Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy Part 1

Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy.

by Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy.

PREFACE.

The ma.n.u.script of the autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy exists among the doc.u.ments of the late director of the Russian Library, Professor s.e.m.e.n Afanasevich Vengerov, which, in accordance with the will of the deceased, have been handed over to the Library. The Library is now in the Petrograd Inst.i.tute of Learning, and the doc.u.ments form a special section in the Inst.i.tute under the t.i.tle: "The Archives of S. A.

Vengerov."

The history of the ma.n.u.script is as follows. At the end of July, 1913, S. A. Vengerov sent a letter to S. A. Tolstoy asking her to write and send him her autobiography which he proposed to publish. We do not know the details of S. A. Vengerov's letter, but from the replies of S. A.

Tolstoy which are printed below we may conclude that Professor Vengerov enclosed in his letter to S. A. Tolstoy a questionnaire, and that, besides the usual questions which he was accustomed to send out broadcast to authors and men of letters, he put a number of additional questions, especially for S. A. T., asking for light upon certain moments in the history of the life and creative activity of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and upon the time and causes of the differences between the husband and wife, the beginning of that formidable drama which took place in the Tolstoy family.

S. A. T. answered immediately; she wrote to Vengerov as follows:[A]

YASNAYA POLYANA, 30 JULY, 1913.

MUCH-RESPECTED s.e.m.e.n AFANASEVICH: I received your letter to-day, and hasten to tell you that I will try to answer all your questions soon; but in order to do it fully, I need a little time. I shall hardly be able to write an autobiography, even a brief one. At any rate, _whatever_ I may communicate to you, you have my permission to cut out anything that you think superfluous. As to your questions about my family, my sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii, could answer you better than I; she and my first cousin, Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, have devoted a good deal of time to this matter and have, in particular, tried to trace the origin of my father's family, which came from Saxony. We have the seal with its coat-of-arms: a bear (hence _Bers_, i. e. _Bar_ in German) warding off a swarm of bees.[B] I will write to my sister to send me this information, and I will let you have it.[C] Please also let me know roughly when you expect me to send you the information you desire.

The most difficult thing for me will be to fix the moment and the cause of our _differences_[D]. It was not a _difference_, but a gradual _going-away_ of Leo Nikolaevich from everything in his former life, and thus the harmony of all our happy previous life was broken.

Of all this I will try to write briefly, after having thought it over as well and as accurately as I can.

Accept the a.s.surance of my respect and devotion for you,

SOPHIE TOLSTOY.

YASNAYA POLYANA, STATION Za.s.sYEKA, 21 AUGUST, 1913.

MUCH-RESPECTED s.e.m.e.n AFANASEVICH: This is a difficult task which you have set me, writing my autobiography, and, although I have already begun it, I am continually wondering whether I am doing it properly. The chief thing which I have decided to ask you is to tell me what length my article should be. If, for instance, you take a page of the magazine _Vyestnik Europa_ as a measure, how many full pages, approximately, ought I to write? To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine years old, a long life; well, _what_ out of that life would be of interest to people? I have been trying to find some woman's autobiography for a model, but have not found one anywhere.

Pardon me for troubling you; I want to do the work you have charged me with as well as possible, but I have so little capacity and no experience at all.

I shall hope for an answer.

With sincere respect and devotion,

S. TOLSTOY.

It may be supposed that Vengerov again came to the a.s.sistance of S. A.

T. and solved her doubts, after which she went on with her work and finished it at the end of October, 1913. Being in Petersburg, she personally handed it over to Vengerov.[E] The work did not satisfy Vengerov, as he did not find in it what, evidently, particularly interested him, namely, information as to the life in Yasnaya Polyana during the time when _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karenina_ were written.

Vengerov wrote to S. A. T. about this, urging her to fill up the gap, to write a new additional chapter. S. A. T. did this. She sent the new material to Vengerov accompanied by the following letter:

YASNAYA POLYANA, STATION Za.s.sYEKA, 24 MARCH, 1914.

MUCH-RESPECTED s.e.m.e.n AFANASEVICH: You are perfectly right in your observation that I left a great gap in my autobiography, and I thank you very much for advising me to write one more chapter; I have now done so. But the question is, have I done it well, and is the new material suitable? Hard as I tried, and carefully as I searched for materials for that chapter, I found very little, but I have made the best use of it which I could.

In the former ma.n.u.script which I gave you in Petersburg, Chapter 3 should be cut out and the new one which I enclose in this letter subst.i.tuted. The chapter had to be corrected considerably, things altered, struck out, and added.[F]

The chapter about the children in the new material has been slightly altered at the beginning, and all the rest remains without alteration, as in the former ma.n.u.script.

Be so good as to note the Roman figures marking chapters, but divide it up into chapters anew at your discretion.

As I have not the whole ma.n.u.script in its final form before me, I cannot do it myself and am obliged to trouble you. Please also write me a word to say you have received the new chapter and give me your opinion, which I value greatly.[G]

Accept the a.s.surance of my sincere respect and devotion.

SOPHIE TOLSTOY.

