Tolstoy

she slipped and fell, dragged herself to the edge and rolled off into the water. She was already going under, her arms beating weakly, when Bulgakov and Sasha splashed in after her, seized her and pulled her onto the bank. She was brought back, soaked and shivering, to her room.

"Wire your father that 1 drowned myself," she begged.

Sasha had just finished changing her clothes when she saw her mother comc out of the house in a bathrobe and turn back toward the pond. Once again Bulgakov and the servant stopped her. She was delirious with grief all day long; she could not be left alone, she cried and beat at her breast with a paperweight or a hammer, jabbed herself with scissors, a knife, pins, threatened to throw herself out of the window or down the well. Seriously alarmed, Sasha called a doctor from Tula, who merely diagnosed a fit of hysterics, "without the least trace of mental derangement." Sasha telegraphed an urgent summons to her brothers and sister. Andrey arrived that evening and immediately lay the blame on his father. Bulgakov and old Marya Schmidt took turns sitting up with Sonya, who wandered about the house all night talking to herself, sobbing and threatening: 'Til find him, I'll get out of here, I'll jump out the window, I'll go to the station! . . . Just let me find out where he is and I'll never let him go again! . . . I'll lie down in his doorway! . . ."

While she was wailing on, Sergeyenko was on his way to Optina- Pustyn bearing instructions from Chertkov. lie reached the monastery at seven in the morning of October 29. After a bad night (there were caterwauling cats galloping down the halls, a woman was weeping in the next room), Tolstoy welcomed the emissary apprehensively. What was happening at Yasnaya Polyana? When he learned that Sonya had tried to kill herself he was horror-stricken, yet everything he knew about his wife should have prepared him for just such an eventuality'. He was also upset when Sergeyenko told him that Sonya and his sons might be tempted to put the police on his trail. Fortunately, the traveler brought good letters, one from Sasha counseling her father not to lose heart and one from Chertkov, rejoicing as though on the morn of a personal victory.

"I can find 110 words," the disciple wrote, "to express my joy at your departure. I feel with my whole being that this is what you should have done and that it would have been wrong for you to continue living at Yasnaya Polyana with things as they were. I only think you waited too long, fearing to act out of self-interest; but now there was no selfishness in the forcc that impelled you to take your decision. To be sure, at times you will inevitably find your new life more peaceful and pleas-

ant, and simpler, but you must not let that trouble you. I am convinced that your action will be a source of relief to all, and to Sofya An- dreyevna first of all, however she may react outwardly."⁴ Tolstoy immediately answered both letters. Sasha first: "It is difficult. I cannot help feeling a great burden upon me. ... I am relying on the good influence of Tanya and Sergey. 'l"he main thing is for them to understand and to try to show her that this spying, these eternal reproaches, this way of treating me as an object, this perpetual chccking-up 011 me, this hatred of the man who is closest and most useful to me (Chertkov), this obvious hatred and simulated love for me—that this entire life is worse than disagreeable to me, it is utterly impossible, and if someone has to drown himself it is I and not she, and that 1 desire only one thing: to free myself from her, from the lying and hypocrisy and malice that fills her whole being. Naturally, they can not make her understand that, but they can tell her that not only does her behavior toward me fail to express her love, but its evident object is to kill me, and that she will succeed, for I hope that the third attack that is now threatening me will release us both from the dreadful atmosphere in which we have been living and to which I will not return "^s

To Chertkov he wrote more briefly, but with no less determination: "A return to my former life has become difficult if not impossible, for now I would incur yet more reproaches and less goodwill. As for acccpting some form of compromise, I cannot and will not. Come what may; so long as I do not commit too many sins."*

Relieved by his double confession, he dictated some reflections 011 the death penalty to Sergeycnko and went for a walk in the monastery gardens where he, the renegade, banished from the Church, felt the peace of the place as a blessing from God. He chatted with a few simple-minded brothers in tattered frocks, and went up to the hermitage wall, intending to have a conversation with the starets, but changed his mind just as he was about to cross the threshold. Returning to Dr. Makovitsky, he said:

"I shall not go to see the startsy of my own accord. But if they were to send for me, I would go."

It was certainly not a desire to become rcconcilcd with the official Church that attracted him to the solitary monks; it was a need to discuss his thoughts on God, the soul and death, with men whose high degree of morality he esteemed, while continuing to deplore their beliefs. Also, he would have liked to learn more about the ascetic lives the\

' 4

led, find out to what extent tlicy really had given up the world, compare their experience with his own. After all, was not he, too, a truth

seeker? Ah, if only he could have gone to live in one of those white cells, far from his wife and sons and disciples, to meditate on the great problems at his leisure, while still repudiating the dogma of the Church!

At one o'clock he sat down to dinner with a hearty appetite. He was served the monastery menu: cabbage soup and kasha with sunflower oil and he was delighted with this plain fare.

That afternoon lie went to Shamardino convent, nine miles away, where his eighty-year-old sister Marya lived as a nun. Her daughter Elizabeth was visiting her at the time. The two women received the old man affectionately, listened to his tale of his disputes, his dilemma and his flight, and succceded in pacifying him. From the moment he left Yasnaya Polyana, he had been counting irrationally on this meeting. For him, Marya was the sole survivor of his happy past, and in going to her, he was traveling back through time to inhale the fresh air of their childhood. Was it a sign of approaching death, this need to immerse himself in his infancy?

