The Last Days of Leo Tolstoy: With Translations From His Diary and Letters

I

ELEVEN years ago, on a dark November night, the sage of Yasnaya Polyana gave the finishing touch to his life’s work. At the age of eighty-two, Tolstoy found that his indefatigable striving for inner harmony, for consistency between word and deed, could not be triumphant as long as he lived on his family estate. His personal simplification, his personal relinquishment of private property, his personal vegetarian diet, bore the aspect of a whim, condescendingly tolerated amid the conventional surroundings of a Russian ‘ nobleman’s nest.’ A hater of sham and compromise, Tolstoy felt keenly the artificiality of his position; and to his close friends he expressed his hope, a number of times, that God would make him strong enough to break away from the roof of cozy lies. This spiritual strength came to him with the ebb of his physical strength: during the night of November 10, he fled from his home, in quest of harmony and truth; and ten days later the tortuous path of his earthly quests came to an end.

Tolstoy’s flight was greeted with joy by his friends and followers, as the crowning pinnacle of his significant and instructive life. But the circumstances immediately connected with this event were known only to a very few persons. Tolstoy’s last secretary and devoted disciple, V. F. Bulgakov, in his most interesting Diary for the year 1910, had an enthusiastic entry on the morrow of his master’s exodus, which he concludes thus: ‘But precisely what were the mental motives that impelled him to this deed? What did he experience in the hidden depth of his soul at the moment of leaving Yasnaya Polyana? Of this we are unable to speak as yet. And not a little time will pass before men will arrive at a more or less correct solution of this unusually complex question.’

At that time it was difficult to foresee that a revolution would take place in November, 1917, which would sweep aside many conceptions of space and time. The unfastidious Bolshevist commissars have shocked not a few sensitive natures by unearthing and proclaiming, urbi et orbi, various secret documents, treaties, and memoirs, letters and diaries. Thus we now have access to the contents of former state and private archives, supervised at present by a group of specialists, who publish from time to time their discoveries. The chairman of the ‘Glavarchiv,’ — which is the abridged title for the main Administration of Archives, — A. S. Nikolayev, has made public two sets of documents in re Tolstoy, found in the archives of the former Ministry of Education and of the Holy Synod, respectively. These documents illuminate the circumstances of Tolstoy’s last days, and incidentally enable us to fathom what Mr. Bulgakov considers an ‘unusually complex question.’

II

As is generally known, the Russian Church, through its governing body, the Holy Synod, excommunicated Tolstoy by a decree issued in March, 1901. The decree contained a provision to the effect that the Orthodox Church would not regard him as a member ‘until he repented and renewed his communion with it.’

Tolstoy replied to this act in a dignified statement, summarizing his religious views, and emphasizing his conviction that his disloyalty to the Church emanated from his loyalty to what he regarded as true Christianity. ‘I began by loving my orthodox faith more than my repose,’ ran the conclusion of his reply to the Holy Synod; ‘then I came to love Christianity more than my Church; and now I love Truth more than all else in the world. And for me Truth still coincides with Christianity, and in the measure in which I profess it I live calmly and joyously, and calmly and joyously I approach death.’ ¹

The official Church, however, did not abandon its hope of bringing Tolstoy back to the fold. A report to the Holy Synod, now published for the first time, states that Father Dimitri Troitsky, of Tula, ‘undertook, with the blessing of Bishop Pitirim, the task of exhorting Count L. Tolstoy.’ He performed his mission from 1897 till the very death of the Count, visiting him twice a year, conversing with him, and even partaking of meals, though Tolstoy ‘declined to talk on religious questions.’ In October, 1910, learning of Tolstoy’s illness, Father Dimitri wrote to him a letter, exhorting him to seek succor and healing in the Church. Two days later, Tolstoy replied. This characteristic letter appeared recently among t he published documents of the Archive of the Holy Synod: —

