– 12 – 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,