Nearly three years separate the going away and death of Leo N. Tolstoy
from the writing of her autobiography by S. A. T. It might have been
expected that that interval of time would have stilled the pain in her
heart and that her soul would have found peace from her sufferings. But
S. A. T. is far from peace and reconciliation. Pain, a void in her
heart, a protest against some one or something are felt in every word of
her autobiography. In her work she has given new and interesting
information about her family; she has dwelt upon her children, the
guests who visited Yasnaya Polyana, the literary works of her husband,
without giving us anything new; and then she concentrated all her
attention upon the domestic drama. The domestic drama is the centre
round which all the thoughts and all the feelings of S. A. T. turn.
In her story about this domestic drama she has not sinned against the
truth; she has gone back again into the past deeply and with
sincerity--every one who reads her work without prejudice will admit
this. And yet one feels that it is not for nothing that she tells of
family difficulties and pours out before us the pain of her soul.
Continual references to the difficulties of her position as a mother,
insistent emphasis upon the mutual love of herself and her husband, and
the allusions to "friends" who entered the house, got possession of the
mind, heart, and will of Leo N., and disturbed the harmony of their
married life--all this creates an impression in the reader's mind that
S. A. T., in writing her autobiography, was guided by a definite
purpose, that of contradicting the unfavourable rumours about her which
circulated everywhere and were getting into newspapers and magazines.
This desire, which is masked in the autobiography, is definitely
expressed by S. A. T. in another place, in her preface to Leo N.
Tolstoy's _Letters to His Wife_, published in 1913. There she says
frankly: "This, too, has induced me to publish these letters, that after
my death, which in all likelihood is near, people will, as usual,
wrongly judge and describe my relations to my husband and his to me.
Then let them study and form their judgment upon living and genuine
data, and not upon guesses, gossip and inventions."
We shall understand S. A. T.'s desire, if we consider her position. It
is true that the great honour of being the wife of a genius fell to the
lot of S. A. T., but there also fell to her lot the difficult task of
creating favourable conditions for the life and development of that
genius. She knew the joy of living with a genius, but she also knew the
horror of living in public, so that her every movement, smile, frown,
incautious word was in everyone's eyes and ears and was caught up by the
newspapers and spread over the whole world, recorded in diaries and
reminiscences as material for future judgments upon her. Forty-eight
years is a long period. Many unnecessary words were spoken in that time,
many incautious movements were made; and for every one she will be made
to answer before the court of mankind. S. A. T. knew this, and with an
anxious heart she prepared herself for the judgment. The _Autobiography_
and L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_ are the last words of the
accused. We should listen to them carefully and with attention, weighing
every word. If S. A. T. bears a responsibility before all mankind, each
of us before our conscience has a responsibility for whatever verdict he
may pass upon her. We must judge sternly, but justly.
S. A. T.'s wish has been carried out. In the autobiography printed below
two new chapters are substituted for the first half of Chapter III in
the original draft, and an independent Chapter V has been made out of
the last half of the original third chapter. Passages cut out of this
third chapter are given in full in notes 20, 38, and 43.
Our notes are given at the end of the autobiography.