Free The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year by Jay Parini

that letter from the revolutionary. The one I showed you a few days ago. I believe it’s still on my desk.’
    Papa read aloud from it to everyone. It was a curious thing to do, given the letter. One part of it stays in my head and haunts me.

    No, Leo Nikolayevich, I cannot agree with you that human relations are improved by love alone. Only those with an education and a full belly can talk like that and get away with it. What shall we say to a hungry man with children, the man who has staggered through life beneath the yoke of tyrants? He must fight them. He must liberate himself from bondage. Now, before your own death, I tell you, Leo Nikolayevich, that the world is thirsty for blood, that men will continue to fight and kill, not only their masters, but everyone, even their children, so that they shall not have to look forward to their evil as well. I am sorry that you will not live to see this with your own eyes and be convinced of your mistake. Nonetheless, I wish you a happy death .
     
    Andrey bowed his head over his glass, silenced. Mama said that since the letter came from Siberia, the man was probably a criminal in exile and his opinion should be dismissed.
    ‘He is certainly in exile,’ Papa said. ‘But I see no reason why he should be called a criminal.’
    ‘Why else would they send him to Siberia?’
    Papa shook his head. He rose with some difficulty, bowed, and took his leave of the company. It is his custom to retire to his study after tea, usually to read or correct proofs.
    I, too, left the room, though I felt no obligation to excuse myself. Politeness has its limits.
    Not long after, as I was typing, a shy knock came at the door.
    ‘Come in,’ I said.
    ‘You’re working late tonight, Sasha,’ said Bulgakov. His jacket was buttoned to the neck, and his beard was glossy. I realized in the yellow lamplight that he is not unattractive. His cheeks burned with the roseate hue of young manhood. I like the fact that his beard is wispy and guess that he does not have much hair on his chest. Indeed, there is something womanish about him, something tender and unformed.
    ‘I have four letters to finish before dinner,’ I told him, without rising. I wondered why he had come to me like this.
    ‘May I come in?’
    ‘Certainly, Valentin Fedorovich. Sit down.’
    He pulled a cane chair up beside me, uncomfortably close, and looked over my shoulder. I could feel his breath on my shirt.
    ‘Do your parents often speak to each other so … bluntly?’ he asked.
    ‘It is no secret that my parents have fundamental differences,’ I said, trying to be judicious. In this household, you can never tell what will be repeated, or to whom. ‘Mama does not understand my father’s goals. He is a spiritual creature, while her chief concerns are material.’
    ‘But I like your mother.’
    ‘She means well, of course.’ I sounded insincere, but what was I to say? That Mama is irrational, false, and greedy, self-centered and generally impossible?
    ‘Your father is the greatest author in Russia today,’ Bulgakov said.
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘I feel privileged to be here, Sasha. It is an honor I never dreamed of.’
    I simply nodded. It pleased me to hear my father referred to in these terms, however jejunely. The family takes his genius too much for granted.
    Bulgakov began talking of his family, his ambitions. He had been converted to Papa’s ideas through an acquaintance with a small group of Tolstoyans in Moscow, and now he hopes to live for God. The injustice of Russian society upsets him, he said. He was thoughtful and sincere. I really liked him, to my surprise. Unlike so many people around here, he has read Papa’s work carefully and found his own way to express many of the same ideas.
    Suddenly Mama marched into the room, shouting, ‘Valentin Fedorovich! Come downstairs. I must show you a letter I received only this past week from a woman in Georgia.’ She led him awkwardly from the room. He was embarrassed, but he