The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year (29 page)

The letter, dated 28 October, was signed in the usual scrawling hand.

Sofya Andreyevna’s face began to quiver, her cheeks like sheets drying in the wind, cracked and blown. The muscles in her neck, like cords, stood out boldly now, as if trying to maintain the balance of her immense head. Her shoulders began to shake. Within a moment, she drew up her floor-length dress and ran down the stairs, howling, out the front door. From the window, we caught a glimpse of her streaking across the lawn.

‘She’s heading for the pond!’ cried Sasha. ‘Go after her!’

Following directly in Sasha’s path, I squinted into the sun and saw Sofya Andreyevna’s figure, a large, gray blur, disappear into a stand of beeches. She ran faster than I could believe was possible for a woman of her age and size.

A couple of servants raced behind me. There was Semen Nikolayevich, the cook, and Vanya, the fat manservant, who ran on spindly legs that barely held him up. I saw Timothy, too – the bastard son – with his toothless grin, waving from a tree.

Sofya Andreyevna had by now passed the beeches and was headed through a grove of lime trees toward the pond. Sasha was behind me, shouting. ‘Don’t run so fast!’

But it would not do to linger. Sofya Andreyevna was nearing the pond. I could just see her in the distance, her white calves flashing.

Suddenly, Sasha passed me, huffing like a steam engine, her skirts wheeling in the sun. Now she was shouting, ‘Hurry! Hurry!’

Sofya Andreyevna stood on the planks by the bathhouse where the women bend to wash the linen. She turned, saw us running toward her, and rushed out onto the wooden bridge. But the slats were slippery, and she fell hard on her back. She clawed at the surface with her red hands, to no avail, and rolled off sideways into the black water.

Sasha was well ahead of me now, approaching the bridge at full tilt. She had managed, while she ran, to tear off her thickly knit wool sweater. But the mossy slats toppled her, too, and she skidded onto her backside. By the time I reached the bridge, she had scrambled to her feet and jumped into the pond ahead of me. I kicked off my boots and followed, jumping feet first into the icy water.

Water is a strange dimension, one that alters the geometry of movement. It makes space and time seem oddly irrational. I seemed to experience a thousand images and thoughts in the brief moments after I hit the water and before I spotted Sofya Andreyevna floating with her cheeks puffed like the gills of a tropical fish.

The distance between me and Sofya Andreyevna seemed infinite, and I felt dizzy now, my skin tingling, my breath short. The murky water was bitter, having been chilled by several terribly cold nights.

Sofya Andreyevna suddenly bobbed to the surface like an otter, face up, about ten yards away. She looked dead already, with water trickling into her open mouth, then slipped completely under once again.

Sasha, who can barely swim herself, was thrashing about not far away, trying to reach her mother without success.

‘Get back to the dock, Sasha!’ I shouted.

‘Help!’

I reached for her hand and helped her back to the wooden dock.

‘She’s drowning!’

‘You mustn’t try to help!’ I said. ‘I can manage!’

Though we were face to face, I was shouting.

Pushing away from the dock, I made a sharp plunge in what seemed like the right direction and, after an impossibly long time, perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, touched Sofya Andreyevna’s head. Snarling my fingers in her long hair, which had come undone in the water, I dragged her back to the bank, rolling her large body up along the margin of the pond. She was black with mud, her eyes closed, her tongue lolling between her teeth.

‘She’s dead!’ Sasha was crying. ‘My mother is dead!’

Vanya, the overweight manservant, was beside Sofya Andreyevna now, and he seemed to know what to do. He turned her over on her stomach and pushed some water from her lungs with his knees, astride her like one hippo mounting another. She lay there in silence, in what I imagined was agony, a great, dark slab of a woman. In a few moments, she was breathing normally, her eyes closed. Life had returned to torture her for another while.

When she was able to stand, we led her back to the house, stopping to rest every few minutes. At one point she fell sobbing to the ground, saying, ‘Let me die here! Let me die! Why must you all rob me of my death?’

Finally, Vanya and I made a seat with our hands and carried her to the house. She was shuddering throughout, and her lips were dark blue. Before we even got her into bed, however, she told Vanya to go immediately to the station to inquire what train her husband had taken.

