The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy

by Cathy Porter

  1877

  March—great public trial opens of those (mainly women) arrested for propagandizing in the factories of Moscow (Trial of the 50). April—Russia declares war on Turkey. Hundreds of revolutionaries volunteer to fight with the Bulgarian partisans in the Balkans. October–January 1878—second great public trial (Trial of the 193), of those arrested for propagandizing in the villages.

  Final chapters of Anna Karenina published in the Russian Herald, earning Tolstoy huge royalties. July—he makes a pilgrimage on foot to Optyna Pustyn monastery. The discord between the couple increases. Sofia assumes yet more of the burdens of running the farm and the house. 6th December—Andrei Tolstoy (Andryusha) born.

  27th February. As I was reading through some of Lyovochka’s old diaries today, I realized I would never be able to write those ‘Notes for a Biography’, as I had intended to. His inner life is so complicated and his diaries disturb me so much that I grow confused, and cannot see things clearly. The other day, when I asked him to tell me about something from his past, he said: “Please don’t ask about these things; it disturbs me to think of my past and I’m much too old now to relive my whole life in memories.”

  1878

  24th January—a young revolutionary called Vera Zasulich attempts to kill General Trepov, governor-general of St Petersburg. February–March—student demonstration in Kiev. 31st March—Zasulich tried and acquitted, and a warrant issued for her rearrest, but by then she has fled to Switzerland. November—student riots in St Petersburg.

  April—Tolstoy visits Samara and buys more land. He starts work on a novel on the uprising of Russia’s first revolutionaries, the Decembrists (never published). Sofia Tolstoy finishes her biography of him.

  24th September, Sunday. I got up late. Lyovochka attended the liturgy* and the three of us, Lyovochka, his sister Mashenka and I, drank coffee together. After lunch the children walked over to Yasenki, and Mashenka drove to Tula with Seryozha’s Classics tutor, the high-school teacher Ulyaninsky. Lyovochka and Seryozha took their guns and the hounds and went hunting, and I stayed at home cutting out jackets for the boys. Then Mashenka, Annie* and I all went off in the carriage to Yasenki to look for the children. Just before I left, Prince Urusov* appeared with his gun and went off to look for our huntsmen. I found the children in the shop at Yasenki buying sweets. We all met for dinner, then played a game of croquet in the twilight, with Lyovochka, Ilyusha and I playing M. Nief, Lyova and Urusov; they beat us. After that Lyovochka and Urusov played chess, the children ate their sweets and were rather rowdy, and I read Octave Feuillet’s Journal d’une femme. It is all very fine and idealistic, although the ending is a bit forced. But the whole thing seems to be written in deliberate contrast to the excessive realism of some contemporary literature. It is midnight. Lyovochka is having supper, after that we shall go to bed.

  25th September. I taught the children this morning, then Mashenka came to dinner bringing Anton, Rossa and Nadya Delvig with her. The children were in ecstasies. After dinner we danced a quadrille and I partnered little Lyova to make a third couple. Lyovochka and Alexander Grigorevich* played for us. Then Masha and Alexander played a piano and violin duet, which was quite successful (the delightful Mozart sonata with the andante that always moves me to tears). Then Lyovochka played some Weber sonatas. But for me Alexander Grigorevich’s violin-playing compared badly with Nagornov’s. Finally they did Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata—badly; now that should be truly something when played properly!

  26th September. Lyovochka and Auntie went to church, while the rest of us played a jolly game of croquet. Then Lyovochka persuaded the children to walk the borzois across the fields. They each took a dog on the lead, one of the huntsmen rode along beside them, also with a dog on the lead, and Annie, Mlle Gachet and M. Nief all followed behind. It made a very pretty picture. After we had finished our game of croquet the others joined them and I went to visit Vasily Ivanovich.* After dinner the children crowded into Lyovochka’s sitting room, laughing and chattering and pushing one another. They went to bed early.

  27th September. It’s still clear and dry. I did a lot of cutting and sewing, gave Liza* a French lesson, and Masha and Tanya a German lesson.

