authorities: "Take measures. Mobilize sufficient units of mounted police in neighboring communities; stand by." A detachment of county police- moved into Astapovo.
Oblivious to the immense turmoil around him, Tolstoy called for his diary—a notebook bound in black oilcloth—opened it to page 129 and, with unsteady pencil, set down on the ruled paper a few almost illegible words:
"November 3. Difficult night. Two days in bed with fever. Chertkov came on the second. They say Sofya Andreyevna . . . The third, Tanya. Sergey came during the night. I was very touched by him. Today, the third, Nikitin, Tanya, then Goldenweiser and Ivan Ivanovich.* And here is my plan. Fais ce que dois adv . . .f It is all for the good of others and mostly for my own."t
In the evening he had a painful attack of hiccups, which Dr. Makovitsky and Dr. Nikitin tried to stop by giving him sugared milk diluted in Seltzer water to drink. While his bed was being made tip, he muttered:
"What about the muzhiks? How do the muzhiks die?"
In the midst of a fit of tears, he became delirious. He wanted to dictate something important, but his tongue had thickened and the words that came out of his mouth made 110 sense; lie became angry with his daughter for not writing them down. To calm him, she began to read passages from the Circle of Reading. When she grew faint with fatigue, Chertkov took the book out of her hand and began where she had left off. All night long they took turns reading by the side of their patient, who dozed, woke up, said he had not heard the last sentence clearly and asked to have it repeated.
In the morning of November 4 he whispered:
"I think I am dying, but maybe not."
He fretted, wheezed, twisted the coiner of the blanket around his fingers, frowned, clutching at an idea, and whimpered plaintively when lie could not express it.
"Don't try to think," Sasha told him.
"How can I not think? I must, I must think!"
He fell asleep with his mouth open, his lips thin and pale, his features sharpened by pain; then he shook himself and began to pronounce more disconnected words in a staccato voice:
• Goibunov.
\ Written in Freneb. The complete scntcncc, which Tolstoy left unfinished, is Pais ce que dois, adviennc que pourra (Do as you must, come what may).
t This is Tolstoy's last entry in his diary.
"Seek! Keep seeking! . . ."
I lis fingertips made writing motions, moving swiftly and gracefully across the sheet. Tireless laborer, lost in the mists of fever; what new novel or philosophical treatise did he think he was composing? Toward evening, Varvara Fcokritova cainc into the room and, mistaking her for his dead daughter, the old man raised himself on his bed, his eyes shining with unearthly joy, stretched out his arms and cried in a mighty voice:
"Masha! Masha!"
Then he fell back:
"I am very tired. Do not torment me any more."
Meanwhile Sonya was chafing and fussing in her railroad car, surrounded by her baffled sons and her suspicious nurse. Four times she slipped away from them and went over to the red cottage, trying to catch a glimpse of her husband through the window. But each time, a hand pulled the curtain in front of her nose. Then she ran to the door and collided with the implacable Sergeyenko. No admission. She fumed. By what right? Lyovochka might be dying! She had lived with him for forty-eight years, and now strangers were trying to prevent them from coming together. If he knew she was there, loving and repentant, he would order the doors of his room opened wide! Her voice began to rise, as she argued with the watchdog outside, and her sons came running and cscortcd her back to her railroad car by force. Dressed all in black and wearing a fur hat covered by a light veil tied under her chin, she passed in front of the newspaper reporters.
The following day, November 5, the patient's condition grew worse. Summoned from Moscow by a rush call, Dr. Bcrkcnhcim came to the rescue. He brought a new, softer bed, digitalin and oxygen balloons. But after examining the old man he did not hide his concern. The heart threatened to give way at any moment. Tolstoy refused every form of medication, dozed, talked incoherently, mixed up names and faces. In a moment of lucidity, he said to Tanya:
"Much has fallen upon Sonya."
Not understanding what he meant, Tanya asked:
"Do you want to see her? Do you want to see Sonya?"
But he did not answer, his eyes were blank and he was wheezing heavily. A little later, he said to his son Sergey:
"I cannot seem to get to sleep. I am still composing. I am writing. Each thing moves on smoothly to the next."
The number of press correspondents, photographers and cameramen grew with the arrival of every train. Where were they to go? The
Ryazan-Ural Railroad Company housed them in railroad cars until they were all full, and then opened up a new building, that had to be heated to dry the plaster. Company cables poured out in a steady stream: "Please rush ten or fifteen most sturdy model table lamps Astapovo . . "Please send mattresses, blankets, pillows by baggage ear . . ." The railroad employees contrived to maintain a zone of relative quiet around the sick man. They kept their brakes from screeching any more than necessary, muffled the couplings, held back their steam valves. When a convoy went through the station, faces lined the windows. Locomotives stopped and started without blowing their whistles. In the snowy streets of Astapovo, however, ordinarily so placid, every tongue 011 earth could be heard. The station restaurant was besieged by busy, brash men, drinking vodka, munching salt pickles and loudly voicing their opinions of the dying man. His temperature, pulse and rate of breathing were announced to the whole world. All his life, lie had noted the clinical manifestations of his slightest disorder with care: now every newspaper in the world was doing it for him. By a grim twist of fate, his private diary was being fed straight into the mass-circulation press and the man who had fled in search of silence and oblivion was the subject of the noisiest publicity ever given to an author.
Seeing the world-wide impact of the affair, the ministry of the interior decided to take drastic action. The governor of the province arrived on the scene on November 4, along with the chief of the Ryazan police. On November 5, the deputy director of the national police turned up incognito. Were they afraid of a proletarian uprising? The order was given to distribute ammunition to the constabulary. Plainclothes spies mingled with the journalists. Nor was the Church standing idly by: on the previous day, the metropolitan of St. Petersburg sent a telegram to the patient exhorting him to repent "before appearing for judgment at the throne of God." But Chertkov refused to show him the message. On the evening of November 5, an emissary of the Holy Synod, Father Varsonofy, starets of the Optina-Pustyn monastery, arrived in Astapovo and reported directly to the captain responsible for keeping order. This holy man had instructions to see Tolstoy and try, by every means in his power, to bring him back to the Church. What a victory it would be for religion, if the old outcast should admit the error of his ways on his deathbed. But family and physicians alike categorically refused to let the monk approach the sick man. He remained at Astapovo, however, creating a monumental housing problem for the captain of the police, for waiting rooms, offices, railroad cars—everything was filled to overflowing. Father Varsonofy had to content himself with a bed installed in a closet in the ladies' restroom.