October 25, 1910,
YASNAYA POLYANA. DEAR BROTHER DIMITRI, — I am a very sinful person, and my only occupation consists in mending myself, in the measure of my power and ability, from my numerous sins and sinful habits. I beseech God to help me in this cause, and He helps me. Though at the pace of a turtle, still I advance with his help.
In this advancing I find the sole sense, purpose, and benefit of my life. The Kingdom of God is within us, and the Kingdom of God has to be won by force (that is, by effort). I believe in this, and exert all possible efforts for this; and here you come to offer me the performance of certain rites and the utterance of certain words, which would show that I consider as infallible truth all that which men who call themselves Church consider truth, and in consequence of which all my sins would be pardoned — pardoned somehow and by someone; and that I shall be not only exempt from the inner, hard, — but, at the same time, joyous, — spiritual work of selfimprovement, but that I shall be somehow saved from something, and shall receive some kind of an eternal bliss.
Why, dear Brother Dimitri, do you address me with such a strange proposal?
Have I tried to convert you, have I counseled you to rid yourself of that, in my opinion, pernicious delusion which you profess, and into which you painstakingly lure thousands and thousands of unfortunate children and common people, perverting their minds? Then why do you not leave me in peace, a man who, by his age, stands with one foot in the grave, and who calmly awaits his death? My conversion to the Church-faith might have had sense, were I a boy, or a grown-up atheist, or an illiterate Yakout who has never heard about the Church-faith. But I am eighty-two years old, was brought up in the very same deception which still dominates you, to which you are inviting me, and from which, with greatest suffering and efforts, I freed myself many years ago, adopting a Christian, not ecclesiastic, point of view, which gives me the possibility of a peaceful, joyous life directed toward self-perfection, and the readiness for as peaceful and joyous a death, in which I see a return to God of love, out of whom I issued forth.
With brotherly love,
LEV TOLSTOY.

To this characteristically Tolstoyan letter of loose, hurried, long periods, came a lengthy reply from Father Dimitri, which began with apologies but proceeded to admonish softly the recalcitrant heresiarch. He tactfully reproached Tolstoy for presuming to have found the true path, and in conclusion pleaded for frankness: ‘A candid exchange of opinions is always agreeable for sincere people; and therefore I hope that I shan’t disturb your peace; but, if I do disturb it, then I say that there will be plenty of peace after death, but now we need ever more and more disturbance.’

To this Tolstoy answered, five days before his flight, with the following brief but kind note: —

November 5, 1910,
YASNAYA POLYANA.
I have received your letter, Dimitri Yegorovich, and thank you for it. I perfectly agree with you that humility is the greatest and most needful virtue. As I always say, man is like a fraction, in which the denominator indicates his opinion about himself. It is best for this denominator to be 7.ero (complete humility), and it is terrible when it is augmented to infinity. In the first case, man has a true significance, whatever the denominator; but in the second case — none.
I am sending you my books For Every Day, in which the reading for the 25th day expresses my opinion about this greatest of virtues. One point on which I do not agree with you is where you advocate hope in external help for determining one’s perfection and one’s nonentity, in place of relying on one’s inner effort, which must never weaken, and which alone brings us a little closer to perfection, or at least delivers us from depravity: the Kingdom of God must be won by force. Again I thank you for your good letter, and greet you brotherly.
LEV TOLSTOY.

As soon as the news of Tolstoy’s flight became known abroad, the official Church instructed its emissaries to watch every step of the fugitive, and to report everything he said or did to the ecclesiastic authorities. Bishop Benjamin of Kaluga communicated to the Holy Synod detailed information concerning Tolstoy’s doings, from the reports of his subordinates.

On the evening of November 10, Tolstoy arrived at the Optin Hermitage, where he stopped at the inn of the monastery, and said to the keeper: ‘Perhaps you are displeased with my arrival — I am Lev Tolstoy; was excommunicated by the Church. I have come to discourse with the old monks, and to-morrow I shall go to Shamordino, to see my sister.’ In spite of his opposition to the established church, Tolstoy had visited the Optin Hermitage several times after 1877, conversing with holy hermits and ascetic monks. About eight miles from Optin lay the convent of Shamordino, where Tolstoy saw occasionally his favorite sister Maria, a nun.

