The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Last Days of Tolstoy, by V. G. Chertkov, Translated by Nathalie A. Duddington

Transcriber's Note:

Minor corrections were made to the original publication. Images of the original cover and title page are included at the end of the text.

THE LAST DAYS
OF TOLSTOY

BY

VLADIMIR TCHERTKOFF

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY

NATHALIE A. DUDDINGTON

1922

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

PAGE

[Introduction] ix

Public opinion demands that facts with regard to Tolstoy's going away should be revealed—The conditions of Tolstoy's life were a test of his consistency—Why is it necessary to publish the circumstances of his going away?—The importance of Tolstoy's example—Misrepresentation of the causes of his going away—The moral duty of his friends to defend his memory—My task.

PART I

[WHY TOLSTOY DID NOT LEAVE HIS HOME] 1

(Letter to H. Dosev)

Dosev's mistake, common to many—Tolstoy's true motives—His independence of the opinion of men—The limit of his yielding—In order to go away he had to feel the necessity for doing so—It was easier to go than to remain—Tolstoy's sufferings at Yasnaya Polyana (from his intimate diary)—The mistake of passing censure upon his life at Yasnaya—He fulfilled that which God required of him—His love for his wife and his confidence in her—His self-sacrifice for her sake—We must believe in his conscientiousness—The heroism of his life in his family.

PART II

WHY TOLSTOY WENT AWAY

[Chapter I.—The conditions of life at Yasnaya Polyana] 18

Wealthy surroundings—False position in the eyes of men—Spiritual break with his wife.

[Chapter II.—Change for the worse in his wife's attitude to him] 26

Change for the worse in the conditions of life at Yasnaya with regard to the management of the estate, to the relations with the peasants, and in his wife's attitude to him—Tolstoy gives up landed property—His readiness to go away and the causes of his delay in making a final decision.

[Chapter III.—The history of the will] 32

Tolstoy's attitude to property in general and to literary property in particular—His differences with his wife on that score—Tolstoy's firmness in renouncing the copyright of his works—His wife's opposition—Short history of the drawing up of the will.

[Chapter IV.—Intervals of rest—in other people's houses] 48

Mental and physical revival—Creative work.

[Chapter V.—The last period] 52

Summer of 1910—Period of suffering that undermined his health.

[Chapter VI.—Mental agony] 58

Tolstoy's disappointment at the impossibility of awakening his wife's spiritual consciousness—Recognition that his further stay at Yasnaya Polyana is unnecessary—The harm that his staying there did to Sofya Andreyevna.

[Chapter VII.—The night of Tolstoy's going away] 63

The last touch—Preparations and departure—Entries in the diary.

[Chapter VIII.—Tolstoy's relation to his wife] 67

Letters to her in 1897 and after his departure—Reasons why he did not wish to see her.

[Chapter IX.—The motives that decided his going away] 78

The last straw—Mistaken judgments about Tolstoy's going away.

[Chapter X.—The significance of Tolstoy's going away and of the whole spiritual achievement of his life] 86

The one desire of his life, to do the will of God—The inevitability of the end.

PART III

[TOLSTOY'S ATTITUDE TO HIS SUFFERINGS] 94

The growth of his inner consciousness during the second period of his life. Extracts from the diary for 1884—Differences with his wife—On the border of despair—Feeling of solitude—Memory of his mother and his longing for her (1906)—Striving after God. Extracts from diary and letters from 1889-1910—Family trials—The cross of his life, till the end—His words about Sofya Andreyevna and consciousness of his guilt (from a conversation with, and the letters to Tchertkoff)—The mystery of another's soul—Tolstoy's thoughts that give a general meaning to his interpretation of suffering ("The Reading-Cycle," "The Way of Life").

[Appendix I] 139

The inevitable one-sidedness of quotations made from Tolstoy's writings for the purposes of the present narrative—His many-sided personality—His power of controlling his sufferings and his natural joy of life—The attainment of the true good.

[Appendix II] 143

My personal attitude to Tolstoy's wife—The experience and observation of thirty years—My task is not to censure anyone but to vindicate truth.

INTRODUCTION

So much misunderstanding, misrepresentation, partiality and personal prejudice has accumulated in connection with the last years and days of Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy's life, that before starting upon this first detailed account of his "going away" I find myself compelled, at the risk of wearying the reader's patience, to begin with a somewhat lengthy introduction.

Now that Tolstoy's wife[1] is dead, the chief obstacle to revealing the true causes of his going away from Yasnaya Polyana is removed. Like other friends of Leo Nikolaevitch, I have said nothing for ten years. During this time many people, some of them particularly deserving of confidence and respect, have asked me to publish all that I know about this event. As an instance I will quote a letter from Mrs. Mayo, a well-known English authoress and admirer of Tolstoy.[2]

"Old Aberdeen,
Scotland,
Jan. 17, 1914.

"Dear Mr. Tchertkoff,

"Some of us in Great Britain feel that the time has come when it is highly desirable that we should hear the story of the tragedy which beset the last years of Leo Tolstoy's life, from one who was in its scene.

"We can understand and respect your reticence up to this point. But now so many rumours, derogatory to Tolstoy, and therefore likely to diminish the weight of his teaching, are spreading over the world, and seem to be the subject of a very active propaganda even in this country.

"Hitherto, however, we have heard little or nothing save from those who were notoriously out of sympathy with his principles, and who did not scruple to put obstacles in the way of the carrying out of his last will.

"Further, it has been unfortunate that the Life of Tolstoy best known in Britain is the work of one who, far from being a disciple, is not even a neutral or impartial recorder, but is in flat antagonism to Tolstoy's leading principle of non-resistance to evil by violence.

"Therefore we appeal to you, Tolstoy's personal friend and fellow-worker, that you should let us hear the facts of the case as you saw them.

"Some of us feel that Tolstoy's own works explain enough. I remember when I read the last page of the paper 'Living and Dying,' in his Three Days in the Village, written only a few months before his death, I realised that Tolstoy's spiritual anguish was being strained almost beyond endurance.

"Again, I repeat that we all deeply respect the reticence you have hitherto maintained. But there is a time to speak and a time to keep silent. History shows us again and again how impossible it is to unearth the truth when eye-witnesses are gone. Thus are engendered the most misleading and mischievous myths.

"I trust that you will give this matter your deepest consideration, and I remain,

"Yours with much regard,
(Mrs.) "Isabella Fyvie Mayo."

I have received many such requests, both spoken and written, from many different people, some of whom were noted for their tact and reserve, and whose opinion therefore carried special weight in this delicate

matter. Nevertheless I could not make up my mind.

I feel that the time has come at last to speak openly of what I know. I approach my task with no light heart, but with a full consciousness of the moral responsibility which it involves. In doing so I have but one wish: to say nothing that is superfluous or out of date, and to keep back nothing which I feel it my duty to Leo Nikolaevitch and to other people to reveal.

In Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy's life two circumstances deserve special notice. In the first place, the immediate external conditions in which he was placed—that is, all he had to endure in his family life and home surroundings—seemed to be specially designed as a severe trial for him. If someone wanted to put to a practical test Leo Nikolaevitch's sincerity, consistency and spiritual strength in carrying out his conception of life, he could not have placed him in conditions more suited for the purpose than those in which Leo Nikolaevitch lived for the last thirty years of his life. Secondly, it is remarkable that Leo Nikolaevitch bore this trial irreproachably, though it was more severe than anyone unacquainted with his intimate life could suppose.

There was a time when all educated Russians imagined, in their spiritual blindness, that Tolstoy's "easy" life in Yasnaya Polyana was a fresh example of the inconsistency with which great thinkers fail to apply to themselves the lofty truths they preach. Tolstoy's enemies rejoiced, and regarded his supposed inconsistency as a proof of his theory being inapplicable in practice. His friends found extenuating circumstances for his guilt, and thought that we should be grateful to Tolstoy for the spiritual food he had given us, and not be too hard upon his human weaknesses. And yet during all this time, with a firmness which nothing could shake, and sometimes at the cost of incredible suffering, Leo Nikolaevitch was carrying on the most heroic work of self-abnegation, consistency and self-restraint of which man is capable. He realised in his actions and in all his personal life that which he preached, and both in his life and his death he exemplified the complete renunciation of all personal desires and the whole-hearted service of God, in which he believed the purpose and the meaning of human life to consist.

I am well aware that this assertion may appear to be an exaggeration. Some readers

will be inclined to ascribe my words to the natural enthusiasm of a "Tolstoyan" for his "teacher." Fortunately, however, I have at my disposal a wealth of documentary material which irrefutably confirms the truth of my words. I hope, in due time, to publish this material as well as my own observations and facts known to me with regard to Leo Nikolaevitch's family life as a whole.

Written documents which I have in my keeping sufficiently reveal the general character of the conditions in which Leo Nikolaevitch had to live. But if there were only these data to go upon, one would have to resign oneself to inevitable blanks and omissions. The readers would have to treat these documents like learned investigators treat their historical material—that is, to fill up the blanks with their own surmises, to connect the disconnected, and to reconcile contradictions in accordance with their personal predilections and the degree of their inventiveness. Among the extensive material relating to Tolstoy's life there already exist, and will no doubt appear in the future, communications which more or less misrepresent the facts and even contain downright falsehoods. To the malicious joy of Tolstoy's enemies there

has already accumulated a whole literature which depicts his personality, his life, his "going away" and his death in a totally perverted manner, and is full of shameless slander.

Under such circumstances, the future biographers of Tolstoy would have—as is usually the case—to steer a middle course between all the contradictory data in their possession. In doing so they will not be able to avoid the misleading influence of the unreliable documents—and this, indeed, is already noticeable in some of the recent biographies. In view of this, it is particularly important that some contemporary of Tolstoy who was particularly intimate with him, enjoyed his full confidence and had a first-hand knowledge of the true conditions of his home life, should leave a consecutive exposition of all the relevant and well-authenticated facts. It is desirable, too, that this person should not be one of Tolstoy's relatives, and would therefore be free from all family prejudices and predilections.

