Bulgakov led Leo Nikolayevich down the long platform to our carriage, followed by thirty or forty spectators. Leo Nikolayevich sat in the window of the third-class carriage once again, nibbling the slightly undercooked rusks. A young boy pressed his nose to the window, staring more at the asparagus than at Leo Nikolayevich, who insisted that I pass several rusks to the boy through the window. Taking them, the boy scurried off to eat them in private like a dog.
I overheard a man speaking to the conductor: ‘So the great Count eats asparagus!’ He spoke with a contemptuous note in his voice. ‘Who would have guessed? Asparagus!’ he said again.
I wanted to confront the fellow for his insolence, but I decided not to call attention to the issue. It would have been too painful for Leo Nikolayevich, who prefers to ignore slights and insults.
Late in the day we arrived at Blagodatnoye Station, where Tanya stood on the platform, waving her parasol like a figure in a French Impressionist painting. She was beautifully dressed, a real countess. Her father’s entire being came alive when he saw her. They embraced like children, with tears moistening their cheeks.
Tanya took us to Kochety, some fifteen versts from the station, in a plush droshky drawn by four black horses. The sun stood on the horizon’s edge, red and sharp. We had to shield our eyes.
Though he has often visited here, Leo Nikolayevich seemed enchanted by everything, remarking on the cool, green fields on either side of the road, the well-kept farms, the colorful dresses worn by women in the local villages. As it was Sunday, people were decked out in their finest. Leo Nikolayevich smiled almost continuously, exposing his red gums.
When we arrived at the Sukhotins’ – a magnificent house that sits in its own spacious park – Leo Nikolayevich declared that he was going to stay a very long time. ‘I shall love every moment of it: no passersby demanding five-kopeck pieces, no fugitives from the law seeking counsel, no mothers at war with their daughters….’
I do not actually like the hordes of third-rate revolutionaries, fanatics, and fortune hunters who cram the doorway of Yasnaya Polyana each day requesting an interview with ‘the Count.’ That he does not banish them all is to his credit. I do not share this largeness of spirit.
We rested before dinner, which was worth waiting for. So many delicious courses, served on English china! Leo Nikolayevich was animated, talking more than eating. I caught a glimpse of the young, carefree count who, back in the 1850s, had dazzled Parisian society with his wit and knowledge, with the sheer force of his character. Here was the man whom even Ivan Turgenev could not withstand.
On our last visit to Kochety, a drawling, simpering woman who was remarkably undeferential to Russia’s greatest author had said to Leo Nikolayevich, ‘Do try to be kind to my son, since he can’t bear you. Chat about horses – or something that will interest him. Perhaps he then will forgive you for being so eccentric.’
Leo Nikolayevich had grinned and nodded. Later, he claimed that he had enjoyed the woman. ‘Simplicity on such a grand scale is rare. She has a kind of purity I admire.’ I did not, myself, see the purity.
Before retiring, Leo Nikolayevich wanted to walk in the park, alone, to ‘gather his thoughts before sleeping.’
‘I’ll go with you, Papa,’ said Tanya, taking his arm.
‘Let me go alone,’ he said.
Nervously, Tanya agreed.
‘What are you afraid of?’ he asked her. ‘Wolves?’
‘You might stumble.’
‘And the sky might fall!’
She looked mildly sullen.
‘My darling, you worry too much about your poor old father. I have already lived a very long time. There is no need to trouble yourself.’
He walked off, leaning on a cane, into the cool air.
I sat comfortably in the drawing room with a glass of tea on my lap while Sukhotin nattered on about the rights of landowners and government levies.
More than an hour passed without a sign of Leo Nikolayevich, and it was now dark.
‘I suspect that something has gone wrong,’ Tanya said, breaking our conversation at a convenient point. She clasped her hands in front of her chest like a young matron.
‘Not to worry, dear,’ Sukhotin said, growing red in the cheeks – the effect more of brandy than of panic. ‘Let me dispatch servants throughout the park. They will find him.’
He toddled off to the front hall, where he rang a bell that summoned the household staff. He rattled off orders like an old military officer.
‘He has only been gone for an hour,’ I said.
‘He could be dead!’ said Tanya. ‘He might have fallen into the pond!’ She began to sob into a red silk kerchief.
‘He has probably just had a little fainting spell,’ Sukhotin said, entering with the bluff self-assurance of a man of inaction. ‘They’ll find him, I’m sure of it.’
‘He is probably sitting on a bench,’ I said. ‘He wanders around Yasnaya at all hours. This is nothing unusual.’
But they could not hear me.
Bells rang in the distance, and a brass hunting horn was blown. Servants scattered throughout the park, crying, ‘Count Tolstoy!’ in a wild chorus that returned in mingling echoes.
When a good while had passed without results, I became afraid that my cynicism would be shown up. Putting on a cloak against the night chill, I set out myself on the least obvious path to the most desirable place. I knew that the large meadow behind a stand of pines was his most likely goaclass="underline" Leo Nikolayevich likes to emerge into a clearing from a densely wooded area.
In less than half an hour, I found him. He was sitting on a tree stump, humming a familiar folk melody about an old crow that flies off by itself into a dark wood, never to return.
‘You’ve upset everyone at the house, Leo Nikolayevich.’
‘I have?’
‘Tanya thought you were dead.’
‘She overestimates my good luck.’
I sat beside him on the stump, which was vast and moldering. It was not comfortable.
‘Why did you come looking for me?’
‘They were fussing about you. I was afraid.’
‘You worry too much, Dushan. You must live as though your life does not matter.’
‘It’s your life that matters,’ I said.
‘That’s foolish. I don’t matter in the least. What matters is the lovely air we breathe. Smell it, Dushan.’
I sucked in a breath. Was it lilac?
‘I am enjoying myself tonight,’ he said.
‘You are causing trouble.’
‘Yes, that always pleases me, doesn’t it? A sign of vanity. I must pray about that.’
‘We had better find Tanya,’ I said, taking his arm.
Once we were inside, Tanya scolded her father. ‘You must not go out alone, Papa. Not in the dark.’
He winked at me. ‘All right, all right. And I shall try to walk on my feet and not on my head.’
‘That is not funny, Papa.’
Another day we sat together in the damp, green park. Leo Nikolayevich took me to look at a flowering chestnut tree that had, for mysterious reasons, caught his attention.
‘How marvelous it is!’ he said, holding my arm. ‘It all seems terribly new, as though I were seeing it for the first time. And the birds. Have you ever heard such wonderful singing?’ He talked rapidly, more to himself than to me. ‘And a little while ago I saw two eagles high above the clouds, and two kites!’ It is the geographic setting of Kochety that is most attractive to him.
‘If Napoleon had fought in the Novosil district he would certainly have stayed at Kochety,’ he said. ‘It is the highest point and has a view on all sides.’