“The private life of famous men is always distorted in their biographies. They are sure to make me out a Xantippe. You must take my side, Alexander Borisovich!” ...
During our walk Sophie Andreevna showed me the spot which is called “the apiary,” and said:
“There actually was an apiary here once. Leo N. was at one time mad about bees, and used to spend whole days in the apiary. We often drove here, taking a samovar and having tea here. Once Fet came here, and we went to join Leo N. at the apiary. It was a wonderful evening; we sat here for a long time; and there were many glow-worms in the grass. Leo N. said to me: ‘Now, Sonia, you always wanted emerald earrings; take two glow-worms for earrings.’ Thereupon Fet wrote a poem in which were these lines:
In my hand is thy hand—what a marvel!
On the ground are two glow-worms, two emeralds.”
At another point Sophie Andreevna showed me the field where Tolstoi and Turgenev once stood when shooting, and she was with them.
Sophie Andreevna said:
“It was the last time Turgenev stayed at Yasnaya, not long before his death. I asked him: ‘Ivan Sergeevich, why don’t you write now?’ He answered: ‘In order to write I had always to be a little in love. Now I am old, I can’t fall in love any more, and that is why I have stopped writing.’”
December 27th. Last night I was at the Tolstois’. There were Tolstoi, Ilya, and Andrey (Tolstoi’s sons). A message arrived that Tatyana Lvovna had given birth prematurely to a stillborn child; a day before, news reached Yasnaya Polyana that the son of Leo Lvovich, a boy of about two, was dead. Sophie Andreevna left for Yasnaya. There was an atmosphere of depression.