Not in virtue of any personal merits, but only owing to certain external circumstances, I satisfy these conditions, and cannot help feeling that fate itself lays upon me the moral duty of undertaking such a work.

A detailed account is necessary not only for the sake of "historical accuracy" in the biography of the great man; it is needed in the interests of humanity in order to preserve in all its intact wholeness the striking example of Tolstoy's life; for this life incontestably proves the possibility of carrying out in practice the lofty truths to which he gave verbal expression.

It would be a mistake to agree with only such truths as are proclaimed by men who perfectly realise in the practice of their own lives that which they preach. It is part of our nature that a man may be clearly conscious of truths so lofty that it is beyond his power to put them into practice. They may be practised by his contemporaries who have more strength than he has, or by future generations who will have attained a higher degree of moral perfection. But it is also part of our nature that the example of a man who realises in his own conduct, in spite of any privations and suffering, and even at the cost of his life, that which he preaches, always arouses the enthusiastic sympathy of others, and becomes a powerful help and encouragement to many who strive to follow the ideals proclaimed by such a man.

Even if in his personal life Tolstoy were

inconsistent and failed to live up to his own convictions, he would still deserve our profound gratitude for the enormous, immeasurable impetus which, by his intellectual work, he has given to the development of human consciousness. But it has pleased destiny to create in the person of Tolstoy not only a thinker of genius, but also a man of great moral heroism. It is therefore very important to preserve the most exact information about his personal life, especially about that side of it which called for most self-sacrifice on his part and made him suffer most in carrying out his principles in practice. Finally, I was led to undertake the present work by my personal relation to Leo Nikolaevitch. Our intimate friendship of many years' standing, my ardent devotion and love for him in his lifetime, and now my devotion to his memory, infinitely dear to me, my respect and reverence for the Divine Principle which expressed itself in him with such power and purity—all make me eager to do my utmost to preserve for men in all its striking, untarnished brilliance the truth about the greatness of his moral achievement. Since there are people to whom this truth is unpleasant or damaging, and who seek to pervert or conceal it in every way,

making wild inventions about Leo Nikolaevitch, or demanding that truth shall not be revealed, surely it behoves his most intimate friends to champion his memory and preserve his noble image from pollution or distortion.

Now that Leo Nikolaevitch's widow, for whose sake we have refrained from publishing the facts, is no longer alive, it is not only permissible for us, his friends, to come forward in his defence but, in view of all that has happened, it is our bounden duty to tell the truth about his life and death, so as to counteract all the slanders that have been set going by his enemies.[3]

I have also heard another argument from persons who would have preferred, for the sake of their vanity, that Tolstoy's family tragedy should have remained secret. They said that Leo Nikolaevitch himself never defended himself against those who slandered him. He preferred to bear the censure of

public opinion rather than reveal the painful conditions of his life and allow others to be blamed instead of himself. And therefore, they say, after his death his friends ought to follow his example.

It is impossible to agree with this. One may well understand that Leo Nikolaevitch concealed his sufferings. He drew strength and derived satisfaction from the consciousness that he was living not before men, but before God. Far from standing in need of human approbation, he thought that unjust condemnation on the part of men was good for him in so far as it forcibly drove him to that road upon which one has nothing but the voice of God in one's own soul for guidance. But does this mean that we too must say nothing about Tolstoy's heroic life and conceal his moral rectitude now, when he is not among us?

We have not, cannot have, and ought not to have, the same motives which in this respect influenced him. It is good for me, for my soul, to be unjustly condemned owing to the fact that I do not want to justify myself and am sparing the real culprit. But there is nothing good in my being silent when another person is unjustly condemned or slandered in my presence, while I have the

means of proving his innocence. Leo Nikolaevitch had grounds for not justifying himself before men; but we have no grounds whatever for concealing that which does justify him. In the present case we ought to be guided, not by the thought of ourselves in his place if he were alive, but by the immediate voice of our own heart and reason, which demands that we should defend the friend whose memory is being reviled before our eyes.

These are the reasons that have led me to undertake the biographical work of which the present narrative of Tolstoy's going away forms, so to speak, only one separate chapter.

All the events of cosmic life are so inextricably interwoven that, were it possible to change in the past some one of them, even the apparently most insignificant, it would be necessary to change at the same time absolutely all the other concurrent and preceding circumstances. Therefore in order to investigate fully the conditions which have occasioned this or that event in a person's life, one would have to consider the whole past history of mankind, both the external and the internal or spiritual. And since it is impossible even in thought to

embrace all this infinite number of facts, it must be admitted that it is utterly beyond our power to determine all the causes that have produced this or that event in the life of a particular individual.

Thus in the story of Tolstoy's "going away" which occupies us now, no investigation, however careful, can exhaust all the outer and inner circumstances, receding into an endless past, that have brought about the event in question. Besides, even in the domain of Tolstoy's personal life which admits of inquiry, the direct and indirect causes of his "going away" are so numerous and many-sided that it is beyond the power of a single individual to make an exhaustive enumeration of them. The colouring given in such cases to the circumstances under investigation and the very drift of the inquiry depend so largely upon the personal point of view and the mood of the writer, that, try as he may to be impartial, his selection and treatment of causes will inevitably be more or less one-sided. Therefore in order to bring to light the causes of Tolstoy's "going away," it is extremely important that the greatest possible number of his contemporaries should record and preserve for future generations the facts known to

them as well as their thoughts and reminiscences; and it is desirable, too, that this should be done particularly by those of them who had occasion to stand nearest to Tolstoy's personal and family life. A true history of Tolstoy's life must be preserved in the greatest possible fullness for future generations. His contemporaries, and in the first place his relatives, personal friends and co-workers, ought not to neglect this important task laid upon them by fate itself.

So far as I am concerned, I quite realise that the small beginning which I venture to make with the present narrative is only a drop in the sea of all the facts, observations and deductions which it would be desirable to gather together before Tolstoy's contemporaries leave the scene of this earthly life.[4]

In composing the present book I have tried to distinguish as sharply as possible between: (1) facts and circumstances which I knew for certain, and therefore have stated them without any reservations; (2) facts and circumstances of the certainty of which I personally am convinced, though I do not

consider myself entitled to affirm them unconditionally, and state them with some reservations; (3) circumstances surmised by me on the ground of certain data which I quote herewith; and (4) my personal opinions, considerations and reflections upon the facts quoted.

Being compelled in the present narrative to be as brief as possible, I am unable to substantiate all my assertions by documentary and other evidence in my possession. I am therefore addressing myself here only to such readers who can take my word for it that I give out as facts only that which is known to me for certain, and do not permit myself any embellishments or exaggeration. But in the other, still unwritten, book to which I have referred, Tolstoy's Moral Achievement, the subject of his family life as a whole will be extensively treated and I shall quote my data in full.

If I often permit myself to include in the narrative my personal valuation of the events, this is certainly not because I want to force my own opinions on the reader instead of barely stating the facts and letting him draw his own conclusions. I quite recognise the advantages of a so-called objective narrative, but it was not what in the

present case I had in view. As I have mentioned already, my purpose in writing this book was to contradict the slanders against Leo Nikolaevitch and the misinterpretations of his conduct. I do not doubt that the majority of my readers will consider my selection of facts and my interpretation of them one-sided. Let, then, other investigators of the same subject interpret the facts each from his own point of view. The more such narratives are published, the less risk there will be of the reader receiving a one-sided impression, and the more free he will be to draw his own conclusions.

As to a detailed objective exposition of all the circumstances connected with Tolstoy's "going away," I believe that, desirable as it is, the time for it has not yet come, for the persons who possess most information on the subject have not yet had time to publish the numerous and varied details known to them. Let us hope that they will not put off this task for so long that they will be dead before they have fulfilled it. And if my present contribution will induce them also to give out something of what they know, even if it were solely with the object of contradicting me, I should be very glad of it, as indeed of any corrections of

my work that anyone might wish to make. It is far better that the matter should be thoroughly thrashed out between the eye-witnesses rather than—as often happens with the lives of distinguished men—it should become, in future ages, the subject of an extensive polemic literature which seldom succeeds in getting at truth. It seems to me that only when there appear the greatest possible number of additional communications on the same subject shall we be able to work out, from all the accumulated material, that really objective and trustworthy account of Tolstoy's "going away" which is so necessary in order to give men a true idea of the spiritual achievement of his life.

V. Tchertkoff.

Moscow, Lefortovsky pereulok, 7.
January 1922.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Sofya Andreyevna Tolstoy, who died in November, 1919. In Appendix II, at the end of the present volume, I explain what attitude towards Sofya Andreyevna I adopt in the present narrative.

[2] Isabella Fyvie Mayo.

[3] In this connection I venture to quote here a small extract from my article entitled "Should the truth about Tolstoy's going away be told?" (published in the magazine Tolstoy's

Voice and Unity, N 3 (15)).

"The conditions under which Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy left Yasnaya Polyana and died on the journey at a railway station were, as everyone knows, quite exceptional. And yet, though it happened ten years ago, mankind does not to this day know the true causes of this event. Both in Russia and abroad the actual reasons that drove a man like Leo Tolstoy to leave his family are unknown, and so everyone invented his own reasons and published all sorts of fictions. Some have maintained that Tolstoy longed to be received once more into the Orthodox Church and wanted to save his soul in a monastery. Some insisted that as he grew old his intellect grew so weak that he did not know what he was doing, and, instinctively feeling the approach of death, went off without any definite purpose. Others observed with satisfaction that at the end of his life, at any rate, Tolstoy succeeded in overcoming his attachment to his family and his bondage to wealthy surroundings, and in doing what in accordance with his convictions he ought to have done long ago. Others, on the contrary, regretted that he had not the strength to endure the trials of his home life to the end, and that, revolted at the behaviour of his family, he lost his spiritual balance and failed in his duty to his relatives. There is no enumerating all the guesses and suppositions that were spread by people who attempted during the last ten years to solve the riddle of Tolstoy's 'going away,' or who intentionally perverted the truth. Quite recently in his book on Tolstoy (which has already been translated into foreign languages), Maxim Gorky, with his usual amazing rashness in dealing with subjects which he does not know or fails to understand, thought it fit, by the side of other absurdities about Tolstoy, to inform the world that Leo Nikolaevitch left Yasnaya Polyana 'with the despotic intention of increasing the oppressive influence of his religious ideas' and 'compelling people to accept them,' and that he, Maxim Gorky, does not approve of such behaviour.