"My sister," he told her, "I have been to Optina. How pleasant it is there. I should be so happy to live there, performing the most menial and strenuous tasks. I would lay down only one condition: that I be exempt from church sen-ice."

That evening he ordered his baggage brought to the Shamardino convent inn and, the following morning, began to look for an isba to rent in the village. He found one, whose owner, a widow, would let him have it for three rubles a month. Why go farther? He would end his days at Shamardino. Beneath this glorious sky, occasionally punctuated by the clang of bells and muffled chanting of monastery choirs, his personal heresy and the Orthodox faith would get along very well together. A bargain was struck, and he promised his landlady to move into the isba on October 31.

While he was nursing this dream of a contemplative old age in the shadow of the monastery walls, a family council was in session at Yasnaya Polyana. All the Tolstoy children—except Leo, who was in Paris —had arrived at the homestead on October 29 in response to their youngest sister's summons. Assembled in her bedroom, they were debating their parents' respective wrongs. Sergey and Sasha alone stood up for their father; the others considered that he had been wrong to forsake their mother after preaching a Christian faith his whole life long, and that it was his duty to come back to her.

"If you try to make him come back, you'll be throwing the whole burden on the shoulders of a man of eighty-two!" cried Sasha.

But the pro-retuni party would not be deterred. They wrote to their father to recall him to the paths of duty.

"I know/' said Ilya in his letter, "how difficult your life is here. But you regarded that life as your cross and so did all who knew and loved you. I bitterly regret that you did not have the patience to bear your cross to the end. You arc eighty-two and Maman is sixty-seven. Your life- is behind you, but you still have to die honorably. I don't say you must come back, but for Maman's peace of mind, do not break off all relations with her, write to her, help her to get her emotions under control again, and afterward, may God be your guide."

Andrey was more gruff:

"It is my duty to inform you that by taking this decisive step you are killing our mother."

Sergey gave an altogether different opinion:

"I think that if something were to happen to Maman, which does not seem likely, you would not have to take any blame for it. The situation was hopeless and I think you chose the Ijest way out."

As usual, the gentle Tanya qualified her opinion:

"I will not condemn you; as for Maman, I will only say that she is pitiful and heart-rending. She cannot live any other way, and it is probable that she will never change fundamentally."

While this debate was going on between her grown-up children, Sonya wandered blindly through the house, clutching to her bosom a little pillow which her husband used to put under his cheek. "Dear Lyovochka, where is your thin little head lying now?" she mumbled. Or hissed between clenched teeth, "A savage beast! He tried to kill me!"

At last, she wrote an anguished letter to her husband:

"Lyovochka, my darling, come back home, my beloved, save me from turning to suicide again. Lyovochka, companion of my whole life, I'll do anything, everything you want, I'll give up every kind of luxury, your friends will be mine, I will take care of myself. I will be mild and gentle. My darling, my darling, come back, you have to save me. You know it is written in the Gospels that a man must not abandon his wife under any pretext. My darling, my beloved, friend of my soul, save me, come back, come back, if only to say good-bye to inc before we part forever. Where are you? Where? Are you in good health? . . . Lyovochka, my darling, do not hide from me, let me come to see you again. I won't disturb you, I give you my word of honor, I will be humble and gentle with you. All my children are here but they can do nothing to help me, they are so intolerant and so self-assured. There is only one thing I need—your love. . . . Farewell, Lyovochka, I am looking for you, calling for you every moment. . ."

But how was she to get her letter to him? She did not know where he was, although she suspected that lie had gone to Shamardino. Once more, she had no alternative but to turn to her children. They had just finished their discussion upstairs. It had been decided that Sasha, the only one who knew where their father was hiding, would go to him with the eternal Varvara Feokritova. How proud she was, with her weight)' secret locked inside her head. The envy of the others incited her to bccomc tyrannical: let the entire family grovel at her feet, she would not betray! She collected her brothers' and sister's and mother's letters and promised to place them in the fugitive's own hands. After reading them, he would decide what to do.

That night, Sasha packed her suitcase and left, cloakcd in mystery, with Varvara Fcokritova. The next morning, October 30, she reached Shamardino, went to the monastery and was received by her aunt Marya and cousin Elizabeth in the old nun's cell. Shortly afterward Tolstoy arrived, and froze in the doorway at the sight of his daughter.

"Well, what's going on back there?" he asked in a toneless voice.

She told him everything and handed him the letters; he read them, and his body seemed to shrivel up.

"Is it possible that you are sorry for what you did or that you think it's your fault if something should happen to Maman?" asked Sasha severely.

"No, of course not. Can a man feel remorse when it was impossible for him to act otherwise? But if anything were to happen to her, I should be very, very unhappy."⁷

Feeling him wavering, Sasha threatened him with visions of his wife coming after him in hot pursuit, the policc discovering his hiding place and hustling him ignominiously home. With the bullying authority of a nurse, she explained that he must not linger there, he must move on.

"Yes," he stammered, "I found an isba to rent. But I mustn't think of that now."

