"At first glance I would say this has absolutely no legal validity. I don't see how one can bequeath one's property to the public. I shall have to think about it and do some research into the law. Leave the paper with me, I will write to you."
News of Tolstoy's presence in Moscow had already got around; reporters and busybodics were telephoning constantly to ask what train he was leaving on. This surge of interest ancl concern flattered Sonya's vanity and worried her daughter.
On the morning of September 19, 1909, a large hired landau came to Khamovnichesky Street to pick up Tolstoy and the rest of the party and take them to the station. The author, Sonya, Sasha and Chertkov got into it. Sergey and his wife, Maklakov and other friends climbed into cabs behind them. Dr. Makovitsky was out of the country, so Sonya had found another doctor, named Bcrkcnhcim, to make the trip with her husband. A small crowd had gathered in the courtyard. There was even an old general standing in front of the porte-cochere. He re moved his cap and bowed low as the landau went by. Strangers were lined along the road. As the team moved forward, heads were bared. A murmur rose up to the old man, who had tears in his eyes.
When the coach reached the Kursk station, point of departure for the
Tula train, Sonya and Sasha exchanged alarmed glances. A crowd of several thousand was milling in the square. University students, high- school girls, factory workers, housewives, befeathered socialites, soldiers, townsmen in bowler hats. The horses shied at the dark sea in front of them, dotted with pink spots. A shout rose up:
"There he is! Glory to Tolstoy! Ilail the great warrior! Hurrah!*
The coach could not move. They had to dismount. Tolstoy gave his arm to his wife, who was limping. Chertkov, wearing a white panama hat, tried to clear a passage to the platform. Maklakov and a broad- shouldered policeman walked on either side of the author. Students were shouting:
"A chain! Make a chain!"
rIhey seized each other by the hands. Buffeted on all sides, Tolstoy, pale and staring, his features tense, moved forward between two rows of green-striped blue caps. Young eyes were fixed upon him in blind devotion. Unknown mouths were yapping his name. He felt faint with joy and with the fear that the scene would end in a monstrous crush, as at Khodanka. At the entrance to the station the pressure became so great that the chain broke. Caught up in the mass, Tolstoy, Sonya and Sasha were tossed about like corks.
"In the name of heaven! Hold them back! Protcct him!" cried the girl.
"For the love of Leo Nikolayevich! I beg you! You're crushing him!" wailed Sonya.
The platform onto which the travelers erupted violently was even more tightly packed with people. They had climbed onto the wagon roofs and shinnied up the posts supporting the glass roof. Bouquets of flowers were passed from hand to hand. The police were utterly powerless to control the situation. However, thanks to their sergeant escort, who thrust out right and left with his elbows, Tolstoy and Sonya, clinging to each other, somehow managed to edge their way toward the train. The old man was bent and staggering, his lower jaw was trembling; he was summoning all his strength to hold out until the end.
At last everyone was inside the train, safe and sound. Tolstoy fell onto the scat and closed his eyes. Now that the danger was past, Sonya kept repeating, with shining eyes and scarlet cheeks:
"Like kings! They followed us like kings!"
Chertkov mopped his face and fanned himself with his hat.
The crowd outside was still shouting:
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Glory!"
On Chertkov's counsel, Tolstoy went to the window. The roar grew louder. Voices rang out:
"Silence! Silencc! lie's going to speak!"
"Thank you," Tolstoy said, in a steady voice. "I did not expect so great a joy. I am deeply stirred by this expression of sympathy. . . . Thank you."
"Thank you!" replied the crowd. "Hurrah! All hail to our good Leo Nikolayevich!"
Cameramen were filming the sccnc. The train began to move. Standing at the window, Tolstoy continued to wave at the crowd dwindling into the distance, its voice melting into the harsh grating of the wheels. He was surprised at the pleasure this ovation had given him, for he thought he had long since become immune to the temptation of pride. He sat down again, happy and weary. lie was given some oatmeal porridge to revive him.