"I owe it to my friend's memory to show how ill-grounded are the accusations and the slanders with which men, misinformed as to the circumstances of his life, or opposed to his theories, tried to besmirch his name. I naturally want to do my utmost to reinstate in all its beauty and purity the spiritual image of him to whom I am indebted so much for his love and moral assistance."

[4] In connection with the Tolstoy Museum in Moscow (Pretchistenka 11) a circle has been formed with the object, partly, of collecting and preserving such communications. Some of them may, with the author's consent, be published in the Viestnik.

PART I

WHY TOLSTOY DID NOT LEAVE HIS HOME

(From a letter to H. Dosev, October 19, 1910[5])

Dear Dosev,

I feel that I must protest against what you say in your last letter in connection with Leo Nikolaevitch.

Among other things you say of him: "Nothing is worse than slavery. And worse still is slavery to a spoilt child who has been spoilt by oneself. But I know nothing worse in the world than being enslaved to an irrational, self-willed woman who is convinced that her slave husband will do whatever she chooses. Is not Sofya Andreyevna such a woman, and is not Leo Nikolaevitch

in slavery to her? His submissiveness to Sofya Andreyevna I regard not as a virtue but as a weakness. He makes concessions to her through fear of sinning against love; but in doing this is he not sinning against the great love? You know she keeps him away from his friends, from the peasants, from humanity; she makes him live the revolting life of a wealthy landowner. I do not reproach Leo Nikolaevitch, I do not condemn him—I love and respect him too much. But I am sorry for him. I am sorry for his whole life, and for his great teaching, which has not passed in vain for himself and for those near him, but which will pass in vain for the peasants and for humanity; for his external life blurs all the significance and meaning of his words and thoughts in men's eyes."

You conclude with the words: "Do not be hurt by my words. I repeat—this is the expression not of censure, but of the pain of a man who loves him. And so if there is something I don't see rightly, you and all the others and Leo Nikolaevitch must forgive me. The greatest joy of my life is my love for him and for all of you, friends of the spirit."

Just because I believe in the sincerity

of your love for Leo Nikolaevitch, and know that he too loves you, just because of that I feel irresistibly impelled to answer those words of yours, dear friend. You really do not "see rightly," and are mistaken in assuming slavishness and inconsistency in Leo Nikolaevitch. On the contrary, he displays in his attitude to Sofya Andreyevna the greatest freedom—freedom from anxiety about the opinion of men, and the highest consistency—the determination to do, according to the measure of his powers and understanding, not his own will but the will of God. And for the sake of doing this will of God he is ready to endure any personal sufferings of his own and any human censure and disgrace.

You are mistaken in supposing that Leo Nikolaevitch does whatever Sofya Andreyevna wishes. On the contrary, there is a limit beyond which he does not give way to her. He does not give way to her when she demands from him what is distinctly against his conscience. And it is just because he does not give way entirely, but adheres to this limit in his concessions—it is just through that, that he has so much to put up with from Sofya Andreyevna.

During the last ten years of his life Leo

Nikolaevitch has often thought of leaving his wife, and has more than once been on the verge of taking that step. It is still perfectly possible that he will take it in the end if he becomes convinced that his remaining with his wife is not attaining his object, but merely exciting her, and encouraging her in her exactingness and tyranny. But to do this he must clearly and unmistakably recognise in his conscience that he ought to leave her. That he has not hitherto left her is not at all because it is more agreeable or more convenient to live in her house, it is not at all through weakness of character or dread of disobeying her; but, believe me, solely because he is not yet sufficiently convinced that he ought to go away, and does not feel that it is God's will that he should go. For him personally it would be so much more agreeable, peaceful and in every way convenient to go away, that he is afraid of acting selfishly, of doing what is easier for himself, and of refusing through cowardice to bear the trials laid upon him.

If he did leave Yasnaya Polyana at his advanced age, and with his infirmities, he could not now live by manual labour. Nor could he go staff in hand about the world and fall ill and die somewhere by the high-road,

or as a passing pilgrim in a peasant's hut. He could not do it simply from affection for those who love him, for his daughters and the friends who are near him in heart and spirit—however attractive such an end might be for him himself, and however theatrically splendid it might seem to the crowd which at present censures him. He could not without being cruel refuse to settle in some modest abode where, without the help of servants, they could do his housework for him, surrounding him with the affection and care necessary at his age, giving him the opportunity of associating without hindrance with the working people whom he loves so much, and from whom he is at present completely cut off. Why, such a free, quiet life would be a real paradise for him in comparison with the prison in which he has to live now!

It will be asked why he does not accept for himself these happy surroundings so easily within his reach, seeing that his wife has, one would have thought, given him long ago sufficient ground for leaving her house. Why does he not now, at least, in the decline of his age, cast off the heavy burden which in the person of Sofya Andreyevna he has been bearing on his shoulders for thirty years,

sometimes almost sinking under its weight? It is obvious that if he does not do this it is not from weakness or cowardice, and it is not from selfishness; but, on the contrary, from a feeling of duty, from a manly determination to remain at his post to the very end, sacrificing his preferences and his personal happiness for the sake of doing what he considers to be the divine will.

In July, 1908, Leo Nikolaevitch passed through one of those agonising spiritual crises, provoked by Sofya Andreyevna, which with him nearly always ended in serious illness. So it was on this occasion. Immediately after it he fell ill, and for some time after it was almost at death's door. I quote a few extracts from his diary in the days just before his illness.

"July 2, 1908.—If I had heard of myself as an outsider—of a man living in luxury, wringing all he can out of the peasants, locking them up in prison, while preaching and professing Christianity and giving away coppers, and for all his loathsome actions sheltering himself behind his dear wife, I should not hesitate to call him a blackguard! And that is just what I need that I may be set free from the praises of men and live for my soul....

"July 2, 1908.—Doubts have come into my mind whether I do right to be silent, and even whether it would not be better for me to go away, to disappear. I refrain from doing this principally because it would be for my own sake, in order to escape from a life poisoned on every side. I believe that the endurance of this life is needful for me....

"July 3, 1908.—It is still as agonising, life here in Yasnaya Polyana is completely poisoned. Wherever I turn, it is shame and suffering....

"July 6, 1908.—Help me, O Lord! Again I long to go away, and I do not make up my mind to; but do not give up the idea. The great point is: whether I would be doing it for my own sake if I went away. That I am not doing it for my own sake in staying I know....

"July 9, 1908.—One thing grows more and more agonising; the injustice of the senseless luxury in the midst of which I am living with undeserved poverty and want all around. I feel worse and worse, more and more wretched. I cannot forget, I cannot help seeing...."

I remember on one of these days Leo Nikolaevitch returning from a solitary walk

in the woods with that expression of joyful inspiration which so often illumined his face of late years, and meeting me with the words:

"I have been thinking a great deal and very deeply. And it has become so clear to me that when one stands at the parting of the ways and does not know how to act, one ought always to give the preference to the decision which involves more self-sacrifice."

From all this it is evident how deeply Leo Nikolaevitch feels his position, how passionately he longs at times to throw off his yoke and at the same time with what sincerity and self-sacrifice he is seeking not his own comfort, but only one thing—the clear understanding of how he ought to act before his conscience, before his God, to whose service he had devoted his life not in word alone but in deed also.

After this how short-sighted, how unjust and cruel seem utterances—especially on the lips of a loved and loving friend of Leo Nikolaevitch's, as you are—such as that you look upon his submission to Sofya Andreyevna not as a virtue but as a weakness. We may suppose that in Leo Nikolaevitch's place we should act differently, though it would be difficult for us to say whether in so

acting we should be doing better or worse than he. We cannot understand all that is passing in his soul, and so we may be perplexed by some of his actions. But I at least cannot help feeling the greatest respect for the pure, self-sacrificing impulses by which he is guided. I cannot help feeling complete confidence in him on this question, for if anyone, sacrificing all his personal needs and pleasures, and regardless of his suffering and privations, whatever they may be, tries unswervingly to follow the dictates of his conscience, he is doing all that can be expected of a human being, and no one has the right to condemn, nor need anyone be anxious about him. You see, for us, looking on Leo Nikolaevitch's

life from outside, it appears in reality as an external phenomenon which we can consider according to our mood. In our moments of leisure we venture to criticise Leo Nikolaevitch and his manner of life and to decide on its value, as though it were far easier for us to grasp and understand it, than it is for him. "Another man's trouble I can handle easily, but my own is beyond my comprehension." We forget that for us it is only a subject of criticism about which we may have one opinion or another—a question concerning

which we may on occasion argue and bring forward the pros and cons. But for Leo Nikolaevitch it is a question of conscience, it is the very business of his life, it is that into which he is putting all his soul, all his understanding. What grounds have we for imagining that we outsiders, who know ourselves to be greatly inferior to Leo Nikolaevitch spiritually, are capable of understanding his life better and deciding more conscientiously for him how he ought to act than he can himself, though he is seeking guidance for his conduct day and night before God?

Let his enemies vent their malice over his seemingly humiliating position; let narrow-minded and short-sighted "Tolstoyans," who have neither spiritual penetration nor the delicate intuition of the heart, condemn him or bestow their patronising pity on him; but we, his real friends, who are of one spirit with him, who understand by what he is living, and are struggling towards the same goal as he, we, dear Dosev, ought to have more faith and trust in him.

