Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy Part 5

NOTES

{1}. In _The Book of Genealogies of the n.o.bility of the Moscow Government_, Vol. I, page 122, it is said of S. A. T.'s father: "Andrey Evstafevich, son of a chemist, born 9 April, 1808, a physician on the staff of the Moscow Palace Control, collegiate a.s.sessor 1842, State Councillor 1864."

{2}. This was the former name of the Commandant's Board.

{3}. Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, first cousin of S. A. T.

{4}. Born 3 December, 1789, died 25 March, {1855}. Buried in Petersburg in the Volkov Lutheran Cemetery. _Peterburgskii Necropol, Petersburg_, 1912, Vol. I, page 204.

{5}. In _The Book of Genealogies of the n.o.bility of the Moscow Government_, Vol. I, page 122, the Bers are included under Section III, _i. e._ among those families which were promoted to the t.i.tle of n.o.bility through the civil service. The year of their promotion was 1843. The right to the coat-of-arms was granted by Supreme Order to the father of S. A. T. in 1847. See V. Lukomskii and S. Troinizkii, _List of persons to whom has been granted by H. I. M. the right to coats-of-arms and the t.i.tle of n.o.bility of the All-Russian Empire and of the Kingdom of Poland_, Petersburg, 1911, page 14.

{6}. Alexander Evstafevich Bers, born 18 February, 1807, died 6 September, 1871. See _Peterburgskii Necropol_, Vol. I, page 204; also V.

Lukomskii and S. Troinizkii, page 14.

{7}. In the Tula Province, twenty-five versts from Yasnaya Polyana.

{8}. A. M. Islenev, born 16 July, 1794, died 23 April, 1882. Leo Tolstoy, who knew him well, described him as the father in _Childhood Boyhood and Youth_. See P. Sergeenko, _From the Life of L. N. Tolstoy_ and _How Count L. N. Tolstoy Lives and Works_, Moscow, 1898, page 40.

{9}. The well-known Vladimir Alexandrovich Islavin, State Councillor, born 29 November, 1818, died 27 May, 1895, author of the _The Samoyeds, their Domestic and Social Life_, Petersburg, 1847, which at the time was much discussed in newspapers and magazines. See V. I. Maezkov's _Systematic Catalogue of Russian Books_, A. F. Basunov, Petersburg, 1869, page 404.

{10}. There were five sons and three daughters, _The Book of Genealogies_, Vol. I, pages 122 and {123}. The best known of these, besides Sophie Andreevna, were: Tatyana Andreevna (by marriage Kuzminskii) born 24 October 1846, the author of _My Reminiscences of Countess Marie Nikolaevna Tolstoy_, Petersburg, 1914; Stepan Andreevich Bers, born 21 July 1855, author of _Reminiscences of L. N. Tolstoy_, Smolensk, 1894; Peter Andreevich Bers, born 26 August 1849, died 19 May 1910, the editor of _Detskyii Otdikh_ (1881-1882), and co-editor with L.

D. Obolenskii of the collection of _Stories for Children by I. S.

Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy_, 1883 and 1886; Vacheslav Andreevich Bers, born 3 May 1861, died 19 May, 1907, an engineer who was killed for no obvious reason by workmen during the revolutionary days in Petersburg.

Leo N. Tolstoy was very fond of him. See P. Biryukov, _How L. N. T.

Composed the Popular Calendar_, {1911}.

{11}. A. Y. Davidov, 1823-1885, professor of mathematics in the University of Moscow, author of popular text-books on algebra and geometry.

{12}. N. A. Sergievskii, 1827-1892, a writer on theology, author of many scholarly theological books, founder and editor of _The Orthodox Review_, professor of theology in the University of Moscow.

{13}. In the Natasha of _War and Peace_ there are many characteristics of S. A. T. and of her sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii. According to S. A. T., Leo Nikolaevich made the following remark about his heroine: "I took Tanya, ground her up with Sonya, and there came out Natasha." See P. Biryukov, _Biography of L._ N. T., Vol. II, page 32.