She fell into a kind of stupor and slept for an hour, but when she woke she began beating her breast with a stone paperweight. We took away the paperweight as well as the penknife on her desk and the vial of opium in her dresser drawer.

Sasha, who seemed quite unstable herself now, sent to Tula for the psychiatric doctor who had helped Sofya Andreyevna during previous crises. She also summoned the Sukhotins by telegram.

When Vanya returned with news of the train Leo Nikolayevich had taken, Sofya Andreyevna wrote a telegram, which she addressed to Train Number 9. It said, ‘Dearest Papa: Return at once, Sasha.’ She had told Vanya to show it to no one, but – thank goodness – he showed the telegram to Sasha (since, like most of the servants, he is loyal to Leo Nikolayevich and dislikes Sofya Andreyevna). Sasha let the telegram go but sent with it one of her own telling her father to ignore all telegrams supposedly from her that were not signed ‘Alexandra.’ Sasha enjoys these little deceits. She is not unlike her mother in this regard.

I sat in the Remington room with Sasha throughout the long afternoon. She told me frankly that she didn’t know where her father had gone. Indeed, his remark in the letter to her mother had puzzled her. He had told several people, including her, that he would probably visit his sister, a nun at the Shamardino, in the province of Kaluga. This was, as he put it, ‘on his way.’ But where he planned to go after visiting Shamardino was anyone’s guess.

Having talked to Sasha and several of the house servants, I was able to piece together what happened last night.

Near midnight, Leo Nikolayevich had been awakened by the sound of rustling papers in his study. It was Sofya Andreyevna, who was looking for concrete evidence of a new will. This was the last straw. A few hours later, he knocked quietly on the door of Sasha and Varvara Mikhailovna, who share a small room on the same floor.

‘Who is it?’ Sasha cried.

‘It is I.’

Sasha opened the door and found her father with a candle in his hand. He had a look of resolution in his eyes.

‘I’m leaving immediately, for good,’ he said. ‘But I need your help.’

Dushan Makovitsky had already been roused and was packing for himself. He would accompany Leo Nikolayevich on his final journey.

They huddled in Leo Nikolayevich’s room, trying to decide what he must take.

‘Only the essentials!’ he kept saying. ‘I can take nothing that isn’t absolutely necessary.’ These included a flashlight, a fur coat, and the apparatus for taking an enema.

The packing done, he went to the stables to harness the horses himself. On the way, in total darkness, he fell into a thicket and lost his hat. He returned, hatless, demanding his flashlight. Sasha began to worry that he was not sufficiently well to travel, but she said nothing. Her father had made up his mind to go.

Adrian Eliseyev, the coachman, had been summoned by Dushan Makovitsky, and he went to the barn with his master to harness the horses to the droshky. Filya, a postilion, lit a torch to ride ahead of the droshky, since it was a starless, moonless night and they could barely see the road.

‘Everything was ready to go,’ Sasha told me, ‘when Papa asked for a moment by himself. He walked to the front lawn and stood for a long while looking up at the house where he was born. I thought, briefly, that he might change his mind and go back to bed. Suddenly, he knelt in the wet grass, bowing low to rub his fingers in the blades. Then he kissed the ground and rose. His past life was behind him now.’

Sasha and Varvara Mikhailovna helped him to the droshky, having exchanged a tearful farewell, and Adrian drove them off to the Yasenki Station, where Leo Nikolayevich and Dushan Makovitsky took the eight o’clock train for all points south.

This was the beginning of a new life for Leo Tolstoy. Of that much, everyone was sure.

DIARY ENTRY

28
OCTOBER
1910

I lay down at half past eleven and slept till three. Then, as on previous nights, I heard footsteps, the squeaking of doors. I had not before bothered to look, but I did so now and found a light under the crack in my study door. I heard the riffling of papers. It was Sofya Andreyevna, searching my study, probably reading things I had written. The day before she had insisted that I not close my doors, and she kept her own doors open, so that my slightest movements could be detected. She wants my every word and movement to be known to her instantly, to be under her control. When I heard her this time, closing the door, walking down the hall, I felt the deepest sense of aversion and rage. I don’t know why, but I could not restrain myself. I tried to fall asleep, but that was impossible now. I tossed and turned, lit a candle, then sat up.