He was dejected and upset; his sister ordered tea for him and calmed him by saying:

"If Sonya comes here, I shall be the one to see her."

Late that evening Tolstoy went back to his room at the inn, opened the transom because he was too hot, asked to be left alone and began to write a long letter to Sonya in reply to the one he had received. Twice Sasha asked him to close the transom, but he refused:

"Leave me alone, I'm hot!"

The girl anxiously said to Varvara Feokritova:

"Papa looks as though he is already sorry he left."

He, however, was writing:

"A meeting, and still more my return, is now completely out of the question. For you, from what they tell 111c, it would be extremely harmful, and for me it would be terrible, for in view of your nervousness and excited state and morbid condition, matters would, if possible, become even worse than before. I urge you to make the best of what has come to pass, try to adjust to the new situation in which you have been temporarily placed and, above all, take care of yourself. I have spent two days at Shamardino and Optina, and I am now leaving. I am not telling you where I am going because I feel that separation is essential for you as well as for mc. Do not suppose that I went because I don't love you. I do love you and I pity you with all my soul, but I have no choice. . . . Farewell, dear Sonya, may God help you. . . . Perhaps the months that are left to us to live are more important than all the years before: we must live them well."

Letter in hand, he went to Dr. Makovitsky's room and found the physician, Sasha and Varvara Feokritova seated around a table with a map spread out in front of them.

"If we go, we have to know where we're going," said the doctor.

Tolstoy joined in the discussion of alternative routes: Novocherkassk and then Bulgaria, Turkey ... If they could not get a passport to cross the frontier, they could always settle in the Caucasus, in a Tolstoy colony. Tolstoy had brought only thirty-two nibles with him, but Sasha had two hundred. As the discussion was growing heated, the old man lost his patience:

"That's enough! We must not make plans! We'll see tomorrow!"

He had always had a superstitious fear of long-term planning. He liked to live from day to day, like the simple folk and animals whose innocence brings them closer to God. Suddenly, he said he was hungry. The young women had brought eggs and dried mushrooms; they quickly warmed some barley soup 011 a spirit lamp. He ate hungrily, then his eyes dimmed and he heaved a sigh:

"My soul is heavy."

He soon went to bed. But he was too restless to sleep. More and more, he felt hunted by his family. The whole pack, with Sonya in the lead, was about to encircle him. He must leave immediately. Go south, settle somewhere in the Caucasus, as Makovitsky and Sasha advised. The mountain air would be ideal for the girl, who had a delicate throat, lie, too, had a fondness for the region, it reminded him of his youth. He went back to his letter-writing; one to Sergey and Tanya, thanking them for being so understanding, another to Chertkov requesting him

to keep a close watch on events at Yasnaya Polyana and to notify him by telegram in case of emergency.

At four in the morning he awoke Dr. Makovitsky, Sasha and Varvara Feokritova and called for horses and a carriage: he wanted to leave for the station at once. The next train stopped at Kozelsk at seven forty. While Sasha was packing, he scribbled a note to his sister and niece:

"Dear Mashcnka, dear Lizenka, do not be surprised and do not be angry with me for going off like this without a proper good-bye. I cannot tell you both, and especially you, my dear Mashcnka, how grateful I am for your love and your share in my tribulations. . . . We are leaving without warning, because I'm afraid that Sofya Andreyevna may find me here."

Shamardino was nine miles from Kozelsk. The old man and his singular physician set out in the lead. Crowded into the ramshackle trap, Tolstoy moaned at every jolt. His calvary lasted over two hours. The girls joined him at the Kozelsk station with the baggage, and all four took the train for Rostov-on-the-Don. According to the plan of flight, Novochcrkassk was the first stop, where they would stay with a nephew of the author, Dcniscnko. But Novochcrkassk was over six hundred miles away, which meant, at the pace at which the train was crawling along, a trip of thirty hours. Trusting to his patient's robust constitution, Dr. Makovitsky apparently did not consider the idea insane, and Sasha excitedly felt as though she were living a novel. To cover their tracks, she decided to buy tickets that had to be renewed at every major station. Tolstoy, at the end of his tether, lay down on the bench. His head wobbled with every lurch of the train. He could not relax. He wanted to read the morning papers. At the next station, they were bought for him. The news of his departure was splashed across even- front page. He was dismayed.

"They know everything already," he sighed.

Sasha covered him with a blanket, urged him to sleep and went out of the compartment into the main section of the car. There, passengers were reading the papers and commenting on the news. Two young men dressed with provincial elegance—looking extremely pleased with themselves, cigarettes dangling from their lips—were talking louder than the rest. Sasha heard:

"The old boy's played her a pretty trick! It must not have made Sofya Andreyevna very happy to see him skip out like that in the middle of the night."

"And after she spent her whole life taking care of him. Probably her nursing wasn't the right kind!"⁸

They burst out laughing. But the news soon got around that Leo

Tolstoy was on the train and they fell into an embarrassed silence. Others grew bolder. A crowd formed in the passageway. Curious faces were continually pushing open the door to gawk at the patriarch asleep on his bench. Sasha had to call a conductor to send them away. When her father awoke, she gave him some of the barley soup she had warmed up on her spirit lamp. He emptied the bowl with pleasure and went back to sleep. Toward four in the afternoon, he complained that he was not feeling well. He was shivering and his teeth chattered. Recalled to his sense of duty, Dr. Makovitsky insisted that he take his temperature: 100.1.

