Note 394 — 1899

Living at this time with the Tolstois in Moscow, Countess O. K. Tolstoi, in a letter to V. G. Chertkov on November 22nd, 1899, described Tolstoi’s illness in this way: “Yesterday we lived through a terrible evening and night. In the evening after dinner, Tolstoi went to his room to lie down, and after several minutes we were all attracted by terrible groans from him ... he was taken with severe stomach pains which were very severe from four o’clock in the morning to seven in the evening. He suffered terribly and at first nothing helped.” Tolstoi suffered especially from vomiting which lasted twenty-eight hours. His doctors were P. S. Usev and Prof. M. P. Cherinov. “Both medicine and feeding,” another person wrote to Chertkov from Moscow, December 5, 1899, “is given now by entreaty and persuasion, now by tears and now by deception, which is even more depressing than tears. To-day everything is better: pains and appetite and strength.” Tolstoi got out of bed December 6th and little by little began to walk. But the following days he had pain and felt weakness.