  3rd October. I have been indoors all day despite the marvellous weather. I gave the children their lessons, and had to scold Tanya for refusing to take a walk and running away from Mlle Gachet. Lyovochka’s sister Mashenka came and sat with me and was in a very good mood. He went hunting and shot five hares. His horse fell under him, although he only hurt his arm, thank God, but it was at full gallop and he flew over its head, and the horse twisted its neck and lay there for a long time unable to get up. Lyovochka has put a plaster on his right side—I am still anxious about him. Andryusha is an adorable child; he feeds himself now on bread and milk. The children played croquet after their lessons. While Lyovochka was having supper after the hunt, a letter arrived from my sister Tanya; I was so happy, and when I read it to the others, I couldn’t stop smiling with delight. We all burst out laughing at the part where she sent her regards to “our kind, gentle, devout, fair-skinned papa”, which was how our little fortune-telling book The Oracle described him, and what we jokingly call him when we play croquet.

  4th October. My daughter Tanya’s fourteenth birthday. As soon as I got up I walked to the little plantation where the children were having a picnic. M. Nief was there with his sleeves rolled up, making them une omelette and some hot chocolate. There were four bonfires, and Seryozha was roasting shashlyk. We had enormous fun and ate a lot, and we had magnificent weather. We got home and were just starting a game of croquet when what should we see but a procession of horses and donkeys filing along our “prospect” on their way from Samara. The children were tremendously excited and immediately rushed over, leapt on the donkeys and started riding about on them. Nikolenka came to dinner with Baroness Delvig and Rossa, and we drank Tanya’s health in champagne; she blushed but was very pleased. Later that evening Tanya and I drove our guests back to Kozlovka in the carriage, so we didn’t get to bed until late. On our way home we met Lyovochka, who had come out to meet us on foot.

  6th October. I went downstairs this morning to see Lyovochka, busily writing at his desk. He told me this was his tenth attempt to start his new novel. It’s to open with a cross-examination in a trial involving some peasants and a landlord. He got the details of the trial from actual recorded documents, and is even leaving in the relevant dates. The trial, like a fountain, will precipitate events—for the peasants and for the landowner, in St Petersburg, and in all the other places where the various characters will play their part.* I very much like this entrée en matière. The children are studying, but they are in a lazy mood and keep thinking up different games.

  9th October. Bibikov has just returned from Samara* with bad news: there’s practically no money from the estate again. I was terribly angry when I found out they had bought some land there without telling me. They bought some cattle too, and the harvest wasn’t good. I had a frightful argument with Lyovochka. I think I have been very ill used, and I still don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. I hate everything: myself, my life, my so-called “happiness” it’s all dreary and disgusting.

  15th October. When I went into the drawing room for my morning tea, I found Lyovochka, his brother Seryozha, and the children all sitting there with the two teachers, the hunchbacked drawing master and Ulyaninsky the tutor. One feels slightly constrained by the teachers’ presence. Lyovochka then drove to church.

  Preparations started for the hunt. Seven horses were saddled up, and Lyovochka, the two Seryozhas, Ilyusha, a couple of servants and M. Nief rode off with the hounds, while Tanya, Masha, Lyova, Mlle Gachet and Liza rode the donkeys to Kozlovka. I stayed behind on my own and played with Andryusha for a while, but when he fell asleep I grew restless, and ordered them to harness the cart for me to go and meet the children. I found them at the boundary of the estate and managed to persuade Mlle Gachet to drive home with me. There
we ordered some grated horseradish and sour milk; we decided not to have dinner until our hunters were back. It was almost seven when they returned, looking very pleased with themselves and triumphantly bearing six hares strung on a stick which they gave us.

  18th October. Andryusha has been ill, shivering and feverish, with an upset stomach. I got up late. The children have gone out: the boys took the dogs to the fields to catch mice, and Lyova and the girls went out on the donkeys. Dinner was frightful: the pie was dry, the potato soup greasy, the levashniki* like shoe-leather, and hare I never eat. I just had a salad, and afterwards gave the cook a piece of my mind. Just then Lyovochka returned, with four hares and a fox. He is lethargic, silent and lost in thought; he does nothing but read.

