Chapter 17. Care “Life is a great blessing,” Mironov said in 1985. “And, as it turns out, a person’s life is very short.” There is enough misfortune, grief, drama, complexity, and troubles in it. And therefore we must especially appreciate moments of happiness and joy - they make people

Chapter Seven LEAVING CSKA At the preliminary stage of the 1960/61 national championship, CSKA lost four matches, took second place in the group and in the final pool ended up in the last, sixth position, since only those points that were scored in meetings with

We are all brave in front of each other and forget that we are all, unless we love, pathetic, pathetic. But we are so brave and pretend to be angry and self-confident that we ourselves fall for it and mistake sick chickens for terrible lions...

From a letter from Leo Tolstoy to V.G. Chertkov

Chapter first
Leaving or fleeing?

On the night of October 27-28, 1910 1
All dates are given in old style. – Note here and below. auto

In the Krapivensky district of the Tula province, an incredible event took place, out of the ordinary, even for such an unusual place as Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate of the world-famous writer and thinker - Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The eighty-two-year-old count secretly fled from his home at night in an unknown direction, accompanied by his personal doctor Makovitsky.

The eyes of newspapers

The information space of that time was not much different from today. The news of the scandalous event instantly spread throughout Russia and around the world. On October 29, urgent telegrams began to arrive from Tula to the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (PTA), which were reprinted in newspapers the next day. “The news that shocked everyone was received that L.N. Tolstoy, accompanied by Doctor Makovitsky, unexpectedly left Yasnaya Polyana and left. Having left, L.N. Tolstoy left a letter in which he reports that he is leaving Yasnaya Polyana forever.”

About this letter written by L.N. for his sleeping wife and handed over to her the next morning by their youngest daughter Sasha, even Tolstoy’s companion Makovitsky did not know. He himself read about it in the newspapers.

The Moscow newspaper “Russkoe Slovo” turned out to be the most efficient. On October 30, it published a report from its own Tula correspondent with detailed information about what happened in Yasnaya Polyana.

"Tula, 29, X ( urgent). Having returned from Yasnaya Polyana, I report the details of Lev Nikolaevich’s departure.

Lev Nikolaevich left yesterday at 5 o'clock in the morning, when it was still dark.

Lev Nikolaevich came to the coachman's room and ordered the horses to be pawned.

The coachman Adrian carried out the order.

When the horses were ready, Lev Nikolaevich, together with Doctor Makovitsky, took the necessary things, packed at night, and went to Shchekino station.

The postman Filka rode ahead, lighting the way with a torch.

At the station Shchekino Lev Nikolaevich took a ticket to one of the stations of the Moscow-Kursk Railway and left with the first train that passed.

When in the morning in Yasnaya Polyana it became known about the sudden departure of Lev Nikolaevich, there was terrible confusion there.

The despair of Lev Nikolaevich’s wife, Sofia Andreevna, defies description.”

This message, which the whole world was talking about the next day, was printed not on the first page, but on the third. The front page, as was customary at that time, was devoted to advertising of all kinds of goods.

“The stomach’s best friend is Saint-Raphael wine.”

“Small sturgeon fish. 20 kopecks a pound.”

Having received a night telegram from Tula, Russkoye Slovo immediately sent its correspondent to the Khamovnichesky House of Tolstoy (today the house-museum of Leo Tolstoy between the Park Kultury and Frunzenskaya metro stations). The newspaper hoped that perhaps the count had fled from Yasnaya Polyana to a Moscow estate. But, the newspaper writes, “in the old Tolstoy manor house it was quiet and calm. Nothing said that Lev Nikolaevich could come to the old ashes. The gate is locked. Everyone in the house is asleep."

A young journalist, Konstantin Orlov, a theater reviewer, the son of Tolstoy’s follower, teacher and member of the People’s Will, Vladimir Fedorovich Orlov, depicted in the stories “The Dream” and “There are No Guilty People in the World,” was sent in pursuit of Tolstoy’s supposed escape route. He overtook the fugitive already in Kozelsk and secretly accompanied him to Astapov, from where he informed Sofya Andreevna and Tolstoy’s children by telegram that their husband and father was seriously ill and was at the junction railway station in the house of its boss I.I. Ozolina.

If not for Orlov’s initiative, the relatives would have learned about the whereabouts of the terminally ill L.N. not until all the newspapers had reported it. Need I say how painful this would be for the family? Therefore, unlike Makovitsky, who regarded the activities of the Russian Word as “detective,” Tolstoy’s eldest daughter Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotina, according to her memoirs, was “to death” grateful to the journalist Orlov.

“Father is dying somewhere nearby, and I don’t know where he is. And I can't look after him. Maybe I won't see him again. Would I be allowed to even look at him on his deathbed? A sleepless night. Real torture,” Tatyana Lvovna later recalled her and the entire family’s state of mind after Tolstoy’s “escape” (her expression). “But there was a person unknown to us who understood and took pity on Tolstoy’s family. He telegraphed to us: “Lev Nikolaevich is in Astapov with the station chief. Temperature 40°".

In general, it must be admitted that in relation to the family and, above all, to Sofya Andreevna, the newspapers behaved more restrained and delicately than in relation to the Yasnaya Polyana fugitive, whose every step was mercilessly monitored, although all the newspapermen knew that in his farewell note Tolstoy asked: don't look for it! “Please... don’t follow me if you find out where I am,” he wrote to his wife.

“In Belev, Lev Nikolayevich went to the buffet and ate scrambled eggs,” the newspapermen relished the modest act of the vegetarian Tolstoy. They interrogated his coachman and Filka, lackeys and peasants of Yasnaya Polyana, cashiers and bartenders at the stations, the cab driver who was carrying L.N. from Kozelsk to the Optina Monastery, hotel monks and everyone who could report anything about the path of an eighty-two-year-old old man, whose only desire was to run away, hide, become invisible to the world.

“Don't look for him! – “Odessa News” cynically exclaimed, addressing the family. “He’s not yours, he’s everyone’s!”

“Of course, his new location will be opened very soon,” Petersburgskaya Gazeta coolly declared.

L.N. did not like newspapers (although he followed them) and did not hide it. Another thing is S.A. The writer's wife understood perfectly well that her husband's reputation and her own reputation, willy-nilly, depend on newspaper publications. Therefore, she willingly communicated with newspapermen and gave interviews, explaining certain oddities of Tolstoy’s behavior or his statements and not forgetting (this was her weakness) to outline her role with the great man.

Therefore, the attitude of newspapermen towards S.A. It was rather warm. The general tone was set by “Russian Word” with the feuilleton “Sofya Andreevna” by Vlas Doroshevich, published in the issue of October 31. “The old lion went to die alone,” wrote Doroshevich. “The eagle has flown so high from us that where can we follow its flight?!”

(They watched, and how they watched!)

S.A. he compared with Yasodara, the young wife of the Buddha. This was an undoubted compliment, because Yasodara was in no way to blame for her husband's departure. Meanwhile, evil tongues compared Tolstoy’s wife not with Yasodara, but with Xanthippe, the wife of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who allegedly tormented her husband with grumpiness and misunderstanding of his worldview.

Doroshevich rightly pointed out that without his wife, Tolstoy would not have lived such a long life and would not have written his later works. (Although what does Yasodara have to do with it?)

The conclusion of the feuilleton was this. Tolstoy is a “superman”, and his actions cannot be judged by ordinary standards. S.A. - a simple earthly woman who did everything she could for her husband while he was just a man. But in the “superhuman” area he is inaccessible to her, and this is her tragedy.

“Sofya Andreevna is alone. She does not have her child, her elder child, her titan child, about whom she must think, care every minute: is he warm, is he fed, is he healthy? There is no one else to give your whole life to, drop by drop.”

S.A. I read the feuilleton. She liked him. She was grateful to the newspaper “Russkoe Slovo” both for Doroshevich’s article and for Orlov’s telegram. Because of this, it was possible not to pay attention to little things, like the unpleasant description of the appearance of Tolstoy’s wife, which was given by the same Orlov: “Sofia Andreevna’s wandering eyes expressed inner torment. Her head was shaking. She was dressed in a casually thrown hood.” One could forgive the night surveillance of the Moscow house, and a very indecent indication of the amount that the family spent to hire a separate train from Tula to Astapov - 492 rubles 27 kopecks, and Vasily Rozanov’s transparent hint that L.N. He still ran away from his family: “The prisoner has escaped from a delicate prison.”