As you are aware, none of Leo Nikolaevitch's friends suffers more from Leo Nikolaevitch's relations with Sofya Andreyevna than my wife and I, for they deprive

us of one of the greatest joys of our life—of personal intercourse with him, the enjoyment of which was the principal reason for our settling in this district.[6] But when I am in a good frame of mind, all this which is painful and humiliating vanishes before my trust in Leo Nikolaevitch, and my conviction, which nothing will shake, that he desires nothing for himself, but is striving for one thing only—that is, that at every given moment he may be doing what God requires of him.

Some members of his household who are devoted to Leo Nikolaevitch are distressed that he should give in to the farce—to them obvious—which Sofya Andreyevna so often plays before him in order to attain her objects, at one time agitating him by feigned attacks of despair and frenzy, at other times touching his heart by displays of penitence, meekness and care for his welfare which are even more insincere, or, if at times half sincere, are at least extremely transitory. But it seems to me that if, through the wonderful purity of

his own heart, Leo Nikolaevitch is incapable of seeing Sofya Andreyevna as she really is, and with touching trustfulness seizes upon every justification for recognising in her the smallest signs of an awakening conscience, then, though he may be mistaken in it, the tender emotion and joy which he feels on such occasions are perfectly legitimate, because they arise from his great love and readiness to forgive everything. It is doubtful whether her success in pretending is good for Sofya Andreyevna herself. But who knows, perhaps this wonderful faith in her soul on the part of Leo Nikolaevitch, which nothing can shake, his continual expectation, his premature, eager anticipation of the spiritual awakening in her which he so whole-heartedly desires, will in due time have its effect upon Sofya Andreyevna. Perhaps such an attitude to her on the part of the man whom she has so mercilessly tortured for so many years, and who nevertheless is of all people the only one who has sincerely loved her, and loved her to the end, will one day be reflected in her soul. The memory of this in its due time, for instance, when she will become conscious of the nearness of her own death, when all worldly plans, aims and desires inevitably retreat

into the background, is the one thing that may be capable of awakening in that unhappy woman the divine spark, the possibility of which we have no right to deny in any human being. And if this is possible, is it surprising that Leo Nikolaevitch, entirely given up to the service of the divine love as he is, should untiringly attempt to melt with his love the heart of the partner of his life whom he once drew to himself, with whom he shared his past sinful life, and with whom he would also wish to save his soul?

And indeed as a rule, dear Dosev, I am deeply convinced that no one of us can decide for another, nor determine in regard to another man's behaviour what is his weakness and what is his virtue. "Before his God," as it is written in the gospel, "every one of us shall stand or fall." It is not for us human beings to meddle in the secret region of another man's soul with our short-sighted criticisms, our frivolous verdicts and our mistaken condolences.

And however Leo Nikolaevitch may act in the future—whether he remains to the end beside his wife, or whether at some time he finds it necessary for her benefit to go away from her—I am convinced of one thing: that in that matter he will really act only as

his conscience bids him, and therefore he will act rightly.

Why, if Leo Nikolaevitch's wife were drowning and, plunging into the water to save her, he perished himself, nobody would reproach him for having sacrificed his friends and humanity for the sake of excessive family attachments. It is even more impossible to reproach him for devoting his life, sacrificing its joys and repose, and perhaps even giving it up altogether, for the sake of saving his wife from the ruin of her soul.

It ought not to be forgotten also that at the same time Leo Nikolaevitch always contrives in the most attentive and sensitive way to respond to every real need, spiritual or material, of the whole people and of all mankind, devoting his whole working time to intense spiritual labour in the interests of the working masses, and of all suffering mankind, whether the suffering be from external or internal evil.

As for your idea that for the simple people and for humanity "all his life and great teaching will pass in vain, because his external life blurs all the significance and meaning of his words and thoughts in men's eyes," on this too, I assure you, you are profoundly mistaken.

His words cannot pass in vain for humanity if only from the fact that they do not express something of "his own" with which only those who "follow him" can agree, but express the best that there is in the heart of every man. And from that very fact what Tolstoy says in his writings finds, apart from any relation to his own personal life, a direct and loving response in the heart and consciousness of all men whose conscience has not been blunted. And as time passes this response will only become clearer and more distinct.

When the true conditions of the domestic life of Leo Nikolaevitch become generally known, the great heroism of his family life, reproducing in deed what he expressed in words, will be added to the direct persuasive force of his words in the eyes of humanity.

"Going to the people," to prison, torture, the cross, the stake, the scaffold—all these have been already. And however deserving of the deepest respect are the men who face these for conscience' sake, yet if it is a question of a living example, we, people of the present day, needed an example of yet another kind.

Men go willingly to the scaffold even from a desire to blow their neighbour into the air. Men become cripples for life or are killed for

the sake of beating a record with a motor-car or an aeroplane. All this is striking and sensational, but already no one is surprised by it. But it is quite a different matter to spend several decades with such a wife as Sofya Andreyevna without running away from her, and still preserving in his heart pity and love for her, and this to the accompaniment of the unceasing mockery of his enemies and misunderstanding and censure from the majority of his friends—so to live from day to day, from year to year, not seeing and not foreseeing any escape but his own death; to endure, in doing so, all that Leo Nikolaevitch

has to endure, being periodically made ill by it and almost dying, and not only to have not the smallest blame or bitterness in his heart, but, on the contrary, to be always blaming himself for lack of patience and love—this really is the highest consistency on the part of Leo Nikolaevitch. This is a testimony of the truthfulness of his theory of life than which nothing stronger and more striking could be imagined. This is just the example that humanity is in need of in our day, and this example Leo Nikolaevitch is giving us in his life.

When one looks at the matter from this point of view it becomes so clear as to be

obvious why Leo Nikolaevitch had to have just such a wife as was vouchsafed to him. "For a great ship a great journey." He who delivered the message of love in its absolutely unlimited sense needed to have the possibility in his life of proving in action that a love that nothing in the world could destroy was really attainable for man. And in due time, when the truth about Leo Nikolaevitch's life becomes common property, men will be infinitely grateful to him for this joyous confirmation of the possibility of following in practice the godly theory of life of which Tolstoy is the exponent in his writings.

FOOTNOTES

[5] Ten days before Leo Nikolaevitch went away from Yasnaya Polyana this letter was written by me to Christo Dosev, the common friend of Tolstoy and myself, who migrated to Russia from Bulgaria and died in the year 1919. I quote my letter word for word to preserve its direct character. I ought to mention that a few years after Tolstoy's death Dosev told me that he recognised how mistaken was the censure of Tolstoy to which he had given expression in the letter which called forth this answer from me.

[6] This letter was written at the time when, though living only a few versts from Yasnaya Polyana, I was forcibly separated from Leo Nikolaevitch. This separation, which lasted for about three months, was due to the hostile attitude towards me of his wife, whose excited condition he hoped to soothe by the promise not to see me.

PART II

WHY TOLSTOY WENT AWAY

CHAPTER I

LIFE AT YASNAYA POLYANA

A few days after the foregoing letter was written Leo Nikolaevitch left Yasnaya Polyana.

At first sight it may seem that if he did well in remaining so long with his wife, he ought not to have abandoned her in the end; or, on the contrary, if he was right in going away, it was a mistake not to have done so sooner.

That is how many do reason. Some—the majority—commend him for his departure, considering that thereby he "atoned" for his supposed weakness and inconsistency in the past. Others—a small minority—commend him, on the contrary, for remaining so many years with his wife, but consider his going away a proof of his inconsistency.[7]

It seems to me that in any case Leo Nikolaevitch's friends who were able to estimate at its true value the self-sacrifice with which he remained a voluntary prisoner in his wife's house for so many years ought, more than anyone, to have that confidence in him of which he was worthy. They might at least be confident that if, after all this, he did decide to go away, he must have had good grounds for doing so; especially since such an explanation is far more natural and credible than the supposition that Leo Nikolaevitch, who had so successfully endured this prolonged ordeal and had displayed such striking stoicism and self-sacrifice, on the eve of his death suddenly, for some reason, broke down and was false to his conscience.

In regard to the question of whether he was to remain with his wife or go away, Leo Nikolaevitch was guided not by any one

impulse, but by many, and often contradictory, impulses.

On the side of not leaving his wife he had various considerations which are touched on in my letter to Dosev. The chief of them was his consciousness that in remaining he was fulfilling the demands of love in regard to Sofya Andreyevna, and was trying to do her good, while he was performing an act of self-sacrifice for the benefit of his own soul.

He had also, in the course of the last thirty years of his life, many grounds for going away; and though, until the time was ripe, they could not outweigh those that kept him with his family, yet in themselves they were very weighty.

On one side he was painfully conscious—and ever more painfully as time went on—of all the injustice, all the sinfulness of the surroundings of his home life, which were those of a rich landowner in the midst of the poverty around him, and he never forgave himself for his participation in those surroundings. Some months before his death he wrote, as is well known, in the introduction to his novel, There are No Guilty in the World: "The complicated conditions of the past, my family and its demands, have not let me out of their clutches"; and, at once, with the

fear of self-justification characteristic of him, hastened to add "or rather I had not the ability nor strength to free myself from them." But recognising at that time the hopelessness of his position, Leo Nikolaevitch found a good side in the fact that it was so painful to him. "Being without any desire for self-justification, or any fear of the liberated peasants, and also without the peasants' envy and bitterness against their oppressors, I am in the most favourable position for seeing the truth and being able to tell it. Perhaps it was just for this that I have been placed by fate in this strange position. I will try, as far as I know how, to take advantage of it. This at least to some extent, anyway, alleviates my condition."

