The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year (21 page)

Sofya Andreyevna has been of no help. She discovers plots where none exist. Indeed, she imagines that Chertkov is trying to have her and the children written out of the will, as if Leo Nikolayevich could ever do such a thing.

Chertkov may be something of a prig and a bore, but he is not cruel. On the other hand, without religion to restrain him, I suspect he could be barbarous. There is a peculiar heartlessness in his laugh.

Sofya Andreyevna is obsessed with regaining possession of her husband’s diaries. Leo Nikolayevich no doubt writes truthfully about the flux of their relations, but she does not want posterity to have access to this information.

‘Can you understand why this bothers me so much?’ she asked me last night, as I brought her tea.

‘Yes, I can,’ I said. ‘But you mustn’t think that Leo Nikolayevich would consciously distort the nature of your marriage in his diaries. The truth means everything to him.’

‘He thinks he’s honest, but he doesn’t know himself very well. He doesn’t realize, for instance, that he loves Chertkov and despises me. He thinks he loves me. But you should see the kind of things he writes about me. These will delight future biographers. They will say, “Poor Leo Tolstoy … dragged down by a jealous, foolish, possessive, and extravagant wife who could not possibly share his lofty intellectual or moral life.”’

‘Isn’t that Englishman, Aylmer Maude, at work on a biography?’ I asked, knowing the answer already. ‘He is said to be a fair-minded person. He knows you well – and the truth of your relations with your husband.’

‘He is no better than the rest of them.’

I begged to differ, recalling a letter that Leo Nikolayevich had written to Maude only a couple of weeks before. In that letter, he chastised Maude for not appreciating the importance of Chertkov, ‘the man who for many years has been my best helper and friend.’ Maude fully appreciates Leo Nikolayevich’s overly high estimation of Chertkov. His work will set the record straight on these matters. In fact, Chertkov is terrified of what Maude will write.

Last night, once again, Sofya did her ritual dance, racing from the house, half naked, because her husband would not immediately turn over the diaries. But nobody pays much attention to these wild displays anymore. My impulse was to say, To hell with her. If she drowns herself in the pond, so be it. Life will be easier around here. But I cannot help feeling terribly sorry for her. Her life is made miserable by circumstances beyond her control.

When she did not return for some time, Leo Nikolayevich came into the sitting room, where I was reading, and asked me to search for her. His son Leo said he would join me but insisted his father accompany us. ‘What right do you have to lie in a warm bed when your wife is wandering the woods, driven insane by your obstinacy?’ he asked.

‘All right,’ Leo Nikolayevich responded wearily. ‘I will go with you.’

I split from them to go through the orchard, while they trudged off into the fields. They found her by a stream, delirious, and coaxed her home. It is by now a familiar scene, and very little was said. But I realized that things at Yasnaya Polyana are nearing a conclusion.

The effects of all this on Leo Nikolayevich are painfully evident. His speech is frequently slurred, and he hobbles from room to room with a cane. His writing slowed to a dribble before it stopped altogether. Chertkov became panicky. Tanya was summoned. Her presence becalms the Tolstoy household. Leo Nikolayevich loves her dearly, and he quickened visibly when I told him she was coming. ‘Wonderful news,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad. Thank you, thank you so much!’

It was odd, him thanking me.

‘I’m not asking for a great deal, am I? All I want is for Chertkov to return the diaries to me,’ Sofya Andreyevna said to her daughter Tanya, who had called a family summit in her father’s study the morning after her arrival. ‘If he wants to copy them, that’s all right. But I insist on keeping the originals.’

‘Is there anything wrong with this, Papa?’ Tanya asked.

By now the whole subject disgusted him. ‘Do what you like. Take the diaries. I want peace in my house. That’s all I want now. Peace …’

Pleased by his quick concession, Sofya Andreyevna set off for Telyatinki in a droshky. At her request, I accompanied her, aware that Sergeyenko and Chertkov would read my presence as an act of alliance. But I have, by now, given up hope of appeasing anyone.

The day sizzled, and Sofya Andreyevna looked like an empress, her white dress reflecting the sun off its many folds. Everything she does is calculated for effect, and today she was determined to shine. Chertkov’s mother – the queen of Telyatinki when she’s in residence – received us ceremoniously, ordering her personal servant to bring the samovar. We were ushered into the bare sitting room, which smelled of floor wax and burnt candles. Sofya Andreyevna looked mildly askance at the books and manuscripts piled on the floor. Chertkov came fluttering into the room, bowing and purring. He understood that a personal visit from the Countess Tolstoy could only mean trouble.