If we skim through the newspaper headlines covering Tolstoy's departure, we will find that the word “departure” was rarely found in them. “SUDDEN DEPARTURE...”, “DISAPERSHIP...”, “ESCAPE...”, “TOLSTOY QUITS HOME.”

And the point here is not at all the desire of newspapermen to “warm up” readers. The event itself was scandalous. The fact is that the circumstances of Tolstoy’s disappearance from Yasnaya, indeed, were much more reminiscent of an escape than a majestic departure.

Nightmare

Firstly, the event happened at night when the Countess was fast asleep.

Secondly, Tolstoy’s route was so carefully classified that she first learned of his whereabouts only on November 2 from Orlov’s telegram.

Thirdly (which neither the newspapermen nor S.A. knew about), this route, at least its final destination, was unknown to the fugitive himself. Tolstoy clearly understood where and what he was running from, but where he was going and where his final refuge would be, he not only did not know, but tried not to think about it.

In the first hours of departure, only Tolstoy’s daughter Sasha and her friend Feokritova knew that L.N. intended to visit his sister, nun Maria Nikolaevna Tolstoy in the Shamordino Monastery. But even this was in question on the night of the flight.

“You will stay, Sasha,” he told me. “I’ll call you in a few days, when I finally decide where I’ll go.” And I will, in all likelihood, go to Mashenka in Shamordino,” recalled A.L. Fat.

Having woken up Doctor Makovitsky first at night, Tolstoy did not even tell him this information. But the main thing is that he didn’t tell the doctor that he was leaving Yasnaya Polyana forever, which he told Sasha about. In the first hours, Makovitsky thought that they were going to Kochety, the estate of Tolstoy’s son-in-law M.S. Sukhotin on the border of Tula and Oryol provinces. Tolstoy went there more than once over the past two years, alone and with his wife, to escape the influx of visitors to Yasnaya Polyana. There he took what he called a “vacation.” His eldest daughter, Tatyana Lvovna, lived in Kochety. She, unlike Sasha, did not approve of her father’s desire to leave her mother, although she stood on her father’s side in their conflict. In any case, in Kochety from S.A. there was no hiding. The appearance in Shamordin was less calculable. The arrival of the excommunicated Tolstoy at the Orthodox monastery was an act no less scandalous than the departure itself. And finally, there Tolstoy could well count on the support and silence of his sister.

Poor Makovitsky did not immediately understand that Tolstoy had decided to leave home forever. Thinking that they were going to Kochety for a month, Makovitsky did not take all his money with him. He also did not know that Tolstoy’s fortune at the time of his flight amounted to fifty rubles in his notebook and change in his wallet. Only during Tolstoy’s farewell to Sasha did Makovitsky hear about Shamordin. And only when they were sitting in the carriage, Tolstoy began to consult with him: where should we go further?

He knew who to take as his companions. It was necessary to have Makovitsky’s calm nature and devotion in order not to get confused in this situation. Makovitsky immediately offered to go to Bessarabia, to the worker Gusarov, who lived with his family on his own land. “L.N. didn’t answer anything.”

Let's go to Shchekino station. In twenty minutes a train was expected to Tula, in an hour and a half - to Gorbachevo. The route through Gorbachevo to Shamordino is shorter, but Tolstoy, wanting to confuse his tracks and fearing that S.A. will wake up and overtake him, he suggested going through Tula. Makovitsky dissuaded him: they would definitely be recognized in Tula! Let's go to Gorbachevo...

Agree, this doesn’t look much like leaving. Even if we take this not literally (he left on foot), but in a figurative sense. But it is precisely the literal idea of ​​Tolstoy’s departure that still warms the souls of ordinary people. Definitely - on foot, on a dark night, with a knapsack over your shoulders and a stick in your hand. And this is an eighty-two-year-old man, although strong, but very sick, suffering from fainting, memory loss, heart failure and dilated veins in his legs. What would be wonderful about such “care”? But for some reason it is pleasant for the average person to imagine that the great Tolstoy just up and left.

Ivan Bunin’s book “The Liberation of Tolstoy” admiringly quotes the words written by Tolstoy in his farewell letter: “I do what old people of my age usually do. They leave worldly life to live the last days of their lives in solitude and silence.”

What do old people usually do?

S.A. I also noticed these words. Having barely recovered from the first shock caused by her husband’s nightly flight, she began to write letters to him begging him to return, counting on mediation in their transfer to third parties. And in the second letter, which Tolstoy did not have time to read, she objected to him: “You write that old people are leaving the world. Where did you see this? Old peasants live out their last days on the stove, surrounded by family and grandchildren, and the same is true in the lordly and every household. Is it natural for a weak old man to leave the care, care and love of the children and grandchildren around him?”

She was wrong. The departure of old men and even old women was common in peasant houses. They went on pilgrimage and simply to separate huts. They left to live out their lives, so as not to disturb the young, not to be reproached by an extra piece, when the participation of an old person in field and household work was no longer possible. They left when sin “settled” in the house: drunkenness, strife, unnatural sexual relations. Yes, they left. But they did not run away from their old wife at night with the consent and support of their daughter.

Makovitsky's notes:

“In the morning, at 3 o’clock, L.N. in a dressing gown, shoes on bare feet, with a candle, he woke me up; the face is suffering, excited and determined.

– I decided to leave. You will come with me. I’ll go upstairs, and you come, just don’t wake up Sofya Andreevna. We won’t take a lot of things – the most necessary things. Sasha will come for us in three days and bring us what we need.”

A “decisive” face did not mean composure. It's determination before jumping off a cliff. As a doctor, Makovitsky notes: “Nervous. I felt his pulse - 100.” What are the “most necessary” things for an eighty-two-year-old man to care for? Tolstoy thought about this least of all. He was concerned that Sasha would hide it from S.A. manuscripts of his diaries. He took with him a pen and notebooks. Things and provisions were packed by Makovitsky, Sasha and her friend Varvara Feokritova. It turned out that there were still a lot of “most necessary” things; a large travel suitcase was required, which cannot be gotten out without noise, without waking up S.A.

There were three doors between the bedrooms of Tolstoy and his wife. S.A. I kept them open at night so that I could wake up to any alarm from my husband’s room. She explained this by saying that if he needed help at night, she would not hear through closed doors. But the main reason was different. She was afraid of his night escape. For some time now this threat has become real. You can even name the exact date when it hung in the air of the Yasnaya Polyana house. This happened on July 15, 1910. After a stormy explanation with her husband S.A. I spent a sleepless night and in the morning I wrote him a letter:

“Levochka, my dear, I am writing, not speaking, because after a sleepless night it is difficult for me to speak, I am too worried and could upset everyone again, but I want, I really want to be quiet and reasonable. At night I thought about everything, and this is what became painfully clear to me: with one hand you caressed me, with the other you showed me a knife. Just yesterday I vaguely felt that this knife had already wounded my heart. This knife is a threat, and a very decisive one, to take back the word of promise and quietly leave me if I am like I am now... So, every night, like last night, I will listen to see if you have gone somewhere? Every time you are absent, even if it is slightly longer, I will be tormented that you are gone forever. Think about it, dear Lyovochka, because your departure and your threat are equal to the threat of murder.”

When Sasha, Varvara and Makovitsky were packing their things (acting “like conspirators,” Feokritova recalled, extinguishing the candles when they heard any noise from S.A.’s room), Tolstoy tightly closed all three doors leading to his wife’s bedroom, and yet without noise he took out his suitcase. But even that was not enough; we also ended up with a bundle with a blanket and a coat, and a basket with provisions. However, Tolstoy did not wait for the training camp to end. He hurried to the coachman's room to wake up the coachman Andrian and help him harness the horses.

Care? Or - escape...

From Tolstoy's diary:

“...I’m going to the stable to order the laying; Dusan, Sasha, Varya are finishing their hair styling. Night - gouge out your eyes, I stray from the path to the outbuilding, end up in a thicket, prick myself, hit the trees, fall, lose my hat, can’t find it, force my way out, go home, take my hat and with a flashlight I get to the stables, tell them to put it in. Sasha, Dusan, Varya come... I’m trembling, waiting for the chase.”

