The Last Station

Vladimir Chertkov:
[to Countess Sofya] If I had a wife like you, I would have blown my brains out. Or gone to America.

Leo Tolstoy:
It doesn't matter. If my heart stopped beating, I'd still go riding today.

Dushan:
Your pulse is my responsibility.

Leo Tolstoy:
No. It's mine.

Dushan:
Fine. If you must ride, I insist you wear a coat. Even the sun is cold today.

Sofya Tolstaya:
Oh, