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

by Jay Parini

  ‘Valentin, my dear.’ She sighed. ‘Tell me about the letter.’

  ‘It was an odd letter, really … presumptuous.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He said that Leo Nikolayevich ought to perform one final symbolic act. He should distribute his property among his relations and the poor, then leave home without a kopeck, making his way from town to town as a beggar.’

  Masha was awed. Her face tilted upward in my direction, her thin nose razoring the light, which fell into the room through a small north window. Like a magician, ready to dazzle her, I produced a copy of Leo Nikolayevich’s response:

  Your letter moved me deeply. What you suggest is what I have always dreamed of doing but have not been able to bring myself to do. Many reasons for this could be found, but none of them has to do with sparing myself. Nor must I worry how my deeds will influence others. That is not within our powers anyway, and it should not guide our behavior. One must take such action only when it is necessary, not for some hypothetical or external reason, but only to answer the demands of the soul, and when it becomes as impossible to remain in one’s old conditions as it is not to cough when you can’t breathe. I am close to that situation now. And I get closer every day.

  What you advise me to do – to renounce my position in society and to redistribute my property to those who have the right to expect it after my death – I did twenty-five years ago. But the fact that I continue to live in my family, with my wife and daughter, in dreadful, shamefully luxurious conditions in contrast to surrounding poverty, increasingly torments me. Not a day passes that I do not consider your advice.

  I want to thank you for your letter. This letter of mine will be shown to only one other person. I will ask you to show it to no one.

  I had forgotten that last line.

  ‘You should not have shown it to me,’ Masha said.

  I wished she had been less explicit.

  ‘But what sincerity he has!’ she continued.

  ‘Remarkable.’

  It pleased me that she passed quickly over the fact of my having shown her the letter.

  ‘He speaks the truth,’ I said, ‘even when it’s painful to him.’

  She agreed. I tucked the letter back into my pocket, still regretting my lack of foresight. I had just been showing off. It seems I have no moral standards.

  ‘He admires you,’ said Masha.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Sergeyenko told me so. He’s miserable about it. It’s unfair, he says, that someone like you, who has only just arrived, should enjoy such close relations with Leo Nikolayevich when so many Tolstoyans, such as himself, hardly ever see him.’

  ‘Leo Nikolayevich treats me well. But he’s kind to everyone, even Tanya’s silly husband, Sukhotin.’

  ‘Perhaps, but he lets you answer his personal letters. And he trusts you with the anthology.’

  ‘I’m his secretary. I’m sure Gusev had the same privileges. Otherwise, I would be quite useless to him.’

  ‘But he also takes you with him in the afternoon. Gusev did not go with him to Zasyeka Wood.’

  It is true enough. Leo Nikolayevich takes few people with him on rides or walks in the woods, yet he often asks me to accompany him. Occasionally he will take Sasha or Dr Makovitsky. But almost nobody else.

  ‘What do you talk about when you’re with him?’

  I told her the truth. ‘We talk about me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s stupid, isn’t it? We should be talking about him, or about his ideas. But he seems so curious about me. He wants to know everything about my parents, about my relations with women, my experience of God – everything.’

  ‘What relations with women?’

  She tried not to smile, but her eyes shone like quartz crystals. She stirred in me a strange feeling of warmth – like the coals bedded down in a fire pit after a long night’s burning.

  Without calculation, I moved my hand to her hair and stroked it. It was blond, hay colored, fresh, and perfectly straight. Her eyes, with an emerald tint that recalled the sea, fixed me in their beams. The green irises circled each dark pupil like summer fields around a pond. One could dive into those dark waters easily, and never return.

  ‘I suppose you don’t want to talk about the women you have loved,’ she said. The irony had gone, burned off like morning fog.

  ‘There’s almost nothing to tell.’

  ‘I don’t mean to pry. It’s just that I like to know everything about my friends. I’m nosy.’

  ‘It’s good that you would ask me, but I suspect you’ll be disappointed. I’ve been enamored of many …’ I hung on the lip of that modifier, speechless.

  I would have told her everything – what little there is – but I found it difficult to talk about my past relations. It seemed like a betrayal of this moment of intimacy. I wanted to believe, I did believe, that Masha and I were the only people left on the planet just then.

