THE MOTIVES THAT DECIDED HIS GOING AWAY
For us, the nearest friends of Leo Nikolaevitch, who watched step by
step what was taking place at Yasnaya Polyana during the last days of
his presence there, the reason why he could do nothing but go away
was easy to understand. But the reader who is not so closely
acquainted with all the circumstances may ask, Why exactly did Sofya
Andreyevna's behaviour on the last night have such an influence on
Leo Nikolaevitch? What did she do then that was new and not to be
expected from her previous behaviour?
Of course Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour on that night only gave the
final impetus to Leo Nikolaevitch's going away. In reality the
question of leaving home had already been decided in his soul, and,
as it seems to me, he was, as it were, instinctively only awaiting
the inevitable final impulse for carrying out his intention. And the
key to the understanding of Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual state at the
time is hidden in the words with which he concluded the note in his
diary concerning his departure: "I feel 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." These words are marvellous in their
touching humility on the lips of a man whose soul was filled to
overflowing and was the reflection of the highest principle, and at
the same time remarkable from the light which they throw on the
deeper motives of his departure. In these words one is conscious of
the dread--under the conditions beginning to exist about him--of
being deprived of the spiritual independence essential for the
preservation of the inviolability of his "holy of holies"--the dread
of being deprived of the possibility of resisting the ever-persisting
attacks from outside--which might very naturally come to pass,
considering Leo Nikolaevitch's extreme age and the gradual weakening
of his physical powers.
It must not be forgotten also that by this time he had become
convinced of the complete uselessness, even undesirability, of his
remaining longer with Sofya Andreyevna, and that therefore the
various impulses to go away which he had before so scrupulously
repressed in his soul were now set free. The painful consciousness of
luxury and privilege in which his life was spent in the midst of the
poverty around him, the yearning for peace and solitude before death,
and many other causes began without hindrance to impel him in the
same direction.
Thus the cup was already full and only the last drop was lacking. And
just at this time suddenly the new element in his wife's behaviour
which provided that last impulse to departure was revealed to Leo
Nikolaevitch.
What was new to him was the sudden revelation of the atmosphere of
lying and hypocrisy in which he saw himself entangled. He
unexpectedly became the involuntary witness of how Sofya Andreyevna,
when she thought he was asleep, secretly stole up to his papers, and
of how, as soon as she found out that he was not asleep, she began
again at once as though nothing were the matter, expressing
solicitude for his health. His eyes were at once opened and he saw
what had long been well known to his intimate friends, but what the
remnant of confidence in and respect for his wife which were still
preserved in his soul, forbade him even to admit in his thoughts:
that is, that _she was acting a farce with him_.
Together with this discovery everything was transformed for Leo
Nikolaevitch, and indeed that was inevitable. It was of little moment
that the incident which opened his eyes may seem in itself not to be
of much importance. For married people who have lived together fifty
years the first incident which reveals hypocrisy in one of them is
always of importance. This incident at once threw quite a new light
for Leo Nikolaevitch on all that had passed between him and Sofya
Andreyevna. Till that time he had supposed that he had to do with
sincere egoism and ill-will, with open wilfulness and innate
coarseness and with morbid abnormality. And meeting this with
unvarying mildness, patience and love, he recognised that he was
doing as he ought, and therefore felt an inner satisfaction. Now all
this was turned upside down. In the past the position had been clear;
before him was a definite evil which laid on him as definite a duty
to meet the evil with good. Now he had to do with a sort of tangle in
which there was so much falsity that it was impossible to make out
where reality ended and deception began; so that instead of his
former satisfaction Leo Nikolaevitch suddenly felt the ambiguous
position in which he found himself. So at least I explain to myself
the extreme emotion which Leo Nikolaevitch felt at his final decision
to go away.
It is true that even before this he knew of Sofya Andreyevna's
insincere behaviour. A month before he went away he wrote of Sofya
Andreyevna in this diary: "I cannot get accustomed to regarding her
words as the ravings of delirium. All my trouble comes from that. It
is impossible to talk to her, because she does not recognise the
obligation of truth nor of logic, nor of her own words, nor of
conscience. It is awful. I am not speaking now of love for me, of
which there is no trace. She does not want my love for her either;
all she wants is that people should think that I love her, and that
is so awful." (_Diary, September 10, 1910._) Yet apparently Leo
Nikolaevitch still had no idea of the degree of insincerity and
deception of which Sofya Andreyevna was capable in her relations with
him personally. But on that night he was involuntarily brought face
to face with the manifestation of it, and he was the more revolted
because he had hitherto so scrupulously striven in his soul to
preserve some sort of trust in his wife.