On the other hand, he was at times much distressed by the consciousness of the false position in which he was placed before men, and before the peasants especially, by the external conditions of his life, which were so directly opposed to his convictions. He was well aware that the majority of people condemned him for taking part in that life. But he was resigned even to that, finding a spiritual blessing in his humiliation before men. In his Circle of Reading[8] he said:

"What is called religious folly, i.e. conduct which provokes censure and attack, is intelligible and desirable as the sole proof of one's love for God and one's neighbour." "The condemnation by man of your actions," he says in a private letter, "if your actions are not due to selfish motives, but to doing the will of God, is far from requiring you to justify them; on the contrary, this condemnation is a benefit, in that it gives you certain conviction that you do what you are doing not for the praise of men, but for the sake of your soul, for God."[9]

But above all Leo Nikolaevitch had to suffer directly from his wife's antagonism and disagreement with regard to what was for him more precious than anything. This hostility on the part of his wife often reached the point of unconcealed hatred of him, making him at times despair of the possibility of softening her heart at all. As years went on the spiritual rift between them became complete. Leo Nikolaevitch had periods of such doubt and depression of spirit that he felt quite hopeless, and was ready to run away from home. One of these periods I have referred to above, but even at the beginning of the 'eighties Leo Nikolaevitch

had moments when he could scarcely restrain himself from going away.

It was so, for instance, in the summer of the year 1884. In his diary of that time we find such entries: "If only I could have confidence in myself.... I cannot go on with this savage life. Even for them" (the members of his family) "it would be a benefit. They will reconsider things if they have anything like a heart.... I said nothing, but I felt horribly depressed. I went away, and meant to go away altogether, but her being with child made me turn back half way to Tula.... It was horribly painful.... It was a mistake not to go away. I think it will be bound to happen sooner or later."[10]

After 1884, as Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual forces developed further and gained strength, he did succeed to some extent in bearing patiently the insults and suffering inflicted upon him, and learnt to resign himself to the painfulness of his position, extracting gain for his inner life from all that he endured. But how hard it still was for him may be seen, for instance, from the confession that broke from him in conversation with a friend of his, the peasant M. P. Novikov, when the latter visited him on the 21st October,

1910: "I have never concealed from you that in this house I am boiling as in hell, and I have always dreamed of going away, and longed to go somewhere into the forest to a keeper's hut, or to a village to some lonely peasant's hut, where we could help one another. But God has not given me the strength to break away from my family. My weakness is perhaps a sin, but I could not for the sake of my personal satisfaction make others suffer, even although they are members of my family...."

During this time everything that was painful in Leo Nikolaevitch's relations with Sofya Andreyevna, and which had grown with the decades, began to develop with increased rapidity. In this brief but terribly concentrated period of his life much which his goodwill towards her had prevented him from observing in Sofya Andreyevna before began to be apparent to him. At first it was very difficult for him to see his way in his complicated position and among all the varied feelings and impulses which rose up in his soul. He had not only to bear his old, long familiar cross, but also to deal with new, quite unforeseen trials before he had time to see clearly what attitude he ought to take up to them.

These exceptionally complicated conditions

must be kept in view in order to follow Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual experiences of that period with any degree of accuracy. It was difficult for him to understand his own state of mind, and he exercised the greatest circumspection in order not to act prematurely nor precipitately. It is all the more necessary for us to be extremely circumspect in examining the various spiritual states which followed each other and were interwoven in him at that time. It is impossible to approach the very complicated workings of his soul with ready-made theories, or to offer a rough-and-ready explanation of Leo Nikolaevitch's behaviour on the lines of one's personal bias—whether domestic, religious, social, or otherwise; and least of all can one be guided by information or argument coming from his domestic circle, whose vanity was so deeply wounded by his departure. In order really to understand Tolstoy and his behaviour in this most important period of his life, it is above all needful to free oneself from the slightest partiality, narrowness and one-sidedness, to be ready to look the truth in the face and as far as possible to weigh attentively all the conditions and circumstances, not taken separately, but in combination and in all their complex interaction.

FOOTNOTES

[7] I have come across references to my letter to Dosev as though it proved that, for all my devotion to Leo Nikolaevitch, I considered that he ought not to have left his wife. But there is nothing of the sort in my letter, the main drift of which is merely that no one has the right to set himself up as a judge of Leo Nikolaevitch in the matter. I indicated in detail how sound were the reasons impelling him to remain in Yasnaya Polyana while he did remain there; but at the same time, in the very same letter, though it was written before Leo Nikolaevitch went away, I made several allusions to the possibility that in the end he would think it necessary to go.

[8] Circle of Reading, May 17.

[9] 1907.

[10] June 17-24, 1884.

CHAPTER II

CHANGE FOR THE WORSE IN HIS WIFE'S ATTITUDE TO HIM

And so in the last few months before Leo Nikolaevitch left Yasnaya Polyana

he was subjected in an intensified form to all the agonising conditions which had for many years made him long to get away from his family. What went on around him in Yasnaya Polyana, particularly in the management of the estate, seemed to be purposely calculated to wound, insult and revolt him more and more in his most sacred feelings. In her relations with the peasants Sofya Andreyevna, far from restraining herself through consideration for her husband, behaved with peculiar injustice and harshness as though to spite him.[11]

At one time she would try to impress on the peasants that she was acting with the consent and approval of Leo Nikolaevitch himself; at another she would boast before him that his championship had no influence on her arrangements.

It is easy to imagine how unutterably painful all this was for him. It is sufficient to recall how he sobbed when he chanced to come across a policeman on horseback dragging along a Yasnaya Polyana peasant caught in the Tolstoys' forest, an old man whom Leo Nikolaevitch knew well and respected. Fully realising that he would not in the least improve the position of the peasants by going away, Leo Nikolaevitch went on regarding such spectacles as a bitter trial laid upon him, and confining himself to protesting warmly on every possible occasion. In the same way, that is as a trial laid upon him, he continued to look upon the false position in which he was placed in the eyes of the public by his apparent acceptance of what was done in Yasnaya Polyana. On this subject he not only continually received abusive letters

which he accepted as a useful exercise in humility, but also from time to time persons wishing him well addressed him with censure and exhortation. A letter written by Leo Nikolaevitch at the beginning of 1910 in answer to an unknown student who had written to persuade him to leave his privileged surroundings, is characteristic:

"Your letter touched me," wrote Leo Nikolaevitch; "what you advise me to do is my cherished dream! That I should be living at home with my wife and daughter in horrible, shameful conditions of luxury in the midst of the poverty around us tortures me unceasingly and ever more and more; and not a day passes on which I do not think of carrying out your advice."

At the same time a third and most painful trial, consisting in his wife's immediate attitude to him, was intensely accentuated. The mournful recital of those spiritual agonies which shattered his health, and which she systematically inflicted on him in the last months of his life, will be set forth in its time and place. No one can imagine what he had to endure and to suffer at that time. On one occasion, calling in D. P. Makovitsky,[12]

Leo Nikolaevitch said to him: "Dushan Petrovitch, go to her" (Sofya Andreyevna) "and tell her that if she desires my death she is going the right way to bring it about."[13] In a touching letter of July 14, 1910, to Sofya Andreyevna, Leo Nikolaevitch, after making her every concession he considered possible, adds in conclusion: "If you will not accept these conditions of a good and peaceful life, then I will go away.... I will certainly go away, because it is impossible to go on living like this."

It will be readily understood that with such a position of affairs Leo Nikolaevitch began to foresee more and more definitely the possibility that in the end he would have to leave Yasnaya Polyana.

In a moment of openness he said to his friend, the peasant Novikov: "Yes, yes, believe me, I tell you frankly I shall not die in this house. I have made up my mind to go to a strange place where I shall not be known. And perhaps I may come straight to die in your hut.... I want to prepare for death in peace, and here they think of

me as worth so many roubles. I shall go away, I shall certainly go away."

Only a final decisive shock was needed. In his same letter to the student he says about going away: "This can and ought only to be done when it is essential, not for the supposed external objects, but for the satisfaction of the inner need of the soul,—when to remain in the old position becomes as morally impossible as it is physically impossible not to cough when one cannot breathe.... And I am near to that position, and every day I get nearer and nearer to it."

But Leo Nikolaevitch still did not go away, and remaining continued to be subjected on an increased scale to the tortures to which he had been subjected since the 'eighties. And he remained still for the same reasons as had restrained him for thirty years. He knew that he would not alleviate the position of the peasants of the district by going. From his painful position in the eyes of men he drew a profitable lesson in humility. His wife's attitude to him assisted in him the development of true love for those who hated his soul. And therefore the more intense these trials became with the passage of time, the more painfully they were reflected in his

soul, the more difficult it became for him to deal with them—the more insistent from the spiritual point of view became the moral duty not to forsake his post, but to endure to the end.

FOOTNOTES

[11] At the beginning of the eighties of the last century, Leo Nikolaevitch's feeling against property in general, and the ownership of land in particular, began to take shape, though it was only somewhat later that it was fully fixed and confirmed. He renounced all property for himself personally in 1894, acting as though in that respect he were dead, that is, leaving the possession of his former property to those whom he regarded as his heirs, that is, his family. After this Sofya Andreyevna

began to manage the estate of Yasnaya Polyana, while his children divided the land and property between them. Later on Leo Nikolaevitch felt, he said, that he had made a mistake in giving up the land to his "heirs" instead of to the local peasants, and at the desire of his family confirming the transfer by legal act.

[12] An intimate friend who shared the views of Leo Nikolaevitch, a doctor who lived in the Tolstoys' house from the year 1904. He was of Slovak nationality,

and in 1920 left Russia and returned to Czechoslovakia, where he died in 1921.

[13] From one of the diaries and letters of Tolstoy's friends and household of the times.

CHAPTER III

THE HISTORY OF THE WILL

In order to understand why Sofya Andreyevna's

attitude to Leo Nikolaevitch was so exasperated, and what impelled her to treat him so cruelly, it is essential to have some conception why he found it necessary about this time to make a will, leaving all his writings free to the public.

The story of Tolstoy's will is so complicated and full of details that a separate circumstantial account of it is required. Here I will only briefly state the most essential facts.