  ‘I had a lover before coming here,’ she said. ‘He was the headmaster of the school where I taught. His name was Ivan.’

  ‘Ivan the Terrible,’ I said. My head was swirling. I thought I might fall off the bed.

  ‘He was married – happily married. This made things difficult for us, since we could only make love at school.’

  ‘At school?’

  ‘In the gymnasium, when the girls had left for the day. It was a day school, you see. There were straw mats on the floor. In the gymnasium.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ I said. But I didn’t. My fists clenched, unclenched. Women of Masha’s class and rank in society do not allow themselves to be used in this way. She is not a serf.

  ‘He was much older, almost forty,’ she said. I felt, perhaps unjustly, that she enjoyed telling me, as if my torment gave her pleasure. ‘There was no future in it, nowhere it could go. I’m much happier here.’

  I wanted to respond but couldn’t. Fortunately, she didn’t require a response from me. Her narrative had its own life, which had nothing to do with me.

  ‘My parents suspected that Ivan and I were involved in a dangerous way. I had talked about him rather too freely. Though they detest Tolstoy, they were glad when I left Petersburg. At least in Telyatinki they thought I would not cause them embarrassment.’

  It was all quite baffling, but I didn’t want to appear ignorant. I was, myself, still a virgin. And it seemed ludicrous and unreal that Masha wasn’t. In romantic novels, it does not work like this.

  ‘You look distracted, Valya,’ she said. ‘Have I upset you?’

  ‘No. I appreciate your frankness.’

  ‘You disapprove of me. I see that in your eyes.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  She stood up, growing more furious every moment. ‘I’m sorry I told you all of this. I should never have spoken.’

  ‘I’m glad you told me.’

  ‘You are a prig, aren’t you? A puritan, like Sergeyenko. I should have guessed. Why else would they have hired you? You’re a hired man, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s fair. It’s true. What is true is rarely fair.’

  ‘Masha.’ I stood up. ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Do as you like, Valentin Fedorovich.’

  She walked over to the window and looked out, sulking. The dusk was coming on fast, its violet color streaking the horizon. The room had a gloomy luster that made everything seem unreal.

  ‘Good-bye,’ I said.

  She stood, silent, looking away from me. I closed the door behind me softly, though inside I raged.

  13

  Sasha

  Once in a while Papa takes me riding with him in the afternoons. He rides Delire, ‘the Count’s horse,’ as the muzhiks say, which means that nobody else dares ride her. We trot aimlessly along little trails in the forest as branches snap across our faces and bracken thickens into brake; pretty soon you can’t tell where you are, but Papa simply presses forward. The more difficult the terrain, the better
he likes it.

  If a stream crosses our path, Papa will urge Delire on, shouting ‘Heigh!’ like a Tartar and whipping her rump. Delire will jump a small stream or swim a larger one with relish. Once clear of the water, she’ll charge ahead, uphill, with Papa shouting. It is impossible to keep up with them.

  One day we were galloping past the old iron foundry when Delire stepped into some loose shale, skidded, and lost her footing. Papa pitched sideways off the saddle as Delire crashed on her flank! I panicked, but Papa, without even dropping the bridle from his hand, slipped from the stirrups and landed on his feet beside the whinnying horse.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ he said, putting his face against Delire and whispering in her ear, stroking her long, thick neck.

  The horse got back onto her feet, and Papa led her over the shale and remounted. I couldn’t believe a man of his age could be so agile. ‘See that your mother hears nothing about this spill,’ he said.

  Last summer, riding near the Voronka, we passed the little hut we often use as a bathhouse. Soon we came into a small clearing that, in spring, is spread with a bright quilt of forget-me-nots. That day, fat boroviki mushrooms studded the field, glistening on their rosy stems, their tops like velvet and their underlining a rich, creamy tan. Papa stopped and dismounted.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ I asked, coming to a halt.

  ‘Right over there,’ he said, pointing his whip to a deep grassy spot between two lordly oaks. ‘I want to be buried there.’

  He looked at me, squinting. I nodded, slowly, keeping my eyes on his. ‘All right, Papa,’ I said.

  He smiled, and a look of strange satisfaction passed over his old face. I was smiling, too, aware that something of great importance had passed between us.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ Papa said, breaking the spell. ‘I could use a glass of tea.’

