le XIX e Siècle</i>, +23 January, 1880, under the title "<i>Une Lettre +de Tourguéneff</i>."</p> + +<p><a name="note_029" id="note_029"></a><a href="#nanchor_029">{29}</a>. Vasilii Yakoblevich Mirovich, 1740-1764, +a lieutenant in the Smolenskii infantry regiment, +executed for his attempt to rescue Ivan Antonovich +from prison. His story formed the plot of +G. P. Danilevskii's novel <i>Mirovich</i> (Petersburg, +1886).</p> + +<p><a name="note_030" id="note_030"></a><a href="#nanchor_030">{30}</a>. From the sketch of the year 1831-2: "The +guests were arriving at the country-house." See +Pushkin, edited by S. A. Vengerov, Petersburg, +1910, Vol. IV, pages 255-258.</p> + +<p><a name="note_031" id="note_031"></a><a href="#nanchor_031">{31}</a>. In P. Biryukov's Biography, Vol. II, page +205, the words are given thus: "That is how +one should begin. The reader is at once made to +feel the interest of the plot. Another writer would +begin to describe the guests, the rooms, but Pushkin +goes straight to the point."</p> + +<p><a name="note_032" id="note_032"></a><a href="#nanchor_032">{32}</a>. This quotation is a combination of two +passages from L. N. T.'s letter to Countess A. A. +Tolstoy of December, 1874. In the beginning of +this letter he says that he has written a letter to +her, but has torn it up and is writing another. It +is possible that S. A. T. is quoting from the original +letter.</p> + +<p><a name="note_033" id="note_033"></a><a href="#nanchor_033">{33}</a>. Peter, eighteen months old, 18 November, +1873; Nikolai, two months old, February, 1875; +and the daughter born prematurely, November, +1875.<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a></p> + +<p><a name="note_034" id="note_034"></a><a href="#nanchor_034">{34}</a>. T. A. Ergolskii (see note 19), and Pelageya +Ilinishna Yushkov, the sister of L. N. T.'s +father, died 22, December, 1875. This death +particularly affected Tolstoy. He wrote to Countess +A. A. Tolstoy: "It is strange, but the death +of this old woman of eighty affected me more than +any other death.... Not an hour passes without +my thinking of her." <i>Tolstovskii Musei</i>, Vol. I, +pages 262-3.</p> + +<p><a name="note_035" id="note_035"></a><a href="#nanchor_035">{35}</a>. From Fet's poem: "I repeated: 'When I +will....'" Later Fet evidently re-wrote the +poem; his last four lines are:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">In my hand—what a marvel—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is your hand.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And on the grass—two emeralds.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Two glow-worms.</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>See A. A. Fet, Complete Works, Vol. I, page +427, Petersburg, 1912.</p> + +<p><a name="note_036" id="note_036"></a><a href="#nanchor_036">{36}</a>. Five poems are known to have been dedicated +by Fet to S. A. Tolstoy, see Complete +Works, Vol. I, pages 413, 414, and 449.</p> + +<p><a name="note_037" id="note_037"></a><a href="#nanchor_037">{37}</a>. A few months after his visit to Yasnaya +Polyana Turgenev wrote to Fet: "I was very glad +to make it up again with Tolstoy, and I spent +three pleasant days with him; his whole family is +very sympathetic and his wife is a darling." See +Fet, <i>My Reminiscences</i>, Vol. II, page 355, Moscow, +1890.</p> + +<p><a name="note_038" id="note_038"></a><a href="#nanchor_038">{38}</a>. Wilkie Collins, 1824-1889; his novel <i>The<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> +Woman in White</i>, was translated into Russian +under the same title, Petersburg, 1884.</p> + +<p><a name="note_039" id="note_039"></a><a href="#nanchor_039">{39}</a>. The house was bought in 1882 in the Khamovnicheskii +Pereulok.</p> + +<p><a name="note_040" id="note_040"></a><a href="#nanchor_040">{40}</a>. An allusion to V. G. Chertkov who became +acquainted with Tolstoy in 1883. See P. A. Boulanger, +<i>Tolstoy and Chertkov</i>, Moscow, 1911; A. +M. Khiryakov, "Who is Chertkov?" in <i>Kievskava +Starina</i>, 1910; P. Biryukov, Biography, Vol. II, +pages 471-3, 479-480; V. Mikulich, <i>Shadows of +the Past</i>, Petersburg, 1914; Ilya Tolstoy, <i>My +Reminiscences</i>, pages 234-5, 247, 265, 269-275; +Countess A. A. Tolstoy, "Reminiscences" in <i>Tolstovskii +Musei</i>, Vol. I, pages 36-38.</p> + +<p><a name="note_041" id="note_041"></a><a href="#nanchor_041">{41}</a>. S. A. T. for a long time did not believe in +the seriousness of Leo Nikolaevich's searchings, +considering them a weakness, a disease due to over-work +and the playing of a part. See Biryukov, +Biography, pages 474-478; L. N. Tolstoy's <i>Letters +to his Wife</i>, pages 196-8.</p> + +<p><a name="note_042" id="note_042"></a><a href="#nanchor_042">{42}</a>. A. P. Bobrinskii, Minister of Transport +1871-1874, and a disciple of Radstock; Tolstoy +was struck by "the sincerity and warmth of his belief." +See <i>Tolstovskii Musei</i>, Vol. I, pages 245, +265, 268, and 275.</p> + +<p><a name="note_043" id="note_043"></a><a href="#nanchor_043">{43}</a>. An English preacher who in the middle +of the 'seventies lived in Petersburg and preached +with success in aristocratic houses. A short, but +good, description of Radstock is given by Countess +A. A. Tolstoy, who knew him personally, in her<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> +letter to L. N. T. of 28 March, 1876, <i>Tolstovskii +Musei</i>, Vol. I, pages 267-8.</p> + +<p><a name="note_044" id="note_044"></a><a href="#nanchor_044">{44}</a>. S. S. Urusov, 1827-1897, an intimate friend +of Tolstoy ever since the Crimean War, a land-owner +and a deeply religious man. Tolstoy corresponded +with him and often stayed with him in +his country-house at Spassko. Urusov translated +into French Tolstoy's <i>In What do I Believe?</i></p> + +<p><a name="note_045" id="note_045"></a><a href="#nanchor_045">{45}</a>. But Tolstoy did not recognize the Gospel +which serves as the foundation of the orthodox +faith, and he interpreted the Gospel in his own +way. It is strange that S. A. T. did not realize +this. In this respect Countess A. A. Tolstoy, who +also differed from Leo Nikolaevich on religious +questions and was deeply pained by the difference, +was more understanding and consistent. She wrote +of Tolstoy's <i>Gospel</i>: "Your crude denial and +bold perversions of the divine book caused me extreme +indignation. Sometimes I had to stop reading +and throw the book on the floor." See <i>Tolstovskii +Musei</i>, Vol. I, page 44.</p> + +<p><a name="note_046" id="note_046"></a><a href="#nanchor_046">{46}</a>. It is interesting to compare the autobiography +of S. A. T. with Tolstoy's play <i>And Light +Shines in Darkness</i>. In this Marie Ivanovna, a +character taken from S. A. T., uses the family, +children, house, and so on, as the chief arguments +against the attempts of Nikolai Ivanovich to arrange +their life in accordance with his views. She +says: "I have to bring them up, feed them, bear +them.... I don't sleep at nights, I nurse, I keep<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> +the whole house...." And the husband "wishes +to give everything away.... He wants me at +my time of life to become a cook, washerwoman." +See Act I, scenes xix and xx; Act II, scene ii.