At the beginning of the 'eighties, at the time when the spiritual regeneration of Leo Nikolaevitch was taking place, though his new attitude of completely disapproving of property was not yet fully defined, he made over to his wife an authorisation for the publication and sale of his collected works, the income from which was the principal source of the material means by which his family lived. Later on, when he came to realise that property of every kind was wrong, he did not, in spite of all his

efforts, succeed in persuading Sofya Andreyevna to renounce this income voluntarily and to give him back the authorisation he had given her. He did not feel morally justified in forcibly depriving her of what she clung to so passionately, and what against the will of Leo Nikolaevitch she considered had been put at the disposal of the family for ever. This trading in his works by his wife against his wish was, in his own words, one of the most agonising sufferings of his life. All his new works, however, those that had appeared after 1881 and those destined to appear later, he thereupon freed from the monopoly of his family, announcing in a letter to the newspapers, that all who wished could reprint them without any fee. Sofya Andreyevna had, willy-nilly, to submit to this decision on the part of the author. But every time when, instead of articles of a religious and social character, which did not in the literary market command the immense value enjoyed by his artistic works, Leo Nikolaevitch undertook any work in artistic form, Sofya Andreyevna was so much excited and so persistently demanded that the publication of the new work should be handed over to her for the benefit of the family, that it

completely destroyed the spiritual tranquillity which he needed for concentrated creative work.

Many times repeated, these family scenes led him to decide to print no more works of art during his lifetime.[14] And this decision of his is the real reason why, during the latter period of his life, he gave so little to humanity in that sphere.

In the end Sofya Andreyevna began quite openly to declare, even in the presence of Leo Nikolaevitch, that after his death, according to the advice of lawyers whom she had consulted, his renunciation of all literary property in the works of the second period would lose its validity, and that those works also would, like all the rest,

become the property of his family. Besides this she

began to insist that Leo Nikolaevitch should give her a fresh authorisation for the sale of his writings of the first period for a long time in the future and also give her the right to prosecute at law anyone who should infringe the copyright.

In his diary for 1909 Leo Nikolaevitch writes: "Last night I felt wretched after talking to Sofya Andreyevna about publishing my works and prosecuting. If she only knew and understood how she alone poisons the last hours, days, months, of my life! I do not know how to say it to her and have no hope that anything one could say would produce the slightest effect upon her."[15]

Becoming convinced that this greed of Sofya Andreyevna on behalf of the family would only increase with years, and that she really was capable of taking possession of all his works after his death and of depriving other publishers of the possibility of printing them, Leo Nikolaevitch felt himself morally bound to guard against such a monopolisation of his writings. And he was so firmly convinced that it was his duty before God and men to do this, that in spite of all that he had to endure on account of it afterwards, he remained unshaken upon this point right up to his death, which was brought about by the spiritual sufferings which were inflicted upon him in consequence of this.[16]

After carefully thinking over all the circumstances of the case and taking advice of persons conversant with the subject, Leo Nikolaevitch came to the conclusion that if he really desired that his writings should be freely accessible to everyone after

his death, he could not secure his object without making a formal will. And therefore, with this end in view, he decided to have recourse to that means. The editorship and first publication of all his posthumous works he entrusted to me, with the understanding that everything brought out by me should at once become public property. And in order to make the fulfilment of this task secure in practice, he made a formal will in favour of his younger daughter Alexandra Lvovna, which would make it possible for her to safeguard my task from any attempts to hinder it. The profit on the first issue of his works after his death he assigned in the first place for the redemption of the Yasnaya Polyana estate from the Tolstoy family in order to hand it over to the peasants, and this was duly carried out after his death.

Of course the legal form of the will could not but be distasteful to Leo Nikolaevitch. But this was to some extent counterbalanced in his eyes by the fact that the object of the will was not prosecution of anyone in the future, but, on the contrary, the prevention of the possibility of legal proceedings being taken by persons who might put in claims to inherit proprietary rights in the works of

Leo Nikolaevitch if there had been no such will.

There was also another disagreeable side to this business for Leo Nikolaevitch. To avoid in connection with the will any altercations and dissensions, which would have been undesirable in themselves and would have made the position of Alexandra Lvovna, as legal heiress of his manuscripts, utterly impossible in the family, Leo Nikolaevitch resolved not to tell anyone of his will. Though to keep the fact of the existence of a will secret is a fairly usual thing to do in such circumstances, it will be readily understood that it was against the grain for Leo Nikolaevitch, and he resolved to act in this way solely because he saw no other alternative.[17]

Sofya Andreyevna's fears that Leo Nikolaevitch might make a will depriving

his family of the copyright of his works were the underlying cause of her hostile attitude to him. It was on account of this that she made such efforts, on the one hand to wring out of him the complete transfer of all rights in his works to her, and on the other hand by incessant watchfulness over him to eliminate all possibility of his signing any business document without her

knowledge. And it was for this same reason that she was filled with such hatred for me personally, assuming, though quite mistakenly, that the initiative in Leo Nikolaevitch's renunciation of his copyrights and the arrangements for carrying this out came from me.

Leo Nikolaevitch was so firm in his resolution to leave his writings for the free use of all, that with his own hand he wrote a will in accordance with that idea, not once only but several times, owing to the fact that the legal form of the documents he composed were never sufficiently correct to secure the required authority for them. The last time he made his will while Sofya Andreyevna was watching over him most vigilantly, during a ride on horseback in the thickest part of the forest, having previously invited three persons of the circle of friends living with me at Telyatniki near Yasnaya Polyana to meet him there and witness his signature.

By making this will Leo Nikolaevitch secured that after his death his writings became accessible to all, and not the property of his family. This result in itself is of vast social importance, seeing that it gave the working people—the poorest class of

all countries—access to Tolstoy's works in the cheapest form, since it was open to any number of publishers to print them, and the competition between them would bring down the price of the books.

But apart from this purely practical gain for the vast masses of mankind, the struggle between Leo Nikolaevitch and his wife for the copyright of his works,—the struggle which cost him his life,—had also a great significance from the ideal side. It displayed before the eyes of mankind, present and future, an extremely important truth in connection with the Christian doctrine of the non-resistance to evil by force which Tolstoy so vividly set forth and lighted up in his writings. Leo Nikolaevitch completely sacrificing himself showed in practice that this principle does not lead, as many suppose, to helplessly giving in to evil and allowing it to triumph unchecked. Unyieldingly maintaining his rejection of copyright in the interests of the working masses of mankind, he confirmed by his example, plain to the whole world, what the less eminent "non-resistants" are continually exemplifying in their life. He showed that people of such a theory of life do not give in to evil, but are continually struggling

against it in the best and truest way, by refusing to take part in it. He showed also that to yield to the demand of others from meekness and love for them is only admissible up to the limit beyond which they try to make one do what is against one's conscience; and that when people's demands pass beyond those limits, one ought not to yield to them in any way in spite of any sufferings oneself or those one loves may have to bear.

No insistence on the part of those nearest him, no sufferings of his own on account of it, were able to compel him in this case to depart from what he considered himself bound to do. Is it possible to find a more convincing proof that Tolstoy recognised it as morally necessary to resist evil in the most resolute way?—and it was just in consequence of this resistance to evil that he had to sacrifice both his peace and his life.

In a letter to me of September 10, 1910, Leo Nikolaevitch writes of his inner experience in a way which is highly significant. He says: "Of late, not with my brains but with my sides, as the peasants say, I have come to a clear understanding of the difference between the resistance which is returning evil for evil and the resistance of refusing

to yield in the line of conduct which one recognises as one's duty to one's conscience and God. I will try."

At the same time by his attitude to the very idea of literary property Tolstoy, by the exceptional sincerity and consistency of his manner of action, has helped and still more will help his literary brethren to see clearly in this "delicate" question, to shut their eyes to which has now become impossible. As time passes a greater and greater number of writers will undoubtedly be troubled by doubts as to whether it is not as morally reprehensible to traffic in one's words, in one's soul, as to traffic in one's body, and Tolstoy's attitude will serve conscientious writers as a guiding star in illuminating this question.

One cannot but recognise Tolstoy's conspicuous services in all this. And though he acted as he did without considering what bearing this would have on the consciousness of men, merely striving not to let himself be drawn into an action contrary to his conscience, nevertheless this first renunciation of literary property on the part of one of the greatest writers of the world undoubtedly has a vast significance for humanity.

If in my present brief account of Tolstoy's leaving home I have had to dwell rather

minutely upon the question of his will, it is because all the threads of the complicated conditions and circumstances which caused his departure meet about that central question. It is true that some of those near to Leo Nikolaevitch have tried to persuade themselves that Sofya Andreyevna's attitude to him, which made it impossible for him to remain longer with her, was chiefly provoked by property interests not connected with his will. They ascribe her conduct to various causes and principally to her neurotic condition and morbid, abnormal jealousy. Although putting the matter in such a light is undoubtedly due to affectionate goodwill to Sofya Andreyevna, I consider it my duty to protest against such an interpretation most decisively in the interests of truth, which here as everywhere is more important than anything. We ought not to hide from ourselves that there are more than a sufficient quantity of facts going to prove that Sofya Andreyevna in this case acted first of all, and most of all, under the influence of feelings and considerations immediately concerned with the material prosperity of her numerous family, consisting, as she was continually reminding people, of twenty-eight persons, counting children and grandchildren. It is essential

to keep this circumstance in view in order to have a correct understanding of the attitude of Leo Nikolaevitch to his will.

True love for people dead and alive alike is not shown by concealing their mistakes and failures from oneself and others, but in knowing how, in spite of all the undesirable qualities which every one of us has in sufficient quantity, to behave to one another with compassion and tolerance, recognising that everyone is responsible for all. Then we shall not try to pass by the weak spots without noticing them, or to smear over the cracks on the outside, but shall, on the contrary, display them in order that they may be corrected by the efforts of all.

