The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy

by Cathy Porter

  Lyova and Berger went to look for the drowned horse, but they got lost and returned without finding it. My son Lyova is so precious to me. I only wish he wasn’t so distressingly thin and melancholy—although at present he is looking happier, which is a relief.

  5th January. I am feeling ill, my back aches, my nose keeps bleeding, my front tooth is aching, and I am terrified of losing it, for a false one would be horrible. I copied Lyovochka’s diary all morning, then tidied his clothes and underwear and cleaned his study until it was spotless; then I darned his socks, which he had mentioned were all in holes, and this kept me busy until dinner time. Afterwards I played with Vanechka. This evening I was angry with Misha for hitting Sasha. I was much too hard on him and pushed him in the back and made him kneel in front of everyone. He cried and ran off to his room, and I felt sorry for him and for our friendship. But we soon made up.

  6th January. I haven’t stirred all day, just sat dumbly darning Lyovochka’s socks. I was sent some Spinoza but cannot read it: I shall wait for my head and the black spots in front of my eyes to clear. We had guests—Bulygin and Kolechka Gué.* Seryozha returned by express train and is kind and genial. We chatted about frivolous matters, his visit to the Olsufievs and business. He is going to Nikolskoe tonight.

  Andryusha and Misha went to the village to look in on a party. They evidently didn’t have a good time, for the village lads were shy and wouldn’t play. I’m sorry they didn’t enjoy themselves. It’s all very difficult with Masha. She goes out on her own with a village girl to visit typhus patients. I am worried about her and the risk of infection, and have told her so. This desire of hers to help the sick is all very well—I do so myself frequently—but she always goes too far. But today I reasoned gently with her and began to feel so sorry for her, so sorry too that we are estranged.

  7th January. Masha’s words to me yesterday have been in my mind all day: she is going to marry Biryukov next spring, she says. “I shall go and grow potatoes,” were her words. I have now adopted the habit of waiting until the next day to respond. So today I wrote Biryukov a letter, enclosing the money for a book he had sent her. I said I didn’t want Masha marrying him, and asked him to stop writing her letters and coming to see her. Masha overheard me telling Lyovochka about the letter and was furious with me, saying she took back all the promises she had made to me. I was upset and in tears too. Masha really is a torment, everything about her, her deviousness and now her imaginary love for B.

  Lyova left for Pirogovo with his servant Mitrokha this morning. Tanya went to Tula where she had her money stolen. And last night two cartloads of firewood were stolen from the shed. I copied L.’s diaries this morning, then taught the children, darned some socks, and now I can’t do another thing. What infernal drudgery! This evening I read aloud two tedious and horrible stories which that stupid, insensitive Chertkov sent.

  Today I was thinking that nine tenths of all that happens in this world is caused by love, in all its various aspects, yet people are always anxious to conceal this, since otherwise all their most private emotions, thoughts and passions would be revealed: it would be like appearing naked in public. There is no mention of love in Lyovochka’s diaries, not as I understand it anyway—he seems to have had no experience of it.

  8th January. Overwhelmed with work all day. I went through the accounts for Yasnaya Polyana and the timber sales and checked them and read the proofs for Volume 13 of the new Collected Works. Then I gave Andryusha and Misha a music lesson that lasted two hours, and after dinner I wrote down some chords for the children. Then I worked out our expenses on butter and eggs, and wrote yet more rough drafts of my legal petition regarding the division of the estate to the Ovsyannikovo priest and the transfer of the Grinevka estate. So now I have put everything in perfect order—as if before death? I really should pay a visit to Moscow about Volume 13, but I have no desire to go. My heart is heavy, though it shouldn’t be: everyone is well and happy, thank God. Sasha, Vanechka and I all said our prayers together. Lyovochka spends all his time downstairs reading and writing, and comes out only to eat and sleep. He is happy and well.

  9th January. Tanya and I played the Kreutzer Sonata as a piano duet—badly; it’s a very difficult piece to play without practising beforehand. This evening Andryusha had a toothache, and I carried Vanechka about in my arms as he had lost his voice. What a gentle, affectionate, sensitive, clever little boy he is! I love him more than anything in the world and am terrified he will not live long. I dream constantly that I have given birth to another son.