What, a day later, when these lines were written, seemed to him to be a “thicket” from which he “forcibly” got out was his apple orchard, trodden far and wide by Tolstoy.

Is this what old people usually do?

“It took us about half an hour to pack our things,” recalled Alexandra Lvovna. “Father was already starting to worry, he was in a hurry, but our hands were shaking, the belts wouldn’t tighten, the suitcases wouldn’t close.”

Alexandra Lvovna also noticed determination in her father’s face. “I waited for him to leave, I waited every day, every hour, but nevertheless, when he said: “I’m leaving completely,” it struck me as something new, unexpected. I will never forget his figure in the doorway, in a blouse, with a candle and his bright, beautiful, determined face.”

“The face is decisive and bright,” wrote Feokritova. But let's not delude ourselves. Deep October night, when in rural houses, whether peasant or noble, you cannot see your own hand if you bring it to your eyes. An old man in light clothes, with a candle near his face, suddenly appeared on the threshold. This will amaze anyone!

Of course, Tolstoy's fortitude was phenomenal. But this speaks more about his ability not to get lost under any circumstances. A friend of the Yasnaya Polyana house, musician Alexander Goldenweiser, recalled one incident. One winter they went in a sled to a village nine miles from Yasnaya to deliver help to a needy peasant family.

“When we approached Zaseka station, a small snowstorm began, which became increasingly stronger, so that in the end we lost our way and were driving without a road. After getting lost a little, we noticed a forest guardhouse not far away and headed towards it to ask the forester how to get onto the road. When we approached the guardhouse, three or four huge shepherd dogs jumped out at us and surrounded the horse and sleigh with furious barking. I must admit, I felt terrified... L.N. with a decisive movement he handed me the reins and said: “Hold it,” and he stood up, got out of the sleigh, whooped loudly and, empty-handed, boldly walked straight towards the dogs. And suddenly the terrible dogs immediately calmed down, parted and gave way to him, as if he were in power. L.N. calmly walked between them and entered the guardhouse. At that moment, with his flowing gray beard, he looked more like a fairy-tale hero than a weak eighty-year-old man..."

So on the night of October 28, 1910, self-control did not leave him. He met the assistants walking with their things halfway. “It was dirty, our feet slipped, and we had difficulty moving in the dark,” recalled Alexandra Lvovna. – A blue light flashed near the outbuilding. Father walked towards us.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, “well, this time I got there safely.” They're already harnessing us. Well, I'll go ahead and shine for you. Oh, why did you give Sasha the hardest things? – he turned to Varvara Mikhailovna reproachfully. He took the basket from her hands and carried it, and Varvara Mikhailovna helped me drag the suitcase. Father walked ahead, occasionally pressing the button of the electric flashlight and immediately releasing it, which made it seem even darker. Father always saved money and here, as always, he regretted wasting electrical energy.”

Sasha persuaded her to take this flashlight after her father wandered in the garden.

Still, when Tolstoy helped the coachman harness the horse, “his hands trembled, did not obey, and he could not fasten the buckle.” Then he “sat down on a suitcase in the corner of the carriage house and immediately lost heart.”

Sharp mood swings would accompany Tolstoy along the entire route from Yasnaya to Astapov, where he died on the night of November 7, 1910. Determination and the consciousness that he acted in the only right way will be replaced by lack of will and an acute sense of guilt. No matter how much he prepared for this departure, and he had been preparing for it for twenty-five (!) years, it is clear that he was not ready for it either mentally or physically. One could imagine this departure in one’s head as much as one wanted, but the very first real steps, like wandering in one’s own garden, presented surprises for which Tolstoy and his companions were not prepared.

But why did his decisive mood in the house suddenly change to despondency in the coach house? It would seem that things have been collected (in two hours - simply amazing!), the horses are almost ready, and there are only a few minutes left before the “liberation”. And he loses heart.

In addition to the physiological reasons (didn’t get enough sleep, was worried, got lost, helped carry things along a slippery path in the dark), there is one more circumstance that can only be understood by clearly imagining the situation as a whole. If S.A. had woken up when they were packing up, it would have been a deafening scandal. But still a scandal within the home walls. Scene among the “initiates”. I was no stranger to such scenes; lately they had constantly taken place in the Yasnaya Polyana house. But as Tolstoy moved away from home, more and more new faces became involved in his care. Exactly what he most did not want was happening. Tolstoy turned out to be a lump of snow, around which a grandiose snowball was wrapping, and this happened with every minute of his movement in space.

08
Dec
2010

Leo Tolstoy: Escape from Paradise (Pavel Basinsky)

Format: FB2, txt, (originally computer)
Year of manufacture: 2010
Genre:
Publisher: ,
Number of pages: 672
Description: Exactly 100 years ago, an event took place in Yasnaya Polyana that shocked the whole world.
Eighty-two-year-old writer Count L.N. Tolstoy secretly fled from his home in an unknown direction at night. Since then, the circumstances of the departure and death of the great old man have given rise to many myths and legends...

The famous writer and journalist Pavel Basinsky, based on strictly documentary material, including archival material, offers not his version of this event, but its living reconstruction. Step by step you can trace the entire life and passing of Leo Tolstoy, understand the reasons for his family drama and the secrets of signing his spiritual will.

12
Sep
2015

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (Anatoly Koni)

Author: Koni A.F.
Year of manufacture: 2007
Genre: memoirs, memoirs
Publisher: Vira-M
Executor:
Duration: 2:30:00
Description: In his memoirs, Anatoly Fedorovich Koni gave characteristics of many outstanding writers: Tolstoy, Turgenev, Goncharov, Pisemsky, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Apukhtin, Chekhov; These characteristics are predominantly biographical in nature. Koni reveals himself in them as a subtle and skillful portrait painter. This audiobook is based on the memoirs of A.F. Horses about Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

09
Apr
2017

Lev Tolstoy. Research. Articles (Eikhenbaum B. M.)

ISBN: 978-5-8465-0760-9
Format: , Scanned pages + recognized text layer
Author: Eikhenbaum B. M.
Year of manufacture: 2009
Genre:
Publisher: Faculty of Philology and Arts of St. Petersburg State University, “Nestor-History”
Russian language
Number of pages: 952
Description: The collection includes four books and main articles by B. M. Eikhenbaum about Leo Tolstoy 1919-1959, representing the scientist’s forty years of scientific work experience. Taken together, this is one of the most fundamental attempts to understand Tolstoy. Tolstoy's studies allow us to understand the evolution of both Eikhenbaum himself and Russian formalism...

13
Feb
2008

Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace"

Type: audiobook
Genre: , Russian prose
Author:
Tolstoy:
Executor:
Duration: 74:05:07
Year of manufacture: 2003
Audio: MP3 audio_bitrate: 64 Kbps
Description: “Every historical fact must be explained humanly,” wrote Tolstoy. In terms of its genre form, "War and Peace" is not a historical novel, but... a family chronicle, just like "The Captain's Daughter" is not the story of the Pugachev rebellion, but an unpretentious story about how "Petrusha Grinev married Masha Mironova"; just like the “encyclopedia of Russian life” “Eugene Onegin” is a chronicle of the life of an ordinary secular young man...

27
Apr
2012

Leo Tolstoy performed by masters of artistic expression (Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy)

Format: audiobook, MP3, 128kbps
Author:
Year of manufacture: 2011
Genre:
Publisher:
Performer: ,
Duration: 03:37:37
Description: Fragments of the novels “Anna Karenina”, “Resurrection”, the stories “Hadji Murat”, “The Master and the Worker”, the story “Alyosha the Pot” are performed by masters of literary reading. Contents ANNA KARENINA. RESURRECTION. Fragments of novels. Is reading . Recording from 1946. ALOSHA POT. Story. Is reading . Recording from the 1940s. HAJI-MURAT. Tale. Is reading . Record...