  21st October. Andryusha was very sick indeed yesterday: his little hands and feet grew cold, and he ran a high fever and tossed and sobbed in his sleep; his lips twitched and his eyelids fluttered. This morning the fever passed, but now he has diarrhoea, his sleep is still disturbed and I feel terribly worried. A certain Navrotsky, editor of a new journal called Russian Speech, came from Petersburg to visit us. He read us his poems and some extracts from his play—it wasn’t bad. He also told us all the Petersburg news, which was quite interesting. The tutors came again today (Saturday). We had pancakes. I had a serious talk with Seryozha. Yesterday I had scolded him for making fun of people and told him how much it distressed me; today I explained that I scolded my children only because I loved them and wanted them to be happy, and our happiness, I said, depended chiefly on being loved by others.

  I was thinking what a pity it is that tsars are embalmed. Everyone should be buried in the earth immediately after they die—“dust to dust”. All these embalming rituals and burial vaults are disgusting.

  22nd October, Sunday. This morning the hunchbacked drawing master told us the interesting story of how he started his career, as a draughtsman in a silk factory. Lyovochka attended the liturgy, then went hunting with Seryozha, but they had no luck. Nurse is in Tula, and I have been with Andryusha since seven this morning and am exhausted.

  23rd October. After drinking his morning coffee with me, Lyovochka took the borzois off to Zaseka to hunt. I gave Masha a Russian lesson, Liza a French lesson, and Lyova a German lesson. Lyovochka was back for dinner with three hares, and afterwards Seryozha played a Haydn sonata—quite well—with Alexander Grigorevich accompanying him on the violin. Then this evening Lyovochka played some sonatas by Weber and Schubert, also with a violin accompaniment; I embroidered Andryusha’s white cashmere robe in red silk while enjoying the music. The weather is windy and unpleasant. Lyovochka was saying he had read his fill of history and was going to start on Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit for a rest. I happen to know, however, that when he turns to English novels he is about to start writing himself.

  25th October. I gave Lyolya a music lesson and searched Haydn’s symphonies for an easy minuet for him to play. I read with Masha, helped Liza with her lesson, and worked on a white piqué gown for Andryusha. Lyovochka took the borzois hunting. He returned with a hare and a tiny white creature rather like a weasel. Later the two of us went over Lyovochka’s entire life for his biography, and I took notes while he talked. We worked cheerfully and well, and I’m glad we did it. The children are studying hard. The wind is howling and it’s pouring with rain. We read more Dumas this evening.

  28th October. I drank tea alone, then Tanya came in complaining of a sore throat. I was very alarmed and made her gargle with Bertholet salts, one teaspoonful dissolved in a glass of hot water. Aside from this though, she seems quite well, so I don’t feel so anxious now. I went to the woods to watch them making barrels. We took the forest path and it was enchanting—clear, frosty and silent. Then I went for a walk with Masha, Mlle Gachet and Annie, and the boys went back to the threshing floor to play in the straw. The teachers again arrived while we were having dinner. Tanya did a rather good charcoal drawing of a woman’s head. I sewed a christening gown for Parasha’s* baby boy and gave Andryusha his first bath since his vaccination. Lyovochka went out with the hounds and killed a hare.

  29th October. It snowed today, then it became warm and the snow turned to mud. The children played hide-and-seek and made a great noise, but they enjoyed themselves. Everyone stayed indoors all day because of the weather.

  1st November. Lyovochka read me the beginning of his new book, The Decembrists, yesterday morning. It is an immense, interesting and serious undertaking. It begins with a case of some peasants and a landowner who are in dispute over a piece of land, the arrival in Moscow of Prince Chernyshev and his family, the laying of the foundation stone of the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour, a woman pilgrim, a peasant’s wife, an old lady, etc. I went to Tula this morning with Dmitry Alexeevich, Seryozha and Tanya: it was fine and frosty. We bought some fur to make a coat for Tanya and a sheepskin jacket for Seryozha (costing 12 silver rubles); Seryozha was then measured for a winter overcoat (65 silver rubles), and we ordered some boots for Tanya, a fox jacket for me (to be made from our own furs) and various other things. Lyovochka had been working at home all day, and as we were nearing the house he came out to meet us. It’s always a joy to return home and see his grey overcoat in the distance. Andryusha hadn’t been at all sick or fretful. I had bought some tops for the boys (costing 10 kopecks each), a thimble for Masha, some beads, earrings and a brooch for the dolls, warm gloves and various other little things for the rest of them. I was terribly tired by then, for we had had nothing to eat all day but some sweet cakes and a piece of soft bread.