The train was traveling slowly, with a crashing and squealing of metal; the floor creaked, the window-panes vibrated; a smell of hot soot filled the compartment; Sasha uneasily watched her father's colorless face. At Gorbachevo, two suspicious-looking strangers climbed aboard and posted themselves in the corridor. An employee of the railways confessed, in answer to the girl's questions, that they were plainclothes policemen. Meanwhile, his fever was mounting, lie was moaning weakly. "I cannot describe our distress," Sasha later wrote. "For the first time, I felt that we had no house, no home. We were in a smoke- filled second-class railroad car with strangers all around us, and not a single corner in which to lay a sick old man."⁹ Even Makovitsky was losing his blithe confidence.

"Courage, Sasha, everything is fine," Tolstoy whispered, squeezing his daughter's hand.

But he himself was plainly worried. The train had just left Dunkov; the fugitives decided to get off at the next stop. At six thirty-five, the lights of a tiny unknown station swam out of the night: Astapovo. Dr. Makovitsky jumped onto the platform and returned a moment later with the station master. As there was no hotel in the hamlet, this co-operative man, whose name was Ozolin, offered the travelers a room in his cottage, set in its little garden across the tracks, facing the station. It was a common little house, all on one floor, with a tin roof and walls painted red. The doctor and stationmaster helped Tolstoy out of the car, and he went to sit in the ladies' waiting room while his bed was being made.

When everything was ready, they came back for him. Supported by Sasha and Makovitsky, he walked unsteadily, his head wobbling. As he passed, the people fell back and took off their hats. He returned their salute. The stationmaster had cleared his living room and installed a small iron bed for the sick man. As he lay down, his mind was beginning to wander; he thought he was at Yasnaya Polyana and could not understand why things were not in their usual places.

"Do as you always do," he said. "Put the night table and chair by the bed ... A candle, matches, my notebook, my lamp . . . Everything as at home. . . ."

He lost consciousness, had mild convulsions, then grew quiet and dropped off to sleep. The next day his temperature had dropped and he wanted to continue the journey. lie even dictated a telegram to Sasha, for Chertkov: "111 yesterday. Passengers saw me leave train in weak condition. Fear publicity. Going on. Make arrangements. Give news." But he soon admitted that he was too weak to get up. Sasha urged him to be patient, and asked whether he wanted her to notify the family if his illness were to last for some time. Terrified at the thought of being besieged by his narrow-minded, money-grabbing sons, he begged her to do nothing of the sort. However, he humbly requested:

"I would like to sec Chertkov."

She immediately wired the disciple:

"Left train yesterday at Astapovo. High fever. Lost consciousness. ITiis morning temperature normal. Chills. Impossible to leave. Expressed desire to sec you."

That morning, as he continued to feel better, her father asked her to write down a few thoughts on God that had come to him during his delirium. When lie spoke, his voice was hoarse and gasping: "God is that infinite whole of which man is conscious of being a finite part. Man is his manifestation in matter, space and time."

Then, worried by the thought that Tanya and Sergey might be angry with him for not having told them of his illness, he dictated a letter for them:

"I hope and trust that you will not hold it against mc if I do not ask you to come now. To call for you and not for Maman would cause her great sorrow, and your brothers as well. You will both understand that Chertkov, whom I have asked to come, has a very special position in relation to mc. lie has devoted his life to the cause I myself have served for the past forty years. That causc is dear to me, but it is my strongest belief, right or wrong, that it is essential to all men, including the two of you. . . . Farewell, try to calm your mother, for whom I feel the most sincere consideration and love."

His hand shook as he signed the sheet of paper Sasha held out to him. He murmured, "Give them that letter after my death," and began to cry.

Then he saw Ozolin, thanked him for his hospitality and talked to him about his family. The obliging man had vacated the two best rooms in his house to lodge Tolstoy and his "suite"; relegated to one tiny bedroom, the stationmastcr's three children were laughing and singing with their high voices. "I listened to that gay, innocent singing," Sasha said, "and it only added to my grief, for the contrast between those glad, heedless melodies and the anguish in our hearts was so sharp."

For a while, Tolstoy was entertained by the tumble and chatter of the children at play; he was about to say he felt quite well when he- began to shiver again. Excruciating pains shot through his head. Ilis fever rose and his cars began to hum. At four o'clock, his temperature was 103.5. Dr. Makovitsky, assisted by the station doctor, examined him with his stethoscope and dctcctcd a characteristic wheeze in the left lung. The patient was coughing and spitting bloodstained mucus. No doubt about it: he was in the first stages of pneumonia. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Sasha overrode her father's recommendations and telegraphed Sergey to bring Dr. Nikitin to Astapovo posthaste. The night of November 1-2 was agitated. Tolstoy's heartbeat was erratic, he had difficulty in breathing, he was tormented by an unquenchable thirst. In the morning he took his own temperature, looked at the thermometer and said:

"'lhat's bad. It's going up."