09
but I
2015

Leo Tolstoy Complete Works. In 90 volumes

Format: ,
Author:
Year of manufacture: 1928-1958
Genre: , letters and diaries
Publisher: " ". Moscow,
Language:
Number of books: 91 volumes
Description: In 1928, when the centenary of L.N. was celebrated. Tolstoy, three publications were started at once: Complete collection of works of art in 12 volumes; Complete collection of works of art in 15 volumes; Complete works in 91 volumes, providing an exhaustive collection of Tolstoy's works, diaries, and letters (completed in 1958; circulation up to 10 thousand copies). This edition...

23
Jun
2018

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Lecture by M. M. Dunaev (Mikhail Dunaev)

Format: audiobook, MP3, 112kbps
Author:
Year of manufacture: 2009
Genre:
Publisher: Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church
Executor:
Duration: 13:48:00
Description: Leo Tolstoy entered the history of world culture, first of all, as one of the most brilliant creative artists. But, perhaps, of even greater importance - for the general history of mankind - is his experience of faith creation, a lesson that requires too close comprehension. Delving into the artistic structure of a person’s thoughts, we do not judge him, do not extol him or reject him. We are only soberly aware of the terrible...

22
Jul
2017

Expelled from Paradise (Yasugi Masashi)

Format: audiobook, MP3, 128kbps
Author:
Year of release: 2017
Genre:
Publisher:
Artist: Adrenalin28
Duration: 04:13:10
Description: 2400. Most of the Earth's population transferred their consciousness to the virtual reality of Diva, whose servers are located in Earth orbit. This freed people from the shackles of the mortal body, and also opened up many unprecedented opportunities. Although, the resources of Diva’s servers are not limitless and their use must be worked out for the benefit of society. A certain hacker named Pioneer regularly hacks into D...

09
Dec
2009

Knitting is fashionable and simple. Special issue "Knitted creativity. Stylish models made from thick yarn" (December 2009)

Format:
Year of manufacture: 2009
Author:
Publisher: " "
Genre:
Interface language:
Number of pages: 35
Description: The special issue of the knitting magazine presents models of women's and children's winter clothing made from thick yarn: pullovers, jackets, hats, scarves, mittens, leg warmers, etc. This issue is especially useful for those who are just learning to knit. They will find here models that are easy to perform and require a very basic level of training.
Add. Information: To view the magazine, it is recommended to use Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can open...

30
Apr
2014

Ermolovs 01. Apples from someone else's paradise (Anna Berseneva)

Author:
Year of manufacture: 2014
Genre:
Publisher:
Executor:
Duration: 12:21:09
Description: And heaven can seem like hell if this paradise is alien and you only admire the apples on its trees from the side... This is how Anna Ermolova celebrates her fortieth birthday. Outwardly, everything is going well for her: her husband is engaged in business, she herself publishes a magazine that is as sophisticated as it is popular, her adult son loves and respects her. In fact, Anna has long been faced with the problem of many women who...

11
Jun
2017

From the heritage of world philosophical thought. Rulers of thoughts. Prophets of strength, goodness and beauty. Renan. Stirner. Nietzsche. Tolstoy. Ruskin (Bourdo J.)

ISBN: 978-5-382-00381-8
Series: From the heritage of world philosophical thought
Format: ,
Author: Burdo J.
Year of manufacture: 2007
Genre: philosophy, history of philosophy
Publisher:
Language: (pre-reform)
Number of pages: 232
Description: We present to the attention of readers a book by the French philosopher J. Bourdo, written with the aim of acquainting readers with the main directions of philosophical thought of the 19th - early 20th centuries. The first part provides an overview of the life and work of outstanding thinkers - Ernest Renan, Max Stirner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, John Ruskin -...

09
Sep
2014

School of Divers (SHNYR). Pegasus, lion and centaur (book 1 of 6) (Dmitry Yemets)

Format: audiobook, MP3, 96kbps
Author:
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Description: “School of Divers” is a new series of fantasy novels by Dmitry Yemets. In it, the author of the popular series “Tanya Grotter” and “Mefodiy Buslaev” creates a world that allows you to take a fresh look at the most familiar things. The main task of the Shnyrs is to save people’s lives, risking their own, and to prevent the reign of evil in the world. "Pegasus, Lion and Centaur", the first book in the "School of Divers" ("ShNyr") series. ShNyr is not a first name, not a surname, not a nickname. This is the place where they collect...

Current page: 1 (book has 34 pages total) [available reading passage: 19 pages]

Pavel Valerievich Basinsky
Leo Tolstoy: Escape from Paradise

We are all brave in front of each other and forget that we are all, unless we love, pathetic, pathetic. But we are so brave and pretend to be angry and self-confident that we ourselves fall for it and mistake sick chickens for terrible lions...

From a letter from Leo Tolstoy to V.G. Chertkov

Chapter first
LEAVE OR ESCAPE?

On the night of October 27-28, 1910 1
All dates are given in old style. – Note here and below. auto

In the Krapivensky district of the Tula province, an incredible event took place, out of the ordinary, even for such an unusual place as Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate of the world-famous writer and thinker - Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The eighty-two-year-old count secretly fled from his home at night in an unknown direction, accompanied by his personal doctor Makovitsky.

The eyes of newspapers

The information space of that time was not much different from today. The news of the scandalous event instantly spread throughout Russia and around the world. On October 29, urgent telegrams began to arrive from Tula to the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (PTA), which were reprinted in newspapers the next day. “The news that amazed everyone was received that L.N. Tolstoy, accompanied by Doctor Makovitsky, unexpectedly left Yasnaya Polyana and left. Having left, Leo Tolstoy left a letter in which he said that he was leaving Yasnaya Polyana forever.”

About this letter written by L.N. for his sleeping wife and handed over to her the next morning by their youngest daughter Sasha, even Tolstoy’s companion Makovitsky did not know. He himself read about it in the newspapers.

The Moscow newspaper “Russkoe Slovo” turned out to be the most efficient. On October 30, it published a report from its own Tula correspondent with detailed information about what happened in Yasnaya Polyana.

“Tula, 29, X (urgent). Having returned from Yasnaya Polyana, I report the details of Lev Nikolaevich’s departure.

Lev Nikolaevich left yesterday at 5 o'clock in the morning, when it was still dark.

Lev Nikolaevich came to the coachman's room and ordered the horses to be pawned.

The coachman Adrian carried out the order.

When the horses were ready, Lev Nikolaevich, together with Doctor Makovitsky, took the necessary things, packed at night, and went to Shchekino station.

The postman Filka rode ahead, lighting the way with a torch.

At the station Shchekino Lev Nikolaevich took a ticket to one of the stations of the Moscow-Kursk Railway and left with the first train that passed.

When in the morning in Yasnaya Polyana it became known about the sudden departure of Lev Nikolaevich, there was terrible confusion there. The despair of Lev Nikolaevich’s wife, Sofia Andreevna, defies description.”

This message, which the whole world was talking about the next day, was printed not on the first page, but on the third. The front page, as was customary at that time, was devoted to advertising of all kinds of goods.

“The stomach’s best friend is Saint-Raphael wine.”

“Small sturgeon fish. 20 kopecks a pound.”

Having received a night telegram from Tula, Russkoe Slovo immediately sent its correspondent to the Khamovnichesky House of Tolstoy (today the house-museum of Leo Tolstoy between the Park Kultury and Frunzenskaya metro stations). The newspaper hoped that there would be Maybe the count fled from Yasnaya Polyana to a Moscow estate. But, the newspaper writes, “in the old Tolstoy manor house it was quiet and calm. Nothing said that Lev Nikolaevich could come to the old ashes. The gate is locked. Everyone in the house is asleep."

A young journalist, Konstantin Orlov, a theater reviewer, the son of Tolstoy’s follower, teacher and member of the People’s Will, Vladimir Fedorovich Orlov, depicted in the stories “The Dream” and “There are No Guilty People in the World,” was sent in pursuit of Tolstoy’s supposed escape route. He overtook the fugitive already in Kozelsk and secretly accompanied him to Astapov, from where he informed Sofya Andreevna and Tolstoy’s children by telegram that their husband and father was seriously ill and was at the junction railway station in the house of its chief I.I. Ozolin.

If not for Orlov’s initiative, the relatives would have learned about the whereabouts of the terminally ill L.N. not until all the newspapers had reported it. Need I say how painful this would be for the family? Therefore, unlike Makovitsky, who regarded the activities of the Russian Word as “detective,” Tolstoy’s eldest daughter Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotina, according to her memoirs, was “to death” grateful to the journalist Orlov.