Chertkov got off at Serpukhov; he was not allowed inside the government of Tula and so could go no farther. When the train started up again, Tolstoy lay down to rest and had a stroke. His pulse was so weak that the doctor seemed worried. When they reached Yasenki he opened his eyes and tried to speak, but his tongue was paralyzed and he could only utter disconnected words. He was carried to a coach that was waiting at the station. Throughout the trip home he stared into space, drawing circles with his fingers and muttering:
"Moses . . . Pygmalion . . . Moses, Moses, religion . . ."
Leaning against him, Sonya covered him with a carriage rug, rubbed his hands to keep them warm and prayed through her tears.11
He was still delirious when the coach pulled up at the door of Yasnaya Polyana.
"Hot water bottles, wine, leeches, an icepack for his head," prescribed the doctor.
Then, with Sonya's help, he l>cgan to undress the patient. Seeing her husband half-naked, staring wildly with his mouth hanging open, Sonya thought the end had come. Then she remembered all the enemies around her. With Lyovochka gone, she would be stripped, trampled underfoot. They would use the dead man's diaries to make her out a shrew. And the person who would work hardest to ruin her would surely be her youngest daughter, who had been bewitched by that Chertkov! Quick, quick, she must prevent them from carrying out their dirty plot. Beside herself with fatigue and anxiety, Sonya paced back and forth around the bed, casting hunted glances on all sides.
"Lyovochka! Lyovochka!" she burst out "Where are the keys?"
"I don't understand. Why?" stammered the old man.
"The keys, the keys to the box you keep your manuscripts in."
"Maman, leave him alone, for pity's sake," said Sasha. "Don't force him to try to remember things."
"But I have to have those keys," Sonya went on. "What if he died and they stole the manuscripts! . . ."
"No one is going to steal them. Leave him alone."12
The doctor gave him a hot enema. Then he administered an injection. Sonya moaned:
"Now the end has come!"
But later in the night, Tolstoy regained consciousness, gave a weary smile and dropped off to sleep. The next morning he wrote in his diary: "Trip. Almost crushed to death by huge crowd. Chertkov saved me. I was afraid for Sonya and Sasha. . . . Readied Yascnki. I remember getting into a coach but what happened after that, until 10 a.m. on September 20, I have no recollection. They tell me I began to talk nonsense, then I lost consciousness. How easy and nice it would be to die like that!"13
The next day he went horseback-riding. And a few days later he returned to his articles and correspondence. He had just received a letter from an unknown Hindu, calling him the "Titan of Russia" and signing himself "a humble follower of your doctrine." The Hindu's name was Mahatma Gandhi. Tolstoy replied, asking him to convey his expression of fellow-feeling to his "beloved brothers, the Indian workers of the Transvaal."
Back in Moscow, Chertkov was not standing idle. At his behest, the lawyer Muravyev was drafting a new will. He drew up several versions, all legally valid, and Strakhov agreed to take them to Yasnaya Polyana and submit them to Tolstoy for approval. The basic idea in all was the same: the copyrights had to be left to some specific person, so that this person, designated by name, could, by his refusal of the inheritance, cause the signer's works to revert to the public domain. The conspirators chose a day when they thought Sonya would be in Moscow, but Strakhov found himself face to face with her in the train taking him to Yasenki. Sonya stared at him in icy mistrust, and he had difficulty in hiding his discomfort. They reached Yasnaya Polyana together. Taking Tolstoy aside, Strakhov showed him the papers drawn up by the lawyer. But in the meantime, the old man had changed his mind. lie wondered whether it would not be better to abandon the idea of a will. "This thing is preying 011 my mind," he told his caller. "It is not necessary to adopt any special measures for the propagation of my work. Take Christ as an example—strange as it may seem that I should pretend to compare myself with him—lie did not worry about people appropriating his ideas for themselves, he boldly offered them to all and he mounted the cross for them. And his ideas were not lost. Besides, no word ever disappears without leaving a trace, if it expresses some truth and the man who spoke it had faith in its truth."