On this last visit of his to the hermitage and to the convent, his every step was recorded by the watchful clerics. On the thirteenth of November the Count, accompanied by his daughter Alexandra and his physician, Dr. D. P. Makovitsky, suddenly left Shamordino, boarded the train at the station of Kozelsk, was taken ill on the train, and removed, on November 15, to the station house of Astapovo, where he died five days later.

On November 16, Metropolitan Antony and the Procurator of the Holy Synod telegraphed to Bishop Benjamin of Kaluga and Bishop Parphenius of Tula, and to olher dignitaries of the Church, instructing them to hasten to Astapovo, and exert their efforts for t he sal vat ion of the soul of the sick man. The only cleric who arrived at Astapovo before the death of Tolstoy, was Abbot Barsonophius. From the moment of his arrival, on the evening of the eighteenth, he endeavored to see the dying man, in order to carry out the instruction of the Metropolitan, namely, ‘to offer the ailing Count Lev Tolstoy a spiritual talk and religious consolation, with the aim of reconciling him with the Holy Orthodox Church.’

The Count’s son, Andrey, promised him to employ his best efforts to enable him to carry out his intention; but Dr. Nikitin categorically refused to admit anyone to his patient, even the Countess. Yet with Tolstoy remained constantly his daughter Alexandra, Vladimir Chertkov, his biographer Segeyenko, and of course, Dr. Makovitsky. The Abbot’s written request to Alexandra for an audience was rejected. The Abbot’s statement is corroborated by Bishop Parphenius, to the effect that, in the words of Count Andrey Tolstoy, his father was, in his last days, ‘surrounded by persons extremely hostile to the Church.’

On the death of the Count, at five minutes past six in the morning of November 20, 1910, Abbot Barsonophius called on the widow and her sons, and was informed that the wish of the deceased was to be buried without church rites and ceremonies. On the evening of the same day, an extraordinary session took place at the home of the Petrograd Metropolitan, attended, besides himself, by the Metropolitans of Moscow and Kief, by the Archbishop of Stavropol, the Bishop of Samara, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, his assistant, and secretary. The assembly resolved to send throughout Russia the following laconic telegram: ‘The Synod has decreed to forbid all services or prayers for Count Tolstoy.’

Thus ended the long conflict between the Church and Tolstoy. As on many other occasions, the Russian Church acted in opposition to the sentiments of the majority of the Russian people.

III

In the report of Bishop Parphenius to the Holy Synod, there is a curious and illuminating passage: —

On September the 16th [1910] the wife of Lev Nikolayevich, Countess Sophia Andreyevna, invited into the Count’s home the parish priest, Father Tikhon Kudryavtsev, and requested him to serve a Te Deum with consecration by water, and to sprinkle the house with holy water, in order, as she expressed herself, to drive out the spirit of Chertkov. The priest complied with her request.

Count Lev Nikolayevich was visiting at that time with his elder daughter Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin, in the Novosilsk county, while at Yasnaya Polyana remained the Countess and some of her sons. After the service, Father Kudryavtsev learned, from his conversation with the family of Lev Nikolayevich, that they were indignant at Chertkov, who, in their opinion, had held Count Tolstoy for more than ten years under his strong, almost hypnotic, influence. In their opinion, almost everything which the Count had written during the last years was due to Chertkov’s influence. If Chertkov changed or rewrote Tolstoy’s works, when publishing them, the Count had no strength of will to protest against it. In order to save him from such an evil influence, the family refused to receive Chertkov, and decided to resort to the prayers of the Church, in order to drive out of the house the very spirit of Chertkov.

