by Jay Parini
I gradually reentered the spirit of Bulgakov as I approached Telyatinki. The sun burned on the hay fields, flamed in the elms, and turned the red earth redder under my horse’s gallop. I saw Masha standing in the back garden, alone, her shadow long on the grass. My groin began to ache, to swell before I could even see her face.
We said nothing to each other but walked, hand in hand, into the balsam wood behind the house. The forest was like a flame ball, with the sunset shattering through a thousand needles. The ground smelled cool, rich but cool, with its mauve mat of pine.
Standing between the tall and immensely thick trunks of two red pines, we looked at each other for a long time, saying nothing.
But there was something I wanted to say to her. I didn’t know how to say it. I was afraid to say it, since once it got said, we were stuck with it. It would either flap there in the wind like a loose shutter, an annoyance, or something definite and palpable would happen.
‘I love you, Masha,’ I said.
The words floated in the air, like a balloon, a bright, shimmering bubble. I waited for it to pop into nothingness, to disappear. For a terrible moment, I felt as though I hadn’t said it aloud, that the words had formed, cloudlike, in my head without condensing into utterance.
‘I’m glad,’ she replied.
But there was an aloofness there. She wasn’t glad. Not entirely.
‘Are you really?’
‘If I weren’t glad, I wouldn’t have said that, would I?’
‘It’s just that … you had to respond.’
‘I don’t have to do anything.’
I felt a twinge of panic. Masha has this cool edge, a blade of Damascus steel, which she flashes on occasion.
‘Valya,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to hurt you. Do you know that?’
‘You hurt me when you say nothing. I dislike it when I can’t tell what you’re thinking. When I can’t seem to find you.’
Was she weeping? Slightly. Her eyes caught the evening sun and absorbed its redness. They were watery, as many-sided as a gem. Her blond hair, too, turned a little pink in the strange, beautiful light. I wanted to touch that hair. I let my palm graze the delicate substance. I could feel the roundness of her head, its solid, gourdlike shape, beneath the long strands. I kissed her. I let myself breathe what came before me, the barely fathomable presence of another human being. It seemed impossibly magical. I lifted my hands onto her small shoulders, and I pulled her close.
‘I’ve got to return to Petersburg,’ she said finally. ‘Soon.’
‘For good?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘I don’t understand, Masha … now that we –’
‘I know that you love me, Valya.’
‘I do.’
‘It’s difficult for me to respond to you. We’ve only just begun to know each other.’
‘That’s true, but –’
‘You seem young to me.’
‘I’m older than you are!’
‘Our pasts are what matter. I feel like I’ve lived so many lives already.’
‘Masha, that’s nonsense. Your life is just beginning.’
‘In other circumstances, I think I’d have been much … warmer. I feel my own coolness, and I don’t like it. I hate it, in fact. It’s not what I mean to happen.’
Her honesty overwhelmed me. And the exact, riveting way she spoke. I felt mute, stupid, even silly beside her. I could hardly hope to respond in kind. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be honest with her. Rather, I had almost nothing to be honest about.
‘I love you,’ I said. ‘You can’t go away.’
She smiled at me.
‘Perhaps I’ll go away for a brief while. I can return to Telyatinki whenever I want. I spoke to Chertkov last night, and he was sympathetic. He was actually kind.’
Chertkov remains incomprehensible to me. Whatever Masha or Leo Nikolayevich think, I would never trust him.
Masha touched my hair. It was the first gesture from her that I could really take as an expression of natural and unaffected love.
Her head fell against my shoulder.
‘I need you,’ I said.
‘I know you do,’ she said. ‘I know.’
