The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year Read Online Free PDF Page B

Forget about me. I shall not bother you anymore .
     
    I’d have stabbed myself in the breast a thousand times if that could have made a difference. I cursed myself for giving him my story. What had I been thinking? For days I was inconsolable.
    A week later, I sat at the piano, comforting myself with a light Italian score, a waltz called ‘Il Bacio,’ the kiss. There was a knock at the door. It was Lyovochka, his eyes sunken like potholes beneath his bushy brows. I may misremember this, but he smelled of lavender.
    He sat beside me at the piano and said, ‘I’ve been carrying a letter in my pocket for several days now. Will you read it, Sonya? It’s for you.’
    I quietly took the letter down the hall to my room, locking myself in to read it. My hands trembling, the characters difficult to see through my tears, I read: ‘Would you possibly consent to be my wife?’
    ‘Open this door!’ Lisa shrieked. She knew exactly what was going on. ‘Sonya! Open this door.’
    I peeked out.
    ‘What has he written to you? Tell me frankly.’
    ‘He has offered me his hand in marriage.’
    Her face tightened. She seemed fit to burst, like an overripe tomato. ‘Refuse him, Sonya! Say no!’ She began to pull at her own hair, ‘I will die if you don’t. It’s intolerable!’
    Such a scene! I adored every minute of it, of course, but I kept my composure. At least somebody in this house was worthy of the title Countess Tolstoy.
    Mama came scuffling down the hall when she heard the commontion. She dragged Lisa, kicking and squealing like a pig, back to her room. ‘What the count must think!’ Mama cried.
    ‘You must go into the parlor and deliver your response,’ she said to me flatly. All possible pleasure had drained from the scene she had so long anticipated.
    I found Lyovochka standing against the wall, his face white as a sail. He wrung his hands.
    ‘So?’ he asked. I heard a note of resignation in that question, and my heart went out to him. The poor, dear man!
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I will marry you, Leo Nikolayevich.’
    Soon an avalanche broke over our heads, what with servants rushing about, Lisa weeping beside me, Tanya shouting in her vulgar way, Mama offering drinks. Everyone was there but Papa, who pretended he was ill. In truth, he was upset that the count had revealed such bad manners. He should first have asked Papa. Indeed, he should have asked for Lisa’s hand. It took several days and much coaxing by Mama to bring him round, but he acquiesced. He always did.
    Life became miserable again too quickly. Lyovochka, in a fit of honesty, gave me his diaries. I was honored, at first, and thrilled. It seemed wonderfully romantic to read the most private thoughts of one’s future husband!
    One sentence hangs in my memory like a black crow: ‘I consider the company of women a necessary evil and avoid it when possible. Women are the source of all frivolity, all sensuality and indolence, all the vices to which men are prone.’ He went on to recount the whole disgusting story of endless nights on the town in Moscow, St Petersburg, even Tula and Sevastopol! Whores and peasant women of all stripes had shared his bed!
    I read on with disbelief, learning that he had lost his innocence as a boy of fourteen in Kazan, led to a brothel by his elder brother Sergey, who’d specialized in debauchery from the beginning. After he had performed the disgusting act, he stood by the harlot’s bedside, weeping. It was as if he foresaw all.
    And there was more. I heard for the first time about Axinya, the peasant woman who had served his vile needs for three years before our marriage. I could have borne this were it not for their son, Timothy, who haunts us still. The hideous, dim-witted Timothy, who snorts and guffaws, who prowls our house like a demon spirit from hell. Worse, he looks just like Lyovochka: the same height, the same slightly rounded shoulders, the unmistakable eyebrows and wispy spume of a beard! He has