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

did not have the sense – or the wherewithal – to resist her.
    That woman simply cannot bear it when anyone is alone with me. Let her read her ridiculous letter to young Bulgakov. He means nothing to me. I have my work before me, and this is enough.

Sofya Andreyevna
     
    If I’m in the right frame of mind, I actually like these wintry, overcast days when you live in a white cocoon. White cloud-scud sky, with snow hanging on the branches, meringue slices of clean, white snow. The ground is soft with the dust of snow, and your feet make a slight, muffled sound when you walk along the frozen paths. I like the blackbirds, too, and sparrows, so tenacious, enduring. Nothing scares them away. When I see blackbirds on the fence in the orchard, my heart fastens on them.
    There is something going on behind my back, something to do with the will. Yesterday, I asked Lyovochka directly, ‘Has anyone approached you about your will? Has anything changed? You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if anything happened?’
    He thinks he can give away everything we own: the house, the land, the copyright to all his works. Has he no sense of responsibility?
    ‘You mustn’t worry, Sonya,’ he said. ‘Nothing has happened.’ But I’m worried.
    Is it so much to ask for, that my husband’s children should inherit his property, including the right to republish his work as they see fit when he is gone? They, too, must live. It is some years since we agreed that I should maintain control over everything he wrote before 1881. I am happy enough to let the world take the rest, leaving me with Anna Karenina, War and Peace , and all the early novels – the only ones that keep selling anyway. It’s almost comical that my husband believes the later works matter beyond a small circle of religious fanatics. Who wants to read books of theological speculation? Books that tell you that you’ve been doing everything wrong through your whole life?
    I’ve been lying in bed with a headache, watching the snow fall, drinking tea. I cannot read. My head is tight as a drum, pounding. And I do not have the gramophone in my bedroom.
    Music has been my one escape, an island in this tilting sea around me. Had my life gone better, I would have been a professional pianist. Tanayev, my teacher, assured me that my talent would have been sufficient. But Lyovochka has denied me even this.
    He was impossible about Tanayev, so mean and jealous, like a silly schoolboy. My interest in that dear, sweet little man was entirely professional – or almost entirely. He is not, after all, an appealing man – not in any conventional way. He is short and porky, with red hair thinning on top; he refuses to trim that scrubby auburn beard of his. But his style! What style!
    Tanayev understands how a woman in society should be treated. Alas, it has been a long time since I have been around people who understand that, people such as the friends who would call on Papa – courtiers and generals, men of rank in society. No wonder I feel lonely here, in the wilds, surrounded by Goths.
    I remember seeing Tanayev for the first time, on the stage in Kiev. Tanya and I went to that concert by chance, but we both knew at once that we were in the presence of genius. We wept madly when he played the Appassionata . After the concert, waiting for his carriage, the poor man was surrounded by screaming, foolish women. Pelagya Vasilievna, who had been his childhood nurse and now accompanied him everywhere like a doting grandmother, tried to push them away. But it was useless, such was their passion. One foolish girl grabbed his red silk kerchief, ripping it to shreds. I could not bear to see such a travesty and instructed our footman to do something.
    He walked bravely through the mob, shouting, ‘Make way for the Countess Tolstoy!’ Though embarrassed by the attention, I followed him. The crowd grew very still, and a path opened for me, almost miraculously, to the feet of Sergey Ivanovich. I felt like