As always, kumys, rest and separation from the family restored his equilibrium. Calm, relaxed, full of love for the human race, he was already beginning to consider spending the remainder of his life in meditation while his wife assumed, single-handedly, the heavy burden of raising the children and managing the property.
"You cannot imagine how it upsets me to think that you are working too hard, and how sorry I am to help you so little, or in fact, not at all," he wrote to Sonya on August 2, 1881. "Now I see things differently. I still think and feci as before, but I am cured of the en-or of believing that other people can and must think as I do. I am very guilty toward you, my darling; involuntarily and unwittingly, you know that, but guilty all the same. My excuse is that in order to work under such tension, and really crcatc something, one must forget everything else.
I Or between $28,300 and $$6,600.
And I have forgotten too much, and I am sorry. In the name of Cod and our love, take care of yourself. Put off as much of the work as you can until I come home; I shall do it joyfully, and not too badly; I shall apply myself."
And on August 6:
"Please God let me come home safe to you all, and you'll sec what a good boy I will be, exactly as you want me!"
These letters poured balm into Sonya's heart. At the news that her husband was planning another novel, she could not contain herself:
"I felt such a surge of joy when I read that you want to return to poetical writing. You know how long I have been waiting and longing for that! It is salvation and happiness. That is the thing that will bring us together again. That is what will consolc you and light your life. That is real work! Away from it there can be no peace for your soul. I know you cannot force yourself, but may God keep you in the same State of mind, so that the divine spark may kindle in you again!"
Tolstoy's good resolutions did not outlast his treatment. When he had emptied his last bowl of kumys, his optimism and forbearance vanished as though by magic. On August 17, 1881, returning to Yas- nava Polyana, he found the house full of relatives, guests and neighbors. The young people were dancing and chattering and racing about in all directions, pawing through the closets: an amateur play was in preparation. Irritated by all this racket, the master took refuge in solitary and morose meditation. No more thought of writing novels or doing his share of the family chores. He wrote in his diary, "Theatricals. Non-entities. . . . The days of 19, 20 and 21 are stricken from my life."
The next day, August 22, Turgenev came to Yasnaya Polyana for Sonya's birthday and was swept away in the general hilarity. Tolstoy glowered at the elegant and garrulous old man trying to share in the amusements of youth. The newcomer proposed that each person should recite the happiest moment of his life. Among the group were Tanya and Sergey, whose romance had once been a major topic of interest in the family and who had since married separately—she to Kuzminsky and he to his gypsy. Sergey whispered something into the young woman's ear; she blushed and murmured, "You are impossible, Sergey Nikolayevich!" and forbade him to tell "his most wonderful memory." Then they all turned to Turgenev, who smiled dolefully, assumed a languid expression and confessed: "The most shining moment of my life naturally has to do with love. It is the one in which your eyes meet those of the woman you love and you guess that she loves you, too. That happened to me once . . . perhaps twice."
It was hard for Tolstoy to hide his scorn; and he was forced to re-
double his efforts when his colleague, yielding to the pleas of the young, demonstrated how the cancan was danced in Paris. As Turgenev hopped nimbly about with his thumbs stuck through the armholcs of his waistcoat and a gasping leer on his face, the whole household applauded and laughed. At last he collapsed, breathless, into an armchair. They flocked around, plying him with questions about France. He told them that he had attended classes in "pornography" in Paris, with demonstrations "on live subjects." The ladies gasped. Tolstoy scowled. An air of debauchery had entered his house. To change the subject, someone began to talk of French literature. Turgenev was very well acquainted with Flaubert, Zola, Daudet, Goncourt, Maupassant. . . . Once again he entertained his audience with his recollections of the great foreign authors. He said he disapproved of the excesses of realism. Then, carried away by his eloquence, he turned to Russian literature, and began to pick Dostoyevsky to pieces. Tolstoy immediately pricked up his ears. The expression on Turgenev's face was mocking and mean.
"Do you know what a backward clichd is?" he said. "When a man is in love his heart pounds; when he is furious he turns scarlct, etc. Those are ordinary cliches. But with Dostoyevsky it's all the other way around. For instance, a man meets a lion. What docs he do? In the normal course of events, he turns pale and tries to run away or hide. In any ordinary story, in Jules Verne for example, that's the way it would happen. But in Dostoyevsky it's all the opposite: the man sees the lion, he turns red, and he stays put. That is a backward cliche. It is an easy method of being thought original. And then, in Dostoyevsky, the heroes are always in a state of delirium, frenzy, fever every second page. No, really, that is not how tilings happen in real life!"47
Tolstoy was jubilant to hear such lively criticism of the writer whom some, in the press, had dared to place on a level with himself. He might almost have forgiven Turgenev his well-cut vests and his fancy manners with the ladies. However, he could not forget that ridiculous cancan. That evening he wrote in his diary: "August 22. Turgenev—cancan. Pity."
4. The Horrors of the City; the Appeal of the "Dark
One s"
As the years went by, Tolstoy felt a growing need to be alone. He even began to fear the coming of summer, with its noisy guests, dinner-table chattcr, croquet and tennis matches, organized walks and picnics. With the first rain, his private sky cleared. lie waited impatiently for the dry white frost that drove away the importunate guests, brought the family together under one roof and restored propitious conditions for meditation. Sonya, on the contrary, dreaded the approach of winter. When the house was walled in by snow she dreamed ruefully of city- lights, receptions, balls, theater. ... If only she had a novel of I.yo- vochka's to copy, she might have peopled her own empty existence with the sentimental life of his heroes. But he showed no inclination to go back to fiction. The more she urged him, the less he hastened to obey. He wasn't bored, in his study surrounded by his philosophers. But her only distractions were the children's education, household accounts, needlework, the dinner: "I am going down to dine, I will cat pike, then I will nurse the baby and go to bed. . . ."* "I drank tea and ate chocolate. . . ."2 Lyovochka went hunting every day, and she feverishly awaited his return. "He went out after hare, but saw no game. . . "He came back with four hares and a fox. . . "Yesterday, with the pointer, he took six hares, and today, with the hounds, one fox. . . ."3 One child had diarrhea, another a sore throat, Andryusha's fontanels were late in hardening. . . . Worries of this kind were soul- destroying. Sonya complained, alone with her notebook. For a while she became engrossed in a job her husband had given her, at Stra- khov's instigation: the preparation of a short biography of Lyovochka for an anthology of selected works, The Russian Library. "It is not easy to write a biography," she noted. "I have written little and badly. I was interrupted by the children, nursing, noise. And in addition, I
do not know the details of Lyovoehka's life before his marriage."4 Later, she wrote, "In the evening we went over Lyovoehka's entire life together for his biography. lie talked and I wrote. We worked cheerfully and amicably."5