SOPHIA: Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya, Leo Tolstoy’s wife
LEO: Leo Leovich Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy’s son
SASHA: Alexandra Leovna Tolstaya, Leo Tolstoy’s daughter
CHERTKOV: Vladimir Grigoryevich Chertkov, family friend
MAKOVITSKY: Dushan Petrovich Makovitsky, family doctor
SCENE 2
MOTHER
Twentieth century. Yasnaya Polyana. SOPHIA is sitting for LEO. LEO gently touches her face. SOPHIA slowly stretches out her arms to hug him, but doesn’t dare.
LEO (gently): I see you’ve lost weight.
SOPHIA: I don’t eat. Not a thing. I’m in such a state, Leo . . . (Tries to hug him.) If you only knew what’s going on here . . .
LEO (delicately frees himself from her arms): And yet it suits you.
(He walks over to the worktable, where he had already begun to sculpt her bust.)
SOPHIA: It’s such a blessing to have you here. Without you, I’m all alone. In this huge house.
LEO: How are you alone? There’s a horde of people in this place. I can hardly breathe.
SOPHIA: Precisely—breathe. No air. How long will you stay, Leo?
LEO: There, then—until I make you.
SOPHIA: Just don’t make haste, will you? I’ll stay here for as long as you need me. You know it gives me pleasure.
(He sculpts the bust.)
SOPHIA: And what of Dora? Couldn’t she make it?
LEO: It’s just . . . that’s what we decided. This time, I’m alone. Besides, it’s expensive.
SOPHIA: But . . . is everything all right between the two of you?
LEO: Well . . . seems that way. We are still in Paris. Everything is still very expensive. But that’s Paris. Nothing we can do about it.
SOPHIA: And everything else?
LEO: What?
SOPHIA: Well, you keep going on about the money, the prices . . .
LEO: Don’t do this, Mama . . . Yes, we are tight with money, but that’s not why I’m here.
SOPHIA: That’s not what I’m saying.
LEO: That’s what you’re implying.
SOPHIA: No. I didn’t even think about it. I was only being curious. About Dora. The kind of relationship you have.
LEO (nervously): What do you want to hear? We’re husband and wife. We have been for fourteen years. What other relationship can there be?
(He keeps sculpting.)
LEO: What did you want to ask me?
SOPHIA: No, nothing. Nothing else. Only if everything is all right with you two. Because Andryusha, as you know . . . it doesn’t seem to be clicking for Ilyusha either. It seems like someone put a curse on us and keeps destroying our families.
LEO: No, we are fine. Same as always.
SOPHIA: Good. That’s all I wanted to know.
(Pause.)
SOPHIA: Are you going to touch me again?
LEO: I think so. I have to. What is it? Does it make you uncomfortable?
SOPHIA: Oh, please, I was only asking. I want to know. In advance. Go ahead and do whatever you have to . . . Like Rodin ordered. This is a serious matter, after all. What are you going to name it, by the way? “Mother”?
LEO: Probably. I haven’t even thought about it. We’ll see what comes of it.
SOPHIA: And what might come of it?
LEO: As long as it’s something. That’s what art is, after all. The name comes after.
SOPHIA: Oh, no, I was only asking. I don’t mind either way. All I want is to be an inspiration. So that you can make your art.
(SOPHIA listens for a while. The house is quiet.)
SOPHIA: How quiet they all have gone, haven’t they? You can hear the sound of the train passing . . . In a house full of people.
LEO: Yes, what a sad . . . what a quiet life you have here.
SOPHIA (quietly): It’s because of the dark ones.
(She looks up, listening.)
SOPHIA: Preying on everything I built. You have no idea what they’re doing here. Everything that has anything to do with me is distorted, ruined. And all because I didn’t follow them, because I saw a husband in Leochka and not a Christ like they did. And here’s where it got me.
LEO: Who do you mean? Chertkov?
