The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year (20 page)

I went downstairs, into the library. I don’t know exactly how long I waited there, on my knees like a scrubwoman, trying to work up the courage to swallow the fateful substance. I should have done it instantly.

It was Sasha who found me.

‘What idiotic thing is this, Mama?’ she said, as if it were nothing. Just Mama on her knees with a little opium in her hands.

‘One swallow, please! Just one!’ I said, waving the vial before my lips.

She tried to grab it from my hands, but I closed my fists about it. ‘It’s mine! It’s mine!’ I could hear myself saying, as if someone else were talking.

‘So drink it,’ she said. ‘Suit yourself.’

The ungrateful bitch.

‘You disgust me,’ I said.

I fell on the floor, hardly able to breathe. The vial spilled, and the smell of the opium surrounded me. Three servants lifted me into bed, one of them the ghostly Timothy, whose eyes quiver with the perpetual fury of a bastard. I was examined by Dushan Makovitsky, who kept muttering to himself as if I were not present. He is a nasty little cur.

My husband feigned concern, as he must. He is too cowardly to say outright that he finds me repulsive. But he does. The very sight of me sours his stomach.

‘Do you love me, Lyovochka?’ I asked him.

‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘Nothing can stop that.’

‘Then fetch me your diary. I want to read what you’re writing about me. I must have the truth.’

‘What makes you think there is anything to read that concerns you?’

‘I want to read your diary,’ I repeated, coolly. He looked like the sky had fallen on his shoulders. ‘I have no secrets,’ he said. ‘My relations with you are public knowledge. I doubt if there is one muzhik in Russia who does not know everything about us.’

The diary was brought to me by a servant, Leo Tolstoy not being man enough to bring it himself. My fingers, twitching uncontrollably, turned the thick pages. It was almost too much to bear. Almost at once the telltale sentence snapped its beak like a prehistoric bird, ugly and devouring: ‘I must try to fight Sonya consciously, with kindness and love.’

I called for my husband, repeating the sentence in my head like a death knell:
I must try to fight Sonya
consciously, with kindness and love
.

He stood in the doorway, meek, almost insubstantial.

I glared at him.

‘Yes, darling?’

‘Why do you want to fight me? What is it I’ve done to deserve such treatment?’

‘I see nothing in what I’ve written that should upset you.’

‘Let me see your other diaries. I want to read all your diaries from the last ten years.’

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible.’ He looked away from me as he spoke.

‘Where are they, Lyovochka? Where have you hidden them?’

‘I have not hidden them.’

‘Are they here?’

‘No.’

‘Does Chertkov have them?’

‘Please, Sonya. I … I –’

‘I knew it! He is greedily reading everything you have said about me. This is despicable. Have I not been an honest, loving wife for all these years? Answer me, Lyovochka!’

It began raining hard against the house, the wind blowing in through the curtains. The room grew hot and damp, and the day fell dark.

‘I don’t mind telling you the truth,’ he said, after a difficult pause. ‘Chertkov certainly has them. I gave them to him for safekeeping.’

‘This is the worst thing you have ever done to me,’ I said.

My stomach was sick now. I wanted to vomit. I threw off the covers and ran from the bedroom, down the slippery stairwell, out into the rain. For an hour I wandered in the orchard, blind with misery, but nobody came for me. They all hoped I would die. That was just what they wanted, but I was not about to grant them that satisfaction. I came home shivering, wet as moss, and crawled into bed like a child beaten once too many times.

Voices drifted into my room from down the hall. My husband was talking with Dushan Makovitsky. I could faintly make out his words. ‘The insane are always better at achieving their purposes than the sane,’ he was saying. ‘They have no morality to hold them back. They have no shame, no conscience.’

The very next day, Bulgakov told me the horrifying news that spelled – in essence – the end of my life. Chertkov had been granted permission to return to Telyatinki to visit his mother. He could stay as long as his mother remains in the province. Indeed, he was already there, plotting and scheming only a few versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

On the morning of the twenty-eighth, while everyone was asleep, Chertkov slipped through a deep mist that stood in the fields, the thick morning mist of midsummer that snags in the pine trees of Zasyeka, that blankets the isbas, a mist like sleep itself, a swirl on the cool Voronka. He came into our house like a thief and woke the kitchen servants, insisting that tea be brought to him in the parlor.