  10th January. It was almost ten when I got up, so I didn’t go to Tula; there’s a terrible wind. This morning I cut out some underwear for Sasha and did some copying, gave the children a music lesson and gave Andryusha religious instruction. I took great pains with them and it went very well. Andryusha is stubborn and absent-minded and seems deliberately not to listen or understand. The more I put my heart into the lesson the more inattentive and rude he is. How he distresses me! He will have a hard life with that character, poor boy! Lyovochka and Nikolai Nikolaevich* played chess with Alexei Mitrofanovich,* who played without looking at the board, to our great amazement. We talked about the ways in which censorship prevents writers from saying what is most important to them, and I argued that there were free works, works of pure literature that the censors were unable to silence—like War and Peace for instance. Lyovochka angrily replied that he had renounced all such works.* It was obviously the banning of The Kreutzer Sonata that was making him so bitter.

  12th January. Yesterday I went to Tula, traded in the coupons, submitted my application for the transfer of Grinevka property, settled the bills and wore myself out discussing the division of the Ovsyannikovo estate with the priest’s wife, who shares the rights to the land with us. Four times I walked from the district court to the provincial offices and back, as each place sent me to the other, saying the matter was not under their jurisdiction. So I left without accomplishing a thing. It is a long time since I felt so depressed, waiting in Davydov* the magistrate’s office for the barrister who was late. These business matters are so tedious and difficult—it’s much easier to say: “I’m a Christian, it’s against my rules!” I must hire a proper businessman to see to it for I cannot be continually going to Tula. At three this morning Vanechka started coughing and running a high fever. I dragged myself out of bed, went to his room and tried to soothe him. I got up late this morning. Today is Tanya’s name day, but we both gave the children their lessons; Andryusha played the piano quite nicely, but Misha scowled. Vanechka still has a cough and a temperature but he doesn’t complain. The post brought a letter from L.N.’s niece Varya Nagornova, as well as the proofs for The Kreutzer Sonata. The affair has now reached some sort of denouement—what will happen? Will it be banned? What should I do?

  Tomorrow I must read the proofs and cut out underwear. My soul is empty and lonely.

  13th January. Vanechka is ill. He didn’t get up at midday, and by two he had a temperature of 39.4—and the same at 9 this evening. Last night he was running a fever and choking on a thick phlegmy cough. He has a bad cold, and this morning he had an earache. I feel so sorry for him, and so exhausted. In my free time I managed to correct a lot of the proofs for Volume 13, which includes The Kreutzer Sonata. When Vanechka was choking last night I ran into Masha’s room to ask her for an emetic. She was asleep but she woke at once and jumped out of bed with alacrity to get some ipecacuanha. When she turned to me her face looked so touchingly thin and sweet that I had a sudden impulse to hug and kiss her. That would have surprised her! She has had a sweet expression on her face all day and I love her. If only I could always feel like this towards her, how happy I would be! I must try.

  14th January. Vanechka is better. His cough improved and he grew more cheerful. Lyova went to Moscow. Klopsky arrived. He is utterly repulsive, and a dark one.* I wrote to Misha Stakhovich and Varya Nagornova and did a little copying. I taught Andryusha the liturgy and Misha the Holy Communion. A
fter dinner I sat with Vanechka for a while, copied Lyovochka’s diary and reached 1854, then sat downstairs with the girls. My mind is asleep. This evening we saw Mitrokha off to Moscow; Andryusha and Misha both helped him to get ready and gave him an overcoat and 50 kopecks of their own money. There is a hard frost. Lyovochka is irritable and unkind. I am terrified of his sarcasm—it cuts me to the quick.

