The Diary of Tolstoy's Wife—V

By arrangement with I' iclor Gollanc.-_, Ltd., who will publish the complete book on November 20th, we are this to print a series of extracts from " The Diary of Tolstoy's Wife," which have been translated by Alexander Werth. The Russian text first appeared at Moscow in September of this year, and the inform- ation it contained has not previously been made public. We have already published entries from a retrospective account of her engagement in 1862, when Tolstoy was thirty-four years old, further extracts from the account of her marriage and entries relating to " Anna Karenina" and to Tolstoy's religious awakening. This week's excerpts are taken from her diary.

Wednesday, November 1, 1878.

This morning Lyova (Tolstoy) read to me the beginning of his new book. It is going to be a long, interesting, and ambitious work. It starts with a dispute between the peasants and the landowner over a plot of land, the arrival in Moscow of Prince Chernyshev and his family, the laying of the foundation-stone of the Church of the Saviour, an old woman pilgrim, etc. Dyakov came for dinner. Lyova killed a hare. In the evening we talked about the estates which Dyakov had been inspecting for Masha. On Monday Serezha and Tanya christened Parasha's baby ; they behaved very well, although Ilyusha and little Lyova giggled all the time. I went to Tula to-day with Dmitri Alexeyevich, Serezha, and Tanya ; it was a bright, frosty morning. We bought material for Tanya's winter coat, a fur-lined jacket for Serezha (12 silver roubles), and ordered a winter overcoat for him (65 silver roubles), shoes for Tanya, a jacket for me, lined with our own fox fur, as well as many other things. Lyova was working at home, but came to meet us on our return. It is always such a joy on going home to see his grey overcoat in the distance. Andry- usha is well and bright. We brought the boys some tops at 10 copeks each, a thimble for Masha, beads and brooches and ear-rings for the dolls, and warm gloves for everybody. I was terribly tired, for we hadn't eaten anything all day, except some cakes and a bit of currant bread. In. the evening I washed Andryusha. He has still got no hair on the top of his head, which rather worries me. We finished the Trois Mousquetaires with much interest. Lyova spent much of the evening (improvising) at the piano-he seems to have a special gift for it.

November 6th.

Lyova went out shooting, and brought back two hares. It worries him not to be able to write ; in the evening he was reading Dickens's Dombey and Son, and suddenly said to me : " I've got an idea ! " I asked him what it was, and though at first he didn't want to tell me, he finally said : " I have been thinking of an old woman, imagining her figure, her appear- ance, and her thoughts ; but, I couldn't find a feeling to put into her, and now I've got it ; it's the constant, everlasting feeling that Gerasimovich, her old man, locked up in jail and with his head shaven, is innocent." Then he sat down at the piano and improvised. November 16th.

Lyova said : " The ideas, the characters, and the plot are all complete in my head." But he is still unwell, and is not able to write. He began to eat lenten food yesterday ; I keep objecting to it, for I am sure that it is not good for him. He stayed at home to-day, but was out hunting yesterday, and brought back three hares and a fox.

August 26, 1882.

Twenty years ago, when I was a happy young woman, I started writing this book, the story of my love for Lyova. It deals with almost nothing else. And now, after twenty years, I am sitting up in the middle of the night, weeping over its loss. For the first time in my life Lyova has run away from me and has spent the night in.his study. We quarrelled over mere trifles ; I blamed him for not taking a sufficient interest in the children, for not helping me to nurse Ilya. who is ill, or to make jackets for the children. But it isn't a question of jackets, it's a question of his increasing coldness towards me and the children. He cried out aloud to-day that his most passionate desire was to get away from his family. To my last breath shall I remember this candid exclamation, which seemed to tear out my heart. I am begging God to let me die, .for I cannot live without his love ; I realized this the moment

his love vanished. I can't tell him now how much I love him —it is the same love which I have given him all these twenty years. It humiliates me and annoys him. He is full of Christianity and the idea of self-perfection. I am jealous . . . Ilya has typhus ; he is lying in the drawing-room with a high fever ; I am careful to give him his quinine at the right intervals, which are short ones—so that I must be careful not to miss them. I shan't lie down on the bed which my husband has abandoned. God help me ! I want to kill myself—my thoughts are all confused. The clock is striking four. If he doesn't come back I shall know that he loves another woman. He hasn't come back. My duty ? I've always known what my duty was. But what is my duty now ?

He came back, but we did not make peace until twenty-four hours later. We both wept, and I saw with joy that the old love, the loss of which I had bemoaned during all that dreadful night, was still alive in him. I shall never forget that lovely bright morning, with the silver dew sparkling on every leaf, when, after a sleepless night, I walked through the wood towards the bathing-cabin. I have seldom seen Nature in such triumphant beauty. I stayed for a long time in the ice-cold water, hoping to catch a chill and die. But I did not catch a chill, and, instead, went home, and nursed my happy, smiling little Alyosha.