SOPHIA: Everyone. The place is full of them. That Bulgakov. A tail. Then Makovitsky, the doctor. A phoney. A wolf in sheep’s clothing . . . But Sasha is the darkest of them all. A curse I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And that parrot of hers, Feokritova. A shadow. I wish it would just vanish off the face of this earth. And then, of course, Chertkov. The demon himself. He’s the lord and master of them all.
LEO: And what of Father? . . . Nothing?
SOPHIA: He’s with them, I tell you. I’m the only one fighting here.
(Pause.)
SOPHIA: I wonder, Leo . . . when Christ was crucified, what if there was a family there, too? And they did the same thing with it . . . (Crosses herself.) God, have mercy on me, a sinner, if I’m wrong.
LEO: Hold your hands still.
SOPHIA: What?
LEO: Don’t make sudden movements.
SOPHIA: But I only crossed myself.
LEO: Don’t.
SOPHIA: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
(He keeps sculpting.)
SOPHIA (quietly): Leochka!
LEO: What?
SOPHIA: Listen.
(Both listen, looking up.)
SOPHIA: Can you hear it? Upstairs. The dark ones are at work.
(Sounds of quick scrapes of pens on paper can be heard from all sides.)
SOPHIA: Writing in their diaries. That’s what they’re doing every day. Distorting the days according to their will. Rewriting our lives.
SASHA’S VOICE (somewhere upstairs): Ravings of a madwoman. Tears, screams, reprimands, suicide threats . . .
MAKOVITSKY’S VOICE (upstairs): Today Sophia Andreyevna threw herself at L. N.’s feet, grabbed him by the shirt . . . She cannot see that he can barely hold on, his heart is growing weak.
SASHA’S VOICE: Self-pity, irritation, a conviction that she is a victim—growing every day.
SOPHIA (to the voices): For heaven’s sake, he is my husband! What business do you have in all this?
MAKOVITSKY’S VOICE: L. N. hides everything from her. He locks his diary in the desk drawer and hides the key behind the painting.
SASHA’S VOICE: Diaries are the centre of her madness.
MAKOVITSKY’S VOICE: She takes out the board from the bottom of that drawer . . . She seizes hold of the diary and reads it.
SOPHIA (to LEO): We didn’t use to have secrets, you know that. This was Papa’s idea: all of us read to each other, and we cried . . . or laughed. But we didn’t hide anything. Not until Chertkov showed up.
SASHA’S VOICE: Again there were tears and threats: “I’m going to kill Chertkov, I’m going to poison him!”
SOPHIA: I swear I’m going to kill him!
MAKOVITSKY’S VOICE: When L. N. walked past the house, she leaned out of the window and shouted after him: “Opium!”
SOPHIA: I took opium!
SASHA’S VOICE: Father rushed upstairs to her . . .
MAKOVITSKY’S VOICE: . . . and Sophia Andreyevna told him: “I tricked you.”
SOPHIA: I tricked you. I never even thought of taking it.
MAKOVITSKY’S VOICE: This scene excited L. N. and he said to Sophia Andreyevna . . .
VOICE (everywhere): You’re doing everything . . . to make me LEAVE!
(Pause.)
SOPHIA: Can you hear what they’re doing, Leochka? How they’re destroying me.
(He listens carefully, trying to hear.)
LEO: I can’t hear anything.
(They return to their previous activities: he is sculpting, she is sitting for him.)
SOPHIA: Chertkov already has the diaries of the last ten years. He won’t give them to me—not for anything. What are they hiding in there?
LEO: What are they hiding in there?
SOPHIA: You tell me. How can you hide things from your own wife?
LEO: But they’re diaries.
SOPHIA: But the others are reading them. That means something is hidden there. Hidden from us, that is. From our family. I wonder if there’s a woman.
LEO (laughs): What?
SOPHIA: Why are you laughing?
LEO: Mama, he is already eighty, eighty-two. How can there be a woman?
SOPHIA: Well, what else is there to hide? I tried everything: I asked him to take back the diaries from Chertkov, or to give them to me of his own free will. He won’t hear of it. There’s something important in there, Leo: Why else would he be so stubborn? (Listens) They’re sitting there now. So quiet you can barely hear them . . . plotting again. Something dark.