Vladimir Chertkov was a devoted friend of Tolstoy, who published abroad those of the Count’s works which were either altogether forbidden in Russia, or were mutilated by the censor. Chertkov also maintained a depositary in England, where he kept originals or copies of Tolstoy’s manuscripts. He and Alexandra were the persons in whom Tolstoy had the most confidence, and whom he entrusted with his intimate thoughts and plans. In his will, signed August 4, 1910, Tolstoy explicitly transferred the property rights in all his printed works and manuscripts to his daughter Alexandra. She found in Chertkov an eager and devoted co-worker during and after the death of her father.

It was only natural that Countess Sophia Tolstoy, for forty-eight years the devoted wife of the Count, should feel hurt at the preferences her husband showed in selecting his trustees. She was particularly hostile to Chertkov, resenting his influence on the Count as well as on her daughter Alexandra. She contested the right of Alexandra to those of Tolstoy’s papers and documents which her mother had collected for years in a special room of the Historical Museum at Moscow. A controversy arose between the mother and her daughter, Chertkov presenting the interests of the latter. The case came up before the Minister of Education, before the Emperor, before the Senate. It appears that sympathy for the widow prevailed against the uncontestable legality of the daughter’s claims, and in December, 1914, the Senate ruled in favor of the mother.

Among the documents of this case, which had been kept in the Archives of the Ministry of Education, there is a long memorandum by Vladimir Chertkov, presenting arguments in favor of transferring the papers from the Historical Museum to Countess Alexandra. He cites the testimony of fourteen persons, to the effect that the Countess Sophia had no right to keep these papers. Among the fourteen we find Countess Olga Tolstoy, Countess Tatyana Tolstoy, and Count Sergey Tolstoy; which goes to show that the ‘family’ of which Father Kudryavtsev reported was not quite unanimous in its support of the mother. Of the other names, it is worth noting those of Tolstoy’s secretaries (Gusevand Bulgakov), of the secretary of the Countess (Mlle. Feokritov), of Professor A. Goldenweiser, and of two family physicians, Dr. Nikitin and Dr. Makovitsky.

It appears from most of these testimonies that the Countess systematically tried to remove her husband’s manuscripts from his study to the Historical Museum, mainly in order that they might not fall into the hands of Chertkov, as she stated to various persons. Furthermore, Chertkov expressed his anxiety in regard to some of Tolstoy ’s diaries of an intimate nature, concerning which Alexandra received from her father secret instructions. The Countess, who, even during the life of her husband, had modified his writings on several occasions, might be suspected of tampering with the contents of the diaries. Chertkov accused the Countess also of having secretly appropriated Tolstoy’s pocket-diary, which he did not show to anyone, but kept as a personal secret.² He further stated that, in the last ten years of his life, Tolstoy did not trust his wife with his diaries, but deposited them at the State Bank of Tula, with the explicit instruction that they be delivered to no other person than his daughter Alexandra.

The morbid jealousy of the Countess was evidently a symptom of her mental derangement. Both P. A. Bulanger, a close friend, and V. F. Bulgakov, Tolstoy’s secretary, mentioned her illness in their testimony. Her elder daughter, Tatyana, wrote in a letter dated August 7, 1910: ‘One must regard her as altogether sick and irresponsible. ... If you look up in the Encyclopædia the word “paranoia,” by which her illness has been defined, you will see how all this suits her.’ In Tolstoy’s diary for August 20, 1910, we read: ‘ Read in Korsakov’s (book), “ paranoia.” Just as if drawn of her.’ Professor Rossolimo, a famous psychiatrist, diagnosed the condition of the Countess in July, 1910, at the request of the family. To Alexandra he wrote: —

My opinion about the state of Sophia Andreyevna, which I expressed personally both to the late Lev Nikolayevich and to you, is that, under the influence of the declining period of her life and its concomitant exhaustion of the regulating mental forces, the basic peculiarities of the character of the Countess began to appear more and more on the surface. Her character presents the combination of two degenerative constitutions: an hysterical and a paranoiac. The first manifests itself in an especially bright emotional coloring of all her experiences, in the concentration of all interests on her own personality, even to the point of sacrificing truth and fine feelings, to the point of utter unscrupulousness in means for the achievement of her aims. Her second constitution reveals itself in her excessive suspiciousness, and in its resultant wrong conclusions, in everything which concerns Lev Nikolayevich — his teaching, her relations to V. G. Chertkov, and so forth.