Sofya Andreyevna was left alone with Chertkov’s mother, while I was ushered into Sergeyenko’s study. Vladimir Grigorevich stood rigidly behind Sergeyenko, a general looking over the shoulder of his field commander.

‘Sit down, Valentin Fedorovich,’ he said, nodding in the direction of a straight-backed chair.

‘It’s delightful to see you both,’ I said.

Sergeyenko frowned. ‘What is going on?’ he asked. ‘Why is she here?’

‘We are not her favorite people,’ Chertkov added. He did not chuckle.

‘She feels that Leo Nikolayevich’s diaries belong to her, and she wants them back. But she says that you may copy them, if you like. It’s the originals that interest her.’

‘You told her they were here?’ Chertkov asked.

‘I assumed that you had them with you,’ I said. ‘Was I mistaken?’

Chertkov’s face crumpled like a piece of paper.

‘You may join the ladies, Valentin Fedorovich,’ he said.

‘I hope I didn’t make matters worse,’ I said.

I hated myself for saying that before the sentence had passed my lips. I have been trying, throughout this ordeal, to behave as straightforwardly as possible. When you are dealing with people who are suspicious by nature, you must take care to say only what is obviously true. Speculative remarks only invite further fantasies.

‘Go next door and have tea,’ Chertkov ordered. The remark infuriated me. I did not take this position to be treated like a child.

When Chertkov and Sergeyenko joined us in the sitting room, Sofya Andreyevna stood boldly. ‘Let me get to the point, Vladimir Grigorevich. I must insist upon the return of my husband’s diaries. I do not wish to be your enemy. I am glad that my husband has a friend such as you – someone who understands and shares his ideas. All I want is this little favor – the return of his diaries. If you will grant me this, I assure you that we can be friends. We
should
be friends, as you have said yourself, since we have so many common interests.’

I marveled at her self-possession.

‘You are very kind, Sofya Andreyevna. And I am glad that you have, at last, honored us with a visit. But I’m afraid I cannot help you with regard to the diaries. I can act only upon your husband’s directions.’

With this, Sofya Andreyevna bid them all good-bye, harshly, and summoned her driver.

‘Are you coming with me, Valentin Fedorovich?’ she asked.

Chertkov looked at me impassively.

‘Will Leo Nikolayevich be needing me this afternoon?’

‘You know better than I.’

It had been a mistake to hesitate.

‘I’ll be back later,’ I said to Sergeyenko. ‘After dinner.’

‘Masha will be delighted,’ he sneered.

Sofya Andreyevna looked at me knowingly, while Chertkov simply stared, his eyes as narrow as the tip of a pen.

In the droshky, Sofya Andreyevna turned to me coyly. ‘Have you been keeping something from me, Valentin Fedorovich? I should hope not. We have become close friends.’

‘It is nothing,’ I said.

‘A young woman in your life is nothing?’

‘Masha is a close friend.’

‘A lover?’

‘A good friend.’

‘That sounds serious.’

Friendship is always serious, I thought, irritated by her meddling.

‘I didn’t mean to annoy you,’ she said.

‘I’m not annoyed.’

‘You forget that I’m an experienced reader,’ she said. ‘I can read your face, every letter. The script is beautifully clear.’

Did I blush or merely imagine that my entire body flamed? I said, ‘My relations with Masha are somewhat painful, just now. I don’t really want to talk about them.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t fret, my dear!’ she said. ‘I shall
not
tell the great man.’ She paused. ‘I suppose you know about his past. He was a whoremonger in his youth, insatiable. He has hardly ever had much self-control in this regard. Why else would he protest so violently? He doesn’t want anyone else to do what he’s been doing for sixty years!’

What could I say? Sofya Andreyevna knows far more than I do about the sexual history of Leo Tolstoy, although the general pattern of his life is familiar. He has never troubled to hide the facts of his early life. ‘I was a sinful young man,’ he once told me. ‘Obsessed with sexual longings, overcome by animal desire. Only a long struggle has rid me of these things.’ That’s what he says, though I have noticed his eyes grow lively whenever a young servant girl enters the room.