The additional matter did not satisfy S. A. Vengerov. He had long ago formed an idea of Yasnaya Polyana, during the period in which _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karenina_ were created, as of a "home" in which the interests of the family were such that literary interests were removed to the second floor. He hoped that S. A. T. in her additional matter would turn her attention to that particular side in the life and activity of L. N. Tolstoy, making use for that purpose of the very rich material possessed by her. But S. A. T. did not fulfil his hopes, as he told her in a letter to her and as may be seen from her reply.

S. A. T. held a different view, and she wrote to Vengerov:

YASNAYA POLYANA, STATION Za.s.sYEKA, 5 MAY, 1914.

MUCH-RESPECTED s.e.m.e.n AFANASEVICH: I have received your letter; you are not quite satisfied with the new chapter, to which I reply: you want more facts, but where am I to get them? Our life was quiet, placid, a retired family life.

You write about the 'home' interests which must have been subordinated to Leo Nikolaevich's writing of _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karenina_. But what was that _home_? It consisted only of Leo Nikolaevich and myself. The two old women had become childish and took no interest at all in Leo N.'s writings, but used to lose their tempers over patience; a nd their only interests were the children and the dinner.[H]

In so far as I could tear myself from domestic matters, I lived in my husband's creative activity and loved it. But one can not put into the background a baby who has to be fed day and night, and I nursed ten children myself, which Leo N. desired and approved.

You mention among _professional_ writers Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, and I would add Lermontov and others; all of them were _bachelors without families_, and that is a very different matter.

This was reflected in their work, just as Leo N.'s _family_ life was completely reflected in his works.

It is perfectly true that Leo N. was generally a _man_, and not merely a writer. But it is _not_ true, if you will pardon me, that he wrote _easily_. Indeed, he experienced the 'tortures of creative activity' in a high degree; he wrote with difficulty and slowly, made endless corrections; he doubted his powers, denied his talent, and he often said: 'Writing is just like childbirth; until the fruit is ripe, it does not come out, and, when it does, it comes with pain and labour.'

Those are his own words.

And now, s.e.m.e.n Afanasevich, with regard to your last remark, that Yasnaya Polyana of the years 1862 to 1870 gives the impression of a 'home' in which literary interests had been removed to the second floor--I repeat once more that there was no such 'home'; it is true that I was quite a young girl, in my eighteenth year, when I married, and I only vaguely realized the great importance of the husband whom I adored. Now I have come to the end of the page.

With respect and devotion,

S. TOLSTOY.

Nearly three years separate the going away and death of Leo N. Tolstoy from the writing of her autobiography by S. A. T. It might have been expected that that interval of time would have stilled the pain in her heart and that her soul would have found peace from her sufferings. But S. A. T. is far from peace and reconciliation. Pain, a void in her heart, a protest against some one or something are felt in every word of her autobiography. In her work she has given new and interesting information about her family; she has dwelt upon her children, the guests who visited Yasnaya Polyana, the literary works of her husband, without giving us anything new; and then she concentrated all her attention upon the domestic drama. The domestic drama is the centre round which all the thoughts and all the feelings of S. A. T. turn.

In her story about this domestic drama she has not sinned against the truth; she has gone back again into the past deeply and with sincerity--every one who reads her work without prejudice will admit this. And yet one feels that it is not for nothing that she tells of family difficulties and pours out before us the pain of her soul.

Continual references to the difficulties of her position as a mother, insistent emphasis upon the mutual love of herself and her husband, and the allusions to "friends" who entered the house, got possession of the mind, heart, and will of Leo N., and disturbed the harmony of their married life--all this creates an impression in the reader's mind that S. A. T., in writing her autobiography, was guided by a definite purpose, that of contradicting the unfavourable rumours about her which circulated everywhere and were getting into newspapers and magazines.

This desire, which is masked in the autobiography, is definitely expressed by S. A. T. in another place, in her preface to Leo N.

Tolstoy's _Letters to His Wife_, published in 1913. There she says frankly: "This, too, has induced me to publish these letters, that after my death, which in all likelihood is near, people will, as usual, wrongly judge and describe my relations to my husband and his to me.

Then let them study and form their judgment upon living and genuine data, and not upon guesses, gossip and inventions."

We shall understand S. A. T.'s desire, if we consider her position. It is true that the great honour of being the wife of a genius fell to the lot of S. A. T., but there also fell to her lot the difficult task of creating favourable conditions for the life and development of that genius. She knew the joy of living with a genius, but she also knew the horror of living in public, so that her every movement, smile, frown, incautious word was in everyone's eyes and ears and was caught up by the newspapers and spread over the whole world, recorded in diaries and reminiscences as material for future judgments upon her. Forty-eight years is a long period. Many unnecessary words were spoken in that time, many incautious movements were made; and for every one she will be made to answer before the court of mankind. S. A. T. knew this, and with an anxious heart she prepared herself for the judgment. The _Autobiography_ and L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_ are the last words of the accused. We should listen to them carefully and with attention, weighing every word. If S. A. T. bears a responsibility before all mankind, each of us before our conscience has a responsibility for whatever verdict he may pa.s.s upon her. We must judge sternly, but justly.

S. A. T.'s wish has been carried out. In the autobiography printed below two new chapters are subst.i.tuted for the first half of Chapter III in the original draft, and an independent Chapter V has been made out of the last half of the original third chapter. Pa.s.sages cut out of this third chapter are given in full in notes 20, 38, and 43.

Our notes are given at the end of the autobiography.