(Pause.)
SOPHIA: You know, he tried to take his early ones from me, as well . . . The diary of his youth. It’s Chertkov again—he gets his hands on everything, making his way still further into our lives . . . But I managed to keep this one. Here it is—his youth—in all its disgrace. (Places her hand on her waist where she keeps the diary concealed under her clothes.) And you’re telling me I have lost weight. Imagine if I took this off . . . All his whores, Aksinias and other women. For heaven’s sake, there were so many of them, a new one on every page, but I didn’t read it then . . . I skimmed my way through, I cried and I married him. And I should have read it. Everything right up to the last body. The way I do now: reading and rewriting. I have already learned everything by heart . . .
LEO (with disgust): Why, for heaven’s sake? Why are you torturing yourself like this?
SOPHIA: Oh, but this is my job. This is the job of a wife. It’s the only way to understand how it happened, and why.
LEO: But you’re poisoning yourself.
SOPHIA: No, I’m collecting them. And it’s so interesting—you know, he didn’t love them. None of them. Ever. Because I studied them. Every one. All his whores, every single one, as well as the ones from the upper class whom he was said to have loved . . . (fearfully) He is cold, Leochka, he doesn’t have this feeling in him. Even Aksinia—the woman I used to be so jealous of . . . it was something animal, but he didn’t love her. He is not capable of it. Yes, he knew that love existed, he felt it, and that’s what made him run around like a blind man, but only from one body to another.
(Pause.)
SOPHIA: Why are you not saying anything?
LEO: I’m working.
SOPHIA: I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t have anyone else. They built a wall around me. Acting like I’m too ignorant to understand his soul—this new—found love he has for all humanity . . . But it’s not true, you see, it’s quite the opposite. I understand him too much—completely—and they see it as a threat. It’s because I know now: he invented this love. (Slaps at her waist.) Here’s the proof. The testimony of all his victims.
(Pause.)
SOPHIA: Do I inspire you?
LEO: I wish you were quiet.
(Pause.)
LEO: I’m sorry, Mama.
SOPHIA: Well, never mind.
LEO: Why don’t we take a break? It feels stuffy here, somehow. Do you ever let any air into this room?
SOPHIA: It’s hot. Outside.
LEO: I’m going out—for some air.
SOPHIA: Of course.
(He wipes his hands with a rag.)
LEO: You know, this morning . . . Well, we crossed paths.
SOPHIA: You and Papa?
LEO: Yes. In the corridor.
SOPHIA: And what did he say?
LEO: Nothing. He didn’t say anything. It doesn’t matter . . . But the look on his face . . . I’ve never seen him like that before. He looked out of this world. I wonder if I could capture this in a sculpture. That would be quite a spectacle.
(He thinks for a moment.)
LEO: Oh, well, never mind. If it’s not meant to be, so be it. I’m going. We could go together if you like. Take a walk.
SOPHIA: I’ll sit here. Don’t worry. It’s a pleasure for me.
LEO: As you wish. I’ll be back in no time.
SOPHIA: There, I’ll look at “Mother” . . . I’ll admire it.
(LEO leaves. SOPHIA listens to the sounds of the house.)
(She takes off her shoes. Quietly goes up the stairs, approaches the door of her husband’s study. Listens. Suddenly, the door opens abruptly. SASHA appears. She closes the door just as abruptly.)
SASHA’S VOICE (behind the door): She heard everything.
SOPHIA (runs away, screaming): I heard everything!
SASHA’S VOICE (outside the door): She’s at the door. Spying on us.
SOPHIA (to herself): You traitor of a daughter, the cross I have to bear. (Turns around suddenly and goes to the door, screaming.) And what do you mean by “She’s at the door?” First of all, I am your mother. And I am in my own house . . .
(CHERTKOV comes out.)
CHERTKOV (calmly): Why are you shouting?
SOPHIA: I’m shouting?
CHERTKOV: You’re shouting now, too.
SOPHIA (shouting): I’m the mistress of this house. This is my home. But why are you here? What for?
CHERTKOV: I’m staying here. With Leo Nikolayevich.