</p> + +<p><a name="note_047" id="note_047"></a><a href="#nanchor_047">{47}</a>. L. D. Urusov, died 6, October, 1885, a +devoted friend and enthusiastic follower of Tolstoy. +When he died in the Crimea, where he had +gone with Tolstoy, Urusov, according to Countess +A. A. Tolstoy, left to his son who was with him +Tolstoy's letters, as the greatest treasures which +he was leaving him. See <i>Tolstovskii Musei</i>, Vol. +II; L. N. Tolstoy's <i>Correspondence with N. N. +Strakhov</i>; L. N. Tolstoy's <i>Letters to his Wife</i>, +pages 255-266.</p> + +<p><a name="note_048" id="note_048"></a><a href="#nanchor_048">{48}</a>. Tolstoy lost his suit-case, containing MSS., +books, and proofs, in 1883 on his way to Yasnaya +Polyana. Among the lost MSS. were several +chapters of <i>In What do I Believe?</i> which Tolstoy +had to rewrite. Biryukov, Biography, Vol. II, +pages 457-8.</p> + +<p><a name="note_049" id="note_049"></a><a href="#nanchor_049">{49}</a>. Another allusion to Chertkov, who in the +middle of the 'eighties began taking Tolstoy's +MSS. to England.</p> + +<p><a name="note_050" id="note_050"></a><a href="#nanchor_050">{50}</a>. Tolstoy himself translated this work from +the Greek, and twice wrote a preface to it, in 1885 +and 1905. See L. N. Tolstoy's Diary, 1895-1899, +edited by V. G. Ghertkov, second edition, Moscow, +1916, page 46.</p> + +<p><a name="note_051" id="note_051"></a><a href="#nanchor_051">{51}</a>. As far as we know, this translation has not +been published.<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a></p> + +<p><a name="note_052" id="note_052"></a><a href="#nanchor_052">{52}</a>. Her letter to the Metropolitan Antonius of +26 February, 1901, copies of which were sent to +the other Metropolitans and to the Attorney to the +Synod. The letter and the answer of the Metropolitan +Antonius were published in many newspapers.</p> + +<p><a name="note_053" id="note_053"></a><a href="#nanchor_053">{53}</a>. A short article in the form of a letter to +the editor, on Leonid Andreyev on the appearance +of Burenin's critical Sketches in <i>Novoe Vremya</i>, +1903. At the time it attracted great attention in +the press owing to the exceptional bitterness with +which S. A. T. attacked Andreyev and in general +all modern novelists. She wrote: "One would +like to continue M. Burenin's splendid article, +adding ever more ideas of the same kind, raising +higher and higher the standard for artistic purity +and moral power in contemporary literature. +Works of Messieurs Andreyevs ought not to be +read, nor glorified, nor sold out, but the whole +Russian public ought to rise in indignation against +the dirt which in thousands of copies is being spread +over Russia by a cheap journal and by repeated +editions of publishers who encourage them. If +Maxim Gorky, undoubtedly a clever and gifted +writer from the people, introduces a good deal of +cynicism and nudeness into the scenes in which +he paints the life of a certain class, one always, +nevertheless, feels in them a sincere sorrow for +all the evil and suffering which is endured by the +poor, ignorant, and drunken of fallen humanity.<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> +In the works of Maxim Gorky one can always +dwell on some character or pathetic moment in +which, one feels, the author, grieving for the fallen, +has a clear knowledge of what is evil and what +good, and he loves the good. But in Andreyev's +stories one feels that he loves and takes delight +in the baseness in the phenomena of vicious human +life, and with that love of vice he infects the undeveloped, +the reading public which, as M. Burenin +says, is untidy morally, and the young who cannot +yet know life.... The wretched new writers +of contemporary fiction, like Andreyev, are only +able to concentrate upon the dirty spots in the +human fall and proclaim to the uneducated, the +half-intelligent reading public, and invite them to +examine deep into the decayed corpse of fallen +humanity and to shut its eyes to the whole of +God's spacious and beautiful world with its beauty +of nature, with the greatness of art, with the high +aspirations of human souls, with the religious and +moral struggle and the great ideals of good...." +<i>Novoe Vremya</i>, 1903.</p> + +<p><a name="note_054" id="note_054"></a><a href="#nanchor_054">{54}</a>. Three fragments of this have been published: +"L. N. Tolstoy's Marriage" in <i>Russkoye Slovo</i>, +1912; "On the Drama, <i>The Power of Darkness</i>" +in <i>Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik</i>, 1912, pages 17-23; and +"L. N. Tolstoy's Visits to the Optina Monastery" +in <i>Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik</i>, 1913, Part III, pages +3-7.</p> + +<p><a name="note_055" id="note_055"></a><a href="#nanchor_055">{55}</a>. The history of these MSS. has been discussed<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> +at great length in newspapers and magazines. +The gist of the matter is as follows. By +Tolstoy's will everything written by him up to the +date of his death, "wherever it may be found and +in whose possession," was to pass to his daughter +Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy. She laid claim to the +MSS. deposited in the Historical Museum. But +S. A. T. opposed this, declaring that the MSS. had +been given to her as a gift by Tolstoy, were her +own property, and therefore could not be included +in his will. The authorities of the Historical +Museum refused both parties access to the MSS. +until the question had been settled by a court. The +history of the case is given in <i>Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik</i> +for 1913. Part V, pages 3-10, and in the +journal <i>Dela i Dni</i>, 1921, pages 271-293, in which +A. S. Nikolaev gave an account of the case, re +Count L. N. Tolstoy's MSS.</p> + +<p><a name="note_056" id="note_056"></a><a href="#nanchor_056">{56}</a>. The letter of 8 July, 1897. On the envelope +Tolstoy wrote: "Unless I direct otherwise, +this letter shall after my death be handed +over to Sophie Andreevna." The letter was entrusted +to N. L. Obolenskii, Tolstoy's son-in-law. +See L. N. Tolstoy's <i>Letters to his Wife</i>, pages +524-526.</p> + +<p><a name="note_057" id="note_057"></a><a href="#nanchor_057">{57}</a>. Tolstoy announced this in a letter to the +editor of <i>Russkaya Vedomostii</i> which was published +in the paper on 19 September, 1891. The letter +is reprinted in the supplement to L. N. Tolstoy's +Diary, 1895-1899, second edition, pages 241-242.<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a></p> + +<p><a name="note_058" id="note_058"></a><a href="#nanchor_058">{58}</a>. The death of Vanichka was a terrible blow +to Tolstoy who "loved him, as the youngest child, +with all the force of an elderly parent's attachment." +With him the last tie binding Tolstoy to +his family was broken. Ilya Tolstoy was inclined +to think that there was "a certain inner connection" +between the child's death and Tolstoy's attempt to +leave Yasnaya Polyana in 1897. See Ilya Tolstoy, +<i>My Reminiscences</i>, pages 214-219.