VI
I shall only give a hasty sketch of the years that followed. Fru Leffler has given us a detailed account of them in her book on Sonia, and Ellen Key, in her life of Fru Leffler, has made the crooked straight, and has filled in some of the gaps. I shall merely touch upon this period for the sake of those of my readers who are not acquainted with either of the above-mentioned works. These years were about the most lifeless, and, psychologically speaking, the most empty in Sonia’s life. She was called upon to take part in a movement which from its commencement was doomed to fail on account of its narrow principles. The social circle was divided into two separate groups, one of which consisted of ladies and dilettante youths, very excitable and full of zeal for reform, but without a single really superior man among them; the other was of an essentially Swedish character, consisting chiefly of men; the “better class” of women were excluded, and drinking bouts, night revelling, club life, song-singing, and easy-going friendship was the rule. These included a few talented people among their number, and expressed the utmost contempt for the other group. For the first time in her life Sonia was made to do ordinary every-day work, and to exert herself after the manner of a mere drudge, or a cart-horse, for payment. Her position rendered her dependent on the moral standard of a clique. With the flexibility of her Russian nature, she renounced the freedom to which she had been accustomed, and devoted herself to her duties as lecturer under a professor. This work soon began to weary her to death. Mathematics lost their charm now that the genius of old Weierstrass was no longer there to elucidate the problems, and to encourage her to do that which women had hitherto been unable to accomplish.
For some time she struggled on through thick and thin, without however sinking low enough to give her superiors no longer any cause to shake their heads or to admonish her. Lively, witty, and unassuming, the task of entertaining people at their social gatherings fell to her share, and she bore the weight of it without a murmur, until her wasted amiability resulted in an undue familiarity in the circle of her admirers, of both sexes, causing her much vexation. When the first excitement of novelty was passed, she devoted herself chiefly to her true but stolid friend, Anne Charlotte Leffler. It was one of those friendships which are getting to be very common now that women are becoming intellectual; it was not the result of any deep mutual sympathy, nor was it formed out of the fulness of their lives, but rather from the consciousness that there was something lacking, as when two minus combine in the attempt to form one plus. Then as soon as the plus is there, all interest in one another, and all mutual sympathy is a thing of the past, as it proved in this case, when the Duke of Cajanello appeared on Fru Leffler’s horizon, and she afterwards, in the honeymoon of her happiness, possibly with the best of intentions, but with very little tact or sympathy, wrote her obituary book on Sonia.
One of the results of this friendship was a series of unsuccessful literary attempts, for which the material was provided by Sonia, and dramatized by Fru Leffler. The latter tried to put Sonia’s psychological, intuitive experiences into a realistic shape, and the result was, as might be expected, a failure. Sonia was a mystic, whose whole being was one indistinct longing, without beginning and without end; Fru Leffler was an enlightened woman, daughter of a college rector, “who worked incessantly at her own development.” Even while the work of collaboration was in progress, a slight friction began to make itself felt between the two friends. Fru Leffler was vexed at having, as she expressed it, “repudiated her own child” in the story called “Round about Marriage,” in which she attempted to describe the lives of women who remain unmarried. The storms raised by Sonia’s vivid imagination oppressed her, and imported a foreign element into her sober style, resulting in long padded novels, which were too ambitious, and had a false ring about them. Her influence on Sonia produced the opposite result. Sonia saw that Fru Leffler was less talented than she had supposed, and this made her place greater confidence in her own merits as an author. She began to write a story of her own youth, called “The Sisters Rajevsky,” which we have already mentioned, followed by a story about the so-called Nihilists, “Vera Barantzova;” both these books displayed a wider experience, and contained the promise of greater things than any of the contemporaneous literature by women, but they did not receive the recognition which they deserved, because nobody understood the characters which she depicted.
Up till now there has been a fundamental error in all the attempts made to understand Sonia Kovalevsky, and the fault is chiefly due to Fru Leffler, who wrote of her from the following standpoint:—
“I am great and you are great,
We are both equally great.”
Sonia and her biographer are by no means “equally great.” To compare Fru Leffler to Sonia is like comparing a nine days’ wonder to an eternal phenomenon. One is an ordinary woman with a carefully cultivated talent, while the other is one of those mysteries who, from time to time, make their appearance in the world, in whom nature seems to have overstepped her boundaries, and who are created to live lonely lives, to suffer and to die without having ever attained the full possession of their own being.
In the year 1888, at the age of thirty-eight, Sonia learned for the first time to know the love which is a woman’s destiny. M. K. was a great, heavy Russian boyar, who had been a professor, but was dismissed on account of his free-thinking views. He was a dissipated man and rich, and had spent his time in travelling since he left Russia. He was no longer young, like the Duke of Cajanello. A few years older than Sonia, he was one of those complacent, self-centred characters who have never known what it is to long for sympathy, who are totally devoid of ideals, and are not given to vain illusions. Comparatively speaking, an older woman always has a better chance with a man younger than herself, and there was nothing very surprising in the love which the young and insignificant Duke bestowed on Fru Leffler. With Sonia it was quite different. The boyar had already enjoyed as many of the good things of this world as he desired; he was both practical and sceptical, the kind of man whom women think attractive, and who boast that they understand women. I am not at liberty to mention his name, as he is still alive and enjoys good health. He was interested in Sonia, as much as he was capable of being interested in any one, because she was a compatriot to be proud of, and he also liked her because she was good company, but Sonia never acquired all the power over him which she should have had. He was not like a susceptible young man who is influenced by the first woman who has really given him the full passion of her love. The long-repressed love which was now lavished upon him by the woman who was no longer young had none of the surprise of novelty in it, not even the unexpected treasure of flattered vanity. He accepted it calmly, and never for a moment did he allow it to interfere with his mode of life. Even though he had no wife, his bachelor’s existence had never lacked the companionship of women. Sonia should occupy the position of wife, but an ardent lover it was no longer in his power to be.