SOPHIA: Oh, you are staying here . . . with Leo Nikolayevich . . .
CHERTKOV: We are all staying with him.
(He looks around, where others are already gathering.)
CHERTKOV (to SOPHIA): So are you. In a way.
SOPHIA: No. Forgive my impudence . . . but no matter how much you want it . . .
CHERTKOV: I’m talking about eternity.
(Red with rage, SOPHIA looks at CHERTKOV.)
SOPHIA: You have a nerve, don’t you? To say that to . . . a wife. I live here, within these walls, and that’s my husband behind that door. And you, you damned sectarian, dare to stand between us and talk to me like that!
CHERTKOV: Why are you shouting? I can hear you.
SOPHIA: What are you up to? Some sort of conspiracy again?
CHERTKOV: That’s none of your business, I’m afraid. I don’t have to report to you.
SOPHIA: Who the hell are you?
CHERTKOV: Chertkov. Vladimir Grigoryevich. How strange of you to forget.
SOPHIA: You’re the devil. If the devil had a last name, it would be Chertkov.
CHERTKOV: No need to call me names. Everyone can hear. Aren’t you ashamed?
SOPHIA: Heavens, if only I knew whom I was letting into my home back when I first saw you.
CHERTKOV (sarcastically): By God, you? Let me into this home? What a shame though—I am not in your home, nor have I ever been.
SOPHIA: Where are his diaries? From the 1900. I’m asking you, where . . .
CHERTKOV: I have them.
SOPHIA: Please give them back to me. Right now.
CHERTKOV: But how could I? They are not yours.
SOPHIA: Yes, but try to understand—our life is in there. And it contains everything—better days and worse days—but this life belongs to the two of us. Joined together by God.
CHERTKOV: What are you so afraid of? If there’s nothing but the truth in there.
SOPHIA: I’m not afraid of you. I’m insisting. Give back what you took. You stole this family’s . . .
CHERTKOV: I didn’t steal anything from you. Leo Nikolayevich gave them to me. So that I can save them for the world, for the future generations. After all, some things are more important than this inner war of your family.
SOPHIA: So that’s what you are! A Pharisee! The words you dare to speak. Our family at war—how can you even . . .
CHERTKOV: What would you call it? Not happiness, surely? All these things you do here . . .
SOPHIA: This has nothing to do with you! It’s none of your business! Heavens, you’re not a man. There’s something womanly about you, effeminate. Would a man dare to go through someone else’s things like this? I know now, I see now why you need the diaries. This is your weapon. To fight me—a sick, unhappy woman. You’re not capable of anything else.
CHERTKOV: You’re sick? You’re a fake, a pretender. And I don’t feel sorry for you. Not even the slightest. I’m only sorry that Leo Nikolayevich doesn’t see through your pretence.
SOPHIA (shouting): For heaven’s sake, Leochka, come out! How can you listen to this?
CHERTKOV: Enough! Enough with the shouting! Your evil has no power anymore.
SOPHIA: Well then, go away! If I am evil as you say I am, why are you loitering around here?
CHERTKOV: That’s what you’re doing here. You have been slowly killing your husband all your life.
(She can’t believe her ears.)
SOPHIA: What?
CHERTKOV: You are not a wife. Not even a friend. You are the enemy of everything he loves. Everything he truly believes in.
SOPHIA: How dare you, for heaven’s sake!
CHERTKOV: You are not a wife. You’re a cross! A cross he has been carrying for half a century.
SOPHIA: Be quiet! You bastard!
CHERTKOV: Family—that’s all I hear. But where is it? Would you show me? All I see are predators. Parasites on the body of a saint.
SOPHIA: Good God, you are not a man! You are not even human. You are the devil! An evil spirit!
