THE NIGHT OF TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY
It happened very simply. On the night of the 27th October, at a time
when it was supposed that Leo Nikolaevitch was asleep, as he lay in
bed he heard and saw through a crack in his door Sofya Andreyevna
steal softly into his study and search among the papers on his
writing-table. Then as she was going away, noticing the light in his
room, she went in and began with an anxious face inquiring how he
was. This cold hypocrisy on her part apparently destroyed the last
illusion of Leo Nikolaevitch. Only a few days before he had been
touched by the solicitude with which Sofya Andreyevna, coming into
his bedroom in the same way at night, had climbed on to a chair and
had set right the movable frame which had been insecurely fastened.
Now he remembered that he had heard a rustle the night before too,
and the real value of Sofya Andreyevna's care of him was suddenly
revealed to him. Chance had unmasked the awful, systematic comedy
which was being played from day to day around him, and in which he
had unconsciously to play the central part.
In his diary he describes what he endured that night as follows:--
"I went to bed at half-past eleven, slept till three o'clock. Woke
again. As on previous nights, the opening of doors and footsteps. On
the previous nights I did not look towards my door; this time I
glanced towards it and saw through the crack a bright light in the
study and heard rustling. It was Sofya Andreyevna looking for
something, probably reading something. On the evening before she
begged and insisted that I should not lock the doors. Both her doors
were opened so that she could hear my slightest movement. Both by day
and by night all my movements and my words must be known to her and
be under her control. Again footsteps, a cautious opening of the door
and she goes out. I don't know why that aroused in me an
irrepressible repulsion and indignation. I tried to go to sleep. I
could not; I turned from side to side for about an hour, lighted a
candle and sat up. The door opens and Sofya Andreyevna walks in,
asking after my health and wondering at the light which she has seen
in my room. Repulsion and indignation grow. I am breathless; I count
my pulse seventy-seven. I cannot lie still, and suddenly take a final
resolution to go away. I write her a letter; I begin packing what is
most necessary, only to get away. I wake Dushan, then Sasha; they
help me to pack."
As Alexandra Lvovna described, she and her companion Varvara
Mihailovna (the amanuensis) were awake that night. She kept fancying
that someone was walking about and talking overhead. She was afraid
that discussions were taking place between her father and mother.
They fell asleep towards morning, but soon heard a knock at the door.
Alexandra Lvovna went to the door and opened it.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"It is I, Leo Nikolaevitch.... I am going away at once ... for
good.... Come and help me pack."
Alexandra Lvovna said afterwards that she would never forget his
figure in the doorway, in a blouse, with a candle in his hand and a
bright face resolute and beautiful.
In haste to get away, Leo Nikolaevitch dreaded one thing only: that
Sofya Andreyevna might come upon him before he succeeded in getting
off, and the calm realisation of his unalterable decision might
thereby be troubled.
"I tremble at the thought that she will hear, will come out--a scene,
hysterics, and no getting away in the future without a scene. By six
o'clock everything has been packed after a fashion. I go to the
stable to order the horses; Sasha and Varya finish the packing.... It
is night, pitch dark. I get off the path to the lodge, fall into the
bushes, get scratched, knock against trees, fall down, lose my cap,
cannot find it; with difficulty make my way out, go home, take a cap,
and with a lantern make my way to the stable and order the horses to
be harnessed. Sasha, Dushan, Varya come. I tremble, expecting
pursuit. But at last we get off. At Shtchekino we wait an hour, and
every minute I expect her to appear. But at last we are in the
railway carriage and set off. Alarm passes, and pity for her rises,
but no doubt as to whether I have done what I ought. Perhaps I am
mistaken in justifying myself but it seems to me that I have saved
myself not as Leo Nikolaevitch, but have saved what at times at least
to some small degree there is in me."