</p> + +<p><a name="note_059" id="note_059"></a><a href="#nanchor_059">{59}</a>. Sergei Ivanovich Taneev, 1856-1915, who +for three years consecutively, 1894-6, came to stay +in the summer with the Tolstoy's at Yasnaya +Polyana.</p> + +<p><a name="note_060" id="note_060"></a><a href="#nanchor_060">{60}</a>. The story of Tolstoy's illness and his life +at Gaspra is told in the fine reminiscences of Dr. +S. Y. Elpatevskii, the well-known writer and doctor +who treated Tolstoy, entitled "Leo N. Tolstoy, +Reminiscences and Character," <i>Rosskoe Bogatstov</i>, +Number XI, 1912, pages 199-232; also S. Elpatevskii, +<i>Literary Reminiscences</i>, Moscow, 1916, +pages 26-49.</p> + +<p><a name="note_061" id="note_061"></a><a href="#nanchor_061">{61}</a>. There was a stern struggle between Sophie +Andreevna Tolstoy and Chertkov over Tolstoy's +diaries almost from the first moment of his acquaintance +with Tolstoy. Originally the diaries +were in Chertkov's hands. But in October, 1895, +S. A. T. insisted upon their return to Tolstoy. +On 5 November, 1895, Tolstoy wrote in his +diary: "I have gone through a great deal of unpleasantness +with regard to fulfilling my promise<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> +to Sophie Andreevna; I have read through my +diaries for seven years." After he had read them, +the diaries were handed over to S. A. T. who sent +them for safe-keeping to the Rumyantsev Museum +and later to the Historical Museum. The later +diaries, ending with 19 May, 1900, were also +handed over to S. A. T. The diaries of the last +ten years, of which S. A. T. is speaking here, +turned out to be in Chertkov's possession. It +cost S. A. T. not only much effort, but tears +and even her health, in order to get them back. +Personally and in writing, and also through V. F. +Bulgakov, she entreated and implored Chertkov to +return them, but everything proved of no avail. +An atmosphere, painful for the whole family, was +thus created, and Tolstoy was literally stifled, +finding himself between the stubbornness of a morbid +woman and the fear of offending a no less +stubborn man, Chertkov. It ended by Tolstoy, in +the middle of July, 1910, taking the diaries from +Chertkov and placing them for safe-keeping in the +Tula bank, in order not to hurt either party. +After Tolstoy's death, according to his will, the +diaries passed to Alexandra L. Tolstoy. See L. +N. Tolstoy's Diary, Vol. I, 1895-1899, pages 11, +12, and 6; L. N. Tolstoy's <i>Letters to His Wife</i>, +page 493; V. F. Bulgakov, <i>Leo Tolstoy During +the Last Years of his Life</i>, Moscow, 1918, pages +255, 261-263, and 265.</p> + +<p><a name="note_062" id="note_062"></a><a href="#nanchor_062">{62}</a>. This will in the form of a letter was an<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> +extract from Tolstoy's diary of 27, March, 1895.... +His request that his works should become +public property was later made in his diary for +1907, also on 4 and 8 March, 1909.</p> + +<p><a name="note_063" id="note_063"></a><a href="#nanchor_063">{63}</a>. Three copies of this extract from the diary +were kept by Marie Nikolaevna Obolenskii, V. G. +Chertkov, and Serge Tolstoy. Evidently S, A. T. +did not know this. See <i>Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik</i>, +page 9.</p> + +<p><a name="note_064" id="note_064"></a><a href="#nanchor_064">{64}</a>. According to A. B. Goldenweiser, Tolstoy, +perhaps having reason to think that his will with +regard to his works would not be carried out, +decided to make a will which would be binding +legally as well as morally. On 17 September, +1909, the will was drawn at Krekshino, and on +the 18 it was signed by Tolstoy. By this will +all his works, written after 1 January, 1881, both +published and unpublished, became public property. +Consequently the will meant that all works written +and published before that date remained the +property of the family. On 18 September on +their return from Moscow, Alexandra L. Tolstoy +went to see the lawyer N. K. Muravev and showed +him the will. Muravev said that from a legal +point of view the will was quite invalid, since according +to law you could not leave property to +"nobody," and he promised to draw up and send +to Yasnaya Polyana the rough draft of a will. +Two or three consultations took place at Muravev's +house, at which there were present V. G. Chertkov,<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> +A. B. Goldenweiser, and F. A. Strakhov. Several +drafts of the will were made which it was decided +to take to Tolstoy in order that "he might read +them and choose one of them, or reject them all, +if he found that they did not meet his wishes." +On 26 October Strakhov left for Yasnaya Polyana +with the drafts. When he returned, he said +that "Tolstoy expressed the firm resolution to +leave as public property, not only the works written +after 1881, as was originally proposed, but +generally everything written by him," a resolution +completely new, and unexpected by those who had +taken part in the consultations. In accordance with +Tolstoy's new decision, Muravev drew up another +will by which everything written by Tolstoy, +"wherever found and in whosesoever possession," +was transferred to the full ownership of Alexandra +L. Tolstoy. This will was taken to Yasnaya +Polyana, copied in Tolstoy's own hand, and signed +by him on 1 November, 1909. This is Goldenweiser's +account of the two wills in his diary. +We see from this story that Tolstoy himself +decided to make a formal will, and he himself, to +his friends' surprise, radically changed the first +will regarding his works written and published +before 1881. But the reader is confronted with a +series of puzzling questions: How did Tolstoy +make up his mind to have recourse to the protection +of the law, which he denied with his whole soul? +What caused him to alter so quickly and resolutely<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> +his intention with regard to the disposal of works +written by him before 1881? Why were "two or +three" consultations with an experienced lawyer +necessary, if the friends had the simple task of +drawing up in correct and legal form Tolstoy's +clearly expressed intention with regard to his +works? Goldenweiser provides no answer to these +questions.