This afternoon I spent several hours in the Remington room with Sasha, answering letters. Leo Nikolayevich is so upset that he does not even want to sign, let alone revise, our responses. I feel strange, occasionally, as I write letters in his name. It’s as though I am Leo Tolstoy. Somehow, the letters don’t seem like forgeries. When I write as Tolstoy, I
am
Tolstoy. His spirit, like that of other men and women, is simply a demarcation of the human spirit, which in itself is a demarcation of the larger spirit, the God-spirit; in death, the demarcations end. We become, to use Emerson’s phrase, part of the Oversoul. We touch this God-spirit in daily life, too, during blessed moments, moments of affection, of peculiar insight, of fierce candor. The spirit of Leo Tolstoy is capacious, allowing easy entry. I left Yasnaya Polyana tonight feeling more like Tolstoy than myself.

I gradually reentered the spirit of Bulgakov as I approached Telyatinki. The sun burned on the hay fields, flamed in the elms, and turned the red earth redder under my horse’s gallop. I saw Masha standing in the back garden, alone, her shadow long on the grass. My groin began to ache, to swell before I could even see her face.

We said nothing to each other but walked, hand in hand, into the balsam wood behind the house. The forest was like a flame ball, with the sunset shattering through a thousand needles. The ground smelled cool, rich but cool, with its mauve mat of pine.

Standing between the tall and immensely thick trunks of two red pines, we looked at each other for a long time, saying nothing.

But there was something I wanted to say to her. I didn’t know how to say it. I was afraid to say it, since once it got said, we were stuck with it. It would either flap there in the wind like a loose shutter, an annoyance, or something definite and palpable would happen.

‘I love you, Masha,’ I said.

The words floated in the air, like a balloon, a bright, shimmering bubble. I waited for it to pop into nothingness, to disappear. For a terrible moment, I felt as though I hadn’t said it aloud, that the words had formed, cloudlike, in my head without condensing into utterance.

‘I’m glad,’ she replied.

But there was an aloofness there. She wasn’t glad. Not entirely.

‘Are you really?’

‘If I weren’t glad, I wouldn’t have said that, would I?’

‘It’s just that … you had to respond.’

‘I don’t have to do anything.’

I felt a twinge of panic. Masha has this cool edge, a blade of Damascus steel, which she flashes on occasion.

‘Valya,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to hurt you. Do you know that?’

‘You hurt me when you say nothing. I dislike it when I can’t tell what you’re thinking. When I can’t seem to find you.’

Was she weeping? Slightly. Her eyes caught the evening sun and absorbed its redness. They were watery, as many-sided as a gem. Her blond hair, too, turned a little pink in the strange, beautiful light. I wanted to touch that hair. I let my palm graze the delicate substance. I could feel the roundness of her head, its solid, gourdlike shape, beneath the long strands. I kissed her. I let myself breathe what came before me, the barely fathomable presence of another human being. It seemed impossibly magical. I lifted my hands onto her small shoulders, and I pulled her close.

‘I’ve got to return to Petersburg,’ she said finally. ‘Soon.’

‘For good?’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘I don’t understand, Masha … now that we –’

‘I know that you love me, Valya.’

‘I do.’

‘It’s difficult for me to respond to you. We’ve only just begun to know each other.’

‘That’s true, but –’

‘You seem young to me.’

‘I’m older than you are!’

‘Our pasts are what matter. I feel like I’ve lived so many lives already.’

‘Masha, that’s nonsense. Your life is just beginning.’

‘In other circumstances, I think I’d have been much … warmer. I feel my own coolness, and I don’t like it. I hate it, in fact. It’s not what I mean to happen.’

Her honesty overwhelmed me. And the exact, riveting way she spoke. I felt mute, stupid, even silly beside her. I could hardly hope to respond in kind. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be honest with her. Rather, I had almost nothing to be honest
about
.

‘I love you,’ I said. ‘You can’t go away.’

She smiled at me.

‘Perhaps I’ll go away for a brief while. I can return to Telyatinki whenever I want. I spoke to Chertkov last night, and he was sympathetic. He was actually kind.’

Chertkov remains incomprehensible to me. Whatever Masha or Leo Nikolayevich think, I would never trust him.