  15th January. It is a hard struggle at times. This morning the children were downstairs doing their lessons and Klopsky was there. “Why are you doing your lessons?” he asked Andryusha. “Do you want to destroy your soul? Surely your father wouldn’t want that!” The girls then piped up and asked him if they could shake his noble hand for saying so and the boys ran up to tell me about it. I then had earnestly to assure them that since we did no real, peasant labour, without intellectual labour there would be nothing for us but total idleness; that this intellectual work was the justification for the grand life we led. I told them that I had to educate them all on my own, that if they turned into bad people all the shame would be mine, and that I would be very hurt if all my labours were in vain.

  16th January. I went to Tula on business again, ran all over the place, saw a lot of people and did a lot of talking.

  On my way home I thought of my enemies and prayed for them, and decided to write a friendly letter to Biryukov. I have decided to send Masha to help the families of those peasants who are in jail for stealing the wood.

  17th January. I was feeling lazy this morning and got up late. Over dinner we had a frivolous discussion about what would happen if the masters and servants changed places for a week. Lyovochka scowled and went downstairs; I went and asked him what the matter was and he said: “That was a stupid discussion about a sacred matter. It’s agony for me to be surrounded by servants, and very painful that this should be turned into a joke, especially in front of the children.”

  18th January. I had a dreadful scene with Nurse. She was very rude to me yesterday and has been neglecting the baby. She is driving me desperate. I was feeling ill and told her I wouldn’t be insulted by a hussy. At that she said something so appallingly vulgar that were I not so besotted with Vanechka I would have sacked her on the spot. The poor little boy, sensing an argument, clung to her skirt and wouldn’t leave her, saying, “Maman good, Maman good!” If only we were all little children! I gave Misha a lesson and did some copying. I didn’t go to bed, although I was groaning with pain and could eat nothing. This part of Lyovochka’s diaries, about the Crimean War and Sevastopol, is so interesting. One page, which had been torn out, struck me particularly. A woman wants marriage and a man wants lechery, and the two can never be reconciled. No marriage can be happy if the husband has led a debauched life. It is astonishing that ours has survived at all. It was my childish ignorance that made it possible for us to be happy. Instinctively I closed my eyes to his past, and deliberately, in my own interests, didn’t read all his diaries and asked no questions. If I had, it would have destroyed both of us. He doesn’t know this, or that it was my purity that saved us, but I know now that this is true. Those scenes from his past, that casual debauchery, and his casual attitude to it, is poisonous, and would have a terrible effect on a woman who hadn’t enough to keep her busy. After reading these diaries a woman might feel: “So this is what you were like! Your past has defiled me—this is what you get for that!”

  19th January. I am still ill; I have a stomach ache and a temperature. I have observed a connecting thread between Lyovochka’s old diaries and his Kreutzer Sonata. I am a buzzing fly entangled in this web, sucked of its blood by the spider.

  25th January. I got up early this morning, despite being unwell and having a bad cold, and drove to Tula. It was a warm day. At the footbridge I met Lyovochka, bright and cheerful, already returning from his walk. I love meeting him, especially unexpectedly. I had various things to attend to in Tula. I collected the payment for the timber, came to an understanding with the Ovsyannikovo priest, acceding to all his claims and virtually agreeing to the division of the land. I visited the Raevskys, the Sverbeevs and Maria Zinovieva, at whose house I met Arsenev, the local marshal of the nobility. For two years now I have noticed people treating me like an old woman. It feels strange, but doesn’t greatly bother me. What a powerful habit it becomes, feeling one has the power to make people treat one with a certain sympathy—if not admiration. And I need even more respect and affection from people these days.

  It occurred to me this evening as I was correcting the proofs for The Kreutzer Sonata* that when a woman is young she loves with her whole heart, and gladly gives herself to the man she loves because she sees what pleasure it gives him. Later in her life she looks back, and suddenly realizes that this man loved her only when he needed her. And she remembers all the times his affection turned to harshness or disgust the moment he was satisfied.

  And when the woman, having closed her eyes to all this, also begins to experience these needs, then the old sentimental, passionate love passes away and she becomes like him—i.e. passionate with her husband at certain times, and demanding that he satisfy her. She is to be pitied if he no longer loves her by then; and he is to be pitied if he can no longer satisfy her. This is the reason for all those family crises and separations, so unexpected and so ugly, which happen in later life. Happiness comes only when will and spirit prevail over the body and the passions. The Kreutzer Sonata is untrue in everything relating to a young woman’s experiences. A younger woman has none of that sexual passion, especially when she is busy bearing and feeding her children. Only once in every two years is she a real woman! Her passion awakes only in her thirties.

