The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year

by Jay Parini

  ‘Have you met everyone already? Sergeyenko has no sense of humor. I should warn you,’ she said. ‘He’s extremely kind, however.’

  The kindness had eluded me. Sergeyenko, Chertkov’s secretary, is the son of a close friend of Tolstoy. He ran the establishment at Telyatinki in Chertkov’s absence. Unfortunately, I had taken a dislike to him almost immediately upon my arrival the day before. He is a youngish man, plump, in his late thirties; like Chertkov, he has a narrow black beard. There is something a little dandyish about him, except that he takes almost no baths; he smells sour, like rotting wool. He had got straight to business immediately.

  ‘Vladimir Grigorevich is anxious that you should begin your reports from Yasnaya Polyana,’ he said, having taken me into his bare little study off the front hall. He pulled the mysterious notebooks with the interleaving pages from a burled oak desk. ‘You should know that, for reasons of security, we must keep the existence of these diaries – your diaries – a secret.’

  I promised to obey his wishes, but I felt empty inside. Secrecy did not seem, to me, the essence of Tolstoyism. This was no way to begin a relationship with the man I most admire in the world.

  ‘Did you not like Sergeyenko?’ Masha asked now, interrupting my reverie.

  ‘He seems sincere,’ I said.

  Her small but lovely breasts puffed out her muslin blouse, just a little. Her long arms, slender wrists, and delicate fingers were alluring. I quietly breathed her in, filling my lungs with the soft air that clung to her.

  As we talked, I learned that she had taught in St Petersburg. It was unpleasant work – an elite school for the spoiled children of bureaucrats.

  ‘As a young girl, I wanted to be a nun,’ she said.

  I could not restrain a slight grin.

  ‘You find me amusing?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine you as a nun.’

  ‘Why?’ She did not seem angry, merely curious.

  What could I say? That she was too beautiful to be wasted on a nunnery?

  ‘You don’t look like a nun,’ I said – a pathetic bridge across an awkward place in the stream of conversation. ‘I mean, nuns are old and … wrinkled.’

  She knew I was bluffing and leaped from the bed. ‘I’d better get back to the kitchen. I’m on duty this week. It will be your turn soon enough.’

  ‘Democracy in action.’

  She didn’t like the current of cynicism and turned away.

  I wanted to ask her about her interest in Tolstoy, but she seemed in no mood to dwell on herself. She stood, smoothing the folds in her skirt, still uneasy about me.

  I thanked her again, a bit profusely, for bringing me the cup of tea.

  ‘Perhaps one day you’ll bring me a cup,’ she said, closing the door behind her.

  It occurred to me that remaining chaste might not be easy at Telyatinki.

  I was driven to Yasnaya Polyana by a young farm steward named Andrey. A thin, olive-skinned fellow with tight curls on his head, he has the high cheekbones and slightly upturned eyes of the Mongol. He played the balalaika beautifully on the evening of my arrival, somewhat to Sergeyenko’s dismay. (Sergeyenko thinks that music is frivolous and that readings from Scripture or the philosophers are appropriate evening entertainments.)

  ‘The count’s a simple man,’ said Andrey, holding the reins. ‘He don’t frighten you. Not like Chertkov.’

  ‘Does Chertkov scare people?’

  Andrey withdrew. ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘I know what you mean about him,’ I said, trying to reassure him.

  We bumped along over the frozen mud. The fog was still thick, hanging in the trees like cotton on a comb. It swirled, pooling in the valley, curling around whitewashed isbas, licking its tail into the corners of Zasyeka Wood. The air had a slight coppery tang.

  My stomach was a leather balloon, compressed, hard. I was vaguely nauseated. This was worse than going to school for the first time.

  ‘Do you know Tolstoy personally?’ I asked.

  ‘I see him riding in the afternoons, always alone. But he don’t come to Telyatinki much. The countess won’t let him. She’s jealous of his friends, you know. A real bitch.’