“Father is dying somewhere nearby, and I don’t know where he is. And I can't look after him. Maybe I won't see him again. Would I be allowed to even look at him on his deathbed? A sleepless night. Real torture,” Tatyana Lvovna later recalled her and the entire family’s state of mind after Tolstoy’s “escape” (her expression). But there was a person unknown to us who understood and took pity on Tolstoy’s family. He telegraphed to us: “Lev Nikolaevich is in Astapov with the station chief. Temperature 40°".

In general, it must be admitted that in relation to the family and, above all, to Sofya Andreevna, the newspapers behaved more restrained and delicately than in relation to the Yasnaya Polyana fugitive, whose every step was mercilessly monitored, although all the newspapermen knew that in his farewell note Tolstoy asked: don't look for it! “Please... don’t follow me if you find out where I am,” he wrote to his wife.

“In Belev, Lev Nikolayevich went to the buffet and ate scrambled eggs,” the newspapermen relished the modest act of the vegetarian Tolstoy. They interrogated his coachman and Filka, lackeys and peasants of Yasnaya Polyana, cashiers and bartenders at the stations, the cab driver who was carrying L.N. from Kozelsk to the Optina Monastery, hotel monks and everyone who could report anything about the path of an eighty-two-year-old old man, whose only desire was to run away, hide, become invisible to the world.

“Don't look for him! – “Odessa News” cynically exclaimed, addressing the family. “He’s not yours, he’s everyone’s!”

“Of course, his new location will be opened very soon,” Petersburgskaya Gazeta coolly declared.

L.N. did not like newspapers (although he followed them) and did not hide it. Another thing is S.A. The writer's wife understood perfectly well that her husband's reputation and her own reputation, willy-nilly, depend on newspaper publications. Therefore, she willingly communicated with newspapermen and gave interviews, explaining certain oddities of Tolstoy’s behavior or his statements and not forgetting (this was her weakness) to outline her role with the great man.

Therefore, the attitude of newspapermen towards S.A. It was rather warm. The general tone was set by “Russian Word” with the feuilleton “Sofya Andreevna” by Vlas Doroshevich, published in the issue of October 31. “The old lion went to die alone,” wrote Doroshevich. “The eagle has flown so high from us that where can we follow its flight?!”

(They watched, and how they watched!)

S.A. he compared with Yasodara, the young wife of the Buddha. This was an undoubted compliment, because Yasodara was in no way to blame for her husband's departure. Meanwhile, evil tongues compared Tolstoy’s wife not with Yasodara, but with Xanthippe, the wife of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who allegedly tormented her husband with grumpiness and misunderstanding of his worldview.

Doroshevich rightly pointed out that without his wife, Tolstoy would not have lived such a long life and would not have written his later works. (Although what does Yasodara have to do with it?)

The conclusion of the feuilleton was this. Tolstoy is a “superman”, and his actions cannot be judged by ordinary standards. S.A. - a simple earthly woman who did everything she could for her husband while he was just a man. But in the “superhuman” area he is inaccessible to her, and this is her tragedy.

“Sofya Andreevna is alone. She does not have her child, her elder child, her titan child, about whom she must think, care every minute: is he warm, is he fed, is he healthy? There is no one else to give your whole life to, drop by drop.”

S.A. I read the feuilleton. She liked him. She was grateful to the newspaper “Russkoe Slovo” both for Doroshevich’s article and for Orlov’s telegram. Because of this, it was possible not to pay attention to little things, like the unpleasant description of the appearance of Tolstoy’s wife, which was given by the same Orlov: “Sofia Andreevna’s wandering eyes expressed inner torment. Her head was shaking. She was dressed in a casually thrown hood.” One could forgive the night surveillance of the Moscow house, and a very indecent indication of the amount that the family spent to hire a separate train from Tula to Astapov - 492 rubles 27 kopecks, and Vasily Rozanov’s transparent hint that L.N. He still ran away from his family: “The prisoner has escaped from a delicate prison.”

If we skim through the newspaper headlines covering Tolstoy's departure, we will find that the word “departure” was rarely found in them. “SUDDEN DEPARTURE...”, “DISAPERSHIP...”, “ESCAPE...”, “TOLSTOY QUITS NOME” (“TOLSTOY LEAVES HOUSE”),

And the point here is not at all the desire of newspapermen to “warm up” readers. The event itself was scandalous. The fact is that the circumstances of Tolstoy’s disappearance from Yasnaya, indeed, were much more reminiscent of an escape than a majestic departure.

Nightmare

Firstly, the event happened at night when the Countess was fast asleep.

Secondly, Tolstoy’s route was so carefully classified that she first learned of his whereabouts only on November 2 from Orlov’s telegram.

Thirdly (which neither the newspapermen nor S.A. knew about), this route, at least its final destination, was unknown to the fugitive himself. Tolstoy clearly understood where and what he was running from, but where he was going and where his final refuge would be, he not only did not know, but tried not to think about it.

In the first hours of departure, only Tolstoy’s daughter Sasha and her friend Feokritova knew that L.N. intended to visit his sister, nun Maria Nikolaevna Tolstoy in the Shamordino Monastery. But even this was in question on the night of the flight.

“You will stay, Sasha,” he told me. “I’ll call you in a few days, when I finally decide where I’ll go.” And I will, in all likelihood, go to Mashenka in Shamordino,” recalled A.L. Tolstaya.

Having woken up Doctor Makovitsky first at night, Tolstoy did not even tell him this information. But the main thing is that he didn’t tell the doctor that he was leaving Yasnaya Polyana forever, which he told Sasha about. In the first hours, Makovitsky thought that they were going to Kochety, the estate of Tolstoy’s son-in-law M.S. Sukhotin on the border of the Tula and Oryol provinces. Tolstoy went there more than once over the past two years, alone and with his wife, to escape the influx of visitors to Yasnaya Polyana. There he took what he called a “vacation.” His eldest daughter, Tatyana Lvovna, lived in Kochety. She, unlike Sasha, did not approve of her father’s desire to leave her mother, although she stood on her father’s side in their conflict. In any case, in Kochety from S.A. there was no hiding. The appearance in Shamordin was less calculable. The arrival of the excommunicated Tolstoy at the Orthodox monastery was an act no less scandalous than the departure itself. And finally, there Tolstoy could well count on the support and silence of his sister.

Poor Makovitsky did not immediately understand that Tolstoy had decided to leave home forever. Thinking that they were going to Kochety for a month, Makovitsky did not take all his money with him. He also did not know that Tolstoy’s fortune at the time of his flight amounted to fifty rubles in his notebook and change in his wallet. Only during Tolstoy’s farewell to Sasha did Makovitsky hear about Shamordin. And only when they were sitting in the carriage, Tolstoy began to consult with him: where should we go further?

He knew who to take as his companions. It was necessary to have Makovitsky’s calm nature and devotion in order not to get confused in this situation. Makovitsky immediately offered to go to Bessarabia, to the worker Gusarov, who lived with his family on his own land. “L.N. didn’t answer anything.”

Let's go to Shchekino station. In twenty minutes a train was expected to Tula, in an hour and a half - to Gorbachevo. The route through Gorbachevo to Shamordino is shorter, but Tolstoy, wanting to confuse his tracks and fearing that S.A. will wake up and overtake him, he suggested going through Tula. Makovitsky dissuaded him: they would definitely be recognized in Tula! Let's go to Gorbachevo...

Agree, this doesn’t look much like leaving. Even if we take this not literally (he left on foot), but in a figurative sense. But it is precisely the literal idea of ​​Tolstoy’s departure that still warms the souls of ordinary people. Definitely - on foot, on a dark night, with a knapsack over your shoulders and a stick in your hand. And this is an eighty-two-year-old man, although strong, but very sick, suffering from fainting, memory loss, heart failure and dilated veins in his legs. What would be wonderful about such “care”? But for some reason it is pleasant for the average person to imagine that the great Tolstoy just up and left.

Ivan Bunin’s book “The Liberation of Tolstoy” admiringly quotes the words written by Tolstoy in his farewell letter: “I do what old people of my age usually do. They leave worldly life to live the last days of their lives in solitude and silence.”

What do old people usually do?