Finally, convinced that he was incapable of changing the spiritual
condition of Sofya Andreyevna, he saw now that his presence at her
side could only serve as a cause of offence for her, exciting the
worst side of her nature. And so the former obstacles to his
departure were removed from him, and his soul demanded release from
the unbefitting position in which he found himself.
It is easy to understand that under such conditions the first serious
occasion was sufficient to impel him to carry out his long-cherished
intention, and he went away.[25]
FOOTNOTE
[25] I have heard--it is true, from very few persons, and
those chiefly belonging to Leo Nikolaevitch's family--regret
expressed that he did not die peaceably at Yasnaya Polyana in the
midst of his family. The picture imagined by these people of the
death-bed of Leo Nikolaevitch in the home of his ancestors,
surrounded by all his family, and giving his blessing to his
grief-stricken wife, may perhaps be very touching. But such a scene
would in reality be impossible, since Sofya Andreyevna was in such a
condition of mind that, apart from a simulated exaggeration of
feeling and the basest preoccupation with the material heritage,
nothing more would have happened than on previous occasions when Leo
Nikolaevitch was taken with the attacks and fainting fits to which he
was liable, and it would have been painful for him. We ought, on the
contrary, to rejoice that circumstances gave Leo Nikolaevitch the
chance of spending the last days of his life and the last hours of
his consciousness in a quiet, genuine atmosphere, among intimate
friends who truly loved and understood him, and who strenuously
watched over his spiritual peace and did not pester him in those last
minutes with any worldly cares or material considerations. In this I
cannot but see an immense happiness and blessing for Leo
Nikolaevitch.
Some people lay stress on the spiritual pain which Sofya Andreyevna
must have experienced when she learned that Leo Nikolaevitch had left
her. There is no doubt that this pain must have been very severe,
particularly at first. But one must not blame others for the
sufferings which are the work of the sufferer himself. If my own
negligence is the cause of a man slipping off the roof and falling on
my head I cannot blame him for the bruises he has caused me by his
fall. It is as unjust to blame Leo Nikolaevitch for the suffering
caused to Sofya Andreyevna by his departure, which was provoked by
herself. Moreover, sufferings which are the result of our own
mistakes are often beneficial. So in this instance, if Sofya
Andreyevna, toward the end of the life of Leo Nikolaevitch, ever
displayed the faintest gleams of consciousness of the great wrong she
had done him, it was only at the time of her heaviest suffering on
account of his leaving her. And therefore one may regret the causes
which called forth Leo Nikolaevitch's departure, but not that the
emotional shock given Sofya Andreyevna by it opened her eyes, if only
for a few instants, to the true significance of her behaviour to her
husband.
If it should seem strange to anyone that Leo Nikolaevitch, even after
he had left home, so dreaded an interview with Sofya Andreyevna, that
is only because the mental condition in which, as Leo Nikolaevitch
well knew, she was at that time is too little known. When he left
Yasnaya Polyana Leo Nikolaevitch firmly and unhesitatingly decided to
cut himself off from his family, and therefore while he was still
hoping to live independently, he naturally avoided interviews with
Sofya Andreyevna, who would with all her energies, and without
scruple as to the means employed, have hindered his realising his
plan. When he was laid up at Astapavo and foresaw the possibility of
death being at hand, it was just as natural that he should have felt
the need of that spiritual tranquillity to which every dying man has
a right. And that Sofya Andreyevna's condition at that time really
was such that she could have brought nothing to his death-bed but
deception, vanity, material importunities, fuss and noise, that is
well known by all who have had the opportunity of watching at close
quarters her behaviour not only in all Leo Nikolaevitch's serious
illnesses in later years and during the last months of his life at
Yasnaya Polyana, but also during the first days after he had gone
away, and during her stay in his neighbourhood at Astapovo, and by
his bedside during the last unconscious moments, and during the first
hours after his death. Anyone who saw Sofya Andreyevna under all
these conditions cannot but acknowledge that Leo Nikolaevitch showed
great foresight in so persistently avoiding interviews with her while
she was in that condition. A personal interview between them at that
time could not only add nothing to what he had told her in his last
letters, which were permeated with forgiveness, pity and love, but,
judging from the mental condition in which Sofya Andreyevna still
was, it could only have evoked in her a renewal too painful for him
of the same insincerity, hypocrisy and importunities which had
provoked his departure.