  He has never again mentioned that incident in the clearing, but I have not forgotten his request. Until that moment, it never occurred to me that Papa could die.

  *

  In the thickest part of Zasyeka, Papa’s favorite haunt, is a small trail that leads to a spring at the bottom of the woods. A pool of clear water has formed in one spot, and the horses drink there. We call it Wolves’ Well. Nearby, a family of badgers live like kings in a dusty hillock. They burrow into deep dens that branch into a maze of connecting tunnels. Papa occasionally brings his favorite dogs – Tiulpan and Tsygan – here; they are crazy for badgers, scratching away at the hillock with a wild hope of unearthing them.

  Papa says that writing is like that: you keep scratching away at the dirt, hoping a badger might run out. But it rarely does.

  Sometimes, in spring, Papa would come into my room after lunch, saying, ‘Sasha, would you like to go on a vegetarian hunt with me?’ We didn’t really hunt as he did as a young man in the Caucasus, where he’d charge like a madman (so he says) through fields teeming with hare, killing as many as sixty in a day. Papa loves bragging about his wayward youth, though it makes people like Dushan Makovitsky or Sergeyenko wince. They want to believe he was always as he is now – as if morality were a gift, bestowed at birth, not something won by hard spiritual work, by the agony of living through sin.

  So we’d pull on thick marsh boots that smelled of tar, and I’d race after him across the orchard into the Chapysh and, farther on, into the blue shadows of Zasyeka. Snow, muddy and caked, still clung to the dark sides of ditches. The trees were bare, but the buds would have swollen, turning the woods a washed-out purple. Eventually, we step into a clearing.

  ‘Shush now,’ Papa would say, putting a finger to his lips.

  Sitting on a rock, we’d wait for a long time, trying not to breathe. ‘Become the woods,’ he’d say. ‘You are part of things here.’

  Then, when you thought nothing was going to happen that day, Papa would raise one of his furry eyebrows and say, ‘Sasha, look!’

  Close by, we’d hear the odd coughing sound of a snipe. It would lift itself into the air, wheeling overhead in great broken rings, then flap across the tips of the trees. Maybe nothing else would come all afternoon, but Papa didn’t seem to mind. We’d sit there, silent and happy, till darkness fell.

  ‘It’s so peculiar,’ Papa would say. ‘Imagine. There was a time when I was fascinated by hunting and killing.’ He would always say the same thing, and I would always say nothing.

  This past January, Tanya’s stepson, Dorik Sukhotin, was visiting and came down with measles. He was bedded down next to the Remington room in a cot, a somewhat halfhearted attempt to quarantine him from the rest of the family. We were all frantic and did everything to make him feel better. Doctors came and went, pontificating and prattling, while I brought the child sweet things and cool drinks for his fever. Each evening I would read to him from a children’s encyclopedia. Dorik recovered, thank God, but before long I found myself breaking out in a rash on my stomach. It spread to my back and arms. Soon I began to cough blood.

  Papa grew anxious for me, remembering how my sister Masha had swiftly been taken from us by an illness. Every night he brought me water in a large tin cup, his wrinkled hand trembling. The water would run out of my mouth and down my chin, but I would cover his dear, sweet hand with kisses. And he would sob, taking hold of my hand, pressing it to his beard.

  Varvara Mikhailovna almost never left my side. Her soft, full face and chestnut curls were a comfort to me. When Papa left the room, she would climb onto the bed and hold me, rubbing her cheek against mine, so close, without any fear that she might catch my illness.

  We had become dear friends. Though we’d met several years before in Moscow, we didn’t see much of each other. Our correspondence grew longer and more intimate, and I finally persuaded Mama to let her come and live with us. Secretarial help is always needed at Yasnaya Polyana, and Varvara can type and take dictation.

  She has been here for several months now, and we have grown to love each other in the pure love of Christ. We share all fears, all hopes. We touch: hand to hand, chin to chin. We call and respond, alternately, reveling in the flux of real affection.

  Now March has come, and the air shimmers with expectation. The midmorning sun on the snow outside is almost too bright to bear, brassy on the windows, filling the house with thick shafts of light. The ice lining the dirt road to our door has begun to melt at the edges.