{14}. In S. A. T.'s story _Natasha_ L. N. T. recognized himself in the hero, Dublitskii, and he wrote to her in September, 1862: "I am Dublitskii, but to marry merely because I needed a wife--that I could not do. I demand something tremendous, impossible from marriage; I demand that I should be loved as much as I am able to love." L. N. T.

doubted whether a woman could fall in love with him deeply and completely, as he was not good-looking. On 28 August, 1862, he put down in his diary: "I got up in the usual despondency. I thought out a society for apprentices. A sweet, placid night. Ugly face, don't think of marriage, your vocation is different and much has been given you instead." _L. N. T.'s Letters to his Wife_, edited by A. E. Gruzinskii, 1913. P. Biryukov, _Biography of L. N. T._, Vol. I, page 471.

{15}. M. N. Tolstoi, 7 March, 1830--6 April, 1912, sister of L. N. T. In the 'sixties she went abroad with her brother Nikolai and lived with him at Hyeres in the South of France. After her brother's death, M. N. T., overcome with grief, did not wish to return to Russia and settled for a short time in Algiers. She returned from there in 1862 and visited Yasnaya Polyana for a short time and met S. A. T. and her mother there.

See T. A. Kuzminskii, _My Reminiscences of Marie N. Tolstoy_, Petersburg, 1914. P. Biryukov, _Countess Marie N. Tolstoy_, in "_Russkaya Vedomostii_," 1912, Moscow. A. Khiryakov, _L. N. Tolstoy's Sister_, in "_Solitse Rossii_," 1912. S. Tolstoy, _To the Portrait of Countess Marie N. Tolstoy_ in _Tolstovskii EzheG.o.dnik_, 1912. L. N.

Tolstoy's Letters to Marie N. Tolstoy in _New Collection of Letters of L. N. Tolstoy_, collected by P. A. Sergeenko, edited by A. E.

Gruzinskii, Moscow, 1912, and Complete works of L. N. Tolstoy, Vols.

XXI-XXIV, edited by P. I. Biryukov, Moscow, 1913.

{16}. S. A. T. here leaves out some curious details. According to her own account, Leo Nikolaevich followed the Bers family, first to Ivitsa, Tula Province, fifty versts from Yasnaya Polyana, and then to Moscow.

Leo Nikolaevich's proposal to S. A. T., which was like Levin's to Kitty in _Anna Karenina_, took place at Ivitsa. See "The Marriage of L. N.

Tolstoy," from the reminiscences of S. A. T. under the t.i.tle "My Life,"

in _Russkoye Slovo_, 1912. Also P. Biryukov, _Biography of L. N.

Tolstoy_, Vol. I, pages 464-473, and L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_, pages 1-3.

{17}. The Bers family were convinced that L. N. T. was in love with Liza, the elder sister of S. A. T., and expected him to propose to her.

This misunderstanding worried L. N. T. as he said in his letter to S. A.

T. See L. N. Tolstoy's Letters to his Wife, pages 1-3.

{18}. Orekov, a serf of Yasnaya Polyana, L. N. T.'s inseparable companion during the war in Sevastopol, and later steward at Yasnaya Polyana. See I. Tolstoy, _My Reminiscences_, Moscow, 1914, pages 18, 22-23.

{19}. T. A. Ergolskii, born 1795, died 20 June 1874, a remote relation brought up in the Tolstoy family, taught Marie, Leo and his brothers, who lost their mother at an early age. In Tolstoy's house she was called aunt. See _Reminiscences of Childhood_ and L. N. T.'s _Letters to T. A.

Ergolskii_; also L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters_, 1848-1910, collected and edited by P. A. Sergeenko, L. N. Tolstoy's _Diary_, Vol. I, 1847-1852, edited by V. G. Chertkov, Moscow, 1917.

{20}. The beginning of Chapter II, ending with the words "and in copying out his writings," is incorporated literally by S. A. T. from the first MS. There is also written in pencil by her "This is new." The statement is not quite accurate. In the remainder of Chapter III, which is new, a small part of the original Chapter III, slightly altered, is incorporated. We shall quote this part in full:

"The first thing which I copied in my clumsy, but legible handwriting was _Polikushka_. For many, many years afterwards that work delighted me. I used to long for the evening when Leo N. would give me something newly written or corrected for me to copy.

"I was carried away by the newly created scenes and descriptions, and I tried to understand and watch the artistic development and growth of ideas and creative activity in my husband's works...."