The conflict points plainly to a double rupture between them,—the one internal and the other external,—both brought about by the spirit of the age.
Sonia’s womanhood had awakened in her the first time they met, and he became her first love. She loved him as a young girl loves, with a trembling and ungovernable joy at finding all that had hitherto been hidden in herself; she rejoiced in the knowledge that he was there, that she would see him again to-morrow as she had seen him to-day, that she could touch him, hold him with her hands. She lived only when she saw him; her senses were dulled when he was no longer there. It was then that Stockholm became thoroughly hateful to her; it seemed to hold her fast in its clutches, to crush the woman in her, and to deprive her of her nationality. He represented the South,—the great world of intellect and freedom; but above all else, he was home, he was Russia! He was the emblem of her native land; he had come speaking the language in which her nurse had sung to her, in which her father and sister and all the loved and lost had spoken to her; he was her hearth and home in the dreary world. But more than all this, he was the only man capable of arousing her love.
But if she took a short holiday and followed him to Paris and Italy, his cold greeting was sure to chill her inmost being, and instead of the comfort which she had hoped to find in his love and sympathy, she was thrown back upon herself, more miserable and disappointed than before.
Her spirits were beginning to give way. It seemed as though the world were growing empty around her and the darkness deepening, while she stood in the midst of it all, alone and unprotected. But what drove matters to a climax was that their most intimate daily intercourse took place just at the time when she was in Paris working hard, and sitting up at nights. When she was awarded the Prix Bordin on Christmas Eve, 1888, in the presence of the greatest French mathematicians, she forgot that she was a European celebrity, whose name would endure forever and be numbered among the women who had outstripped all others; she was only conscious of being an overworked woman, suffering from one of those nervous illnesses when white seems turned to black, joy to sorrow,—enduring the unutterable misery caused by mental and physical exhaustion, when the night brings no rest to the tortured nerves. As is always the case with productive natures under like circumstances, her passions were at their highest pitch, and she needed sympathy from without to give relief. It was then that she received an offer of marriage from the man whom she loved; but she was too well aware of the gulf which lay between his gentlemanly bearing and her devouring passion to accept it, and determined that since she could not have all she would have nothing. It may be that she was haunted by the recollection of her first marriage, or she may have been influenced by the woman’s rights standpoint which weighs as in a scale: For so and so many ounces of love, I must have so and so many ounces of love and fidelity; and for so and so many yards of virtuous behavior, I have a right to expect exactly the same amount from him.
It happened, however, that the man in question would not admit of such calculations, and Sonia went back to Stockholm and her hated university work with the painful knowledge of “never having been all in all to anybody.” After a time she began to realize that love is not a thing which can be weighed and measured. She now concentrated her strength in an attempt to free herself from her work at Stockholm, which had been turned into a life-long appointment since she won the Prix Bordin; she longed to get away from Sweden, where she felt very lonely, having no one to whom she could confide her thoughts. She had some hopes of being given an honorary appointment as a member of the Imperial Russian Academy, which would place her in a position of pecuniary independence, with the liberty to reside where she pleased. But when she returned to her work at Stockholm in the beginning of the year 1891, after a trip to Italy in company with the man whom she loved, it was with the conviction, grown stronger than ever, of not being able to put up with the loneliness and emptiness of her existence any longer, and with the determination of throwing everything aside and accepting his proposal.
She came to this decision while suffering from extreme weariness. Her Russian temperament was very much opposed to the manner of her life for the last few years. Her spirits, which wavered between a state of exaltation and apathy, were depressed by a regular routine of work and social intercourse, and she was never allowed the thorough rest which she so greatly needed. In one year she lost all who were dear to her; and though dissatisfied with her own life, she was able to sympathize deeply with her beloved sister Anjuta, whose proud dreams of youth were either doomed to destruction, or else their fulfilment was accompanied with disappointment, while she herself was dying slowly, body and soul. Life had dealt hardly with both these sisters. When Sonia travelled home for the last time, after exchanging the warm, cheerful South for the cold, dismal North, she broke down altogether. Alone and over-tired as she always was on these innumerable journeys, which were only undertaken in order to cure her nervous restlessness, her spirits were no longer able to encounter the discomforts of travel, and she gave way. The perpetual changes, whether in rain, wind, or snow, accompanied by all the small annoyances, such as getting money changed, and finding no porters, overpowered her, and for a short time life seemed to have lost all its value. With an utter disregard for consequences, she exposed herself to all winds and weathers, and arrived ill at Stockholm, where her course of lectures was to begin immediately. A heavy cold ensued, accompanied by an attack of fever; and so great was her longing for fresh air, that she ran out into the street on a raw February day in a light dress and thin shoes.
Her illness was short; she died a couple of days after it began. Two friends watched beside her, and she thanked them warmly for the care they took of her,—thanked them as only strangers are thanked. They had gone home to rest before the death-struggle began, and there was no one with her but a strange nurse, who had just arrived. She died alone, as she had lived,—died, and was buried in the land where she had not wished to live, and where her best strength had been spent.