</p> + +<p>Let us turn to Chertkov, the principal actor in +these consultations. In the <i>Tolstovskii Ezhegodnik</i> +for 1913, Part I, pages 21-30, he published photographs +of the will of 1 November, 1909, and +of the two subsequent wills, with a short prefatory +note in which he says: "The photographs published +here of the three successive wills, written by +Tolstoy's own hand in the space of ten months, are +sufficient proof of the repeated and serious attention +which he gave to the fate of his writings, +MSS., and papers after his death." But there is +no answer here to the puzzling questions.... +Approximately three years later Chertkov, indeed, +gave us the full history of Tolstoy's wills in the +Supplement to L. N. Tolstoy's Diary, pages 241-252. +There he quoted Tolstoy's letter with regard +to the transfer to public property of his works +written before 1881; the will in the form +of a letter from Tolstoy's diary of 27 March +1895; the will written in Krekshino; the final +will and "explanatory memorandum." Above all +Chertkov at great length tried to prove from Tolstoy'<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>s +letters and from extracts from his diaries +that Tolstoy always had complete confidence in +him as a true friend, and for that reason, in preference +to all the members of his family, made him +sole executor for his writings, by giving him the +right to "omit" or "leave in" what he thought +necessary. But Chertkov does not say a single +word either of the Moscow consultations of the +friends or of the will of 1 November, 1909, and +thus not only gives no answer to our questions, but +excludes the possibility of our putting them, by +skilfully passing direct from the Krekshino will +to the last two wills made in the summer of 1910. +Let us now hear what the third participant in the +consultations has to say, namely Strakhov, who, in +his own words, felt a "little doubt begin to stir +within him," when the friends on 1 November, +1909, "carefully performed the transactions which +are bound to have certain historical consequences." +His article on how the will of 1 November, 1909, +was drawn up fills in the gap which Chertkov +passed over in silence.</p> + +<p>Strakhov says nothing about the Krekshino will, +in the making of which he took no part.... After +the failure of the will at Krekshino, the new draft +of a will was worked out at the Moscow consultations, +and Strakhov left with the draft for Yasnaya +Polyana on 26 October, when, as the friends +supposed, Sophie Andreevna would be in Moscow. +Their calculation was mistaken: S. A. T. was returning<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> +to Yasnaya Polyana in the same train as +Strakhov. But her presence did not prevent +Strakhov from executing his mission brilliantly. +When alone with Tolstoy, he explained that it +was necessary to draw up a formal will transferring +the rights in his literary property to a definite +person or persons, and "he put before him the draft +document and asked him to read it and sign it, if +he approved of its contents." Tolstoy read the +paper and "at once wrote at the bottom that he +agreed with its contents; and then, after thinking +for a little, he said: "The whole affair is very +painful to me. And it is all unnecessary—in +order to secure that my ideas are spread by such +measures. Now Christ—although it is strange +that I should compare myself with him—did not +trouble that some one might appropriate his ideas +as his personal property, nor did he record his +ideas in writing, but expressed them courageously +and went on the cross for them. His ideas have +not been lost. Indeed no word can be completely +lost, if it express the truth and if the person uttering +it profoundly believe in its truth. But all +these external measures for security come only from +our non-belief in what we are uttering." Saying +this Tolstoy left the room. Strakhov was undecided +what to do, whether to oppose Tolstoy or +to leave Yasnaya Polyana without having achieved +anything. He made up his mind to oppose Tolstoy +and attacked him in his most vulnerable spot.<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> +He said to him: "You mentioned Christ. He, indeed, +took no thought about the dissemination of +his words. But why? Because he did not write +and, owing to the conditions of the time, received +no payment for his ideas. But you write and have +received payment for your writings, and now your +family receives it.... If you will not do something +to secure the public use of your writings, you +will be indirectly furthering the establishment of +the rights of private property in them by your +family.... I shall not conceal from you that it +has been painful for us who are your friends to +hear you reproached because, in spite of your +denial of private property in land, you transferred +your estate to the ownership of your wife. It +will also be painful to hear people saying that +Tolstoy, in spite of his knowledge that his declaration +in 1891 had no legal validity, took no steps +to ensure his wish being carried out and thus consciously +assisted the transference of his literary +property to his family. I cannot say how painful +it will be for your friends to hear that, Leo Nikolaevich, +after your death, and the complete triumph +of your survivors' monopoly over your writings +during the long fifty years of copyright, and all +this with the definite knowledge of your views on +the subject."</p> + +<p>Tolstoy acknowledged Strakhov's considerations +to be a "weighty argument" and, promising to +think it over, left the room. He had to wait a<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> +long time for the answer. Tolstoy went for a ride, +had a sleep, dined, and only after his dinner called +Strakhov and Alexandra Lvovna into his study +and said to them: "I shall surprise you by my +ultimate decision.... I want, Sasha, to leave to +you alone everything, do you see? Everything, +not excepting what I reserved in the declaration in +the newspapers.... The details you may think +over with Vladimir Grigorevich."</p> + +<p>Strakhov informed Chertkov by telegram of the +"successful" result of his conversations with Tolstoy. +On 1 November, 1909, he returned to Yasnaya +Polyana with Goldenweiser, this time to +witness the signature of the new will by which +"everything" passed to Alexandra Lvovna. This +time Strakhov entered Yasnaya Polyana with a +"certain pricking of conscience," because he had +hid his purpose from Sophie Andreevna. The +signing of the will took place in the setting of a +conspiracy. Strakhov says that, when Tolstoy +took the pen, "he locked the two doors of his study +one after the other." And it was so strange and +unnatural to see Tolstoy in the part of a man taking +steps against unwanted visitors....</p> + +<p><a name="note_065" id="note_065"></a><a href="#nanchor_065">{65}</a>. Indeed, some time before Tolstoy's going +away, S. A. T.'s mind was unhinged. This became +very clear in the middle of 1910. By the +common consent of the family, Dr. N. V. Nikitin +and the well-known alienist Rossolino were summoned +from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana and<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> +they found her to be suffering from hysteria and +paranoia in the early stage (see <i>Dela i Dni</i>, 1921, +Number I, page 288). As regards paranoia, the +data existing seem to show that the doctors were +mistaken, since paranoia belongs to the class of +incurable diseases and comparatively soon passes +from the first to the second stage, characterized by +frenzy and acute madness, from which, so far as is +known, S. A. T. did not suffer. On the contrary +her mental and bodily health improved considerably +after Tolstoy's death. But no doubt the doctors' +diagnosis of hysteria was correct. There is evidence +that she had a predisposition to that disease +from her birth. Her parents also suffered from +lack of mental balance, as may be