The above-mentioned circumstances and motives of the testamentary dispositions of Leo Nikolaevitch in regard to his writings must be kept in mind if one is to have a true conception of his position in the family at the period immediately preceding his "going away." An acquaintance with those circumstances and impulses makes it possible to understand the true character of the relations which have been formed between Leo Nikolaevitch and her with whom he had been connected for forty-eight long years and out of love and pity for whom he was ready to sacrifice all but his conscience.

FOOTNOTES

[14] This decision, which Leo Nikolaevitch reached alone with his conscience, he tried to keep a secret from everyone, and when, guessing from certain signs how it was, I told him on one occasion, he was much puzzled to know how I could have discovered his secret. To explain why this decision not to publish his artistic work during his lifetime put a stop to Leo Nikolaevitch's work upon them, it must be pointed out that it was his habit to make the chief revision of his first rough sketches on the proofs sent him from the printer's. Besides, if he had merely worked at them in manuscript he would have been subjected to the same persistent persecution which so distracted his peace and his concentration upon his work. (Sofya Andreyevna told me that she had actually exacted a promise from him not to give anyone but herself his manuscripts to copy.)

[15] D. P. Makovitsky in his diary says the same thing: "In 1909 before the Stockholm Peace Congress, Sofya Andreyevna wanted to prosecute I. I. Gorbunov for publishing The Prisoner in the Caucasus, and sent Torba (a Court official, her helper in publishing Tolstoy's works) to see a lawyer. The lawyer asked what authority Sofya Andreyevna had for instituting proceedings. 'She has a deed of trust for transacting all Leo Nikolaevitch's affairs.' 'This is not enough, she must have a deed transferring the copyright to her.' Sofya Andreyevna asked Leo Nikolaevitch for it, but he refused point blank.

Then Sofya Andreyevna had recourse to hysterics and did not let Leo Nikolaevitch go to Stockholm. In the summer of that year she started playing very cleverly the same game (this time against Tchertkoff), pretending to be ill in order to force Leo Nikolaevitch to give her the copyright. It was not Sofya Andreyevna who said the other thing, but Misha and Andryusha. They blurted out about the will."—(Sept. 14, 1910, Kotchety.)

[16] A clear light is thrown upon what Leo Nikolaevitch had to endure in this connection by a letter which a relation of his, the lawyer I. V. Denisenko, wrote for my benefit when I was exiled from the province of Tula in 1909, and being unable to be at Yasnaya Polyana, did not know what was taking place there. I append a few abstracts from the letter to complete the picture:

"In the July of 1909, when I was at Yasnaya Polyana, Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy was intending to go to the Peace Congress at Stockholm, and Sofya Andreyevna was opposed to this. This provoked a regular series of misunderstandings and Sofya Andreyevna fell ill, not wishing Leo Nikolaevitch to go to the Congress.

"It happened once that she called me into her bedroom, and showing me a general authorisation for the management of their affairs given her long ago by Leo Nikolaevitch, asked me whether she could upon this authorisation sell to a third person the right of publishing his work, and, what was still more important, institute proceedings against Sergeyenko and some teacher in a military school for making books of extracts and anthologies from the works of Leo Nikolaevitch on the ground that these books of extracts would cause her, Sofya Andreyevna, considerable material damage....

"I believe it was on the day after that that I was in the park picking berries with my wife and children. My wife asked me to go for something to the lodge. I went along an avenue, passing between flower-beds, and there quite unexpectedly I came upon Leo Nikolaevitch. I was struck by his appearance. He was bowed and he looked worried and exhausted. His eyes were dim and he seemed weak as I had never seen him before. He caught hurriedly at my arm on meeting me, and said with tears in his eyes: 'Ivan Vassilyevitch, darling, what is she doing to me? What is she doing to me? She is insisting on having an authorisation for instituting proceedings. You know I can't do that.... It would be against my principles.'

"Then walking a few steps with me he said: 'I have a great favour to ask of you, only let it be a secret between us. For the time don't speak of it to anyone, not even to Sasha. Please make up a deed for me by which I could announce publicly that I give all my works at whatever date they may have been written freely for the benefit of all.'"

[17] There was even a moment when these two undesirable conditions associated with the will, i.e. its legal form and the secrecy accompanying it, caused Leo Nikolaevitch to feel doubts as to the rectitude of his action. These doubts were aroused by a conversation with one of his intimate friends, who came in from outside and knew little of the circumstances of this complicated affair. Leo Nikolaevitch, who was distinguished by an extreme degree of touching sensitiveness to every criticism of his behaviour, agreed with his friend that he had acted, as the latter asserted, "inconsistently," and he told me of it, declaring, however, that he should nevertheless not change the dispositions he had made. On my side I was compelled to reply that in that case of course I should refuse to be his future executor for carrying out his testamentary dispositions, since only a conviction that I was accomplishing his definite and conscious desire could give me the necessary moral support for the performance of this difficult and responsible duty. At the same time, in accordance with his request, I reminded him of the circumstances and considerations which had induced him to have recourse to a will. In answer I received from him the following letter:

"I write this on little scraps of paper because I am in the woods out for a walk. Ever since yesterday evening I have been thinking about your yesterday's letter. The two chief feelings which it aroused in me were repulsion for the manifestations of coarse greed and heartlessness which I either did not see or have seen and forgotten, and distress and repentance that I should have hurt you by the letter in which I expressed regret for what I had done. The deduction I have made from the letter is that N. N. was wrong, and also that I was wrong in agreeing with him, and that I fully approve your conduct, but all the same am not satisfied with my own: I feel that it was possible to act better, but I don't know how. Now I do not regret what I have done, i.e. that I have made the will I did make, and I can only be thankful to you for the interest you have taken in the matter.

"I shall tell Tanya about it to-day, and that will be very pleasant to me.

"Leo Tolstoy.

"Aug. 12, 1910."

In his private pocket diary on Aug. 11, 1910, Leo Nikolaevitch wrote as follows:

"A long letter from Tchertkoff describing all that has gone before. Very sad. Painful to read and recall. He is perfectly right, and I feel to blame in regard to him. N. N. was wrong. I will write to both of them."

Certain persons who, for one reason or another, do not sympathise with the testamentary dispositions of Leo Nikolaevitch, and especially those of them who took a personal share in the upsetting of them, continue to this day to assert that Leo Nikolaevitch saw in the end that he had made a mistake and regretted that he had made a will.

In confirmation of this they quote a few words written by Leo Nikolaevitch in his pocket diary at the time of his doubts; but they are carefully silent with regard to the later note in the same diary which I have just quoted.

In reality, of course, this incident of Leo Nikolaevitch's hesitation can only serve to prove how consciously from every point of view he weighed and considered all the circumstances of the case. If no doubts had ever assailed him it would have been possible to admit the supposition that it had never occurred to him to look at the question from the other side, and that therefore his attitude to it was one-sided. But now we know that he not only took a critical attitude as to his action, but that at one time he even doubted if it were right. If, even after such hesitation, he yet definitely confirmed his desire that the will should remain in force, what can be a better proof that this his final decision expresses his real and fully conscious will?—Cf. Diary, Vol. I. ed. 1916; Appendix, p. 260, "The Will," July 22, 1910.

CHAPTER IV

INTERVALS OF REST—IN OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES

The only intervals of freedom and rest which Leo Nikolaevitch could enjoy from the indescribably painful conditions of life at Yasnaya Polyana at that period were afforded him by the rare occasions when he succeeded in getting away for a week or two to stay with some one of his more intimate friends. Thus during the last year of his life he stayed on two occasions with his daughter Tatyana Lvovna, in the Mtsensk district, and with me (I was in exile from the Tula province), the first time at Kryokshino in the Zvenigorodsky district near Moscow, and afterwards at Meshtcherskoe in the Serpuhovsky district. But he very rarely succeeded in arranging these visits, and only did so with great trouble, since Sofya Andreyevna opposed them in every way; and if, in spite of her opposition, he did make up his mind to go away, it would sometimes happen that at the last minute

she would decide to go with him, which, of course, spoilt the chief object of the excursion.

I remember on both occasions when he came to us how extremely shattered, worn out and ill Leo Nikolaevitch looked, and how perceptibly before our eyes he improved physically and revived spiritually. Even on the second or third day of a calm life, and in a circle of friends of the same way of thinking, who guarded his spiritual peace and fully respected his independence, he was completely changed. It was as though some crushing, agonising burden had fallen off him; his face was brighter in expression, his movements became vigorous, in the morning he worked with concentration for many hours on end at his writings, amazing us all by the number of written pages which he afterwards gave us to copy out. During his daily walks he went so rapidly and so far that it was difficult for people much younger to keep up with him. With the visitors of the most varied kind, of whom numbers were always flocking to see him, and from whom no one in our house shut him off as at home, he carried on lively conversations in his free time, in that way coming into direct contact with the surrounding world. In conversation with his

friends no one interrupted him or contradicted him at every turn, an annoyance to which he was continually subjected at home, and therefore communion with those surrounding him here afforded him joyous spiritual relief. Everything showed what vast stores of energy were still preserved in him; it was clear that under favourable conditions he might for many years to come lead an active life to the joy and profit of humanity.

His inner spiritual revival was shown very conspicuously in the fact that every day he became more and more drawn to artistic creation. At first he noted down characteristic meetings and conversations which took place during his walks. And each time before he went away he told me with confident eagerness that great, purely artistic works were stirring within him and taking shape in his soul, and that he hoped now to set to work upon them. But these plans were not destined to be realised, since on his return to Yasnaya Polyana the painful conditions which have been indicated already were renewed, and calm creative work was inconsistent with them.

Altogether the difference between his condition, both physical and spiritual, when he

arrived and when he left us was striking. I remember how I met him in the garden at the end of his last stay with us at Meshtcherskoe, where he had arrived almost in a state of collapse. He walked quickly and he looked remarkably vigorous and many years younger. With an air of lively surprise he greeted me with the words: "I don't understand what it is in your diet, but whenever I stay with you my digestion seems to become perfect." It is well known that the best conditions for a man suffering from defective digestion are simple, not elaborately prepared, food adapted to his requirements, and above all an even, untroubled spiritual atmosphere in all his home life. But Leo Nikolaevitch expected so little by way of attention from others to his needs and tastes, he attached so little significance for himself to the influence of external surroundings, that it seemed as though it did not enter his head to connect the state of his health with the conditions surrounding him.