  I returned from Tula at about six and dined alone. Lyovochka came out to meet me but we missed each other, which was sad. He has been more affectionate lately, but I have deceived myself time and again about this, and I cannot help feeling it’s for the same old reasons: his health is better and the usual passions are aroused.

  I worked hard all evening correcting the proofs for The Kreutzer Sonata and the postscript, then did the accounts. I made a list of everything I had to do in Moscow: seeds, shopping, business.

  26th January. I got up at ten. Save me Lord, from the sinful dreams that woke me.

  4th February. A lot has happened recently. On the night of the 27th I left for Moscow. My adventures there were of no great interest. On my first day I dined with our friends the Mamonovs. The following morning I paid 7,600 rubles into the Moscow Bank and redeemed the Grinevka estate, then delivered the mortgage papers to the Bank of the Nobility. I dined with Fet and prattled on far too long, stupidly complaining that Lyovochka didn’t love me enough. I returned home that evening, and Tanya, Lyova, Vera Petrovna and Lily Obolenskaya visited. I visited the Servertsevs; Uncle Kostya and the Meshcherinovs were there too, and we had a discussion about love and marriage. But my main preoccupation is Lyova, his complicated inner existence, his attempts to write, and his completely joyless attitude to life. He read me a short story he has written called ‘Montecristo’, which was very touching and affected me deeply—more of a children’s story really*—and it suddenly occurred to me what a wonderful thing it was that if I should survive Lyovochka, all the things I had lived for, the artistic world that has always surrounded me, would not be lost. I shall still be involved through my son with all the fascinating things that have filled my life. But it is all God’s will!

  I was disturbed on my return home to find Misha Stakhovich there, and he confessed to me, much to my amazement, his longstanding love for Tanya: “J’ai longtemps tâché de mériter Tatyana Lvovna, mais elle ne m’a jamais donné aucun espoir.”* We had always imagined he wanted to marry Masha, and when I told Tanya I could see she was deeply upset. I would be so happy if Tanya married him though, as I like him more than any other young man I know.

  We are all very cheerful these days. Kern and his wife visited, as well as the Raevsky boys, Dunaev and Almazov. The children went tobogganing all over the countryside on upturned benches, an
d I called on blind Evlania, the mother of Lyova’s servant Mitrokha, and told her all about him.

  I taught the children today: Andryusha had done no work while I was away, and I lost my temper and sent him out of the room. Lord, how he torments me! Lyovochka is not very well, but he rode to Yasenki today, and after dinner he played some Chopin. Nobody else moves me so much on the piano; he always plays with such extraordinary feeling and perfect phrasing. Masha suddenly made up her mind to go to Pirogovo, but I am not letting her go because she has a sore throat and it’s cold—15° below freezing. I wonder if she was distressed to hear that Stakhovich loves Tanya; for so long everyone believed it was her he loved.

  Tanya went to Tula with Miss Lydia to have another photograph taken; Stakhovich had asked for her picture and she eagerly agreed. She is very excited, but once again it is in God’s hands…

  6th February. I got up at 10. I had been dreaming of my little son Petya who died; Masha had brought him from somewhere, and he was all torn and mutilated. He was already as big as Misha, and bore a great resemblance to him. We were overjoyed to see each other, and all day I have been seeing him as he was when he was ill, lying in the darkness. I cut out and sewed some trousers for Andryusha and Misha, and had finished both pairs by evening. Later on Lyovochka read us Schiller’s Don Carlos* while I knitted. It is now 11 and he has ridden to Kozlovka to collect the post. The girls have gone to bed; both of them are upset and slightly unhappy about Mikhail Stakhovich’s declaration of love. I am reading La Physiologie de l’amour moderne.* I haven’t fully grasped what it’s about yet, as I have only just started it, but I don’t like it.