Part 2 — CHAPTER IX
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THE MOTIVES THAT DECIDED HIS GOING AWAY
For us, the nearest friends of Leo Nikolaevitch, who watched step by step what was taking place at Yasnaya Polyana during the last days of his presence there, the reason why he could do nothing but go away was easy to understand. But the reader who is not so closely acquainted with all the circumstances may ask, Why exactly did Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour on the last night have such an influence on Leo Nikolaevitch? What did she do then that was new and not to be expected from her previous behaviour?
Of course Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour on that night only gave the final impetus to Leo Nikolaevitch's going away. In reality the question of leaving home had already been decided in his soul, and, as it seems to me, he was, as it were, instinctively only awaiting the inevitable final impulse for carrying out his intention. And the key to the understanding of Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual state at the time is hidden in the
It must not be forgotten also that by this time he had become convinced of the complete uselessness, even undesirability, of his remaining longer with Sofya Andreyevna, and that therefore the various impulses to go away which he had before so scrupulously
Thus the cup was already full and only the last drop was lacking. And just at this time suddenly the new element in his wife's behaviour which provided that last impulse to departure was revealed to Leo Nikolaevitch.
What was new to him was the sudden revelation of the atmosphere of lying and hypocrisy in which he saw himself entangled. He unexpectedly became the involuntary witness of how Sofya Andreyevna, when she thought he was asleep, secretly stole up to his papers, and of how, as soon as she found out that he was not asleep, she began again at once as though nothing were the matter, expressing solicitude for his health. His eyes were at once opened and he saw what had long been well known to his intimate friends, but what the remnant of confidence in and respect for his wife which were still preserved in his soul, forbade him even to admit in his thoughts: that is, that she was acting a farce with him.
Together with this discovery everything was transformed for Leo Nikolaevitch, and indeed that was inevitable. It was of little moment that the incident which opened his eyes may seem in itself not to be of much importance. For married people who have lived together fifty years the first incident which reveals hypocrisy in one of them is always of importance. This incident at once threw quite a new light for Leo Nikolaevitch on all that had passed between him and Sofya Andreyevna. Till that time he had supposed that he had to do with sincere egoism and ill-will, with open wilfulness and innate coarseness and with morbid abnormality. And meeting this with unvarying mildness, patience and love, he recognised that he was doing as he ought, and therefore felt an inner satisfaction. Now all this was turned upside down. In the past the position had been clear; before him was a definite evil which laid on him as definite a duty to meet the evil with good. Now he had to do with a sort of tangle in which there was so much falsity that it was impossible to make out where reality ended and deception began; so that instead of his former satisfaction Leo Nikolaevitch suddenly felt the ambiguous position in which he found himself. So at
It is true that even before this he knew of Sofya Andreyevna's insincere behaviour. A month before he went away he wrote of Sofya Andreyevna in this diary: "I cannot get accustomed to regarding her words as the ravings of delirium. All my trouble comes from that. It is impossible to talk to her, because she does not recognise the obligation of truth nor of logic, nor of her own words, nor of conscience. It is awful. I am not speaking now of love for me, of which there is no trace. She does not want my love for her either; all she wants is that people should think that I love her, and that is so awful." (Diary, September 10, 1910.) Yet apparently Leo Nikolaevitch still had no idea of the degree of insincerity and deception of which Sofya Andreyevna was capable in her relations with him personally. But on that night he was involuntarily brought face to face with the manifestation of it, and he was the more revolted because he had hitherto so scrupulously striven in his soul to preserve some sort of trust in his wife.
Finally, convinced that he was incapable of changing the spiritual condition of Sofya
It is easy to understand that under such conditions the first serious occasion was sufficient to impel him to carry out his long-cherished intention, and he went away.[25]