While Sasha was nursing her father at Astapovo, a doctor and nurse, sent for by Sergey, were looking after the distraught Sonya, who refused to cat. "These strangers only make things harder for me," she wrote in her diary, "and all my children want is to avoid responsibility." However, on November 1 she saw a priest, confessed, took communion and ate, "for fear of being too weak to go to I-co Nikolayevich should he fall ill." That morning she received his letter from Shamar- dino. Unjust, unfair, but even so, it was his writing, it was a little of himself. Overjoyed by this first sign of life after four days of total silence, she replied: "Do not fear that I shall come hurrying in search of you; I am so weak I can scarcely move; and besides, I do not want to use any form of coercion; do what you feel is best. Your departure was a terrible lesson to me—such a lesson that, if I do not die as a result of it, and you come back to me, I shall make every effort on earth to ensure your felicity. But I have a strange presentiment that we arc never to meet again. . . . Lyovochka, awaken the love that is in you, and you will sec how much love you will find in me. ... I embrace you, my dear, my old friend, who loved me once. . . . Well, God keep you, take care of yourself."

The next morning she got up at dawn and wrote a second letter to

her husband, trying, in the intensity of her love, to justify herself for all the trouble she had caused him:

"If I watched through the balcony door while you played solitaire in the evening, or followed you when you went riding, or tried to find you when you were out walking, or ran into the big hall when you came in or were dining alone there, it was not because I didn't trust you, but because of a feeling toward you that had grown to be madly passionate of late. . . . Every day I meant to tell you that I wanted you to see Chertkov again, but something restrained me from giving you any sort of pennission for the second time. And you bccame more and more gloomy and morose; you completely ignored me, you held out your cup to somebody else and asked them to pour your tea or strawberry water; you avoided talking to me. . . ."

Continuing her defense, she arrived at the circumstances that had motivated Lyovoehka's departure in the night of October 27-28. At this point the most far-fetched falsehoods flowed naturally out of her pen:

"As far as your diary is concerned, I had a stupid habit of feeling in the dark as I went by to see that it was still on the desk; but I never made any noise; that awful night ... I glanccd into your study on my way downstairs with some letters and, according to my stupid habit, I touched the notebook with my hand. I did not rum- triage around, I did not search for anything, I did not read anything; and at that very moment I felt that I was doing something wrong and silly. Besides, you would have left anyway, I was sure you would and I was dreadfully afraid of it. . . . Don't be afraid, I won't come to you without your permission; I must get back my strength; don't be afraid of mc: I would rather die than see the horror 011 your face at the sight of me."

She had hardly finished this letter when a telegram was brought to the house from someone named Orlov, a correspondent for The Russian Word, who, without consulting anyone, had taken it upon himself to alert the family: "I.eo Nikolayevich ill at Astapovo. Temperature 104."

After the first moment of stunned shock, Sonya determined to start at once, with Tanya, Ilya, Michael, Andrey, the doctor-psychiatrist and the nurse at her heels. In spite of her anxiety she supervised preparations with extraordinary clear-headedness, forgetting nothing that might be useful or agreeable to her husband. When the travelers reached Tula station, the only train of the day for Astapovo had just left. With majestic authority, the countess ordered a locomotive fired up, and formed a special train.¹⁰

At ten on the morning of November 2, Tolstoy, fighting for breath and burning with fever, joyfully greeted Chertkov, who had been alerted by telegram and had traveled all night with Scrgcyenko to join him. The disciple took the master's thin, wrinkled hand and kissed it reverently. They wept as they gazed at each other. Girding himself, Tolstoy inquired after Sonya, the children, his friends, and asked Chertkov to read out the letter he had written to the newspapers explaining Tolstoy's departure.

"Perfect!" he murmured when Chertkov had finished.

At eleven his temperature was over 103. His heart was showing signs of weakness, so Dr. Makovitsky gave him some champagne to drink. Everyone put on slippers before going into the room, to make less noise. Early in the afternoon Ozolin, the stationmaster, mshed into the room in alarm and whispered to Sasha that a telegram had just come from his colleague at Shchekino: a special train bearing the countess and her family had left Tula and would reach Astapovo around nine that evening.

After a moment of panic, the accompliccs pulled themselves together and sat down for a council of w^rar. It was decided that a meeting betweeen Tolstoy and his wife could have the worst possible conse- qucnccs and that Dr. Makovitsky should exert all his professional authority to dissuade the countess and her children from approaching the patient. Sasha was particularly fanatical in her determination to keep her mother out: "I decided not to let her in unless my father asked for her," she wrote afterward, "and to pay no attention to the opinion of the doctors or the family." Now she even regretted having sent for Sergey and Dr. Nikitin. Just in case, she sent her brother a telegram countermanding the first one: "Father asks you not to come, l.cttcr follows. No immediate danger. Will inform you otherwise." But it was too late. Sergey reached Astapovo at eight that evening.

He would have liked to go to his father at once, but at first he agreed with the others that the old man might be extremely annoyed to see that one of his sons had discovered his hiding place. In the end, he decided to take the risk and pushed open the door. A kerosene- lamp lighted the half-empty room. On a narrow iron bed against the far wall lay a thin shape with a waxen face and white beard; eyes closcd, nostrils pinched, the patient was breathing jerkily. Dr. Makovitsky whispered that Sergey was there. Tolstoy opened his eyes, an expression of animal fear crossed his face and, as his son kissed his hand, he asked:

"How did you find out I was here? How did you find me?"