  4th November. I gave the children their lessons and had an argument with Lyovochka about Seryozha’s French; I maintain that he should be taught literature but he doesn’t agree. Andryusha’s nurse pierced Masha’s ears so she can now wear her earrings.

  6th November. Fog, air oppressive. I read some German, first with Lyova then this evening with Ilyusha. I gave Masha a Russian lesson, and she recited Pushkin’s poem ‘The snow has veiled the sky in mist…’ quite nicely. Her written work was atrocious though, and I tore the page out of her exercise book. Alexander Grigorevich came; he isn’t teaching Ilya and Lyolya a thing. Lyovochka went hunting and brought back two hares. He is fretful because he cannot write; this evening, while he was reading Dickens’s Dombey and Son, he suddenly announced to me, “Aha! I’ve got it!” When I asked what he meant he wouldn’t tell me at first, but eventually he said: “Well, I’ve been imagining this old woman—her appearance, her manner, her thoughts—but I haven’t been able to find the right feelings for her. And I suddenly realized: it’s the constant awareness that her husband, old Gerasimovich, is languishing in prison with his head shaven for a crime he didn’t commit.” Then he sat down at the piano and started improvising. I read an article on art and artists in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and quilted an eiderdown for Andryusha. This evening the children had a discussion about affectation, and they all criticized Tanya for putting on airs when they were at the Delvigs’. Everyone here is well.

  7th November. I cut out shirts for Lyovochka and helped Liza with her studies. There was an unpleasant incident: I thought someone had cut a piece off my length of linen, but in fact I was wrong. Lyovochka went to the bathhouse with Ilyusha and Lyolya this evening; he is much more cheerful now and clearer in his mind about his writing.

  11th November. It’s a pity that I always write in my diary at the end of the day when I’m worn out. Andryusha woke up wheezing and coughing at four this morning and went on until eight. I was at my wits’ end. He is slightly better now, but still has diarrhoea and a harsh rasping cough. I gave him three drops of antimony, and bandaged his neck with a piece of flannel soaked in oil, lard, soap and camphor. Today Lyovochka said all his characters were coming to life, and he saw it all much more clearly. He is cheerful and working again, now that he believes in it.

  The drawing master and Ulyaninsky the high-school teacher came again today. Tanya is doing quite a good drawing of a shepherd boy’s head, while Ilya and Lyolya mere
ly play at it. I have done a lot of sewing and have finished a flannel vest for Andryusha, as well as a pillow and two pillowcases for him. I had a letter from Mother.

  14th November. Yesterday evening Lyovochka and Alexander Grigorevich played piano and violin duets together. This morning, after a night filled with the most frightful dreams and nightmares, I had tea with Lyovochka (a rare event nowadays) and we had a long philosophical discussion about death, religion, the meaning of life and so on. These discussions have such a soothing effect on me. I interpret his wisdom on these matters in a very personal way, and can always pick out things he says that lay my doubts to rest. I should set his ideas down on paper but I can’t, especially now, when I have a headache and am tired.

  16th November. Lyovochka said: “All the characters and events and ideas are here in my head.” But he is still unwell and unable to write. He started eating Lenten fare yesterday; I strongly opposed this as I was sure it would do his health no good. This evening the six children, Lyovochka and I all gathered in the balcony room and I suddenly felt how sad it was that the time would come when we would all have gone our separate ways and would look back on this moment.

  19th November. Lyovochka went hunting again and caught 4 hares and a fox. Seryozha, Ilyusha and M. Nief rode to Yasenki to watch the Tsar travel past,* but all they saw was the train “et le marmiton”,* as M. Nief jokingly put it.