seen from Tolstoy's +letters to his wife. We read in them: "L. +A. and A. E. (her mother and father) love each +other, and yet both seem to make it the purpose of +their lives to irritate each other over trifles, they +spoil their own lives and those of all who surround +them, and especially their daughters'. This atmosphere +of irritation is very painful, even to outsiders." +"A. E.... is difficult because of his unceasing +and overpowering care of his health, which +would indeed be much better, if he thought less +about it and himself." "Lyubov Alexandrovna is +wonderfully like you.... Even the faults are the +same in you and in her. I listen sometimes to her +beginning to talk confidently about something +which she does not know, and to make positive assertions<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> +and exaggerate—and I recognize you." +Signs of this disease, though in a mild form, were +observed in S. A. T. from the first years of her +married life. But the strength of her constitution +and the healthy elements of her mind for a long +time had the upper hand, and the symptoms were +not obviously visible. But then the bearing and +nursing of children, the complicated business of the +estate, the strain on the mind for many years resulting +from the differences with her husband and +her struggle with Chertkov—all this sapped her +mental and physical powers and made it possible +for the morbid characteristics to assume an acute +form. Even in 1910, before Tolstoy's going away, +she was definitely a sick person.</p> + +<p><a name="note_066" id="note_066"></a><a href="#nanchor_066">{66}</a>. The will of 1 November, 1909, was drawn +in correct legal form, but Tolstoy made the following +addition to it: "In case, however, of my +daughter, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy dying before +me, all the above-mentioned property I bequeath +absolutely to my daughter Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin." +Consequently a new will was drawn up +on 17 July, 1910, but a formal mistake was made +in it though Goldenweiser's fault, who left out +the words: "being of sound mind and memory." +Owing to this it became necessary to draw up a +will, the fourth in number, which was copied and +signed by Tolstoy on 22 July, 1910, and not, as +S. A. T. says, on 23 July.</p> + +<p>Such is the bare history of the two last wills, as<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> +related by Chertkov. But he does not tell us how +and under what circumstances these wills were +signed. This task Sergeenko junior, Chertkov's +secretary, has taken upon himself: he tells us how +the fourth will was made. According to him, on +22 July, Tolstoy fetched the witnesses who were +with Chertkov at Telyatenki and went on horse-back +with them to the old forest of Zaseka, and +there in the depths of the forest, sitting on the +stump of a great tree, he copied his will, first from +a draft and then at Goldenweiser's dictation. +From the expression on Tolstoy's face Sergeenko +saw clearly that "although the whole business was +painful to him, he did it with a firm conviction of +its moral necessity. No hesitation was visible."</p> + +<p><a name="note_067" id="note_067"></a><a href="#nanchor_067">{67}</a>. P. I. Biryukov, an old friend of Tolstoy, +author of the <i>Biography of L. N. Tolstoy</i>, two +volumes, Moscow, 1906-8. On 1 August, 1910, +according to V. F. Bulgakov, Biryukov, during a +visit to Yasnaya Polyana, pointed out to Tolstoy +"the undesirable atmosphere of conspiracy which +the business of the will was assuming. To call +the whole family together and explain his will +to them would, perhaps, correspond better with +Tolstoy's general spirit and convictions." After +his conversation with Biryukov Tolstoy was extremely +disturbed. When V. F. Bulgakov, who +was going to Chertkov's estate, asked him whether +there was anything which he wanted him to say +to Chertkov, Tolstoy replied: "No. I want to<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> +write to him, but I will do it to-morrow. Tell him, +I am in such a state that I want nothing and...." +Tolstoy stopped for a little. "And am waiting. I +am waiting for what is going to happen and am +prepared for anything." Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy +and the Chertkovs were very annoyed at Biryukov's +behaviour, thinking that his interference +was ill-timed and only disconcerted Tolstoy. See +V. F. Bulgakov, <i>Leo Tolstoy During the Last +Years of his Life</i>, pages 277-8.</p> + +<p><a name="note_068" id="note_068"></a><a href="#nanchor_068">{68}</a>. The typewritten MS. has "whose powers +were growing feeble." The words "and memory" +were inserted in S. A. T.'s handwriting. This is +clearly no exaggeration. Ilya Tolstoy also says +that Tolstoy during his last year of life had several +fainting fits and that after them he used for +a short time to lose his memory to such an extent +that he did not recognize his near relations, and +once even asked about his brother who had been +dead fifty years: "And how is Mitenka?" +Bulgakov, who lived at Yasnaya Polyana in 1910, +gives not a few similar instances. Tolstoy confirms +it himself. In June 1910, when asked +whether he had seen the Tula asylum, he replied: +"I don't remember. I have forgotten. A phenomenon, +like the weakening of memory, must +interest you mental specialists. My memory has +become very bad." See Ilya Tolstoy, <i>My Reminiscences</i>, +pages 246-7 and 272; Bulgakov, <i>Leo +Tolstoy</i>, pages 34-5, 267, 289, and 323.<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a></p> + +<p><a name="note_069" id="note_069"></a><a href="#nanchor_069">{69}</a>. Was it not the desire to discover this secret +which made S. A. T. steal into Tolstoy's study at +nights and search there, as is stated by Tolstoy +in his diary? See <i>Dela i Dni</i>, 1921, Number I, +pages 290-1.</p> + +<p><a name="note_070" id="note_070"></a><a href="#nanchor_070">{70}</a>. This letter is quoted in <i>My Reminiscences</i>, +by Ilya Tolstoy, pages 261-3.</p> + +<p><a name="note_071" id="note_071"></a><a href="#nanchor_071">{71}</a>. This of course refers to Chertkov's letter on +the occasion of Tolstoy's going away, published +in <i>Russkaya Vedomostii</i>, 1910, Number 252. An +extract is quoted in Chertkov's pamphlet, <i>On the +Last Days of L. N. Tolstoy</i>, Moscow, 1911, page +15.</p> + +<p><a name="note_072" id="note_072"></a><a href="#nanchor_072">{72}</a>. This was also the opinion of all the members +of the family who were at Astapovo. See Ilya +Tolstoy's, <i>My Reminiscences</i>, pages 253-5.