{21}. The beginning was published in two numbers of _Russkii Vyestnik_, 1865 and 1866, and under the t.i.tle of _The Year 1805_ was later published in book form, Moscow, 1866. Tolstoy returned to the Decembrists when he had finished _Anna Karenina_, but was again disappointed. "My Decembrists are again G.o.d knows where; I don't even think of them," he wrote to Fet in April, 1879, (Fet, _My Reminiscences_, Vol. II, page 364). The first three chapters of the Decembrists were published in a miscellaneous volume called _Twenty-five Years_, 1859-1884, Petersburg, 1884. But towards the end of his life Tolstoy again became interested in the Decembrists and began to study the period, see A. B. Goldenweiser, Diary, _Russkie Propilei_. Vol. II, pages 271-272, Moscow, 1916.

{22}. A. M. Zhemchuznikov and I. S. Aksakov visited Leo Nikolaevich in the middle of December, 1864, in Moscow at his father-in-law's house where he came to have his arm medically treated. It was then that he read to them some chapters from _War and Peace_. See L. N. Tolstoy's _Letters to his Wife_, page 41.

{23}. There were a number of musical works which always made a deep impression upon Tolstoy. See list of musical works loved by L. N.

Tolstoy, given by A. B. Goldenweiser, _Tolstovskii EzheG.o.dnik_, pages 158-160; also musical works loved by L. N. Tolstoy, in S. L. Tolstoy's _Reminiscences_.

24. Countess A. A. Tolstoy reproached Leo Nikolaevich for his long silence in a letter of 1 May 1863. Leo Nikolaevich wrote a four page letter in reply, but did not send it; later in the autumn of 1863 he wrote another letter, which he sent. The quotation referred to is, evidently, from the letter which was not sent, and which, as far as we know, has not appeared in print.

{25}. This quotation from L. N. T.'s Diary is also given in Biryukov's Biography, but in somewhat different form. He also gives a detailed sketch of the work, which Tolstoy wrote in his diary; see Biryukov, Vol.

II, pages 27-28.

{26}. N. A. Lyubimov, 1830-1897, well-known professor of physics at the University of Moscow, a collaborator with Katkov and K. Leontev in editing the _Russkii Vyestnik_ and _Moskovskaya Vedomesti_.

{27}. Strakhov's articles on _War and Peace_ were published in _Zarya_, 1869 and 1870, and in book form in 1871. His articles on Tolstoy and Turgenev appeared in book form under the t.i.tle, _Critical Articles on I.

S. Turgenev and L. N. Tolstoy_, second edition, 1887.

{28}. Edmond About, 1828-1885, the French writer to whom Turgenev sent a copy of _War and Peace_, translated by Princess Paskevich, and a letter from which the above quotation is taken. M. About published the letter in _Le XIX e Siecle_, 23 January, 1880, under the t.i.tle "_Une Lettre de Tourgueneff_."

{29}. Vasilii Yakoblevich Mirovich, 1740-1764, a lieutenant in the Smolenskii infantry regiment, executed for his attempt to rescue Ivan Antonovich from prison. His story formed the plot of G. P. Danilevskii's novel _Mirovich_ (Petersburg, 1886).

{30}. From the sketch of the year 1831-2: "The guests were arriving at the country-house." See Pushkin, edited by S. A. Vengerov, Petersburg, 1910, Vol. IV, pages 255-258.

{31}. In P. Biryukov's Biography, Vol. II, page 205, the words are given thus: "That is how one should begin. The reader is at once made to feel the interest of the plot. Another writer would begin to describe the guests, the rooms, but Pushkin goes straight to the point."

{32}. This quotation is a combination of two pa.s.sages from L. N. T.'s letter to Countess A. A. Tolstoy of December, 1874. In the beginning of this letter he says that he has written a letter to her, but has torn it up and is writing another. It is possible that S. A. T. is quoting from the original letter.

{33}. Peter, eighteen months old, 18 November, 1873; Nikolai, two months old, February, 1875; and the daughter born prematurely, November, {1875}.

{34}. T. A. Ergolskii (see note 19), and Pelageya Ilinishna Yushkov, the sister of L. N. T.'s father, died 22, December, 1875. This death particularly affected Tolstoy. He wrote to Countess A. A. Tolstoy: "It is strange, but the death of this old woman of eighty affected me more than any other death.... Not an hour pa.s.ses without my thinking of her."

_Tolstovskii Musei_, Vol. I, pages 262-3.

{35}. From Fet's poem: "I repeated: 'When I will....'" Later Fet evidently re-wrote the poem; his last four lines are:

In my hand--what a marvel-- Is your hand.

And on the gra.s.s--two emeralds.