"As 1 was passing through Gorbachcvo I happened to meet the

conductor of the car you were in," answered Sergey. "lie told me where you had got off."¹¹

This fib calmcd the sick man's fears. He wanted to know what was happening in the family. Sergey told him that he had come from Moscow (which was true), that his mother had not left Yasnaya Polyana (which was false), that a doctor and nurse were taking care of her (which was true) and that she seemed completely reconciled to the situation (which was false). When his son had left the room, Tolstoy said to Sasha:

"I was terribly happy to see him. He . . . he kissed my handl"

He burst into sobs.

A little before midnight the train bringing the rest of the family entered the station. Dr. Makovitsky rushed onto the platform to tell the countess she must not comc into the house. Sasha stood with her forehead pressed anxiously against the window frame; through the black mist punctured by blurred points of light, she made out her mother's stooped figure, leaning on one of her sons. Mute phantoms gesticulated behind the pane for a long time, then the entire group drifted away and melted into the night.

Dr. Makovitsky returned and triumphantly reassured Chertkov, Sonya, Sergeyenko and Varvara Fcokritova, the true Tolstoyans, the qualified guardians of the master's thought and life: duly sermonized, the family had agreed that it would indeed be dangerous to allow the countcss to approach her husband. Sonya herself had accepted the harsh decree. Her special train had been put on a siding and the passengers were preparing to stay in it, for want of any other accommodation. They would remain as long as necessary but would not try to see the sick man.

On the morning of November 3, Dr. Nikitin arrived from Moscow, examined Tolstoy and said his pulse was weak and his bronchia inflamed, but his temperature had gone down to below normal and all hope was not lost. Suddenly reanimated, the old man joked with the doctor, explained his art of living to him and demanded permission to get up as soon as possible and continue his journey. Upon hearing that he would have to stay in bed for two or three weeks, he bccamc gloomy again.

Now and then, Tolstoy's sons came prowling around the forbidden house like pariahs. 'Iliey knocked at the window, Sasha opened the transom and gave them a whispered account of their father's condition. Then they went back to their mother, who was raving with grief in her blue first-class railroad car on the siding. If only the doctors had forbidden ewryone to see her husband! But there was a positive proccs-

sion of outsiders filing in and out of his room: Chertkov, Goldenweiser, Gorbunov the publisher . . . The last two had just arrived and Tolstoy had asked to see them at once. He scolded the pianist for canceling a concert to come to his bedside:

"When the muzhik is plowing his land and his father is dying, he does not leave the field," lie said. "The concert is your land, and so you must plow it."

Then, turning to Gorbunov, who was publishing the Intermediary series:

"We arc united not only by work, but also by love."

"All the work we have done together is filled with love," replied Gorbunov. "May God grant that you and I may continue our fight for the good cause."

"You, yes, but it's over for mc," whispered Tolstoy.

lie went on to speak of the next volumes in the scries, and in particular of the final chapters of his work The Ways of Life. But his voice was growing weak. Gorbunov withdrew to let him rest; instead of resting, however, Tolstoy summoned, in rapid succession, Sasha, Varvara Feok- ritova, Chertkov, Dr. Nikitin. He thought he saw Sonya spying on him behind the glass-paned bedroom door:

"I clearly made out two women's faces watching me from behind the glass."

To pacify him they had to put a blanket over the door. 'Then began a phase of feverish intellectual activity; he had the papers and his letters read to him, and outlined replies to each correspondent. He dictated a letter to Chertkov in English, for his translator Aylmcr Maude, and a telegram to his sons, not knowing they were at Astapovo: "Condition improved, but heart so weak that meeting with Maman would be dangerous."

"You understand," he said to Chertkov, "if she wants to see me I can't refuse, but I know the encounter will 1)C fatal for mc."

Delighted with this definite statement, Sasha transmitted the message to her mother, whom she found furious with the entire world and 'lacking in any feeling of repentance."

"Does he know I tried to drown myself?" the poor woman demanded.

"Yes, he knows." "Well?"

"He said that if you committed suicide it would grieve him greatly, but he would not consider himself responsible because he could not have actcd any differently."

"I had to come running out here in a train that cost five hundred rubles!" exclaimed Sonya.

She poured out a torrent of reproach against her husband, affirming that he was a monster but that she would never leave him again if he got well.

That day she begged Makovitsky to slip the little embroidered pillow Tolstoy was so fond of under his head; she had brought it specially from Yasnaya Polyana. The doctor saw no harm in her request and carried it out, but Tolstoy immediately recognized the pillow and demanded an explanation. At a loss, the doctor told him that it was Tanya Sukhotin who had asked him to give the pillow to her father. Hearing that his eldest daughter had just arrived in Astapovo, the old man was overjoyed and called her to his bedside.

