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Title: The Porcelain Doll Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: 1863 Language: en Topics: letters Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10333, 2021.
Why Tanya, have you dried up? You don't write to me at all, and I so
love receiving letters from you, and you and have not yet replied to
Levochka[1]'s crazy epistle, of which I did not understand a word.
23rd March
There, she began to write, and suddenly stopped, because she could not
continue. And do you know why, Tanya dear?
A strange thing has befallen her, and a still stranger thing has
befallen me. As you know, like hte rest of us, she has always been made
of flesh and blood, with all the advantages and disadvantages of that
condition: she breathed, was warm and sometimes hot, blew her nose (and
how loud!) and so on - and above all, she had control of her limbs,
which - both arms and legs - could assume different positions: in a
word, she was corporeal like all of us.
Suddenly, on March 21st 1863, at ten o'clock in the evening, this
extraordinary thing befell her and me. Tanya! I know you always loved
her (I do not know what feeling she will arouse in you now), I know you
felt a sympathetic interest in me, and I know your reasonableness, your
sane view of the important affairs of life, and your love of your
parents (please prepare them and inform them of this event), and so I
write to tell you just how it happened.
I got up early that day and walked and rode a great deal. We lunched and
dined together and had been reading (she was still able to read) and I
felt tranquil and happy. At ten o'clock I said goodnight to Auntie[2]
(Sonya was then still as usual, and said she would follow me) and I went
off to bed.
Through my sleep I heard her open the door and heard her breathe as she
undressed...I heard how she came out from behind the screen and
approached the bed. I opened my eyes...and saw - not the Sonya you and I
have known - but a porcelain Sonya! Made of that vrey porcelain about
which your parents had a dispute. You know those porcelain dolls with
bare cold shoulders, and necks and arms bent forward, but made of the
same lump of porcelain as the body. They have black painted hair
arranged in large waves, the paint of which gets rubbed off at the top,
and protruding porcelain eyes that are too wide and are also painted
black at the corners, and the stiff porcelain folds of their skirts are
made of the same one piece of porcelain as the rest. And Sonya was like
that!
I touched her arm - she was smooth, pleasant to feel, and cold
porcelain. I thought I was asleep and gave myself a shake, but she
remained like that and stood before me immovable. I said: Are you
porcelain? And without opening her mouth (which remained as it was, with
curved lips painted bright red) she replied: Yes, I am porcelain. A
shiver ran down my back. I looked at her legs; they also were porcelain
and (you can imagine my horror) fixed on a porcelain stand, made of one
piece with herself, representing the ground and painted green to depict
grass. By her left leg, a little above and at the back of the knee,
there was a porcelain column, colored brown and probably representing
the stump of a tree. This too was in one piece with her. I understood
that without this stump she could not remain erect, and I became ver
sad, as you who loved her can imagine. I still did not believe my
senses, and began to call her. She could not move without that stump and
its base, and only rocked a little - together with the base - to fall in
my direction.
I heard how the porcelain bas knocked against the floor and cold
porcelain. I tried to lift her hand, but could not. I touched her again,
and she was all smooth, pleasant. I tried to pass a finger, or even a
nail, between her elbow and her side - but it was impossible. The
obstacle wa the same porcelain mass, such as is made at Auerbach's, and
of which sauce-boats are made. She was planned for external appearance
only. I began to examine her chemise, it was all of one piece with the
body, above and below. I looked more closely, and noticed that at the
bottom a bit of the fold of her chemise was broken off and it showed
brown. At the top of her head it showed white where the paint had come
off a little. The paint had also come off a lip in one place, and a bit
was chipped off one shoulder. But it was all so well made and so natural
that it was still our same Sonya. And the chemise was one I kenw, with
lace, and there was a knot of black hair behind, but of porcelain, and
the fine slender hands, and large eyes, and the lips - all were the
same, but of porcelain. And the dimple in her chin and the small bones
in front of her shoulders, were there too, but of porcelain. I was in a
terrible state and did not know what to say or do or think. She would
have been glad to help me, but what could a porcelain create do? The
half-closed eyes, the eyelashes and eyebrows were all like her living
self when looked at from a distance.
She did not look at me, but past me at her bed. She evidently wanted to
lie down, and rocked on her pedestal all the time. I quite lost control
of myself, seized her and tried to take her to her bed. My fingers made
no impression on her cold porcelain body, and what surprised me yet more
was that she had become as light as an empty flask. And suddenly, she
seemed to shrink and became quite small, smaller than the palm of my
hand, although she still looked just the same. I seized a pillow, put
her in a corner of it, pressed down another corner with my fist and
placed here there, then I took her nightcap, folded it in four, and
covered her up to the head with it. She lay there still just the same.
Then I extinguished the candle and placed her under my beard. Suddenly I
heard her voice from the corner of the pillow: "Leva, why have I become
porcelain?" I did not know what to reply. She said again: "Does it make
any difference that I am porcelain?" I did not want to grieve her, and
said it did not matter. I felt her again in the dark - she was still as
before, cold and porcelain. And her stomach was the same as when she was
alive, protrudeing upwards - rather unnatural for a porcelain doll. Then
I experienced a strange feeling. I suddenly felt it pleasant that she
should be as she was, and ceased to be surprised - it all seemed
natural. I took her out, passed her from one hand to the other, and
tucked her under my head. She liked it all. We fell asleep.
In the morning I got up and went out without looking at her. All that
had happened the day before seemed so terrible. When I returned for
lunch she had again become such as she always was. I did not remind her
of what had happened the day before, fearing to grieve her and Auntie. I
have not yet told anyone but you about it. I thought it had all passed
off, but all these days, every time we are alone together, the same
thing happens. She suddenly becomes small and porcelain. In the presence
of others she is just as she used to be. She is not oppressed by this,
nor am I. Strange as it may seem, I frankly confess that I am glad of
it, and though she is porcelain we are very happy.
I write to you of all this, dear Tanya, only that you should prepare her
parents for the news, and through papa should find out from the docotrs
what this occurrence means, and whether it will not be bad for our
expected child. Now we are alone, and she is sitting under my necktie
and I feel how her sharp little nose cuts into my neck. Yesterday she
had been left in a room by herself. I went in and saw that Dora (our
little dog) had dragged her into a corner, was playing with her and
nearly broke her. I whipped Dora, put Sonya in my waistcoat pocket and
took her to my study. To-day however I am expecting from Tula a small
wooden box I have ordered, covered outside with morocco and lined inside
with raspberry-colored velvet, with a place arranged in it for her so
that she can be laid in it with her elbows, head and back all supported
evenly so that she cannot break. I shall also cover it completely with
chamois leather.
I had written this letter when suddenly a terrible misfortune occurred.
She was standing on the table, when N.P.[3] pushed against her in
passing, and she fell and broke off a leg above the knee with the stump.
Alexey[4] says that it can be mended with a cement made of the white of
eggs. If such a recipe is known in Moscow, please send it to me.
[1] A term referring to Leo
[2] Auntie Tatiana, Alexandrovna Ergolski (1795-1874) who brought
Tolstoy up
[3] Natalya Petrovna Okhotnitskaya, an old woman who was living at
Yasnaya Polyana
[4] Alexey Stepanovich Orekhov (who died in 1882), a servant of
Tolstoy's who had accompanied him to the Caucasus and to Sevastopol
during the Crimean War. He was employed as steward at Yasnaya Polyana