Too excited to sleep, she then dccidcd to leave the house the next day for good, and began to pack her bags. When her suitcases were all shut and strapped, she wrote a farewell letter to Lyovochka: "I have tried to make the best of my misery, and to go on seeing Chertkov, but I can't do it. Cursed by my daughter, rejected by my husband, I am abandoning my home because my rightful place in it has been usurped by a Chertkov, and I shall not return to it unless he goes away."
There had to be a press release, too. She wrote it out, weeping: "An extraordinary event has just come to pass at peaceful Yasnaya Polyana. Countess Sofya Andrcycvna has left the home in which, for forty- eight years, she affectionately cared for her husband, having devoted her
entire life to him. Her decision was prompted by the fact that Leo Nikolayevich, in the weakness of his extreme old age, has now come completely under the pcmicious influence of Mr. C . . . ; he has lost all will of his own, allowed C ... to speak in crude and vulgar terms to Sofya Andrcycvna and has continually maintained mysterious relations with him. The countess, who has been suffering from a nervous illness necessitating the consultation of two specialists from Moscow, is no longer able to tolerate the presence of C . . . , and, heartbroken, has abandoned her home."
After preparing this version of the facts for the public, she spent the morning of July 25 in her traveling suit, looking solemn and sullen. Her son Andrey was to arrive that afternoon; a trap had been ordered to fetch him at the station. At two o'clock, Sonya got into the trap and said good-bye to her family. Tolstoy, thinking she was going for a drive, offered to go with her. But she refused, and left alone. In her handbag she carricd her passport, a revolver and the vial of opium. At seven o'clock she was back: her son Audrey, whom she had met at the station, had persuaded her to return home. At the sight of her husband she fell into his arms, apologized for the fright she had given him and immediately demanded to know what he and Chertkov had been plotting. He changed the subject. To Sasha, he said mournfully, "She's a pitiful old woman, one has to feel sorry for her, she was laughing and crying." More deeply touched than he cared to admit, he thought once again of asking Chertkov to remain away from Yasnaya Polyana for a time. "I think I need not tell you how I suffer, for you as much as for myself, at the thought that we will not be seeing each other any more," he wrote on July 26; "but we must give up our meetings, it is necessary. . . . For the time being, let us write to each other. I shall not hide my letters or yours, if I am asked to show them."
Chertkov immediately replied that he would abide by this resolution, but regretted it as a compromise on the part of the mystical spirit:
"I fear that your desire to appease Sofya Andreyevna may lead you to go too far, and cause you to renounce the independence that is essential to anyone seeking to obey, not his own will, but the will of the Master. . . . The danger threatening you is that you may make your actions dependent upon the wishes of another human instead of upon the voice of God, which resounds in our souls at every moment. And that is why I am prepared without a murmur never to sec you again if you arc sure you arc obeying the voice of God; but it would be unspeakably hard and painful for me to forgo a single opportunity to meet you if it is only because of a promise binding you to some human being."
Tolstoy humbly accepted this lesson in Tolstoyism, but stood his
ground. This was not the moment to add fuel to the fire. With Audrey's arrival, Sonya had gained a considerable ally—now there was a boy who had his feet on the ground! He enjoyed the good things of life, favored the established order and was opposed to all philosophers, and he was determined to protect his mother against those who were claiming she had lost her mind.
"In spite of his non-resistance, all Papa can manage to do is hate- people and hurt them!" he shouted. "I don't care a damn about the opinion of an old man in his dotage!"
On July 27 he entered his father's study and challenged him: "Nasty- things are going on in this family. Maman is in an awful state. We want to know whether you have made a will."
Tolstoy's heart missed a beat, but he controlled himself, returned his son's insolent stare and said in a steady voicc: "I do not see any reason to answer that question."10 Andrey went out, slamming the door. Since he could not force his father to talk, he tried his sister, but Sasha pretended not to know anything about anything. It may have been easy and even pleasant for her to lie to her exasperated brothers and her mother, but Tolstoy was sick at having to feign innocence within a ring of inquisitors.
The diary in which he ordinarily gave vent to his feelings was no longer enough, as every single person around him now claimed the right to read it. On July 29, lie began a new diary, entitled Diary for Myself Alone, which 110 one knew about and which he hid in his bootleg or under his shirt, lliis need to record his most intimate thoughts coincided with a fresh attack of conscience. Increasingly often, he was wondering whether he had been right to disinherit his family and had not betrayed his own teachings by acting in accordance with a law system to which he was theoretically opposed. To justify himself in his own eyes, he invoked his sons' mediocrity. "I can be completely sincere in my love of Sonya, but it is impossible with Leo," he wrote in his Diary for Myself Alone on July 29. "Andrey is simply another of those men about whom it is hard to believe they have a God-given soul (yet it exists, we must not forget). . . . But one cannot deprive millions of people of what is certainly necessary to their souls ... in order that Andrey may drink and carry on, and Leo scribble books." But the following day he confessed how deeply torn he was: "Chertkov has involved me in a conflict that is painful and repellent to me."
His feelings of guilt increased after a conversation on August 2 with his biographer and friend Paul Biryukov, who was visiting Yasnaya Polyana. He was counting on his dear "Posha" to congratulate him upon leaving his opus to mankind. But Biryukov criticized the secrecy
with which the whole affair had been handled, and thought Tolstoy should have called the family together and openly stated his intentions. Wasn't he big enough to brave the opinion of his own family? Shaken by this admonishment, the old man wrote that evening, "I see my mistake very clearly. I should have called all my heirs together and announced my decision to them instead of acting in secret. I am writing Chertkov to the same effect."
But Chertkov wouldn't hear of it: a series of letters was brought to Yasnaya Polyana by Goldenwciscr or Bulgakov, explaining how it would have been impossible to make the document public without giving his wife a fatal shock: "She has spent so many long years taking so many precautions and exercizing such care in conceiving, forming and preparing her plan to obtain control of all of your works after your death that a disappointment during your lifetime would be a blow too great for her to bear; she would spare no one and nothing, and I am referring not only to you and your health and your life, but to herself."
Turned about-face once again, Tolstoy answered his disciple:
"I am writing you on this scrap of paper because I am walking in the forest. I have been thinking about your letter since yesterday evening, and all morning too. It aroused two feelings in me: disgust at the manifestations of vulgar cupidity and selfishness that I had cither not noticed or had forgotten; and sorrow and remorse for the pain I caused you by my letter saying I regretted what I had done. The conclusion I drew from all this is that Paul Ivanovich Biryukov was not right, nor was I right to agree with him, and I fully approve of your reaction; however, I am still not pleased with myself. I feel that we might have done better, although I don't know how."