Tolstoy’s own attitude to his wife is clearly shown in his letter written to Alexandra the day after his flight: —

November 11, 1910,
OPTIN HERMITAGE. . . . will tell you everything about me, dear friend Sasha. ’T is hard. I cannot help feeling a great heaviness. The main thing is, not to commit a sin; here is the difficulty. Of course I have sinned, and shall sin yet; but if only a little less of it!
And this is what I chiefly and foremost wish for you, too. The more so, since I know that a terrible task has fallen to you, beyond your strength and your youthful age. I have not decided anything, and do not wish to decide. I am endeavoring to do only that which I cannot help doing, and not to do that which I can avoid doing.
From my letter to Chertkov, you will see bow I regard the matter, or rather how I feel. I rely very much on the good influence of Tanya and Seryozha [his children].
The main thing is that they should understand. and should persuade her, that such a life, with spying and eavesdropping, with perpetual reproaches, disposing of me at her will, everlasting control over me, capricious hatred for the man who is my closest and most useful friend, with obvious hatred for me and simulated love — that such a life is, for me, not disagreeable, but simply impossible; that it is I who should think of drowning myself, if anyone should; that I wish only one thing — freedom from her, from the falsehood, pretense, and malice, with which her whole being is permeated.
To be sure, of this they cannot persuade her; but they may persuade her that all her actions toward me not only do not express love, but appear to have an obvious purpose to kill me, in which she will succeed, since I hope that with the third attack which threatens me, I shall release both her and myself from this terrible position in which we have lived, and to which I do not wish to return.
You see, my dear, how bad I am. I do not hide myself from you. I am not asking you to come to me as yet, but wall do so very shortly, as soon as possible. Write me about your health. I embrace you.
L. TOLSTOY.

This illuminating document simplifies the problem, and disperses the doubts of Count Ilya Tolstoy, who, in his Reminiscences of his father, queries in bewilderment: ‘Could my father really have fled from home because the wife with whom he lived for forty-eight years had developed neurasthenia and at one time showed certain abnormalities characteristic of that malady? Was that like the man who loved his fellows and knew the human heart so well?’ Were it not for his filial partiality toward his mother, Count Ilya might have found an answer to his question in his own book, a few pages farther on. On November 11, 1910, he asked his sister Alexandra, who was about to join her father at Shamordino, whether Count Leo was aware of the pain he was causing his wife. He quotes her answer: ‘Yes, he has considered all that and still made up his mind to go, because he thinks that nothing could be worse than the state that things have come to here.’

Tolstoy looked upon himself, his words and actions, as belonging to humanity, and he knew that every utterance of his would be recorded for eternity. Hence his letter to Alexandra is inestimable for the understanding of the manifold tragedy of his life. Perhaps still more precious may be considered the following pages from Tolstoy’s diary, also found among the Archive papers: —

November 7, 1910. — Sophia Andreyevna continues to be restless.

November 9. — Rose very early. All night long saw bad dreams. The heaviness of our relations is increasing.

November 10. Went to bed at eleventhirty. Slept till after two. Woke up, and as on previous nights, heard the sounds of opening doors and of footsteps. On previous occasions I had not looked toward the door of my room: this time I looked, and noticed through the cracks a bright light in my study, and heard rustling of papers. Sophia Andreyevna is searching for something, and reading, probably.

Last evening she begged of me, — demanded, that I do not close my doors. Both of her doors are left open, so that she can hear my slightest movement. Both day and night all my movements, my words, must be known to her and be under her control.

Again footsteps, cautious opening of the door, and she passes.