  ‘Countess Tolstoy is a bitch?’

  ‘I shouldn’t say it, not so blunt.’

  ‘You should always say what you think.’

  I felt like a hypocrite saying such a thing, but – as a person of superior rank – I felt it was my duty to state the obvious moral.

  Andrey said, ‘I don’t want to turn you away from the countess. You’ll hear plenty bad enough said about her. Just wait.’

  From the first I hadn’t heard a decent word about Countess Tolstoy in the company of Tolstoyans. She seemed like my grandmother, Alexandra Ilinisha, who rode roughshod over my poor grandfather, Sergey Fedorovich. A traditional gentleman of leisure in St Petersburg, he died last year, of apoplexy, at the age of seventy-nine. He had spent the last half century of his life ignoring Grandmother. He walked in the public gardens or hid himself in his study, where he read the latest French and English novels. Wearing a panama hat in summer, with a piqué waistcoat studded with breloques, he was the sort of man Tolstoy would have despised. Yet I liked Grandfather. He was generous and sweet natured, and very learned. He had directed my early reading. In fact, he had led me to Tolstoy, of whom he personally disapproved. ‘He has betrayed his class,’ was Grandfather’s principal criticism, which he couldn’t really explain to me or elaborate. Nevertheless, he was delighted that I had taken to books; any books would do.

  ‘He’s kind of a simple man,’ said Andrey, again.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Tolstoy! Never raises a voice against nobody.’

  A picture of Tolstoy was developing in my head, that of a henpecked, gentle, silent, austere father figure who fends off the world like my grandfather did, somewhat ineptly.

  It was nine when we turned into the gates of Yasnaya Polyana. As in a novel, the fog began to lift, revealing the bone-white facade of the manor house in the near distance. The light grew harsh, delineating the wintry scene with a printmaker’s exactness: the tall frozen elm outside the house, the birches to one side of the road, the thatched roofs of various cottages on the estate. Weeds poked through the snow’s recent dusting over the fields, and the estate seemed deserted now, bare but stately and serene.

  Andrey deposited me at the front door and departed, leaving me nervously on my own. I took off my hat and gloves and knocked on the heavy door. An elderly man in a dark formal jacket, with white gloves, opened it.

  ‘You’re the new secretary?’

  ‘Valentin Fedorovich Bulgakov,’ I said.

  He nodded, bowing slightly. He did not volunteer his name, and I didn’t ask. He led me to a cloakroom where I could leave my coat and hat. I had put the letter of introduction from Chertkov in my jacket pocket, and I felt to make sure it was still there.

  ‘The count has gone for a walk,’ the man informed me. ‘He would like you to wait for him in his study.’

  I was led into Tolstoy’s private chambers through a light-drenched, empty house – a fairly typical country house of an aristocratic Russian family, though more sparsely furnished than one might expect. The wooden floors, the color of honey, glowed.

  ‘You would like some tea?’

  I declined, thanking him, and was directed toward the cracked leather couch against the far wall. I sat down and crossed my legs, feeling out of place here – like one who wanders into church on a weekday. When the man was gone, I stood up again, jittery but curious. The room was smaller than I had imagined it would be, with pale, dirty walls. It smelled faintly of hemp and tallow, an old man’s smell. An ornately scrolled, thick-legged writing table stood in the center of the room, an altar of sorts. I touched it gingerly, running my hand along the smooth desktop, then sat in Tolstoy’s chair. I felt as if I had mounted a powerful horse that was about to charge off all by itself, oblivious to my wishes.

  Stac
ks of letters, all with envelopes torn open but probably unanswered, lay in clumps on the desk. A stone jar full of pencils and fountain pens stood to one side of the blotter; a pot of India ink was loosely covered beside a ledger. There was a notebook lying open. The handwriting was large but difficult, that much I could tell from a distance. I would have loved to peek into the notebook, but I didn’t dare, backing away from the desk.