</p> + +<p><a name="note_073" id="note_073"></a><a href="#nanchor_073">{73}</a>. The sale of Yasnaya Polyana has its history. +S. A. T. and her sons originally approached the +Government and asked whether it would acquire +Yasnaya Polyana for the State. The Council of +Ministers discussed the question at the two sittings +of 26 May and 14 October, 1911. At the +first sitting it was decided to acquire Yasnaya +Polyana at the price of 500,000 roubles suggested +by the heirs; but at the second sitting the Council +adopted the view of the Attorney to the Synod, +V. K. Sabler, and the Minister of Education, L. +A. Kasso, who held it inadmissible that the Government +should honour its enemies and enrich their +children at the State's expense; and the question<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> +of purchasing Yasnaya Polyana went no further. +Later a Bill for its purchase was introduced in the +Duma, but nothing came of it.... On 26 February, +1913, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy bought +Yasnaya Polyana for 400,000 roubles, which she +had received from Sitin, the publisher, for the right +of publishing a complete edition of Tolstoy's works. +On 26 March, 1913, Tolstoy's long-cherished desire +was fulfilled and the land of Yasnaya Polyana +was transferred to the peasants. See <i>Tolstovskii +Ezhegodnik</i>, 1911, Number II, page 31, +Numbers III, IV, and V, pages 190-4 and 198; +1913, Part V, pages 10-12.</p> + +<p><a name="note_074" id="note_074"></a><a href="#nanchor_074">{74}</a>. On 15 November, 1912, the Moscow municipality +acquired Tolstoy's house in Moscow with +all its furniture for 125,000 roubles and decided +to use it for a Tolstoy Museum and Library, and +to build in the court-yard a new building for a +Tolstoy School of sixteen classes. See <i>Tolstovskii +Ezhegodnik</i>, 1911, Number II, pages 31-2, and +Numbers III, IV, and V, pages 194-6.</p> + +<p><a name="note_075" id="note_075"></a><a href="#nanchor_075">{75}</a>. The newspapers announced that S. A. T. +died in October, 1919. We have not succeeded in +verifying the date and, therefore, cannot vouch for +its accuracy.</p> + +<p><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX</h2> + +<p><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_I" id="APPENDIX_I"></a>APPENDIX I<br /><br /> +<small>SEMEN AFANASEVICH VENGEROV</small></h2> + +<p>S. A. Vengerov was born 5 April, 1855 and died +14 September, 1920. On leaving his public school +in 1872, he entered the Academy of Medicine and +Surgery in Petersburg and took the general course +in natural science. He then changed to the Faculty +of Law in the Petersburg University and +graduated in 1879. A year later he graduated in +the Historical and Philological Faculty in the +Derpl University, after which he remained at the +Petersburg University in order to prepare for the +professorship of Russian Literature. In 1897 he +began a course of lectures on the history of Russian +literature at the Petersburg University, but was +soon dismissed by the Minister of Education because +of his liberal views. It was only in 1906 +that Vengerov was again allowed to lecture in the +University, and in 1910 he was made professor of +the University for Women and of the Institute of +Psychoneurology. At last in 1919 he was appointed +Professor of Russian Literature in the<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> +Petrograd University. In addition to his lectures, +after 1908 he conducted in the University a special +Pushkin school, and the work of this school was +published in three volumes, <i>The Pushkinist</i>, 1914, +1916, and 1918. After the revolution, when The +Library was established, Vengerov was appointed +Director and managed the institution, under very +unfavourable conditions, until his death.</p> + +<p>"I can only remember three days in my whole +life when I felt at leisure," Vengerov used to say. +The intense industriousness of his life may be seen +from the following incomplete list of his works: +"Russian Literature in her Contemporary Representatives: +I. S. Turgenev, 1875; I. I. Lazhechnikov, +1883; A. F. Pisemskii, 1884.</p> + +<p>"Critico-Biographical Dictionary of Russian +Authors and Men of Letters," Six volumes, 1889-1904. +These six volumes only complete the first +letter of the alphabet, most of the articles being +written by Vengerov.</p> + +<p>Russian Poetry. Seven volumes, 1893-1901.</p> + +<p>Thirty volumes of Russian authors edited with +notes about the writers.</p> + +<p>"The Sources of the Dictionary of Russian +Authors," four volumes, 1900-1917.</p> + +<p>"Library of Great Writers," edited by Vengerov +and containing the complete works of Shakespeare, +Byron, Molière, and Pushkin.</p> + +<p>"Outlines of the History of Russian Literature," +1907.<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a></p> + +<p>"Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century," +1890-1910.</p> + +<p>"The Heroic Character of Russian Literature." +It will be seen from the above list that Vengerov +devoted the whole of his life to Russian literature. +As a writer and man of letters, he achieved considerable +popularity.<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_II" id="APPENDIX_II"></a>APPENDIX II<br /><br /> +<small>NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH STRAKHOV.</small></h2> + +<p>N. N. Strakhov was born 16 October, 1828, and +died 24 January, 1896. He studied at the ecclesiastical +seminary of Kostroma and completed +his course in 1845. He then passed to the Faculty +of Mathematics in the Petersburg University and +took his degree in 1848. He then entered the Faculty +of Natural Science and Mathematics in the +Teachers' Training Institute and completed his +course in 1851, after which he became a teacher of +physics and mathematics. In 1857 he received the +degree of Master of Zoology. In 1861 he gave up +teaching and became the principal collaborator +with the brothers Dostoevskii on the monthly magazine, +<i>Vremya</i>. His chief writings were polemical. +Under the nom-de-plume of "N. Kossize," he wrote +a series or articles which had a great success and +were chiefly directed against the "westerners," +radicals, and socialists, e. g. Chernishersikii, Pisarev. +<i>Vremya</i>, which had a large circulation, was +suppressed by the authorities because of an article +by Strakhov, called "The Fatal Problem," which<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> +dealt with Russian-Polish relations in a spirit of +opposition to the Government. Being without +work, Strakhov began translating books into Russian, +chiefly on Philosophical, scientific, and literary +subjects.</p> + +<p>Tolstoy's friendship with Strakhov began in +1871. When someone asked him about the friendship, +Strakhov sent him the following autobiographical +note: "The origin of my acquaintance +with L. N. Tolstoy in 1871 was as follows. After +my articles on <i>War and Peace</i>, I decided to write +him a letter asking him to let the <i>Sarya</i> have some +of his work. He replied that he had nothing at +present, but added a pressing invitation to come +and see him at Yasnaya Polyana whenever an +opportunity should present itself. In 1871 I received +four hundred roubles from the <i>Sarya</i>, and +in June I went to stay with my people in Poltava. +On my way back to Petersburg I stopped at Tula +for the night, and in the morning took a cab and +drove out to Yasnaya Polyana. After that we +used to see each other every year, that is, I used to +stay a month or six weeks with him every summer. +At times we quarrelled and grew cool to each other, +but good feeling always won the day; his family +got to like me, and now they see in me an old, +faithful friend, which indeed I am."