CHAPTER V

THE LAST PERIOD

The last and most painful period of Leo Nikolaevitch's life at Yasnaya Polyana began in June 1910, when, on a visit at my summer bungalow at Meshtcherskoe, in the province of Moscow, he was suddenly summoned back to Yasnaya Polyana by a telegram from Sofya Andreyevna, informing him of her sudden illness; as it afterwards turned out, a sham one.

On his return to Yasnaya Polyana, Sofya Andreyevna surrounded his life with new restrictions, finally depriving him of even the limited share of personal freedom which he had until that time enjoyed. She gave up respecting his hours of literary work, for which she had once shown consideration, and by continually bursting in upon him and making scenes, she made it impossible for him to devote himself to the literary work in which he recognised his service to men. His daily walks had become his sole recreation and solace, and now she began to hinder him from going where he wished to

go, and from taking with him those whom he wanted to take. She insisted that he should completely give up seeing those of his most intimate friends whose supposed influence on him she feared.[18] Even inside the house she subjected all his actions and conversations to a control which was never relaxed, not disdaining even the most indelicate methods, as, for instance, eavesdropping, with her shoes off at doors, and altogether watching day and night over every action he took. As has already been mentioned, she was demanding from him such an authorisation for the disposal of his works as would give her the power to take legal proceedings in connection with them, and to retain the copyright over a prolonged period in the future. Apprehensive of what he might write in his diary, she tried to prevent his giving the manuscript books of his diary to anyone whatever, even to those whom he charged with work of one sort or another in connection with them, or in whose keeping he desired them to be preserved for the sake

of greater security. She secretly stole from his pockets those very private diaries which he kept and carried about with him during the most painful periods of his life and scrupulously preserved from every human eye. Not only did she fail to conceal from him and others her distrust and—terrible to say—hatred for him, but openly in the hearing of all gave utterance to these feelings and often expressed them to him in so harsh a form that it brought on heart attacks and even fainting fits in him. She was jealous, or pretended to be jealous, of some of his most intimate friends, bound to him by the closest spiritual unity. In this connection also she openly expressed to those about her, and to outsiders and to Leo Nikolaevitch

himself, such incredibly revolting suspicions as the tongue cannot bring itself to repeat, thereby reducing Leo Nikolaevitch almost to complete collapse and driving him to lock all the doors of his room. And with all this she did everything she could to prevent his going away from Yasnaya Polyana, even for the briefest visits which might have enabled him to have at least some rest from the atmosphere of his home, and to gain fresh strength to endure further tortures.

All these requests and others similar to them Sofya Andreyevna did not merely put in words before Leo Nikolaevitch, but if he refused, tried by her whole behaviour to force him against his will to submit to her.[19]

For this purpose she resorted to simulated fits of hysteria and madness, threatened to commit suicide, pretended that she would swallow or had swallowed poison, ran half dressed out of doors in the rain or snow or at night, making them search for her all over the park, and running in to him at any time of the day or the night, even when, utterly exhausted, he had dropped asleep, and waking him up with the object of worrying the concessions she wanted out of him. There is no recounting all the unutterably cruel means to which she unhesitatingly resorted for the sake of forcibly compelling him. And when the members of her family told her that she would kill him by such conduct, she answered coldly that his soul had long been dead for her and that she did not care for his body; and if she were asked what she would do and how she would feel if he really did die of her treatment, she would say, "I shall go at last to Italy; I have never been there."

Leo Nikolaevitch for his part, so long as he thought it right to remain with his wife, tried with strikingly touching meekness to gratify all her wishes and to comply with all her demands which did not run counter to his conscience. When he considered them

unreasonable, at first he refused, but as she obstinately insisted and resorted to her usual methods, in the end he often gave way in those cases also; at one time regarding her as quite insane, and being apprehensive that in a moment of frenzy she really might do herself some mischief.

He was only unhesitating in his resistance when his conscience told him that he ought not to give way. Thus, in spite of all Sofya Andreyevna's importunities and strategy, he made his will and did not change it to the end; he did not give her the authority to take legal proceedings; he did not hand over his diaries to her, but put them in a place of safety (in the bank at Tula). But since what was most necessary for her object was just that in which he found it impossible to give way to her, it was precisely with these demands that she persecuted him most. And so all his concessions, instead of pacifying her, only encouraged her in more persistent importunities and still more cruel means of oppression.

FOOTNOTES

[18] The members of Tolstoy's household who were most intimate with him—Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy, D. P. Makovitsky and Varvara Mihailovna Feokritova—were convinced that Sofya Andreyevna's hatred of me was a sham. This is proved, for instance, by the following extract from Makovitsky's diary:

"While I was riding with Leo Nikolaevitch to-day, I was thinking of Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour since June 24, and I came to the conclusion that in reality she is not, and never has been, jealous of Tchertkoff. She pretended to be jealous simply in order to separate him from Leo Nikolaevitch, and prevent him from influencing Leo Nikolaevitch; she thought it was due to Tchertkoff's influence that Leo Nikolaevitch wanted to give away his works to the public....

"And how well she played the part and deceived L. N., Tchertkoff, Tatyana Lvovna, and me (we were all convinced that she was jealous of Tchertkoff). I spoke of this to-day, and Varvara Mihailovna and Alexandra Lvovna answered that they had noticed the same thing long ago (that is, that there was no jealousy), and had put it down in their diaries" (October 13, 1910).

[19] D. P. Makovitsky records the following incident:

"The day before yesterday she made a scene again: fell at Leo Nikolaevitch's feet and begged him to give her the keys of the safe in the bank where his diaries or the will were kept. Leo Nikolaevitch said that he could not do it and went out. As he passed under her windows Sofya Andreyevna leaned out and cried, 'I have taken opium.' Leo Nikolaevitch rushed upstairs to her, but she met him with the words, 'That was not true, I did not take any.' This scene upset Leo Nikolaevitch very much, and he said to Sofya Andreyevna, 'You are doing all you can to make me leave home.' After this he had palpitations and almost fainted. He had attempted to run up the stairs, and during those moments of terror and agitation was living through his wife's death" (July 19, 1910)

CHAPTER VI

MENTAL AGONY

It will be readily understood that no health could hold out against such torments lasting over several months at a stretch, no less severe, it may be said, than the tortures of the Inquisition, and exceeding them in their uninterrupted persistence and prolongation. And indeed, returning to Yasnaya in a vigorous and excellent state of health, Leo Nikolaevitch began visibly fading away before her eyes in the nightmare period of the last months of his life: in the course of a few weeks he looked so old and drawn, so weak and thin, so pale and in every respect so physically run down as to be unrecognisable. In the course of those months he had several attacks of faintness. By the day of his departure he looked only the shadow of himself: his heart, his nerves, all his forces were utterly undermined, and of course, under such conditions, the slightest ailment was sure to carry him off, as happened indeed with the first cold he chanced to catch immediately after he went away.

All Sofya Andreyevna's conduct during those last months of their life together revealed to Leo Nikolaevitch much in her that he had never noticed before. He was not only led to doubt of his cherished dream of softening her heart by his all-forgiving love; he began even to feel uncertain whether he were doing her harm or good by being near her, and whether the doctors were not right who in her interests advised them to live apart.[20] And in the end he became convinced that his presence really was a direct incitement to evil for her, calling out and accentuating all the worst

sides of her character. Speaking of his departure with that same Novikov a week before it took place, Leo Nikolaevitch said: "For my own sake I have not done this and could not do it, but now I see that it would be better for my family, there would be less dispute among them on my account, less sin."

Another reason that had previously restrained him from going away lay in the fact that he considered that the ordeal to which he was continually exposed in his wife's company was profitable for his own soul, and found in it a spiritual satisfaction. But in the end Sofya Andreyevna, as she herself expressed it after his death, "overdid it" in her behaviour with him, putting him in such a position that instead of satisfaction he began to experience the sense of awkwardness and shame which one feels in taking part in something unbecoming, unseemly. Two days before he went away he wrote to me: "I feel something unbefitting, something shameful in my position." And in the letter to Alexandra Lvovna the day after he went away he says: "I do not feel that shame, that awkwardness, that lack of freedom which I always used to feel at home."

In his last letter to Sofya Andreyevna from Shamardino he states even more definitely

that to return to her when she is in such a state of mind would be equivalent to committing suicide, and he did not consider that he had a right to do that. So by now he no longer believed that staying with Sofya Andreyevna was profitable for his own soul, and recognised it as undesirable.

In the course of the later years his hesitation had increased with every day, and at times he seemed to be on the very point of flight.[21] He only stayed through not feeling as yet that irresistible impulse which, as he so well recognised, was essential in order that he might take this momentous step, not through rational considerations alone, but with all his soul, confidently and inevitably. And so long as this impulse was lacking and he was more or less weighing the pros and cons of his departure, the consideration that for him personally to go

away would be a relief, and that there would be more self-sacrifice in remaining, retained its force. Thus I have been told that two days before his departure, when he informed his old friend, the old lady Marya Alexandrovna Schmidt (who, by the way, later on fully understood and approved his departure), that he thought of leaving Yasnaya Polyana, and she thereupon exclaimed: "Leo Nikolaevitch darling, it will pass, it is a moment's weakness," he hastened to reply: "Yes, yes, I know that it is a weakness and I hope that it will pass."

So that in spite of the fact that Leo Nikolaevitch had now become aware of a new phase in Sofya Andreyevna's relations to him, which in reality removed any reasonable purpose in his remaining at her side, and justified his departure, since his presence was becoming bad for her and unprofitable for him, nevertheless he still lingered on, dreading to act prematurely, and as it were waiting for the last decisive shock.

And this shock was not long in coming with startling abruptness.