S.A. I also noticed these words. Having barely recovered from the first shock caused by her husband’s nightly flight, she began to write letters to him begging him to return, counting on mediation in their transfer to third parties. And in the second letter, which Tolstoy did not have time to read, she objected to him: “You write that old people are leaving the world. Where did you see this? Old peasants live out their last days on the stove, surrounded by family and grandchildren, and the same is true in the lordly and every household. Is it natural for a weak old man to leave the care, care and love of the children and grandchildren around him?”

She was wrong. The departure of old men and even old women was common in peasant houses. They went on pilgrimage and simply to separate huts. They left to live out their lives, so as not to disturb the young, not to be reproached by an extra piece, when the participation of an old person in field and household work was no longer possible. They left when sin “settled” in the house: drunkenness, strife, unnatural sexual relations. Yes, they left. But they did not run away from their old wife at night with the consent and support of their daughter.

Makovitsky's notes:

“In the morning, at 3 o’clock, L.H. in a dressing gown, shoes on bare feet, with a candle, he woke me up; the face is suffering, excited and determined.

– I decided to leave. You will come with me. I’ll go upstairs, and you come, just don’t wake up Sofya Andreevna. We won’t take a lot of things – the most necessary things. Sasha will come for us in three days and bring us what we need.”

A “decisive” face did not mean composure. It's determination before jumping off a cliff. As a doctor, Makovitsky notes: “Nervous. I felt his pulse - 100.” What are the “most necessary” things for an eighty-two-year-old man to care for? Tolstoy thought about this least of all. He was concerned that Sasha would hide it from S.A. manuscripts of his diaries. He took with him a pen and notebooks. Things and provisions were packed by Makovitsky, Sasha and her friend Varvara Feokritova. It turned out that there were still a lot of “most necessary” things; a large travel suitcase was required, which cannot be gotten out without noise, without waking up S.A.

There were three doors between the bedrooms of Tolstoy and his wife. S.A. I kept them open at night so that I could wake up to any alarm from my husband’s room. She explained this by saying that if he needed help at night, she would not hear through closed doors. But the main reason was different. She was afraid of his night escape. For some time now this threat has become real. You can even name the exact date when it hung in the air of the Yasnaya Polyana house. This happened on July 15, 1910. After a stormy explanation with her husband S.A. I spent a sleepless night and in the morning I wrote him a letter:

“Levochka, my dear, I am writing, not speaking, because after a sleepless night it is difficult for me to speak, I am too worried and could upset everyone again, but I want, I really want to be quiet and reasonable. At night I thought about everything, and this is what became painfully clear to me: with one hand you caressed me, with the other you showed me a knife. Just yesterday I vaguely felt that this knife had already wounded my heart. This knife is a threat, and a very decisive one, to take back the word of promise and quietly leave me if I am like I am now... So, every night, like last night, I will listen to see if you have gone somewhere? Every time you are absent, even if it is slightly longer, I will be tormented that you are gone forever. Think about it, dear Lyovochka, because your departure and your threat are equal to the threat of murder.”

When Sasha, Varvara and Makovitsky were packing their things (acting “like conspirators,” Feokritova recalled, extinguishing the candles when they heard any noise from S.A.’s room), Tolstoy tightly closed all three doors leading to his wife’s bedroom, and yet without noise he took out his suitcase. But even that was not enough; we also ended up with a bundle with a blanket and a coat, and a basket with provisions. However, Tolstoy did not wait for the training camp to end. He hurried to the coachman's room to wake up the coachman Andrian and help him harness the horses.

Care? Or - escape...

From Tolstoy's diary:

“...I’m going to the stable to order the laying; Dusan, Sasha, Varya are finishing their hair styling. Night - gouge out my eyes, I stray from the path to the outbuilding, fall into a bowl, prick myself, hit the trees, fall, lose my hat, I can’t find it, I get out by force, go home, take my hat and with a flashlight I get to the stables, tell them to pawn it. Sasha, Dusan, Varya come... I’m trembling, waiting for the chase.”

What, a day later, when these lines were written, seemed to him to be a “thicket” from which he “forcibly” got out was his apple orchard, trodden far and wide by Tolstoy.

Is this what old people usually do?

“It took us about half an hour to pack our things,” recalled Alexandra Lvovna. “Father was already starting to worry, he was in a hurry, but our hands were shaking, the belts wouldn’t tighten, the suitcases wouldn’t close.”

Alexandra Lvovna also noticed determination in her father’s face. “I waited for him to leave, I waited every day, every hour, but nevertheless, when he said: “I’m leaving completely,” it struck me as something new, unexpected. I will never forget his figure in the doorway, in a blouse, with a candle and his bright, beautiful, determined face.”

“The face is decisive and bright,” wrote Feokritova. But let's not delude ourselves. Deep October night, when in rural houses, whether peasant or noble, you cannot see your own hand if you bring it to your eyes. An old man in light clothes, with a candle near his face, suddenly appeared on the threshold. This will amaze anyone!

Of course, Tolstoy's fortitude was phenomenal. But this speaks more about his ability not to get lost under any circumstances. A friend of the Yasnaya Polyana house, musician Alexander Goldenweiser, recalled one incident. One winter they went in a sled to a village nine miles from Yasnaya to deliver help to a needy peasant family.

“When we approached Zaseka station, a small snowstorm began, which became increasingly stronger, so that in the end we lost our way and were driving without a road. After getting lost a little, we noticed a forest guardhouse not far away and headed towards it to ask the forester how to get onto the road. When we approached the guardhouse, three or four huge shepherd dogs jumped out at us and surrounded the horse and sleigh with furious barking. I must admit, I felt terrified... L.N. with a decisive movement he handed me the reins and said: “Hold it,” and he stood up, got out of the sleigh, whooped loudly and, empty-handed, boldly walked straight towards the dogs. And suddenly the terrible dogs immediately calmed down, parted and gave way to him, as if he were in power. L.N. calmly walked between them and entered the guardhouse. At that moment, with his flowing gray beard, he looked more like a fairy-tale hero than a weak eighty-year-old man..."

So on the night of October 28, 1910, self-control did not leave him. He met the assistants walking with their things halfway. “It was dirty, our feet slipped, and we had difficulty moving in the dark,” recalled Alexandra Lvovna. – A blue light flashed near the outbuilding. Father walked towards us.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, “well, this time I got there safely.” They're already harnessing us. Well, I'll go ahead and shine for you. Oh, why did you give Sasha the hardest things? – he turned to Varvara Mikhailovna reproachfully. He took the basket from her hands and carried it, and Varvara Mikhailovna helped me drag the suitcase. Father walked ahead, occasionally pressing the button of the electric flashlight and immediately releasing it, which made it seem even darker. Father always saved money and here, as always, he regretted wasting electrical energy.”

Sasha persuaded her to take this flashlight after her father wandered in the garden.

Still, when Tolstoy helped the coachman harness the horse, “his hands trembled, did not obey, and he could not fasten the buckle.” Then he “sat down on a suitcase in the corner of the carriage house and immediately lost heart.”

Sharp mood swings would accompany Tolstoy along the entire route from Yasnaya to Astapov, where he died on the night of November 7, 1910. Determination and the consciousness that he acted in the only right way will be replaced by lack of will and an acute sense of guilt. No matter how much he prepared for this departure, and he had been preparing for it for twenty-five (!) years, it is clear that he was not ready for it either mentally or physically. One could imagine this departure in one’s head as much as one wanted, but the very first real steps, like wandering in one’s own garden, presented surprises for which Tolstoy and his companions were not prepared.

But why did his decisive mood in the house suddenly change to despondency in the coach house? It would seem that things have been collected (in two hours - simply amazing!), the horses are almost ready, and there are only a few minutes left before the “liberation”. And he loses heart.

In addition to the physiological reasons (didn’t get enough sleep, was worried, got lost, helped carry things along a slippery path in the dark), there is one more circumstance that can only be understood by clearly imagining the situation as a whole. If S.A. had woken up when they were packing up, it would have been a deafening scandal. But still a scandal within the home walls. Scene among the “initiates”. I was no stranger to such scenes; lately they had constantly taken place in the Yasnaya Polyana house. But as Tolstoy moved away from home, more and more new faces became involved in his care. Exactly what he most did not want was happening. Tolstoy turned out to be a lump of snow, around which a grandiose snowball was wrapping, and this happened with every minute of his movement in space.