Lyovochka was wakened by Ilya, the servant boy, and he came bounding down the stairwell like a bridegroom on his wedding day. I know this even though I did not see it. Once you have seen the moon, you know what it looks like.

When I came into the parlor, Vladimir Grigorevich bowed with revolting politeness. He remains a dandy, in spite of the Tolstoyan overlays. His britches were made in England, and his red cashmere socks were distinctly un-Tolstoyan. He affected a blue linen blouse – the kind the muzhiks wear to church.

‘Good morning, Sofya Andreyevna. I am delighted to see you,’ he said.

He handed me a note:

Feeling lost and stupefied, I went back to my room and wept. Chertkov had doubtless shown this letter to Lyovochka, who would have said to himself, ‘See! Vladimir Grigorevich is bending over backward to befriend her. He is being generous and openhearted.’ He cannot see that Chertkov is trying to hoodwink us both.

Three days later, Chertkov walked brazenly into the dining room during the midday meal. My husband became wildly solicitous, as if the tsar himself had arrived unexpectedly. He dragged a chair from the wall for him, offering him anything he might like. ‘What will it be, my dearest dear, my lovely Vladimir Grigorevich? My wife’s heart on a platter? Her kidneys? With salt? But of course, my dear Vladimir Grigorevich! Whatever pleases you! You would like the estate, is that it? Fine! And permanent copyright on everything I’ve ever written? Certainly!’

I tried, with difficulty, to sit through the meal, but they had no interest in my company. After the first course, I excused myself by saying that a headache was coming on (it was) and left the room. Upstairs, I settled at my desk to write in my diary. It was July 1. The hottest day yet. In the past, writing in my diary relieved certain feelings. Now, I could think of nothing to say.

Chertkov stayed through the afternoon and remained for dinner. I pretended not to care. Indeed, I was as polite as could be, inquiring after his mother’s health, his various projects. I showed interest in his wretched publishing company, the very company that is stealing my children’s inheritance. It surprised me that I could remain so cool in the face of such an outrage.

The entire table normally retires to the library for coffee or tea at the end of the meal. Tonight, Sasha furtively whisked Chertkov and her father into the study. I could see that they were plotting. They are always plotting. The whole thing cut and tore at my nerves. I hate it when people lack the courage to tell me what evil deeds they have concocted behind my back….

I tiptoed to the study, where they had shut the door firmly. Lyovochka never shuts his door. It is always ajar, as if to say, ‘Yes, I am working, but you may knock and enter.’

As I listened, my worst fears were confirmed. They were whispering, and my heart stopped when, above the low rustle of language, I heard my name.

My heart caught between beats; I thought surely I would faint when Sasha said, clearly, ‘Of course, Mama would kill us if she found out.’ And Chertkov hushed her. They waited, panicky, for a long time, as if listening for footsteps. But I did not move.

When they resumed their whispering, I fled downstairs, where I sat in the parlor with a glass of vodka, burning inside. I resolved to climb onto the balcony where the door, with its venetian slats, might allow me to hear what they were planning. It was information that might be crucial to the welfare of my family.

There is a narrow ledge running along the second floor, and it is possible to slip along the building if you keep your back pressed tightly to the wall. Squeezing through a window, I was able to edge my way along the wall. My weight, unfortunately, is such that the balance was precarious. At several points I swayed forward, almost swooning. Soon I stood exactly outside Lyovochka’s study.

I listened at the blinds. Their voices, though hushed, could be clearly discerned through the lathwork.

‘I cannot do it,’ said Lyovochka.

‘Papa, I think he is right. You must listen to him. He has in mind only your best interests.’

‘The interests of the people,’ Chertkov added. ‘Which are, of course, identical with the best interests of Leo Nikolayevich.’

Here were my enemies, huddled and scheming, inventing their little plots. It was all too horrific. Suddenly I lost my balance; the ground tilted over my ankles, or seemed to tilt, and I shrieked.