25
L. N.
LETTER TO SOFYA ANDREYEVNA
YASNAYA POLYANA, 14 JUNE 1910
My dear Sonya,
1. I promise to give nobody the diary I am writing at this time. I shall keep it with me.
2. I shall ask for the return of my previous diaries from Chertkov, then I shall keep them, probably in a bank.
3. If it worries you that unfriendly biographers will, in the future, make use of those pages written in the heat of the moment registering our conflicts and struggles, I would remind you, first, that these expressions of passing emotion, in my diary as in yours, cannot pretend to present an accurate portrait of our relations. Nevertheless, if it still worries you, I shall happily take this opportunity to say, in my diary or in this letter, what my relations with you were really like and what your life has been, as I have seen it.
My relations with you and view of your life are as follows: just as I loved you when you were young, I have never stopped loving you in spite of the many causes of alienation between us. And so I continue to love you. Putting aside the issue of our sexual relations, which have ceased (a fact that can only add to the sincerity of our expressions of love), those causes were as follows: first, my growing need to withdraw from society, something which you neither would nor could follow me in, since the principles that led me to adopt my convictions opposed yours in quite basic ways. This seems, to me, perfectly natural and I cannot hold it against you. Further, in recent years, you have become increasingly irritable, even despotic and uncontrollable. This could hardly help but inhibit any display of feeling on my part, even cut off those feelings themselves. That is my second point. Third, the chief and fatal cause was something of which we are both innocent: our completely opposing ideas of the significance and purpose of life. For me, property is a sin, for you it is a necessary condition. In order not to have to separate myself from you, I have forced myself to accept circumstances that I find painful. Yet you saw my acceptance as a concession to your point of view, and this only increased our misunderstanding.
As for my view of your life, here it is:
I, a debauched person by nature, deeply depraved in my sexual appetite, and no longer in my first youth, married you, a girl of eighteen who was spiritually pure, good, and intelligent. In spite of my dreadful past, you stayed with me for nearly fifty years, loving me, living a life full of worry and anguish, giving birth to children, raising them, caring for them, and nursing me, without succumbing to any of the temptations that a beautiful, solid, and healthy woman is always exposed to; indeed, your life has been such that I have absolutely nothing to reproach you with. As for the fact that your moral development did not run parallel to mine, which has been unique, I cannot hold this against you, since the inner life of any person is a secret between that person and God, and nobody else can call that person to account in any way. I have been intolerant of you. I was deeply mistaken, and I confess my error.
4. If my relations with Chertkov upset you too much at present, I am willing to give him up, though I must say that to do so would be more unpleasant, even painful, for him than for me. But if you demand this of me, I shall comply.
5. If you do not accept these terms for a quiet and decent life, I shall withdraw my promise not to leave you. I shall simply go away, and not to Chertkov, you can rest assured! In fact, I would lay down as an absolute condition that he must not follow and settle near me. But go I certainly shall, for I simply can’t continue to live like this. I might well have continued with this life had I been able to look at all your sufferings unmoved, but I’m not capable of that.
Stop, my dove, tormenting not only those around you but yourself, for you suffer a hundred times more than they do. That is all.
26
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Chertkov
Dr Nikitin brought the infamous Rossolimo down from Moscow to examine Sofya Andreyevna. Her attempts at suicide have upset the household, and Leo Nikolayevich insists that Makovitsky’s advice be followed. Makovitsky puts considerable store in these head doctors, and Rossolimo is accounted the best of them; he has made excursions into the minds of every grand duke and duchess in Russia. Even the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna, an intimate of my mother, has consulted him over a matter of some peculiar dreams. Rossolimo is what he is: an Italian and a mountebank. I distrust anyone who affects a waxed mustache with twirled ends or who dresses like the head waiter of a Roman trattoria.
Rossolimo examined Sofya Andreyevna for two hours, peering into her eyes with instruments like sextants, tapping her joints with a tiny wooden hammer, asking her improbable questions. Leo Nikolayevich looked on in awe. He has on occasion expressed what I consider an inordinate faith in doctors, but Rossolimo is the limit. Leo Nikolayevich took me aside. ‘Rossolimo is astonishingly stupid,’ he said, ‘in the way of all scientists.’ I listened intently as he paced the floor but offered no comment. I tread lightly these days. ‘I don’t know why Dushan brought him down here.’
