The year 1891 and the two following years were memorable for us because
of the assistance given by the family to the famine-stricken Russian
people. Distressed by the news which we received about the calamity, I
decided to publish in the newspapers an appeal for subscriptions. What a
joy to me was the ardent sympathy of the good people who sent generous
donations, often accompanied by moving letters! The four younger
children remained with me in Moscow. It was extraordinarily difficult
for me to part from my husband and the elder children who were exposing
themselves to many dangers. My only comfort was that I, too, was taking
part in the good work. I bought trucks of corn, beans, onions, cabbage,
everything needed for the feeding centres where the famine-stricken poor
from the villages were fed. To pay for this I received money which was
sent to me in considerable sums. From the material sent to me by textile
manufacturers I had under-clothing made by poor women for small wages,
and I sent it to the places where it was needed most, chiefly for those
suffering from typhoid.
It might have been thought that this work would have satisfied Leo
Nikolaevich. And at first it did, but he became disappointed with this
too, and he began again to dream of a great act of renunciation, as he
expressed it in his diary. He was annoyed with the family, though he did
love us. He was often angry with me. We were what stood in the way of
his carrying out his dream of a free, new life, of an act of
renunciation. At times he would soften, and he wrote, for instance in
his diary: "It is good to be with Sonya. Yesterday I thought, as I saw
her with Andryusha and Misha, what a wonderful wife and mother she is in
one sense." Remarks like that, when they were made directly to me,
comforted me; but, on the other hand, his obstinate rejection of all
our method of life pained and tormented me.
The famine relief work nearly cost my son Leo his life; he was at the
time a young undergraduate and worked on his own account on famine
relief in the Samara Province. His health, especially after an attack of
typhus, broke down completely, and for a long time afterwards I suffered
to see him sinking. But he recovered after being ill for two years. In
1895 our youngest son, Vanichka, died; he was seven years old, a general
favourite, extraordinarily like his father, a clever, sensitive child,
not long for this earth, as people say of such children. This was the
greatest sorrow of my life, and for long I could find neither peace nor
comfort.{58} At first I spent whole days in churches and cathedrals; I
also prayed at home and walked in my garden, where I remembered the dear
little slim figure of my boy. "Where are you, where are you, Vanichka?"
I used often to cry, not believing in my loss. At last, after having
spent nine hours one day in the Archangel Cathedral--it was a
fast-day--I was walking home and got soaked in a violent storm of rain.
I became very ill and my life was despaired of, but on Easter night at
the ringing of the bells I came to myself and reentered upon my
sorrowful existence. Everybody about me, and particularly my husband and
two eldest daughters, looked after me with extraordinary goodness and
tenderness. This gladdened and comforted me.
In the spring my sister, T. A. Kuzminskii, arrived and took me off with
her to Kiev, and that disposed me still more to religion and made a
strong impression on me.[K] My depression and loss of interest in
everything continued during the summer, and it was only by chance and
quite unexpectedly that my state of mind was changed--by music. That
summer there was staying with us a well-known composer and superb
pianist.{59} In the evenings he used to play chess with Leo Nikolaevich,
and afterwards, at the request of all of us, he often played the piano.
Listening to the wonderful music of Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and
others, superbly executed, I forgot for a time my sharp sorrow, and I
used morbidly to look forward to the evening, when I should again hear
that wonderful music.
Thus the summer passed, and in the autumn I engaged a music mistress
and, at the age of fifty-two, began again to practise and learn to play.
As time went on, I made little progress. But I went to concerts, and
music saved me from despair. Leo Nikolaevich wrote somewhere about
music: "Music is a sensual pleasure of hearing, just as taste is a
sensual pleasure. I agree that it is less sensual than taste, but there
is no moral sense in it." I could never share this view. He himself
often cried, when his favourite pieces were played. Does the pleasure of
taste make one cry? Music always acted upon me like something soothing
and elevating. All the petty, everyday troubles lost their meaning. When
I heard the Chopin sonata with the funeral march or certain Beethoven
sonatas, I often had the desire to pray, to forgive, to love, and to
think of the infinite, spiritual, mysterious, and beautiful, just as
the sounds themselves do not say anything definite, but make one think,
dream, and rejoice vaguely and beautifully.