It is impossible to leave without waking up the coachman Andrian Bolkhin. And they also need a groom, thirty-three-year-old Filka (Philip Borisov), to, sitting on horseback, illuminate the road in front of the carriage with a torch. When L.N. was in the carriage house, the snowball had already begun to grow, grow, and it was becoming more and more impossible to stop it with every minute. The gendarmes, newspapermen, governors, priests were still sleeping serenely... Tolstoy himself could not imagine how many people would become willing and unwilling accomplices of his escape, right down to ministers, chief bishops, Stolypin and Nicholas II.

Of course, he could not help but understand that he would not be able to disappear from Yasnaya Polyana unnoticed. Even Fedya Protasov in “The Living Corpse”, who imitated suicide, but was eventually exposed, could not disappear unnoticed. But let’s not forget that in addition to “The Living Corpse,” he wrote “Father Sergius” and “The Posthumous Notes of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich.” And if at the moment of leaving he was warmed by some thought, then this: a famous person, disappearing, dissolves in human space, becomes one of these little ones, invisible to everyone. The legend about him exists separately, and he exists separately. And it doesn’t matter who you were in the past: a Russian Tsar, a famous miracle worker or a great writer. It is important that here and now you are the simplest and most ordinary person.

When Tolstoy sat on a suitcase in the carriage house, in an old overcoat, wearing a cotton overcoat, and an old knitted cap, he seemed to be fully equipped to realize his cherished dream. But... This time, 5 o’clock in the morning, “between the wolf and the dog.” This dank end of October is the most disgusting Russian off-season. This unbearable languor of waiting, when the beginning of departure has been made, the native walls are abandoned and there is no turning back, in general, there is no way back, but... The horses are not ready yet, Yasnaya Polyana has not yet been abandoned... And the wife with whom he lived for forty-eight years, who gave birth to him thirteen children, seven of whom are living, from whom twenty-three grandchildren were born, on whose shoulders he shouldered the entire Yasnaya Polyana economy, all his publishing work on literary works, which several times rewrote parts of his two main novels and many other works, which did not sleep at night in the Crimea, where he died nine years ago, because no one but her could provide the most intimate care for him - this loved one can wake up at any second, find closed doors, a mess in his room and understand that what she feared most in the world has come true!

But has it happened? You don’t have to have a wild imagination to imagine the appearance of S.A. in the carriage house as her husband buckled his horse with trembling hands. This is no longer a Tolstoyan, but a purely Gogolian situation. It was not for nothing that Tolstoy both loved and disliked Gogol’s story “The Stroller,” in which the district aristocrat Pythagoras Pyfagorovich Chertokutsky hid from the guests in the carriage house, but was embarrassingly exposed. He thought it was a superbly written but ridiculous joke. Meanwhile, “The Stroller” is not a funny thing at all. The general’s visit to the carriage house, where little Chertokutsky is huddled on a seat under the leather canopy, is, after all, a visit from Fate itself, overtaking a person precisely at the moment when he is least ready for it. How pitiful and helpless he is in front of her!

Memories of Sasha:

“At first my father hurried the coachman, and then he sat down in the corner of the carriage house on a suitcase and immediately lost heart:

“I feel like we’re about to be overtaken, and then everything is gone.” You won’t be able to leave without a scandal.”

Tolstoy's weakness

Much in Tolstoy’s mood both at the moment of escape, and before it, and then is also explained by such a simple thing as delicacy. Creator, philosopher, “hardened man,” Tolstoy by nature remained an old Russian gentleman, in the most beautiful sense of the word. This complex and, alas, long-lost mental complex included such concepts as moral and physical cleanliness, the inability to lie to one’s face, slander a person in his absence, the fear of hurting someone’s feelings with a careless word and simply being something unpleasant for people . In his youth, due to his unbridled mind and character, Tolstoy sinned a lot against these innate spiritual qualities brought up in the family, and he himself suffered from this. But as he grew older, in addition to the acquired principles of love and compassion for people, his rejection of the disgusting, dirty, and scandalous became more and more evident in him.

Throughout the entire conflict with his wife, Tolstoy was almost flawless. He pitied her, suppressed any attempts to slander her, even when he knew the truth of these words. He obeyed, as far as possible and even impossible, her demands, sometimes the most absurd, and patiently endured all her antics, sometimes monstrous, such as blackmail by suicide. But at the core of this behavior, which surprised and even irritated his supporters, there were not abstract principles, but the nature of an old master, and simply a wonderful old man who painfully experiences any quarrel, discord, or scandal.

And this old man secretly commits an act at night that could not be more terrible for his wife. This is not even the knife that S.A. wrote about. It's an ax!

Therefore, the strongest feeling that Tolstoy experienced in the carriage house was fear. Fear that his wife will wake up, run out of the house and catch him on his suitcase, near the still unfinished carriage... And - there is no avoiding a scandal, a painful, heartbreaking scene that will become the crescendo of what has been happening in Yasnaya Polyana lately.

He never ran away from difficulties... In recent years, on the contrary, he thanked God when He sent him trials. He accepted any “trouble” with a humble heart. He was happy when he was condemned. But now he passionately wanted “this cup to pass from him.”

It was beyond his strength.

Yes, Tolstoy’s departure was a manifestation of not only strength, but also weakness. He openly confessed this to his old friend and confidant Maria Alexandrovna Schmidt, a former classy lady who believed in Tolstoy as the new Christ, the most sincere and consistent “tolstoyanka” who lived in a hut in Ovsyanniki, six miles away. Tolstoy often visited her during horseback rides, knowing that these visits not only brought her joy, but were the meaning of life for her. He consulted with her on spiritual issues and on October 26, two days before leaving, he spoke about his still incomplete decision to leave. Maria Alexandrovna clasped her hands:

- Darling, Lev Nikolaevich! - she said. - This is weakness, it will pass.

“Yes,” he answered, “this is weakness.”

Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotina cites this conversation from the words of Maria Alexandrovna in her memoirs. In the diary of Makovitsky, who accompanied L.N. during the walk on October 26, this dialogue does not exist. And Maria Alexandrovna herself, in a conversation with a Russian Word correspondent, claimed that on that day L.N. announced her departure. didn't say a word to her. This was an obvious untruth, explained by her reluctance to wash dirty linen in public (and not even her own) and reveal the Tolstoy family conflict to the whole world. In Tolstoy’s secret “Diary for Oneself” there is an entry dated October 26: “I am becoming more and more burdened by this life. Marya Alexandrovna doesn’t order me to leave, and my conscience won’t let me either.”

Makovitsky also noted on October 26 that “L.N. weak" and distracted. On the way to Schmidt, Tolstoy commits a “bad” act, in his own words: he rode a horse through “greenery” (winter crops), and this cannot be done in the mud, because the horse leaves deep marks and destroys the tender greenery.

I would like to exclaim: you regretted the “greenery”, but not your old wife?! Unfortunately, this is a typical way of condemning Tolstoy. This is the reasoning of people who see in Tolstoy’s flight the act of a “hardened man” and relate it to their “human, all too human” ideas about the family. The strong Tolstoy left his weak wife, who did not coincide with him in spiritual development. It’s understandable, that’s why he’s a genius, but S.A., of course, it’s a pity! How dangerous it is to marry geniuses.

This widespread point of view, oddly enough, almost coincides with the one that is cultivated in the intellectual environment and, with the light hand of Ivan Bunin, has become fashionable.

Tolstoy left to die. This was an act of liberation of the spiritual titan from the material captivity that tormented him. "The Liberation of Tolstoy." How beautiful! Reduced version: just as a strong animal, sensing the approach of death, leaves the pack, so Tolstoy, sensing the approach of an inevitable end, rushed from Yasnaya Polyana. Also a beautiful pagan version, which was voiced in the newspapers by Alexander Kuprin in the first days of his departure.

Pavel Basinsky

Leo Tolstoy: Escape from Paradise

We are all brave in front of each other and forget that we are all, unless we love, pathetic, pathetic. But we are so brave and pretend to be angry and self-confident that we ourselves fall for it and mistake sick chickens for terrible lions...