‘Perhaps they are old friends,’ I said.
Before tea, Rossolimo talked with Leo Nikolayevich. ‘I have determined the causes of her mental illness,’ he said. ‘The countess is suffering from double degeneracy: paranoiac and hysterical, chiefly the former.’ He went on to cite the economic, cultural, physiological, and biological sources of her problem, while Leo Nikolayevich drummed his fingers on his desk, yawning violently.
‘What about lack of faith? Surely that has some bearing on her condition?’
‘Indeed,’ Rossolimo said. ‘The want of a fulcrum is often a source of instability.’
‘A metaphor, Doctor!’ Leo Nikolayevich cried. ‘This is much to your credit.’
Rossolimo seemed quite happy now, having been praised by the greatest author in all of Russia. ‘Indeed, a ship without a rudder is no ship, is it?’
‘Certainly not,’ Leo Nikolayevich said. ‘Nor is a windmill without the wind.’
Rossolimo was not sure what Leo Nikolayevich meant by this, but he agreed that wind is essential for all windmills and quickly changed the subject to hot-air balloons, a topic of some interest to him but none to us. After a big meal, he left Yasnaya Polyana quite pleased with himself.
Leo Nikolayevich has been feeling guilty ever since he signed the new will, but at least he has been brought around. It galls him that the countess still controls the rights to everything published before 1881. He cannot bear that works written for the love of God should be used to support the lavish style of life to which his wife and children have grown accustomed. He is convinced that Sofya Andreyevna’s greed on behalf of the family will only increase with the years, and that she is capable of getting her hands on all of his copyrights after his death.
Now the complete works of Leo Tolstoy will, upon his death, make their way into the public domain, though I shall edit and reissue everything first. In order to safeguard the will from Sofya Andreyevna’s intervention, he has assigned the copyright to Sasha, with strict instructions to let the public have free access to the material. If Sasha – whose health has been fragile in recent months – should die, the copyright devolves on Tanya, with the same proviso.
Leo Nikolayevich came secretly to Telyatinki to revise the will in his own hand, but, maddeningly, a crucial phrase was omitted, one that is needed to ensure the will’s validation in a future court of law: ‘I, Leo Tolstoy, being of sound mind and in full possession of my memory.’ Our lawyer insisted that this phrase be included, and we could not risk being in possession of a flawed will. So a final draft was composed for recopying by Tolstoy.
Yesterday we met in the wood outside Grumond. Leo Nikolayevich frequently rides Delire in the afternoons, so such a meeting did not draw his wife’s suspicion. I did not tell Bulgakov about our plans. He lives in Sofya Andreyevna’s pocket, though the poor lad does not realize it. I would prefer to acquire a new secretary, but Leo Nikolayevich admires Bulgakov. ‘He is headstrong,’ he says, ‘but he reminds me of myself when I was younger.’
To be sure, I rather enjoy the spectacle of Bulgakov’s ‘friendship’ with young Masha. They purr and prance about like kittens. I don’t approve, but in the country one looks for entertainment in unlikely places.
‘If they wish to conduct themselves like rabbits, they should go live in the woods,’ Sergeyenko said to me last week, asking me to get rid of Masha. I summoned her with a note. We talked about her future at Telyatinki, and I – somewhat gently – suggested that she spend some time withour new group in Petersburg. She may come back whenever she chooses, of course. I made that clear to her. She is an intelligent girl who speaks and writes several languages, and her usefulness as a translator increases every day.
I was accompanied on our little excursion into Grumond by Sergeyenko, Goldenweiser, and Sergeyenko’s new secretary, Anatol Radinsky, to witness the signing. I felt elated by the prospect of victory. It has been a long time coming.
Leo Nikolayevich, who had arrived before us, was nobly seated on Delire with a white hat on his head, his beard visible from the distance and fanning out over a blue linen blouse. As ever, the sight of him took my breath away.
