Pages from My Life – Gibran and Howayek in Paris – Miss Olga's Talk about Tolstoy (12)

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Miss Olga's Talk about Tolstoy

The Luxembourg Palace in Paris is the seat of the French Senate, and in its verdant garden, on the side toward the Rue d'Assas, there are pear plantings whose branches are trained to iron rods in pleasing geometric shapes... In the days of spring these branches appear studded with radiant, resplendent buds — nothing more splendid, nothing more marvelous!! The bees hover over them in the wavering of their sweet, monotonous hum; and when the blossoms have set into fruit, the gardener spreads the fruits out, in full view of the strolling visitors of the garden, and wraps them in paper one by one to guard them from insects; and when they have fully ripened he carries them, a sumptuous gift, to the President of the Senate...

Beside the pear plantings there stand great poplar and eucalyptus trees, and between them stretch lawns rippling with green, sprinkled with colored blossoms... In a secluded corner among the tall, intertwining trees, Miss Olga liked to recline upon the grass, reading and writing, and I would sometimes share these delightful, tranquil sittings with her; if a passing thought occurred to one of us, he would set it before his companion at leisure, and the setting-forth would be followed by a discussion on a lofty intellectual plane, in which the first part belonged, most often, to Olga.

Once, in one of our retreats, she surprised me with the question: "Is it not a strange coincidence in the case of us two — you from the western edges of Asia, east of the Mediterranean, and I from its eastern edges — that we should meet here in Paris, the most enchanting of cities, and in this fair garden of all places? ... It is truly more like a dream!"

She spoke quietly, her glance turned away from me toward some house sparrows she was amusing herself by teasing, scattering biscuit crumbs for them within reach of her hand... The sparrows would draw near, first warily, then with a certain assurance, until, satisfied that they were safe, they alighted on her shoulders and her arms and her lap and set to pecking the crumbs from between her fingers, jostling one another over them, wings now spread, now folded... All this while I sat silent, making no movement, lest I startle these little creatures and they fly off and rob us of their company... Nor did I wish to trouble the serenity of Olga's thinking, innocent through and through... She said:

"I am my parents' only child... My father is a friend of Count Leo Tolstoy, and there is a distant kinship between my father and the Countess... Among my childhood memories: my parents used to take me along with them to Yasnaya Polyana, the seat of the Tolstoy family, and Count Leo would play with me and sit me on his knee tenderly and let me touch his beard with all a child's curiosity... while he was absorbed in debating all manner of subjects with my father... I remember one day they nearly quarreled over their difference of opinion about the principles of the German philosopher Nietzsche... my father was one of his admirers... Years later I read some of his works, though not with the enthusiasm I had imagined, for I had been swayed by my father's descriptions..."

Here she turned to me to ask whether I had read anything of Nietzsche.
— No...

And the screeching of the sparrows rose as they squabbled, in a near-battle, over a scrap of biscuit; Olga chided them with her finger, with the utmost gentleness: "No fighting... here is a fresh round of biscuit for you... eat, and do not quarrel!"

"Count Leo interceded for my father, and the Tsar appointed him among the members of the 'Duma' (the chamber of deputies), so my father was the first president of the first 'Duma'... At that juncture I very nearly entered the palace and joined the retinue of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, but that did not please my father. He, for his part, preferred to keep away from politics and from the palace, to direct the distant University of Tomsk... I remember well what he once said to me: 'The palace, my daughter, has a rotten air; one of the monks has even taken to gadding and gamboling about in it, corrupting the morals of the beautiful women... The end is near, says Count Leo.'"

After an interval of silence, and of watching the house sparrows at their play and their mischief...
— "Poor Count Leo... he is now in a state of war with his wife... She wrote to my mother complaining of how bad things had become... So my mother charged me to stop in Moscow on my way to Paris, turn aside to Yasnaya Polyana, and gently counsel the Countess to let her husband — now past seventy — live his life as he pleases, and without opposition... After meeting the Countess it became clear to me that she wants her husband to keep up his station and take care to appear in the manner befitting the greatest writer in Russia... And I saw him with these two eyes wearing the clothes of a 'muzhik' and walking barefoot, not only inside the house but outside it as well, and washing his shirt with his own hands despite the presence of servants...