  I’m feeling better, too, though I still cough blood in the morning. The measles have disappeared, but Dr Makovitsky has raised the specter of consumption. This worries Papa – terrifies him, in fact. But Mama does not trust Dr Makovitsky, which is pure spite on her part; she insists on bringing these doctors from Moscow. They claim that I must spend at least two months in the Crimea for my lungs. I spoke of this possibility to Varvara Mikhailovna last night as she daubed my forehead with a moist cloth.

  ‘If I go,’ I explained to her, ‘Papa will be left alone, and Mama will devour him. He’ll be miserable without me. Who would protect him?’

  ‘There is Dr Makovitsky.’

  ‘Mama isn’t afraid of him. She treats him like a little boy. She would have free reign over the house. There’s no telling what damage –’

  ‘Your father can take care of himself, Sasha. He’s far more in control here than you realize. Your mother is the one who doesn’t stand a chance.’

  This was absurd, but I didn’t pursue it, turning on my stomach so that Varvara could massage my neck and shoulders.

  ‘I’m frightened, Varvara,’ I said.

  ‘By what?’

  ‘If I go, I may never see Papa again. He is so frail.’

  ‘Leo Nikolayevich has been frail for many years. But he’s a tough old bird.’

  Varvara muttered something about my silliness as she bent down, putting her chin against the crook of my neck. I could feel her warm breath on my skin, her rhythmical exhalation. We do this almost every night now, savoring these quiet moments together. Occasionally we will read a passage together from the Bible or some piece of Buddhist scripture. Bulgako
v, at my request, supplied us with a copy of his list of quotations from the great European thinkers and poets, and we read these aloud. I fall asleep thinking of Leconte de Lisle and Sully Prudhomme, dreaming of a warm, sunlit terrace on the Black Sea, where Varvara and I will sit for hours, reading novels, eating oranges, and drinking tea.

  But I hate to leave Papa at a time when he seems terribly in need of my support. He needs to feel that I am here, his shield against Mama.

  Papa is old, yes, but he is working well on so many projects. There is ‘The Khodynka,’ a story, and his introduction to The Way of Life. He writes endless letters, too. I don’t know why he bothers. Thank goodness for Bulgakov and Varvara, who help him every day by typing into the wee hours.

  Papa came into my bedroom this morning, dressed in white. Like a priest.

  ‘My sweetheart, I just spoke with your mother, and we have decided that you must leave for the Crimea as soon as possible. You can take Varvara Mikhailovna with you, for company.’

  ‘Do you want me to go?’

  He put his thin arms around my shoulders and said that he would give anything not to lose me, but that I must go to preserve my health. He also said that I must not worry about him, and that, in any case, I’d be gone for only a short time.

  ‘It will be summer before you even notice,’ he said. ‘Soon we’ll all be swimming in the Voronka – like always.’

  He promised a vegetarian hunt as soon as I came back. He winked, and we kissed, but his eyes had filled with tears. I wondered whether in three months Papa would exist for me as anything but a sharp feeling of sadness, a photographic image on my bed table, a row of books, an empty room.

  14

  Sofya Andreyevna

  It’s not that I don’t like it here at Yasnaya Polyana. Would I have stayed for nearly half a century if I’d wanted to leave? Yasnaya Polyana was once magnificent – in the days of old Count Volkonsky, Lyovochka’s grandfather. That house would have suited me fine. But Lyovochka gambled it away. One wing had become a schoolhouse for peasant children – an attempt to put Rousseau’s idiotic theories of education into practice. The heart is naturally wicked, as the Scriptures say. The other wing is where I was asked to live. It was barren, with floors of polished oak mixed with dimpled pine and no carpets. The windows had no curtains to subdue the harsh light teeming in from the fields. Except for the odd portrait of an illustrious ancestor, the white walls were devoid of ornament. My husband of only a few days led me into a bedroom that was more like a barracks, without wardrobes or chests of drawers. The miserably hard bed was simply a pad of tightly woven straw, and Lyovochka insisted that we use an old red-leather pillow that had been his grandfather’s. I was expected to sleep in felt slippers to keep my feet warm, or to get a pair of bast shoes of the kind worn by peasant women!