</p> + +<p>With Strakhov Tolstoy was on very friendly +terms, which allowed complete frankness between +them. Tolstoy himself wrote of his correspondence<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> +with Strakhov (in a letter of 6 February, 1906, +to P. A. Sergeenko): "In addition to Alexandra +Andreevna Tolstoy, I had two persons to whom +I have written many letters which, as far as I can +remember, might interest people interested in my +personality. They are Strakhov and Prince Serge +S. Urusov." (<i>Letters</i>, Vol. II, page 227.)</p> + +<p>The friendship of Tolstoy and Strakhov lasted +for twenty-five years, and on Strakhov's part there +was thirty years adoration of Tolstoy's genius +and of his great spiritual and intellectual qualities. +V. V. Rosanov wrote the following after Strakhov's +death: "Strakhov's attachment to Tolstoy +was most deep and mystical: he loved him as the +incarnation of the best and most profound aspirations +of the human soul, as a special nerve in the +huge body of mankind in which we others form +parts less understanding and significant; he loved +him for what was indefinite and incomplete in him. +He loved in him the dark abyss, the bottom of +which no one could see, from the depths of which +still rise numbers of treasures; and there is no +doubt that Tolstoy never lost a better friend."</p> + +<p>Strakhov's works included: <i>From the History +of Russian Nihilism</i>, 1890; <i>Essays on Pushkin +and Other Poets</i>, 1888; <i>Biography of Dostoevskii; +The Struggle of the West with our Literature</i>, +three volumes, 1882-1886; and some scientific +works.<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_III" id="APPENDIX_III"></a>APPENDIX III<br /><br /> +<small>TOLSTOY'S FIRST WILL</small></h2> + +<p>Tolstoy's first will was contained in the form of +a letter in his diary of 27 March, 1895 and repeated +in his diary of 1907, see Notes 62 and 63 +above. The following is the text of the entry in +the diary:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>My will is approximately as follows.</p> + +<p>(Until I have written another this holds good.)</p> + +<p>(1). To bury me where I die, in the cheapest +cemetery, if I die in a town, and in the cheapest +coffin, as paupers are buried. Flowers and +wreaths are not to be sent, speeches are not to be +made. If possible, bury me without priests or +burial service. But if those who bury me dislike +this, let them bury me in the ordinary way with a +funeral service, but as cheaply and simply as possible.</p> + +<p>(2.) My death is not to be announced in the +newspapers, nor are obituary notices to be written.</p> + +<p>(3.) All my papers are to be given to my wife, +V. G. Chertkov, Strakhov, and to my daughters<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> +Tanya and Masha,<a name="FNanchor_P_13" id="FNanchor_P_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_P_13" class="fnanchor">[P]</a> for them, or for such of them +as survive, to sort and examine. (I have myself +struck out my daughter's names. They ought not +to be bothered with this.)</p> + +<p>I exclude my sons from this bequest not because +I did not love them (I have come of late to love +them better and better, thank God) and I know +that they love me; but they do not altogether understand +my ideas; they did not follow their development; +and they may have views of their own which +may lead them to keep what ought not to be kept +and to reject what ought to be kept. I have +taken out of the diaries of my bachelor life what +is worth keeping. I wish them to be destroyed. +Also in the diaries of my married life I wish to +be destroyed everything which might hurt anyone +if published. Chertkov has promised me to do +this even during my lifetime, and knowing the +great and undeserved love that he has for me and +his moral sensibility I am sure that he will do it +splendidly. I wish the diaries of my bachelor life +to be destroyed not because I wish to conceal the +wickedness of my life—my life was the usual unclean +life of an unprincipled young man—but because<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> +the diaries in which I recorded only the +torments which arise from the consciousness of sin +produce a false and one-sided impression and +represent.... Well, let my diaries remain as +they are. In them at least is seen how in spite of +all the frivolity and immorality of my youth I +yet was not deserted by God and though it was +only in old age, I began, though only a little, to +understand and love Him.</p> + +<p>I write this not that I attribute great or even +any importance to my papers, but because I know +beforehand that after my death my books will be +published, and will be talked about, and will be +thought to be important. If that is so, it is better +that my writings should not harm people.</p> + +<p>As for the remainder of my papers I ask those +who will have the arrangement of them not to +publish everything, but only that which may be +of use to people.</p> + +<p>(4). With regard to the publishing rights of +my former works—the ten volumes and the <i>A. B. +C.</i>—I ask my heirs to give these to the public, <i>i. e.</i> +to renounce the copyrights. But I only ask this, +in no sense order it. It would be a good thing +to do it. It would be good for you also. But if +you do not wish to do it, that is your business. +It means that you are not ready to do it. That +my books for the last ten years have been sold +was to me the most painful thing in my life.</p> + +<p>(5). There is one more request, and it is the<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> +most important. I ask all, relations and strangers +alike, not to praise me (I know that this must +happen, because it has happened during my life +time and in the worst way possible). Also if +people are going to occupy themselves with my +writings, let them dwell upon those passages in +which I knew that the Divine power spoke through +me; and let them make use of them in their +lives. There were times when I felt that I had +become the agent of the Divine will. Often I +was so impure, so filled with personal passions, +that the light of this truth was obscured by my +darkness; but at times the truth passed through me, +and these were the happiest moments of my life. +God grant that their passage through me did not +profane those truths, and that people, notwithstanding +the petty and impure character which +they received from me, may feed on them. The +value of my writings lies in this alone. And therefore +I am to be blamed for them, but not praised.</p> + +<p>That is all.</p> + +<p> +L. N. T.