"He refuses to receive the visitors, men and women, who seek him out from distant places — refuses, and persists in refusing, just so, without reason... And he keeps company with the peasants, and has made them a present of most of his properties and estates. Among the things he said to me on this subject: 'A peasant's shoe-sole, Olga, is worth, in my eyes, all wealth and all honor... I know the nobility... I lived among them for a time... I was one of them... and as long as I live I shall never forget how one day, after I had passed the night up late in one of the palaces — an evening of food and wine and revelry and dancing — I found, at dawn... the poor coachman, stiffened through with cold... dead on his seat... waiting for me!! Ah, my little daughter, how am I to forget that sight?... I assure you this state of things cannot last... The end is near!..'

"I seized the chance of his ease with me and his flowing on in tender, humane talk, and I uttered, in a whisper, the name of the Countess, by way of reconciling them; whereupon Count Leo could do nothing but fly into anger, and he glared, insisting to me: 'Man and woman must attain, in their married life, to complete chastity'... I did not quite grasp what he meant by this saying, and I tried once more to say something, but he cut me off testily and ended his tirade standing on his feet: 'We, my little daughter, live this dull life, which is not worth the living, because we have not courage enough to leave life'...

"So he said, and went off, leaving me a lump of bewilderment and confusion."

A second interval of silence passed before Miss Olga returned to speech:

"My father is now in touch with some of those indignant at the sorry pass to which things have come in Russia... they know not... nor do I know, by what 'reform,' by what 'upheaval.' He has written me that one of his friends, 'Vladimir,' will pass through Paris on his way to London to attend a political congress, and my father bids me be at his service and smooth his task — and what could I possibly do?!... I hate politics... and I do not want to neglect my 'studies'..."

And she added, in a special tone, her cheeks aglow: "And this green lawn... and my friends the sparrows... and the soft little hours?"

All this while I was listening to her absorbing talk... nay, more than that... my eye and my heart were caught in the play of feeling over her face of pure whiteness, and in her gleaming hands, and how their veins — even their veins — wound about in such perfect symmetry and harmony; and I kept from looking at her eyes as they strayed away from me into the distance... until the frosty, dew-laden air began to nip at us, and the hour of the art institute's opening drew near... Miss Olga gave me her soft hand, and I helped her to rise; then she set about straightening the shawl and winding it around her shoulders with a graceful feminine motion, and we walked side by side, over the grass, on our way out of the Luxembourg garden...

Suddenly she broke in on my thinking — or as though she wished to carry us both into a new atmosphere... She said: "How I admire your friend Gibran! I admire in him his ambition to reach the far distance... When he speaks, I fancy I see something like a halo about his head... and how it delights me to hear his talk... it is always perfumed with something of his beautiful spirit!! Tell me — is there a woman in his life?! I mean, there must be a woman in his life!..."

And she turned toward me like one who wants an answer.

Perhaps so... it is very plausible; only it is not in my nature to intrude upon his emotional life...
— "You do well, for a person's emotional life is his alone..."

We had reached the art bookshop on the Rue Vavin, and there we parted: she went in to see Miss Suzanne at the bookshop, and I continued on my way toward the art institute...

The drawing hall closed around me... two whole hours — seated before the "model," a girl in the springtime of life, naked as her mother Eve before the serpent made the eating of the apple seem fair to her... Every movement, every tremor of her body spoke of beauty and brimmed over with life... The fellow students around me eyed her with looks of admiration — and deeper!

... What is the matter with me? What can have come over me? Why do I find myself turned from her toward the lady of the white hand, the pure-skinned face, and the hair inclining to fairness? Why do I keep thinking so of Miss Olga, every word of her talk returning to ring in my ear, while I try in earnest to give myself to drawing the forms of the beautiful naked "model" — who is, in my eyes, as if made of plaster: "Count Leo used to sit me on his knee and let me touch his beard..." "He is now in a state of war with his wife..." "Man and woman must attain, in their married life, to complete chastity..." and finally, "Is there a woman in Gibran's life?..."