CHERTKOV: You have no idea who that is—behind that door. Do you think that’s your husband? What else? A father, a writer . . . someone who composed two thick little books that all of you here are feeding on. But it’s no longer him in there, hasn’t been for a long time . . . That’s a wise man in there. The greatest of them all. The father of all mankind. Kant and Christ rolled into one. There’s an abyss between this Tolstoy and you, an infinite gulf, a distance like the one between a baby and an adult. He doesn’t have time to play those family games of yours. The whole of mankind is holding breath, waiting to hear his next words, to know what the future of the world is going to be like. Everyone but you—his family. You don’t care about any of that. For you, he is still somewhere out there, writing War and Peace, that silly epic of Russian patriotism about the moral duty to kill people. Wake up, for heaven’s sake, that was half a century ago, he was merely a baby back then . . . “Patriotism or peace”—that’s what Tolstoy really is. The way he challenged all the rulers of the world: patriotism is pure evil! There can be no bad patriotism or good patriotism. There is only this harmful, unnatural, immoral, coarse feeling that causes the disasters from which all of us suffer. Do you know anything about this? Have you heard—no? You don’t want to hear, do you? Who needs it today, when people of our time are so tightly bound together in all sorts of relationships: commercial, cultural, mental . . . It’s the governments that need it—to keep us in slavery. It’s the basis of their pathetic existence. This is the reason why they start to kindle patriotism at schools, telling children stories that show their people as the best of all people. The best and always in the right. They kindle the same feeling in adults with the monuments, celebrations, patriotic articles . . . As a consequence, these people not only sympathize with the governments, with no reasonable grounds, when they attack other people, but also demand these assaults, taking pride in them and rejoicing.
Come to your senses, people, and for the sake of the greater good, both bodily and spiritual, for the sake of the greater good of your brothers and sisters, stop and think again! You have to understand that we are all brothers. Not the sons of some homelands but the sons of God. One God. Imagine that there are no governments, no humiliation, no violence that comes from them. There are no states and borders, no reason to kill and be killed by others. There is no heaven, no hell, no hurtful religions that separate us from each other. There is only the blue sky above us and the single faith for all that God is life itself.
This is what’s behind that door—a fire that creates the world of tomorrow. The real Tolstoy, whom you don’t know and don’t want to know—you don’t even try . . . He was growing up, painfully, wandering in search of faith for a long time until he found the power which is alive in him. He found God in himself, and you didn’t even notice. You keep going to church, bowing to the priests, and listening to their deceitful sermons. They declared a war against him, and you are falling at their feet. You’re writing letters to the government, the very apparatus of violence that he so despises. What does that make you? What else if not an enemy? An adversary . . . then again . . . An enemy is too distinctive. You are simpler than that. Merely a wife. An animal being from his former life . . .
SOPHIA: Heaven’s sake, you are but a demon. An actual demon! But know this—I will destroy you!
CHERTKOV (laughing): Give me a warning beforehand. So that we’re ready.
(He sticks out his tongue and makes a terrible grimace, imitating a devil.)
SOPHIA (disgusted): Out! Get out of here! Get out of my home!
CHERTKOV: Take courage, Leo Nikolayevich! For this is your Golgotha.
SOPHIA (bursts into her husband’s office): My God, Leochka, my darling, why don’t you say anything? Can’t you see he’s tearing us apart!
CHERTKOV (goes down the stairs): Heaven, Leo Nikolayevich! Hold on to heaven. With your eyes. It won’t let you fall.
LEO (enters): What happened here?
CHERTKOV: Nothing. It will simmer down.
(Both listen to SOPHIA shouting upstairs.)
CHERTKOV: Well, what’s new? How’s Paris?
LEO: Yes . . . Same old. I’m learning sculpture. With Rodin.
CHERTKOV: Learn. That’s good. (Pats LEO on the cheek in a patronizing way.) One must learn, Lyolya. (To the coachman.) Filka, bring me my horse.
(He leaves.)
CHERTKOV’S VOICE (in the yard): This heat. So stuffy. The storm must be coming . . .
(The door of the study opens suddenly. SOPHIA pushes SASHA out.)
SASHA (shouting): Stop torturing Papa! I won’t let you . . .
SOPHIA (shouting): Get out! While your father and I are talking! (Walks into the study.) Leochka, think about it . . . these thoughts—no matter if they’re bad or good—if I awakened them in you . . .