My door suddenly opened. It was Sofya Andreyevna, who said, ‘How are you?’ She was surprised, she said, to discover a light. My fury increased. I checked my pulse – ninety-seven.

I could lie there no longer, and suddenly I made the final decision to leave home. I am writing her a letter and am beginning to pack only what is necessary in order to leave. I woke Dushan, then Sasha – they helped me. I shook at the thought that my wife would hear and come out to check on us. There would have been scenes, hysteria, and – afterward – no getting away without an upset. At six o’clock everything was packed, somehow, and I went to the stable to tell them to harness. (Dushan, Sasha, and Varvara finished the packing.) It was still night – pitch dark. I missed the path to the barn, stumbled in some brush, fell, lost my hat, then made my way back to the house with difficulty. The others came back with me. I trembled inside, fearing pursuit. But, at last, we drove off.

At Yasenki Station we had to wait an hour, and I fully expected my wife to appear at any moment. At last we took our places in the railway carriage and the train lurched forward; my fear evaporated, and pity for Sofya Andreyevna rose in my breast. Still, I had no doubts about what I had done. Perhaps I am wrong and merely seeking to justify my behavior, but it strikes me that I have saved myself – not Leo Nikolayevich but that something of which there is sometimes a spark in me.

The journey beyond Gorkachev to Shamardino took place in a crowded, third-class carriage full of working people. It was all instructive, though I took it in quite feebly. It is now evening, and we are in the monastery at Optina.

29
OCTOBER
1910

Slept badly. In the morning was surprised to see Sergeyenko. Not understanding what news he brought me, I greeted him cheerfully. Then he told the terrible story. Sofya Andreyevna, having read my letter, gave a cry, ran outside, and threw herself into the pond. Sasha and Vanya fished her out.

Andrey is home. They have all guessed my where-abouts, and Sofya Andreyevna has insisted that Andrey come to fetch me home. I expect his arrival today. A letter from Sasha has arrived. She advises me not to despair. She has called in a mental specialist, and she expects Sergey and Tanya. I was very depressed all day and feeble. Went for a walk. Yesterday, I managed to add a note to my speech on capital punishment.

Drove to Shamardino. A most consoling and happy impression of Mashenka, my sister, and her daughter, Lizanka. On the journey, I puzzled over ways of escape for me and Sofya Andreyevna from our situation, but I could think of nothing. I must concentrate only on how to avoid sin.

FROM SERGEY TO L. N.

Dear Papa,

I write because Sasha says you would like our opinion. I think Mama is mentally ill and in many respects irresponsible, and I believe it was necessary for you to separate. You should have done so long ago. However, this situation is painful for you both. I also think that if anything happens to Mama – and I think nothing will – you should not blame yourself. I believe you chose the right way out. Forgive the frankness of my letter.

FROM ILYA TO L. N.

Dear Papa,

I feel I must write to you at this painful time. I want to tell you the truth, and I know you prefer that I do so.

Sasha will inform you of what happened after you left, how we all assembled at home, and what we discussed and decided. Nevertheless, I’m afraid that her explanation will seem one-sided, so I am writing, too. We chose not to judge your actions. A thousand causes exist for every action, and even if we could know all of them, we could still not correlate them. Needless to say, we have no desire to, and cannot, attach blame to anyone. Yet we must do what we can to preserve Mama and calm her. For two days now she has eaten nothing and drunk only a mouthful or so of water in the evening. She says there is no reason for her to live, and her state is so pitiful that none of us can speak of her without weeping. As ever, in her case, there is much affectation and sentimentality, but at the same time there is so much sincerity that her life is genuinely in peril. That is my opinion, and, for truth’s sake, I offer it bluntly. I realize that your life here was difficult, but you regarded that life as your cross, as did those who know and love you. I am sorry you choose not to bear that cross to the end. You have both lived long lives and should die becomingly.

Forgive me if, by chance, it seems to you that I speak harshly. Be sure that I love and understand you in many things, and that I wish only to help. I do not ask you to return here at once, since I know you cannot do that. But, for the sake of Mama’s mental health, it is important that you keep in close touch with her. Write to her. Give her the opportunity to strengthen her nervous system, and then let whatever God decrees happen as it will! If you wish to write me, I shall be very glad.