  A double row of books hung in a rack on the wall. The bottom level contained a miscellany of texts: philosophers, religious thinkers, biblical studies, novels from England, France, and Germany. A few Russian novelists and poets. I plucked an odd-looking volume with a buff cover from the shelf and leafed through it. It was a play called Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, of whom I had not heard. A copy of a letter slipped from the pages onto the floor, and I picked it up. It was from Tolstoy to the author of the play, written in English. My eye fell on a passage near the end of the lengthy screed:

  Indeed, my dear Shaw, life is a great and serious business, and each of us must contrive, in the brief time we have been allotted, to discover what our job is and do that job as earnestly as we can. This applies to all men and women, but especially to one such as yourself, a man with the gift of original thought who can pierce to the heart of serious questions. Thus, trusting that I will not offend you, I will say what seems to me to be wrong with your book.

  The first defect is that you are not serious enough. One should never joke about the purpose of human life, the reasons for its perversion, or the evil that consumes humanity from day to day …

  I broke off, hearing footsteps, hastily tucked the letter back into the volume, and returned it to the shelf. I was quivering now. This was a great man indeed. One who could write so plainly to a man like this Mr Shaw from England. It’s easy to praise people. To point out faults is another matter.

  The footsteps passed, and their sound dwindled at the end of the hall. Now I looked up to the top row of books – the lovely Brochhaus Efron Encyclopedia, with its blue spines and gold lettering, stretched halfway across the room. Next to it was a row of Tolstoy’s novels, bound in buckram. I lifted a volume off the shelf: Boyhood – his first published book. I turned the pages, reading a few sentences, then plucked Anna Karenina from the set. I took a quick look at The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated. In this massive work, Tolstoy manages to discern the true Gospel of Jesus – the story of a man who gave up the world for God, for man; in doing so, Jesus became God-like – His exemplary life, cleared of generations of mystical debris, is uncovered –’harmonized and restored’ – in this book, though few readers have found Tolstoy’s commentary easy to follow. It will take decades to clarify and elaborate on the work Tolstoy began.

  I loved thinking that these volumes were Tolstoy’s very own. I clasped my hands behind my back, determined to touch nothing else. Various portraits on the wall caught my eye. There was Dickens in the flush of youth, his quick eyes blazing, and the poets Fet and Pushkin. I sat down again on the leather sofa, focusing my eyes on the ornate little table beside it, an antique, with a bell on it (for summoning me, perhaps?), and a vase of blue glass, filled with ornamental straw.

  The door opened before I had even heard footsteps. It was Tolstoy, who stepped into the room like a sweet, old grandfather, apple cheeked and beaming, his fur-lined Siberian boots trailing clumps of snow. He wore loose, baggy trousers and a blue linen blouse, tied at the waist. He rubbed his red hands together.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here!’ he said. ‘I’m so glad!’

  His greeting was almost fulsome, but I did not question his sincerity. There was no room for that.

  I handed him the letter from Chertkov, but he put the envelope on the desk without a glance. ‘Vladimir Grigorevich has already written about you at great length. I need your help quite badly. My new collection is hard work – it requires so much effort, and I am such an old man. Too old. But let’s talk about you. How is your own work progressing?’

  I thanked him for his interest, but he dismissed my gratitude, saying that my writing had caught his attention, as it had Chertkov’s. I was grateful.

  We talked about the work I might do on For Every Day, which Tolstoy had once thought of calling Circle of Reading, suggesting that one should keep reading and rereading the sayings it contained, continuously, as a circle is continuous. (Chertkov preferred the other title, so it was called For Every Day.) My work will be to compile an anthology of wise sayings for daily use in contemplation by the average Russian. An alternative to the Scriptures, or something to be read alongside them. I am to help in gathering and selecting quotations, and Tolstoy will read and approve (or disapprove) of what I do.