As soon as she came in he questioned her about Sonya. Tanya forced herself to say as naturally as possible that her mother had stayed behind at Yasnaya Polyana. And when he plied her with more questions ("What is she doing? How does she feel? Is she eating at all? Isn't she going to come here?"), she tried to change the subject. Then he burst out, with tears in his eyes:

"Tell me! Tell me! What can be more important than that?"¹²

Tanya, shaken, murmured something evasive and fled from the room. In spite of her resolute air, her conscience was not at ease.

What made this family tragedy still more odious was the publicity around it. Access to the station was already blocked by journalists. They stopped everyone coming out of the stationmastcr's little red cottage to beg for fresh copy. Sonya, having nothing else to do, was glad to talk to them and, with tragic countenance, related her version of the story. Mr. PathЈ cabled his cameraman, Meyer: "Take station, try to get close-up, station name. Take family, well-known figures, car they are sleeping in. Send all to Tula to be forwarded here." But in Russia it was forbidden to photograph a railroad station without special permission. Protest from the journalists: "We are being prevented from doing our work!" The captain of the local police consulted Moscow. Permission finally arrived, by telegram. The little station camc alive with the clicking of shutters. The rabid picture-hounds snapped the platforms, the crossing gates, the little garden, the snowy, muddy landscape under a sodden sky. Sergeyenko stood guard at the door and allowed no one to enter except the choscn few approved by Chertkov and Sasha. The telephone rang non-stop. The telegraph operators, submerged by the flood of messages, sent a distress call for reinforcements to the capital of the province. In the afternoon of November 3 the doctors issued their first health bulletin: "Inflammation of the lower part of the left lung. Generalized bronchitis." Fearing public demonstrations, the ministry of the interior sent a stream of coded telegrams to local

authorities: "Take measures. Mobilize sufficient units of mounted police in neighboring communities; stand by." A detachment of county police- moved into Astapovo.

Oblivious to the immense turmoil around him, Tolstoy called for his diary—a notebook bound in black oilcloth—opened it to page 129 and, with unsteady pencil, set down on the ruled paper a few almost illegible words:

"November 3. Difficult night. Two days in bed with fever. Chertkov came on the second. They say Sofya Andreyevna . . . The third, Tanya. Sergey came during the night. I was very touched by him. Today, the third, Nikitin, Tanya, then Goldenweiser and Ivan Ivanovich.* And here is my plan. Fais ce que dois adv . . .f It is all for the good of others and mostly for my own."t

In the evening he had a painful attack of hiccups, which Dr. Makovitsky and Dr. Nikitin tried to stop by giving him sugared milk diluted in Seltzer water to drink. While his bed was being made tip, he muttered:

"What about the muzhiks? How do the muzhiks die?"

In the midst of a fit of tears, he became delirious. He wanted to dictate something important, but his tongue had thickened and the words that came out of his mouth made 110 sense; lie became angry with his daughter for not writing them down. To calm him, she began to read passages from the Circle of Reading. When she grew faint with fatigue, Chertkov took the book out of her hand and began where she had left off. All night long they took turns reading by the side of their patient, who dozed, woke up, said he had not heard the last sentence clearly and asked to have it repeated.

In the morning of November 4 he whispered:

"I think I am dying, but maybe not."

He fretted, wheezed, twisted the coiner of the blanket around his fingers, frowned, clutching at an idea, and whimpered plaintively when lie could not express it.

"Don't try to think," Sasha told him.

"How can I not think? I must, I must think!"

He fell asleep with his mouth open, his lips thin and pale, his features sharpened by pain; then he shook himself and began to pronounce more disconnected words in a staccato voice:

• Goibunov.

\ Written in Freneb. The complete scntcncc, which Tolstoy left unfinished, is Pais ce que dois, adviennc que pourra (Do as you must, come what may).

t This is Tolstoy's last entry in his diary.

"Seek! Keep seeking! . . ."

I lis fingertips made writing motions, moving swiftly and gracefully across the sheet. Tireless laborer, lost in the mists of fever; what new novel or philosophical treatise did he think he was composing? Toward evening, Varvara Fcokritova cainc into the room and, mistaking her for his dead daughter, the old man raised himself on his bed, his eyes shining with unearthly joy, stretched out his arms and cried in a mighty voice:

"Masha! Masha!"

Then he fell back:

"I am very tired. Do not torment me any more."

Meanwhile Sonya was chafing and fussing in her railroad car, surrounded by her baffled sons and her suspicious nurse. Four times she slipped away from them and went over to the red cottage, trying to catch a glimpse of her husband through the window. But each time, a hand pulled the curtain in front of her nose. Then she ran to the door and collided with the implacable Sergeyenko. No admission. She fumed. By what right? Lyovochka might be dying! She had lived with him for forty-eight years, and now strangers were trying to prevent them from coming together. If he knew she was there, loving and repentant, he would order the doors of his room opened wide! Her voice began to rise, as she argued with the watchdog outside, and her sons came running and cscortcd her back to her railroad car by force. Dressed all in black and wearing a fur hat covered by a light veil tied under her chin, she passed in front of the newspaper reporters.

The following day, November 5, the patient's condition grew worse. Summoned from Moscow by a rush call, Dr. Bcrkcnhcim came to the rescue. He brought a new, softer bed, digitalin and oxygen balloons. But after examining the old man he did not hide his concern. The heart threatened to give way at any moment. Tolstoy refused every form of medication, dozed, talked incoherently, mixed up names and faces. In a moment of lucidity, he said to Tanya:

"Much has fallen upon Sonya."

