PREFACE BY VASSILI SPIRIDONOV
THE manuscript of the autobiography of Sophie Andreevna Tolstoy exists among the documents of the late director of the Russian Library, Professor Semen Afanasevich Vengerov, which, in accordance with the will of the deceased, have been handed over to the Library. The Library is now in the Petrograd Institute of Learning, and the documents form a special section in the Institute under the title: "The Archives of S. A. Vengerov."
The history of the manuscript is as follows. At the end of July, 1913, S. A. Vengerov sent a letter to S. A. Tolstoy asking her to write and send him her autobiography which he proposed to publish. We do not know the details of S. A. Vengerov's letter, but from the replies of S. A. Tolstoy which are printed below we may conclude that Professor Vengerov enclosed in his letter to S. A. Tolstoy a questionnaire, and that, besides the usual questions which he was accustomed to send out broadcast to authors and men of letters, he put a number of additional questions, especially for S. A. T., asking for light upon certain moments in the history of the life and creative activity of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and upon the time and causes of the differences between the husband and wife, the beginning of that formidable drama which took place in the Tolstoy family.
S. A. T. answered immediately; she wrote to Vengerov as follows:[A]
Yasnaya Polyana,
30 July, 1913.
Much-respected Semen Afanasevich: I received your letter to-day, and hasten to tell you that I will try to answer all your questions soon; but in order to do it fully, I need a little time. I shall hardly be able to write an autobiography, even a brief one. At any rate, whatever I may communicate to you, you have my permission to cut out anything that you think superfluous. As to your questions about my family, my sister, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskii, could answer you better than I; she and my first cousin, Alexander Alexandrovich Bers, have devoted a good deal of time to this matter and have, in particular, tried to trace the origin of my father's family, which came from Saxony. We have the seal with its coat-of-arms: a bear (hence Bers, i. e. Bär in German) warding off a swarm of bees.[B] I will write to my sister to send me this information, and I will let you have it.[C] Please also let me know roughly when you expect me to send you the information you desire.
The most difficult thing for me will be to fix the moment and the cause of our differences[D]. It was not a difference, but a gradual going-away of Leo Nikolaevich from everything in his former life, and thus the harmony of all our happy previous life was broken.
Of all this I will try to write briefly, after having thought it over as well and as accurately as I can.
Accept the assurance of my respect and devotion for you,
Sophie Tolstoy.