From a letter from Leo Tolstoy to V.G. Chertkov

Chapter first

Leaving or fleeing?

On the night of October 27-28, 1910, in the Krapivensky district of the Tula province, an incredible event took place, out of the ordinary, even for such an unusual place as Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate of the world-famous writer and thinker - Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The eighty-two-year-old count secretly fled from his home at night in an unknown direction, accompanied by his personal doctor Makovitsky.

The eyes of newspapers

The information space of that time was not much different from today. The news of the scandalous event instantly spread throughout Russia and around the world. On October 29, urgent telegrams began to arrive from Tula to the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (PTA), which were reprinted in newspapers the next day. “The news that shocked everyone was received that L.N. Tolstoy, accompanied by Doctor Makovitsky, unexpectedly left Yasnaya Polyana and left. Having left, L.N. Tolstoy left a letter in which he reports that he is leaving Yasnaya Polyana forever.”

About this letter written by L.N. for his sleeping wife and handed over to her the next morning by their youngest daughter Sasha, even Tolstoy’s companion Makovitsky did not know. He himself read about it in the newspapers.

The Moscow newspaper “Russkoe Slovo” turned out to be the most efficient. On October 30, it published a report from its own Tula correspondent with detailed information about what happened in Yasnaya Polyana.

"Tula, 29, X ( urgent). Having returned from Yasnaya Polyana, I report the details of Lev Nikolaevich’s departure.

Lev Nikolaevich left yesterday at 5 o'clock in the morning, when it was still dark.

Lev Nikolaevich came to the coachman's room and ordered the horses to be pawned.

The coachman Adrian carried out the order.

When the horses were ready, Lev Nikolaevich, together with Doctor Makovitsky, took the necessary things, packed at night, and went to Shchekino station.

The postman Filka rode ahead, lighting the way with a torch.

At the station Shchekino Lev Nikolaevich took a ticket to one of the stations of the Moscow-Kursk Railway and left with the first train that passed.

When in the morning in Yasnaya Polyana it became known about the sudden departure of Lev Nikolaevich, there was terrible confusion there. The despair of Lev Nikolaevich’s wife, Sofia Andreevna, defies description.”

This message, which the whole world was talking about the next day, was printed not on the first page, but on the third. The front page, as was customary at that time, was devoted to advertising of all kinds of goods.

“The stomach’s best friend is Saint-Raphael wine.”

“Small sturgeon fish. 20 kopecks a pound.”

Having received a night telegram from Tula, Russkoye Slovo immediately sent its correspondent to the Khamovnichesky House of Tolstoy (today the house-museum of Leo Tolstoy between the Park Kultury and Frunzenskaya metro stations). The newspaper hoped that perhaps the count had fled from Yasnaya Polyana to a Moscow estate. But, the newspaper writes, “in the old Tolstoy manor house it was quiet and calm. Nothing said that Lev Nikolaevich could come to the old ashes. The gate is locked. Everyone in the house is asleep."

A young journalist, Konstantin Orlov, a theater reviewer, the son of Tolstoy’s follower, teacher and member of the People’s Will, Vladimir Fedorovich Orlov, depicted in the stories “The Dream” and “There are No Guilty People in the World,” was sent in pursuit of Tolstoy’s supposed escape route. He overtook the fugitive already in Kozelsk and secretly accompanied him to Astapov, from where he informed Sofya Andreevna and Tolstoy’s children by telegram that their husband and father was seriously ill and was at the junction railway station in the house of its boss I.I. Ozolina.

If not for Orlov’s initiative, the relatives would have learned about the whereabouts of the terminally ill L.N. not until all the newspapers had reported it. Need I say how painful this would be for the family? Therefore, unlike Makovitsky, who regarded the activities of the Russian Word as “detective,” Tolstoy’s eldest daughter Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotina, according to her memoirs, was “to death” grateful to the journalist Orlov.

“Father is dying somewhere nearby, and I don’t know where he is. And I can't look after him. Maybe I won't see him again. Would I be allowed to even look at him on his deathbed? A sleepless night. Real torture,” Tatyana Lvovna later recalled her and the entire family’s state of mind after Tolstoy’s “escape” (her expression). “But there was a person unknown to us who understood and took pity on Tolstoy’s family. He telegraphed to us: “Lev Nikolaevich is in Astapov with the station chief. Temperature 40°".

In general, it must be admitted that in relation to the family and, above all, to Sofya Andreevna, the newspapers behaved more restrained and delicately than in relation to the Yasnaya Polyana fugitive, whose every step was mercilessly monitored, although all the newspapermen knew that in his farewell note Tolstoy asked: don't look for it! “Please... don’t follow me if you find out where I am,” he wrote to his wife.

“In Belev, Lev Nikolayevich went to the buffet and ate scrambled eggs,” the newspapermen relished the modest act of the vegetarian Tolstoy. They interrogated his coachman and Filka, lackeys and peasants of Yasnaya Polyana, cashiers and bartenders at the stations, the cab driver who was carrying L.N. from Kozelsk to the Optina Monastery, hotel monks and everyone who could report anything about the path of an eighty-two-year-old old man, whose only desire was to run away, hide, become invisible to the world.

“Don't look for him! – “Odessa News” cynically exclaimed, addressing the family. “He’s not yours, he’s everyone’s!”

“Of course, his new location will be opened very soon,” Petersburgskaya Gazeta coolly declared.

L.N. did not like newspapers (although he followed them) and did not hide it. Another thing is S.A. The writer's wife understood perfectly well that her husband's reputation and her own reputation, willy-nilly, depend on newspaper publications. Therefore, she willingly communicated with newspapermen and gave interviews, explaining certain oddities of Tolstoy’s behavior or his statements and not forgetting (this was her weakness) to outline her role with the great man.

Therefore, the attitude of newspapermen towards S.A. It was rather warm. The general tone was set by “Russian Word” with the feuilleton “Sofya Andreevna” by Vlas Doroshevich, published in the issue of October 31. “The old lion went to die alone,” wrote Doroshevich. “The eagle has flown so high from us that where can we follow its flight?!”

(They watched, and how they watched!)

S.A. he compared with Yasodara, the young wife of the Buddha. This was an undoubted compliment, because Yasodara was in no way to blame for her husband's departure. Meanwhile, evil tongues compared Tolstoy’s wife not with Yasodara, but with Xanthippe, the wife of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who allegedly tormented her husband with grumpiness and misunderstanding of his worldview.

Doroshevich rightly pointed out that without his wife, Tolstoy would not have lived such a long life and would not have written his later works. (Although what does Yasodara have to do with it?)

The conclusion of the feuilleton was this. Tolstoy is a “superman”, and his actions cannot be judged by ordinary standards. S.A. - a simple earthly woman who did everything she could for her husband while he was just a man. But in the “superhuman” area he is inaccessible to her, and this is her tragedy.

“Sofya Andreevna is alone. She does not have her child, her elder child, her titan child, about whom she must think, care every minute: is he warm, is he fed, is he healthy? There is no one else to give your whole life to, drop by drop.”

S.A. I read the feuilleton. She liked him. She was grateful to the newspaper “Russkoe Slovo” both for Doroshevich’s article and for Orlov’s telegram. Because of this, it was possible not to pay attention to little things, like the unpleasant description of the appearance of Tolstoy’s wife, which was given by the same Orlov: “Sofia Andreevna’s wandering eyes expressed inner torment. Her head was shaking. She was dressed in a casually thrown hood.” One could forgive the night surveillance of the Moscow house, and a very indecent indication of the amount that the family spent to hire a separate train from Tula to Astapov - 492 rubles 27 kopecks, and Vasily Rozanov’s transparent hint that L.N. He still ran away from his family: “The prisoner has escaped from a delicate prison.”

If we skim through the newspaper headlines covering Tolstoy's departure, we will find that the word “departure” was rarely found in them. “SUDDEN DEPARTURE...”, “DISAPERSHIP...”, “ESCAPE...”, “TOLSTOY QUITS HOME.”

And the point here is not at all the desire of newspapermen to “warm up” readers. The event itself was scandalous. The fact is that the circumstances of Tolstoy’s disappearance from Yasnaya, indeed, were much more reminiscent of an escape than a majestic departure.