I do not know why this provoked in me an irresistible revulsion, indignation. Tried to fall asleep, could not, tossed about for nearly an hour, then lit a candle, and sat up.

The door opens, and S. A. enters, inquiring ‘about my health,’ and wondering at the light which she has noticed here.

My revulsion and indignation grow. I suffocate, count my pulse: 97. Cannot lie still, and suddenly make a definite resolution to go away.

I write her a note,³ begin to pack the most necessary things, just enough to depart with. I wake Dushan, then Sasha; they help me pack. I tremble at the thought that she may hear the noise, come out — a scene, hysterics, and then I shan’t depart without theatricals.

Toward six o’clock everything is somehow packed. I go to the stable to order the horses harnessed. Dushan, Sasha, Varya finish up packing. Night, pitch-dark; I lose my way to the rear court, wander into the thicket, get caught and bruised by trees, fall, lose my cap, cannot find it, with difficulty disentangle myself, go to the house, take a cap and a lantern, reach the stable, and give the order. Sasha, Dushan, Varya arrive. I tremble, expecting pursuit.

But lo, we depart. At Shchekino we wait one hour, and every minute I expect her appearance. But lo, we are in the railway car, have started.

The fear passes. And pity arises for her, but not doubt as to whether I have done the right thing. Perhaps I am mistaken in justifying myself, but it seems that I have been saving my self, not Lev Nikolayevich, but that which at times abides in me, in however small a measure. . .

November 11.—Shamordino. . . . While traveling I have been thinking about some way out of my position and hers, and could not think of any, and yet, to be sure, there will be one, whether you want or not, and not the one which you foresee. Yes, the main thing I must think about, is how to avoid committing a sin. And let there be what will be. This is not my affair. I have obtained at Mashenka’s the Circle of Reading; and, opening the reading for the 10th, was struck by the direct answer to my problem : I need the trial, it will be beneficial for me. . . .

It is worth while consulting the Circle of Reading — that remarkable collection of thoughts by various men, which Tolstoy arranged into special readings for every day of the year. The material set for the tenth of November is gathered from the works of Marcus Aurelius, Thomas à Kempis, Pascal, Kant, Schopenhauer, and others, including his own thoughts. The keynote is struck by his words: ‘As the sensation of pain is a necessary condition for the preservation of our body, so is suffering a necessary condition of our life, from birth till death.’ From Schopenhauer he quotes the famous passage about the need of adversity in men’s life, lest, they be ‘swollen with arrogance’ and go mad. The other passages also exalt suffering, and they conclude with Tolstoy’s aphorism: ‘As just as the legend of the Eternal Jew, condemned in punishment to everlasting life without death, would be the legend about a man who, in punishment, was condemned to a life without suffering.’ It is a curious coincidence, that Tolstoy undertook his last trial on the very day for which he had arranged the reading advocating suffering. ‘And let there be what will be. This is not my affair.’ What profound resignation, combining the fatalism of the Slav with the firm conviction of the Believer, that the will of God must be done.

Thus we are brought a little closer to the personality of Leo Tolstoy. Interest in his life is remote from curiosity for scandalous gossip. One must take Tolstoy’s life, art, and thought as one gigantic mosaic, no single particle of which is dispensable. His eighty-two years are revealed for humanity, entirely and instructively, through his largely autobiographical works of fiction, through his religious and ethical writings, through his letters and diaries. In all of these expressions Tolstoy sought the one ‘hero,’ who had attracted him since his Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth — Truth. Every detail in his life and work illuminates the difficult road which he followed in his quest of this ‘hero.’ His unreserved candor and profound introspection leave not one recess of his mind hidden or veiled. He fixes the powerful searchlight of Truth at his self, and we see revealed with even clearness his greatness and occasional smallness, his harmony and his discords, his achievements and failures, his happy moments of peace and mutual love, and his multiple tragedies of being, now the cause, now the victim, of misunderstanding, enmity, persecution. And amid these tragedies his family tragedy, his personal Golgotha, is not the least significant and instructive.