We greeted each other solemnly and dismounted, spreading the will before us on a writing board fetched especially for this occasion. Leo Nikolayevich sat with his legs crossed as he read the will once again, his hands shaking, his lips moving. He held the pages close to his eyes. I was terrified that, at any moment, he might declare the whole thing a breach of faith with Sofya Andreyevna.
‘This is an important moment for the Russian people,’ I said. ‘They will have the access to your work they deserve.’
He looked at me quizzically, then uncapped his pen, an old English one that had been sent by Aylmer Maude, who ingratiates himself by shipping a constant flow of bric-a-brac and mementos. Leo Nikolayevich had remembered to bring a jar of black India ink, which he sniffed before using, pausing to say how much he enjoys the smell of ink! Sergeyenko handed him a blotter and the paper. Meticulously, he began to form the letters, copying everything in his famously illegible hand.
‘I feel like a conspirator,’ he said, looking up.
We all laughed, but the laughs were hollow.
Get on with it, I thought.
It was cool, almost icy, beneath those trees. A wind blew up from the woods, carrying a swampy smell. Delire whinnied, rippling her coat, as sunlight flickered across the pages of the will. We heard a strange cry and looked up to see a black-capped kingfisher flash from a branch, a whir of blue and orange feathers.
‘A sign,’ Leo Nikolayevich said.
I spotted a buzzard on a distant limb, but I did not call attention to it.
When he finished copying the will, Leo Nikolayevich signed his name and sighed, pursing his lips. He wiped his brow with the bottom of his shirt. Then each of us signed as witness.
‘What a trial,’ he said. ‘I hope never to repeat such an act.’
‘It had to be done,’ I responded.
We embraced, briefly; then Leo Nikolayevich mounted Delire and rode away. It was not an occasion for socializing.
‘It is terrible to see a man of his stature brought to such an impasse,’ I said to Sergeyenko. ‘But we did only what was necessary.’
Today when I appeared at Yasnaya Polyana near teatime, I learned that a note had just been sent to Telyatinki from Leo Nikolayevich asking me not to come because Sofya Andreyevna was extremely irritable and suspicious. Had I received this note, I would – with deep regret – have acquiesced. I try to avoid direct confrontations with the countess when I can. But I had come, and I intended to see Leo Nikolayevich, however briefly.
Having sidestepped the countess by mounting the back stairwell, I tiptoed along the hall to Leo Nikolayevich’s study. The door to his balcony was open, and
I went out to greet him. Makovitsky knelt beside him, wrapping bandages about his legs, which have been causing him a great deal of pain. Bulgakov was behind him, reading aloud a response he had drafted on Leo Nikolayevich’s behalf to an atheist who had written insisting that God does not exist. It was a surprisingly cogent letter, very much in the style of Leo Nikolayevich. When he finished, Bulgakov said, ‘May I ask you about love? Perhaps that would convince this man.’
I chuckled to myself, thinking of Bulgakov and his dewy-eyed girl from St Petersburg.
‘My friend, I’ve tried many times to put it into words. Let me try again,’ Leo Nikolayevich said, with only the slightest trace of weariness. It perpetually amazes me how patient he is, and how simple. He once told me that the Hindus, whenever they greet a man or woman, fold their hands in prayer and bow, acknowledging the divine presence in every human being. Indeed, he treats everyone who enters a room as if he or she were a god or goddess in disguise. It is most annoying.
Makovitsky finished the bandaging and took out his notebook and pencil. He sensed a momentous opportunity.
Leo Nikolayevich cleared his throat and began: ‘Love is the uniting of souls separated from each other by the body. It’s one of the signs of God’s presence in the world. Another is the ability to understand one another. I would guess there are countless signs of God, but we tend not to notice them. Still, we apprehend the presence of God through love and understanding, even though the essence of God eludes us. It is something beyond human comprehension, though – I must be emphatic – it is through love that we sense the divine presence.’