Not understanding what he meant, Tanya asked:

"Do you want to see her? Do you want to see Sonya?"

But he did not answer, his eyes were blank and he was wheezing heavily. A little later, he said to his son Sergey:

"I cannot seem to get to sleep. I am still composing. I am writing. Each thing moves on smoothly to the next."

The number of press correspondents, photographers and cameramen grew with the arrival of every train. Where were they to go? The

Ryazan-Ural Railroad Company housed them in railroad cars until they were all full, and then opened up a new building, that had to be heated to dry the plaster. Company cables poured out in a steady stream: "Please rush ten or fifteen most sturdy model table lamps Astapovo . . "Please send mattresses, blankets, pillows by baggage ear . . ." The railroad employees contrived to maintain a zone of relative quiet around the sick man. They kept their brakes from screeching any more than necessary, muffled the couplings, held back their steam valves. When a convoy went through the station, faces lined the windows. Locomotives stopped and started without blowing their whistles. In the snowy streets of Astapovo, however, ordinarily so placid, every tongue 011 earth could be heard. The station restaurant was besieged by busy, brash men, drinking vodka, munching salt pickles and loudly voicing their opinions of the dying man. His temperature, pulse and rate of breathing were announced to the whole world. All his life, lie had noted the clinical manifestations of his slightest disorder with care: now every newspaper in the world was doing it for him. By a grim twist of fate, his private diary was being fed straight into the mass-circulation press and the man who had fled in search of silence and oblivion was the subject of the noisiest publicity ever given to an author.

Seeing the world-wide impact of the affair, the ministry of the interior decided to take drastic action. The governor of the province arrived on the scene on November 4, along with the chief of the Ryazan police. On November 5, the deputy director of the national police turned up incognito. Were they afraid of a proletarian uprising? The order was given to distribute ammunition to the constabulary. Plainclothes spies mingled with the journalists. Nor was the Church standing idly by: on the previous day, the metropolitan of St. Petersburg sent a telegram to the patient exhorting him to repent "before appearing for judgment at the throne of God." But Chertkov refused to show him the message. On the evening of November 5, an emissary of the Holy Synod, Father Varsonofy, starets of the Optina-Pustyn monastery, arrived in Astapovo and reported directly to the captain responsible for keeping order. This holy man had instructions to see Tolstoy and try, by every means in his power, to bring him back to the Church. What a victory it would be for religion, if the old outcast should admit the error of his ways on his deathbed. But family and physicians alike categorically refused to let the monk approach the sick man. He remained at Astapovo, however, creating a monumental housing problem for the captain of the police, for waiting rooms, offices, railroad cars—everything was filled to overflowing. Father Varsonofy had to content himself with a bed installed in a closet in the ladies' restroom.

He still hoped against hope that Tolstoy's guardians, touched by grace, would make some last-minute concession. The archbishop of Ryazan, less optimistic, reminded local clergy that the miscreant was not entitled to religious burial or services. Other prelates sent messages attempting to persuade the dying man, but they were not given to him.

On November 6, Drs. Usov and Shurovsky arrived at the behest of Tolstoy's children. The number of doctors around him increased in proportion as their ability to save him declined. Now there were six of them: Usov, Shurovsky, Nikitin, Berkenheim, Semenovsky, Makovitsky. With this new detachment of important personages, the station- master decided to abandon his entire house to the "gentlemen," and moved himself and his family into the switchman's cabin. Tolstoy's temperature was only 99.2, but he was so weak that all hope seemed lost. Tanya and Sasha never left his bedside. He said to Tanya: "So this is the end! . . . And it's nothing. . . ,"¹³ Then, when Sasha moved to arrange his pillows, he half-rose and said in a firm voice:

"I advise you to remember this: there are many people on earth besides Ixo Nikolaycvich and you are taking care of no one but him."¹⁴

He sank back and his head dropped, exhausted by his effort. His nose and hands turned blue. They thought the end had come. Sonya and her sons were already gathering outside the red cottage. But the doctors gave him an injection of camphor oil and oxygen to inhale, and once more the three brothers and their mother were thrust back into their railroad car. After twenty minutes Tolstoy regained consciousness. He struggled and moaned. Bending over him, Sergey heard him murmur: "Ah, what a bother! . . . Let me go away somewhere . . . where nobody can find me. . . . Leave me alone! . . ." Suddenly he shouted, tough and crude as an angry peasant: "Clear out! ... Got to clear out!"

Toward evening he had another attack of hiccups. Sixty a minute. With ever>' jerk his old body shook from head to heel. He wanted to sit up at the side of the bed in order to get his breath, but he couldn't move his limbs. A shot of morphine calmed him.

Learning that the patient's condition was hopeless, hope returned to Father Varsonofy. He asked to sec Sasha, whose youth, he thought, should betoken sensitivity. She sent back a laconic note, virtually a refusal:

"I cannot leave my father now, he may need me at any moment. I can add nothing to what our whole family has told you. We have all decided, regardless of any other considerations, to respect my father's will and desires, whatever they may be."