The Last Farewell, No, Tolstoy, Until We Meet Again!

“How is a road beaten down through the untouched snow? one person
walks ahead, sweating, swearing, and barely moving his feet. He keeps
getting stuck in the loose, deep snow. He goes far ahead, marking his
path with uneven black pits.” With this question-answer motif, like
that of a beginning of a religious text, Varlam Shalamov opens his
story Through the Snow (with which he opens his collection of stories,
Kolyma Tales), a beautiful extended metaphor about writing on a blank
paper as walking through the white snow; the back pits left behind as
traces of ink. reading these lines undoubtedly elicits a mental picture
– Tolstoy beating down the white, untouched snow.
and it is one hundred years ago on a snowy november day that
lev nikolaevitch Tolstoy most certainly continued on  his path just
moments after he had passed away.
on november 1st 1910, twenty days before his death, Vladimir Cher-
tkov, his close friend and personal secretary, received a telegram from
Tolstoy. It read:  “fell ill yesterday stop seen by passengers stop left train
feeling weak stop fear publicity stop feeling better now stop traveling on
stop take measures stop notify stop nikolayev” (leo Tolstoy’s private
“pseudonym”). Having learnt from Tolstoy that he wanted to see him,
Chertkov left Tula by night train and arrived in astapovo in the mor-
ning of november 2nd 1910, finding Tolstoy in bed, very weak but con-
scious. Shortly after Chertkov’s arrival, Tolstoy asked him to take all
possible measures to keep his wife, Sofia andreyevna from visiting
him. Then, he spoke gently about a letter Chertkov had sent to him
from nice concerning P.P. nikolayev’s The Concept of God as a Perfect
Foundation for living, stating that the author “establishes his idea on
a thorough and sound basis.” a few days later, Chertkov came across
some of Tolstoy’s notes that he had been writing down for him in his
diary. The following thoughts had been written in Tolstoy’s diary on
november 1st 1910: “god alone exists truly. Man manifests Him in
time, space and matter. The more god’s manifestation in man (life)
the more man exists. This union with the lives of other beings is
accomplished through love. god is not love, but the more there is of
love, the more man manifests god, and the more he truly exists…”

We read Chertkov’s account The Last Days of Tolstoy, taking in every
detail as if it will provide us with a new, never-before-seen insight into
Tolstoy’s brilliant psyche. It sheds light into the last days of a god of
literature, a sort of peak-through-a-key-hole feel; a culmination of pri-
vate moments that, given the situation, would never be written about
by Tolstoy himself. and so we settle for Chertkov’s descriptions, rea-
ding carefully so as not to miss one single detail; reading between the
lines; believing that we have discovered something about Tolstoy that
not even Chertkov himself was aware of. as if reading Tolstoy’s  last
words creates an illusion that we know all of his works.
on october 28th 1910, three days before contacting Chertkov, Tol-
stoy vanished from Yasnaya Polyana and left home to embark on his
desired journey to a village, where he planned to live alone, away from
his family, away from the church; in a place where he would find spi-
ritual salvation – a place very personal to him. His disappearance, along
with his illness, quickly became a popular media event, mimicking to-
day’s fever over the lives of celebrities – and their deaths. Tolstoy was
aware of these events as Chertkov read him newspaper articles that
dealt with his escape and his illness, also, consisting of memorabilia
over the immense impact the great author had on the literary and Chri-
stian world – some fearing his death would bolster his great number
of supporters among the young, the peasantry and the intelligentsia
circles.  Despite all the commotion in the outer world, Tolstoy, while
slowly dying in bed, had simpler things in mind, such as embarking
on his planned journey. according to Chertkov, Tolstoy, despite his
illness, wanted to get back on his feet so that he could start his new life
in the village. Village life, or “simple, self-sustainable life,” as Tolstoy
referred to it, was something that he had longed for more and more,
with each work he wrote. He specifically expressed his disgust with
being a slave to the state in a letter to his friend Vasili Botkin: “the
truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but
above all to corrupt its citizens … Henceforth, I shall never serve any
government anywhere.”  The term servitude meant something else for
Tolstoy, something positive indeed and we can see this in the following
statement in his 1886 novel What is To be Done? – “The vocation of
every man and woman is to serve other people,” and by serve other peo-
ple, he means, to genuinely help other people.

Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting contentment by
striving for inner self-perfection by following the great commandment
of loving one's neighbour and god rather than looking outward to the
Church or state for guidance. Taking into consideration his radical Chri-
stian belief and his utmost strong desire to live according to it, could
one hold it against Tolstoy for leaving his family estate, his wife of 48
years, to pursue a life alone in a village? Was it not irresponsible and
selfish of him to leave, to embark on a new life alone – an act, which, by
its very nature, stands in stark contrast to the principles of love, family
and tolerance enforced by the writer throughout his literary works?
Evidently, he needed to pay tribute to his own inner responsibility, a
mission more important to his soul than any other. However, one must
not forget that within this man on his path towards spiritual salvation,
in front of us lies a simple old man on his deathbed, like any other old
man, dealing with the pains, illnesses and confusions of the mind. Just
a few days before his death, he writes in his journal: “I am now suf-
fering the torments of hell: I am calling to mind all the infamies of
my former life-these reminiscences do not pass away and they poison
my existence. generally people regret that the individuality does not
retain memory after death. What a happiness that it does not! What an
anguish it would be if I remembered in this life all the evil, all that is
painful to the conscience, committed by me in a previous life… What
a happiness that reminiscences disappear with death and that there
only remains consciousness.”

one can say that Tolstoy indeed set on his planned spiritual journey. I
like to think that his passing has taken him there. If he had somehow
been physically alive to live through and face his own death, I am sure
he would not object to it, for he would know that it is taking him to а
place where his consciousness remains; this time, to a place even more
private than his room. Chertkov’s account finishes here, while Tolstoy
continues to live on through the works of his followers, ones that will
now be beating down through  their virgin snow like Tolstoy beat
down through his; ones that will write novels reminiscent of Tolstoy’s
“Youth,” “Boyhood” and “Childhood”… allowing Tolstoy to be born ma-
ny times thereafter.