October 25th, 1886.

For all its pain, these two months of Lev Niliolaevich's (Tolstoy) illness were, strangely enough, the last thne of real happiness I have had. I nursed him day and night. It was such a happy, natural thing—the only thing I can do really well—to make a personal sacrifice for the man one loves. The harder it was, the happier it made me. Now he wanders about, and is nearly well. He has shown me clearly that he doesn't need me any longer, and now I am once again cast aside as of no further use, although I am, nevertheless, expected to do impossible things, like renouncing my pro- perty, giving up my convictions, and the education and welfare of my children—things which not only I, a sufficiently strong-minded woman, but a thousand others who firmly believe in this form of righteousness are incapable of doing.

We have already been in Yasnaya longer than usual. I am not strong enough to undertake anything. Yet my con- science is awake, and tells me that my energy is failing. I must follow the path which I know to be the right one, and yet I have lost all will-power. I shall probably have to go to Moscow again, still keep the family together, and have to handle all the publishing side, and to get all the money, which Lev Nikolaevich, with an injured air of indifference, is the first to ask for, and which he then distributes among his favourites and his poor, who aren't poor at all, but are merely more insolent than the others and better at begging from him. All these people like Constantine, and Ganya, and Alexander Petrovich, and the rest. . . . The children, who have been blaming me for not siding with their father, are also expecting to get as much out of it as they can. . . Oh, to get away from all this—and I shall—one way or another. I haven't sufficient strength left, nor do I care enough for it all, with its struggles and need for patience. I shall write my diary for the moment. It may make me kinder and more silent ; and perhaps all my excitement and irritation will be spent on it.

A bleak and dreary autumn. Andryusha and Misha went skating on the Lower Pond. Tanya and Masha have tooth- ache. Lev Nikolaevich is planning to write a drama of peasant life. May God grant that he goes back to this kind of work ! His arm is aching with rheumatism. Mine. Seuron is a very pleasant woman and gets on well with the children.

I often wonder why Lyova is always making me out to be guilty, in spite of my innocence. No doubt because he wants to see me suffer at the sight of poverty and illness, and mis- fortune, and actually look for it even if I have no opportunity of seeing it in my own surroundings—and he is expecting the same from the children. Is there any need for it ? Is there any need for a healthy human being constantly to keep going' to hospitals to look at the sufferings and agony of the sick,. and to listen to their groans ? If you come across a sick man in your own life, take pity on him and help him, by all means, but why go searching for him.?

I am reading the lives, of the philosophers and am finding it extremely interesting. But it is hard for me to read it and keep calm and balanced. When I read these books, I keep looking for all the things that agree with my-own views and convictions, and I skip over the rest. It is therefore hard for me to learn anything, though I am trying to be less partial.

Buturlin has come' to stay with us. He is genuine ; there is no muddle about him.

October 26th.

Lyova has, written the first act of his play. I am going to copy. it out. Why have I lost my blind faith even in his literary power-? He has gone out for a stroll with Buturlin. It is damp and dark.

March 9th, 1887.

Lyova is writing a new article, " On Life and Death," which is to be read to the Psychological Society at the University. Last week he again .took up his vegetarianism, and it is already having an effect on his frame of mind. To-day he purposely started talking about the evils of wealth and money in front of me, and alluded to my desire to keep things for the

children. I said nothing at first, but finally lost my temper and said.: " I sell the twelve-volume edition for eight roubles, while you used to charge ten roubles for War and Peace alone." He - grew angry, but said nothing. His so-called friends, the new Christians, try terribly hard to put L. N. against me—and are not always unsuccessful. I read over Chertkov's letter in which he spoke of the happy spiritual communion between himself and his wife, and expressed his sympathy and regret that such a worthy man as L. N. should be ignorant of such happiness and be deprived of such a communion—an obvious allusion to me. I read it over, and it hurt me. That blunt, sly, untruthful man, having suc- ceeded in getting round L. N. with his flattery, is now trying (I suppose that's Christian) to destroy the bond which has so closely kept us together for nearly twenty-five years ! The two months that Lev Nikolaevich was ill we spent in our good old way. I could see how his spirit was rested, and how all his old inspiration was coming back to him. He wrote his play then. But he is falling again into the snares of these false, sweet-mouthed, new Christians, and he is already wanting to go back to the country, and I can see the fire fading within him, and the effect of it all on his soul.

June 18th.

Many people blame me for not writing my diary and memoirs, since Fate has put me in touch with such a famous man. But it is so hard to break away from my personal attitude towards him, to be quite impartial, and, most of all, to find any time to do it ; I am so terribly busy, and it's been the same all my life. I thought I- would be free enough this summer to copy and sort out some of Lev Nikolaevich's manuscripts. But I've been here a whole month now, and have had to spend all this time copying " On Life and Death," on which he has worked for such a long time.