SASHA (shouting): Papa, don’t listen to her!
SOPHIA: . . . then they belong to both of us. They are mine too. Do you agree?
SASHA (shouting): What are you doing to him? Aren’t you ashamed?
SOPHIA (walking up to SASHA, shouting): Go away, I tell you! Do you want to break us apart, too?
SASHA (spits): Ugh! I’m tired of this comedy.
SOPHIA: Did you spit at me? Did you spit at your mother?
SASHA: It’s only you who’s breaking us apart! And do not lie—not at you, but near you . . .
SOPHIA (shouting): You spat in my face!
SASHA: All right—say what you like, but I’m not going to let you torture Father. Not a chance.
SOPHIA: Forever, do you hear, I am cutting you off forever . . . You are no longer my daughter, do you understand?
(SOPHIA slams the door shut. SASHA runs downstairs, sobbing.)
LEO: What’s the matter? Why is she so upset?
SASHA (shouting and sobbing): Go on and ask her yourself! You’re her favourite, after all.
LEO (stops her harshly): Hold on! I’m talking to you!
SASHA: What do you want? Leave me alone!
LEO (pushes her down on a chair): Sit down, I tell you.
(Upstairs, SOPHIA’s screams suddenly grow more intense.)
SOPHIA’S VOICE (shouting): Doesn’t anyone need me? Everyone is more important than me! (In a softer voice.) Leochka, we don’t know anything. What if we die tomorrow . . . what is he going to do with us then?
LEO: Why did you spit at your mother?
SASHA: I didn’t spit . . . Not at her.
LEO: Sasha, can you explain to me what’s going on in this house? Have you all gone mad?
SOPHIA’S VOICE (shouting): What does that mean—to fight me? Fight—why, for what? No, I don’t understand: what does it mean to fight with love? Go ahead and give me opium, then. I will take it!
LEO: What is this? They are going to kill each other like this.
SASHA: She needs treatment. I don’t know . . . It’s all bogus though.
LEO: What does she have to do with it? What? She’s the only sane person in this wild family. She’s a victim of your insanity.
SASHA: You don’t live here—you don’t know . . . She’s not the same. Understand this. Not as you knew her. She was different back then.
LEO: What have you done to her if she ended up turning into such a beast?
SASHA: No, you’re not listening to me. You only listen to her. And I don’t want this anymore . . .
LEO: Why do you hate her?
SASHA (shouting): Yes, I don’t love her! But that’s her fault. She is a stranger to me! She’s terrible!
LEO: But she is your mother!
SASHA: Well, what of it? What of it? You hate your father.
LEO: But I don’t spit at him!
SASHA: Oh God, not at her, how many times do I have to tell you . . .
LEO: It doesn’t matter to me where, you hear me? You still spat at your mother! Not only yours, but ours!
SASHA: And you love her, don’t you? Why did you come here?
LEO (shouting): Yes! I love her!
SASHA: And do you . . . Do you want me to say it?
LEO: What . . . what are you going to say?
SASHA: I’m going to say it! I will! You need money! Rubles! That’s what you both need. That’s what you came for.
LEO: Shut up, you fool!
SASHA: You two are so alike in that regard.
SOPHIA (rushes out of the study, sobbing): Why did you ever marry me! You ruined my life! (Runs down the stairs.) Oh my God! He threw me out!
LEO (tries to stop her): Mama, wait! Stop!
SOPHIA (shouting): Let me go, Leo! I’m going to Vanechka!
LEO: What Vanechka? Vanechka died a long time ago.
SOPHIA (runs out into the yard): Well, that’s where I’m going.
(He looks at her.)
SASHA: Do what you like. I’ve had enough of this comedy.
(She leaves.)
(Pause.)
LEO (shouting): Doctor! Dushan Petrovich! Makovitsky!
MAKOVITSKY quickly comes down the stairs. He seems sleepy.
MAKOVITSKY: What?
LEO: Mama left.
MAKOVITSKY: Where?
LEO: I don’t know. She’s been gone for a few hours now.
