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.

VII

There is yet another picture behind the one depicted in these pages. It is large, dark, and mysterious, like a reflection in the water; we see it, but it melts away each time we try to grasp it.

When we know the story of a person’s life, and are acquainted with their surroundings and the conditions under which they have been brought up; when we have been told about their sufferings, and the illness of which they died, we imagine that we know all about them, and are able to form a more or less correct portrait of them in our mind’s eye, and we even think that we are in a position to judge of their life and character. There is scarcely any one whose life is less veiled to the public gaze than Sonia Kovalevsky’s. She was very frank and communicative, and took quite a psychological interest in her own character; she had nothing to conceal, and was known by a large number of people throughout Europe. She lived her life before the eyes of the public, and died of inflammation of the lungs, brought on by an attack of influenza.

Such was Sonia Kovalevsky’s life as depicted by Fru Leffler, in a manner which reveals a very limited comprehension of her subject; the chief thing missing is the likeness to Sonia.

This sketch was afterwards corrected and completed with great sympathy and delicacy by Ellen Key, but she has also failed to catch the likeness of Sonia Kovalevsky.