‘Who’s there?’ shouted my daughter. Her voice was harsh, bitter, unforgiving.

I went bowling through the latched shutters, flung like a turnkey by the weight of gravity. My skirts fluttered up over my shoulders. I was upside down, peering at the assembled company from between my thighs. ‘You’re all plotting against me!’ I shouted. ‘In my own house, too!’

My husband slumped in his chair, staring ahead weirdly.

‘You will kill him, Mama,’ Sasha said smugly. ‘But that’s what you want, isn’t it? You
want
him to die!’

She left me standing there by myself as Ilya, the houseboy, and Chertkov carried Lyovochka out of the room.

When Chertkov returned, he seemed more ferocious than I have ever seen him. The putty of his cheeks blazed like newly fired clay.

I said, ‘Vladimir Grigorevich, I know exactly what you’re trying to do. Don’t think that you deceive me for one little moment. I want my husband’s diaries back. Return them immediately to this house, where they belong. In the name of God!’

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘You’re the Devil himself,’ I said.

He looked beyond me to a far corner of the room. ‘Had I cared to, I could have demolished you and your family. It would have been only too easy, you know. The press is bloodthirsty.’

I wish to God my husband could have heard him talking then, the real Chertkov.

‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Ruin us. Tell them anything you like.’

‘I have too much respect for Leo Nikolayevich to attempt such a thing. You are lucky.’

‘I detest you, Vladimir Grigorevich.’ My lips quivered. I could barely contain myself.

‘If I had a wife like you,’ he said, moving toward the door, ‘I would have blown my brains out a long time ago. Or gone to America.’

That night, in bed, I dreamt that my husband and Vladimir Grigorevich were lying on the wet forest floor of Zasyeka, naked, writhing in the dead leaves: an old man, white haired, with a beard of snow, engaged with his fat-faced, oily disciple in an act of monstrous intercourse. They wriggled in the mud like worms.

I woke with a start, pooled in sweat. Trembling, I knelt at the side of my bed and prayed, aloud, ‘God, dear God. Have mercy on me, a sinner.’

I don’t know how long I can allow this double life to continue. In the presence of Leo Nikolayevich, I pretend my private life is beyond reproach. That is, I avoid the subject altogether. He assumes (or I assume that he assumes) that I live according to his principles, since I have vocally supported them and written about them, too, with enthusiasm. But this little deceit, and the nearly invisible contradictions in my life, trouble me.

I do not consider myself immoral. A man must follow his own conscience, and while the Tolstoyans oppose sexual relations outside of marriage (indeed, Leo Nikolayevich has grave doubts about the morality of sex
within
marriage), I find myself more in accord with Plato, who said that one can progress from sexual love to spiritual love. Ideally, one should not have to suffer a split between body and soul.

I do love Masha. My life has changed utterly since we met. But it has become difficult for us to maintain our love at Telyatinki. Sergeyenko hardly speaks to me now. He shuns Masha completely, rudely, and she has become exasperated. Yesterday she spoke of leaving for St Petersburg, where a Tolstoyan enclave has just been started by a group of her former acquaintances.

‘My intent was never to stay here for longer than a few months. When Chertkov invited me to come, he was quite explicit about this,’ she said.

‘Nobody ever worries about that kind of thing here.’

‘
I
worry about it.’

‘Sergeyenko ought to be shot.’

‘You don’t mean it, Valya. He isn’t nearly so rude as you imagine. You think everyone is shunning us. It’s not true.’

I could not convince her. She is so imperturbable, so clear-eyed in the face of a storm.

I would spend more time with her if I could, but that has become impossible. Leo Nikolayevich needs me badly at present, and he prefers that I stay overnight at Yasnaya Polyana. He wants me there so that he can escape from the family tensions, I suspect. Chertkov has become nothing less than obsessive lately, coming up with new schemes every week for booklets, pamphlets, anthologies, selections. I doubt the purity of his motives, but Leo Nikolayevich doesn’t. He agrees eagerly with Chertkov about everything.