<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_IV" id="APPENDIX_IV"></a>APPENDIX IV<br /><br /> +<small>TOLSTOY'S WILL OF 22 JULY, 1910</small></h2> + +<p class="noind">T<small>HE</small> following is the text of Tolstoy's will, written +by him on 22 July, 1910, and proved for execution +by the Tula High Court on 16 November, +1910:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><a href="#nanchor_022">{22}</a> July, 1910, I, the undersigned, being of sound +mind and memory, make the following disposition +in the event of my death: all my literary works, +both those already written and those which may be +written between now and my death, both those which +have already been published and those which are +unpublished, my works of fiction as well as any +other works finished or unfinished, dramatic works +or those in any other form, translations, revisions, +diaries, private letters, rough drafts, jottings, and +notes,—in a word everything without any exception, +written by me up to the day of my death, wherever +such may be found or in whosever possession, +whether in manuscript or in print, and also the +rights of literary property in all my works, as well +as the MSS. themselves and all my papers left<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> +after my death—I bequeth in full ownership to my +daughter, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy. In the +event of my daughter, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy, +dying before me, I bequeath the above-mentioned +absolutely to my daughter, Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin. +(Signed) <span class="smcap">Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy</span>.</p> + +<p>I hereby bear witness that the above will was +actually made, written by his own hand, and signed +by Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who is of +sound mind and memory, <span class="smcap">Alexander Boresovich +Goldenweiser</span>, artist.</p> + +<p>Witness to the same: <span class="smcap">Alexei Petrovich Sergeenko</span>, +citizen.</p> + +<p>Witness to the same: <span class="smcap">Anatolii Dionsevich Radinskii</span>, +son of a lieutenant-colonel.</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_V" id="APPENDIX_V"></a>APPENDIX V</h2> + +<h3>TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY</h3> + +<p>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:</p> + +<h3>TOLSTOY'S LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER ALEXANDRA +LVOVONA</h3> + +<p class="c"> +29 October, 1910, <span class="smcap">Optina Monastery</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<p>"...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.</p> + +<p>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<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> +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.<a name="FNanchor_Q_14" id="FNanchor_Q_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q_14" class="fnanchor">[Q]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="rt"> +<span class="smcap">L. Tolstoy.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>FROM TOLSTOY'S DIARY</h3> + +<p>25 Oct. 1910.... +Sophie Andreevna is as +anxious as ever.</p> + +<p>27 Oct. 1910. I got up very early. All night +I had bad dreams. The difficulty of our relation +is constantly increasing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Again steps, a cautious opening of the door, and +she passes by.<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The door opens and in comes S. A. asking about +"my health," and surprised at seeing a light in my +room.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I write a letter to her, and begin to pack only +what things are needed for the journey. I wake +Dushan<a name="FNanchor_R_15" id="FNanchor_R_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_R_15" class="fnanchor">[R]</a> then Sasha<a name="FNanchor_S_16" id="FNanchor_S_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_S_16" class="fnanchor">[S]</a> 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<a name="FNanchor_T_17" id="FNanchor_T_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_T_17" class="fnanchor">[T]</a> come there. I tremble, expecting +that S. A. T. will pursue me.</p> + +<p>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.<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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 <i>Krug Chtenia</i>' 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....</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> These and all other italics in the letters and autobiography +are in the original.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> 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, <i>Critical Biographical Dictionary of Russian +Authors and Men of Letters</i>, second edition, Vol. I; +<i>Preliminary List of Russian Authors and Men of Letters +and Preliminary Information about Them</i>, 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: <i>A Short Autobiography +of Countess Sophie Tolstoy</i>. 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskii and her friend, +Natalya Petrovna, who was homeless and lived with her. +Leo N. writes about them in his <i>Reminiscences of Childhood</i>. +They are also mentioned in Ilya Tolstoy's <i>My +Reminiscences</i>. (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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J_9" id="Footnote_J_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_9"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> The old oak forest near the house. S. A. T.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K_10" id="Footnote_K_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_10"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> Kiev is famous for its churches and monasteries.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_M_11" id="Footnote_M_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_11"><span class="label">[M]</span></a> Chertkov.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_N_12" id="Footnote_N_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_12"><span class="label">[N]</span></a> The story of the making of the will is related by +F. A. Strakhov, Petersburgkaya Gazetta, November, +1911. S. A. T.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_P_13" id="Footnote_P_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P_13"><span class="label">[P]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Q_14" id="Footnote_Q_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Q_14"><span class="label">[Q]</span></a> Tatyana L. Sukhotin and Count Serge L. Tolstoy +are L. N. T.'s eldest children.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_R_15" id="Footnote_R_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_R_15"><span class="label">[R]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_S_16" id="Footnote_S_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_S_16"><span class="label">[S]</span></a> L. N. T.'s daughter, Alexandra.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_T_17" id="Footnote_T_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_T_17"><span class="label">[T]</span></a> Varvara Feskritov, S. A. T.'s late secretary.</p></div> + +</div> +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy, by +Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COUNTESS TOLSTOY *** + +***** This file should be named 38027-h.htm or 38027-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/0/2/38027/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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