  We sat together on the couch like children, our legs side by side, while Leo Nikolayevich (as he immediately told me to call him) spoke. Each day thirty or forty letters arrive from well-wishers, people in a state of spiritual crisis, angry readers, political revolutionaries, madmen. Leo Nikolayevich sifts through these himself, labeling the envelopes with a chalk marker: N.A. (no answer), A. (appeal for help), and S. (silly). Some of the silly letters and letters of appeal will be put in a tray each morning, and I will be asked to construct some response to them. Leo Nikolayevich reserves for himself those that most interest him. All letters will, after drafting, be taken to the Remington room for typing by his daughter Sasha. ‘You will like Sasha,’ he said. ‘She’s a lively girl, very attentive.’

  The day will unfold from there, routinely. He explained that, unless he rings for me, he prefers to work undisturbed until two, when the entire household sits down to lunch in the dining room, with Leo Nikolayevich presiding over a discussion of some current topic. After eating, he likes to walk the grounds or, if he feels well enough, ride into the village or along a dirt trail in the forest on Delire. At five he returns to his study and takes a glass of tea, then works until the call comes for dinner, which is promptly at seven. I have an open invitation to remain whenever I choose. After dinner there is music or chess. He retires early most nights with the hope of reading, though now he reads less, or so he said.

  ‘You do not look well, Valentin Fedorovich,’ he said to me. ‘Do you feel all right?’

  ‘I slept rather badly last night. It may take a few days to adjust to a new bed.’

  He put his frail hand on my forehead and asked me to lie on the couch. I protested, of course, but he insisted.

  ‘Lie here. Take a brief nap. I find that brief naps can help a great deal when one doesn’t feel well.’ He put a blanket around my knees. ‘I will bring you a glass of tea.’

  As he left the room to get my tea, I savored the unreality, the touching absurdity, of my situation. Here was the greatest author of the West, Leo Tolstoy, fetching tea for me, his new secretary, nearly sixty years his junior. This was a man I could easily love. Indeed, as I lay there on my back, surveying the crumbling plaster on the ceiling, I loved him already.

  7

  J. P.

  LATE WINTER RAMBLE IN ZASYEKA WOOD

  The woods in winter fill with birds:

  a clash of sparrows, jackdaws,

  jays that flip among the shaggy boughs.

  I step through brush, unharmed,

  its brittle gauze of leafless branches

  that can twig your eyes and make you bleed.

  In the wind above the red Norwegian pines

  a ragged crow waits, lazily

  aloft, a cold eye hung

  and hard as diamond in the ice blue sky.

  Last summer, in a field nearby,

  I saw that crow, its sharp beak

  working on a fresh-dead dog. I watched them

  lift off, veer into these woods

  for some dark feast, black crow and dog.

  What’s moldering beneath this crusty snow?

  I put my ear down by a stream

  to hear the gargling water underground,

  lost syllables, lost tales, alive

  beneath the ice. Whatever we can lover />
  stays warm inside us, even when

  we lose the name of life,

  when sooty shadows lengthen on our spines,

  when birds above us are the only song

  we’ll hear again. I walk across

  the frozen lid of water, where it sags

  but doesn’t give. The world’s my home still,

  even though I’ve got less days to count

  than once, when dreaming I could fly,

  I climbed a tree and leaped into the wind

  with sleeves air-filled. Ah, falling

  into soft snow, falling from a height I knew

  would matter only if I hit a rock or stump …

  I put my lips against an icy root,

  where sap is running though it’s not yet spring.

  It’s warm in winter,

  as my mouth fills with dry snow, sweet-

  sticky bark. I bend to pray:

  Lord, let me know you as I know these woods,

  Zasyeka’s warm and winter fluttering,

  blue wings and black, the taste and tastelessness

  of sappy snow, the flicker of these moods.

  8

  Sasha

  Mama came into the Remington room this morning as I was typing, carrying a shawl. A blue shawl spun to a woolly froth, which she insisted I simply must have over my legs. ‘You’ve never been a healthy girl,’ she said, tucking the ends around my knees. I reminded her that it was Masha who had always been ill, not me. Mama just wanted to snoop.