No sooner am I finished copying it than he changes it all, and I have to copy it all over again. His patience and deter- mination are endless. I really ought to write my memoirs, if only to explain so many obscure things about his life. For instance, there is his letter to Engelhardt, numerous written copies of which are being handed round ; L. N. has never even met young Engelhardt, who, like many other people, wrote to L. N., because he was a famous author. But L. N. was in a gloomy mood that day. Having expressed certain deas in his writings, he was unable to apply them in practice, and, feeling miserable and depressed because of it, he poured forth all his thoughts in this letter to a stranger, just as if it were a diary.

Much stranger still are his relations and his correspondence with people who are simply dishonourable, and whose reputa- tion is terrible—as, for instance, Ozmidov. The other day I saw Ozmidov's name written on an envelope, and asked Lev Nikolaevich why he was still continuing this correspondence, even though he knew quite well that Ozmidov was an evil man. " If he is an evil man," he replied, " I can be of greater help to him than to anybody else." This explains his rela- tions with many wicked and insignificant people, some of them obscure strangers, who flock to see us in large numbers. Yesterday a fourth-year medical student, a violent revolu- tionary, called, and Lev Nikolaevich spent his time explaining to him the fallacy, harm, and uselessness of revolution. I don't know whether he convinced him er not ; I saw no signs of it. To-day we got several- etters from America, and the Century, with Kennan's article on his visit to Yasnaya Polyana and his talks with Lev Nikolaevich, and a review of L. N.'s translated works—all very flattering and sympathetic. It is strange and pleasant to find such sympathy and apprecia- tion so many thousands of miles away.

The success, or rather the response he has got from America is giving him great joy, although usually success and fame make no great impression on him. He is looking happy and full of energy, and often says : " Life is a fine thing."

December 8th, 1890.

I am going on copying Lyova's diary. I wonder why I've never read or copied it before ; it has been in one of my drawers for such a long time ; I don't think I have ever got over all the horror I experienced when I read Lyova's diaries before our marriage, and I doubt if the sharp sting of jealousy and my bewilderment at the thought of such filth and debauchery, have ever quite disappeared. May God preserve all young souls from such wounds—for they will never heal.

December 14th.

I copied Lyova's diaries up to where he says : " There is no love, there is only the physical craving for intercourse and the rational need of a life companion." If only I had read this opinion twenty-nine years ago, I should never have married him. . .

December 16th.

Yes, I have lost all power to concentrate on any thought, feeling or action. This chaos of endless worries, stumbling over each other, drives me to a state of complete bewilderment and I lose all my balance. The very thought of all these things, which take up every moment of my life, is overwhelming— children's lessons and illnesses, my husband's physical and, above all, his mental state, the older children., with all their affairs, and debts and posts and children, the sale of the Samara estate, the plans and documents I have to obtain and copy for the purchasers, the new edition, the thirteenth volume, which contains the banned Kreutzer Sonata, the proceedings against the Ovsiannikovo priest, the proof of volume thirteen, nightshirts for Misha, shirts and shoes for Andryusha, household expenses, insurance, land taxes, ser- vants' passports, accounts to be kept and copied, &c., &c., &c. Every single one of these things has got to be looked after. And when something goes wrong like that business with the peasants, I suddenly realize that I have been at fault and that I have lost something of my strength—that I have hurt Lyova against my will. When we lodged our complaint with the rural court we were determined to forgive them after the sentence was passed. But no, the case turned out to be a criminal one ; the sentence could not be changed, and Lyova is nearly driven to despair that the Yasenki peasants have been sent to jail because of his property. He could not sleep at night, and jumped out of bed, and kept pacing up and down the drawing-room, gasping for breath, and, of course, blaming me—and in a very cruel way. I did not lose my temper, thank heaven, for I knew all the time that he was a sick man ; but what greatly astonished me was that he was trying to make me pity him ; but at the same time he never once made any effort to see my point of view and to understand that I had never intended to hurt either him or the thievish peasants. This self-adoration comes out in every one of his diaries. It is amazing how people existed for him only in so far as they affected him personally. And the women ! I caught myself up to-day on an evil thought. I copy his diaries with the zest of a drunkard, and my drunkenness con- sists in working myself up into a state of jealousy over the women he describes. . . . I am still restless and cannot shake off those memories. Never. . . . Another thing in

his diaries strikes me as curious—the fact that, simulta-

neously with his daily debauches, he also tried to do a good deed every day. And now, too, when he goes for his walks on the high road, he will show a drunken man the way, help to harness a horse, or pull a cart out of the ditch—it is still a case of looking for good deeds.

[Next week we shall publish the first of a series of articles by Emil Ludwig, taken from " On Mediterranean Shores," which will shortly be published by Messrs. George Allen and Unwin.J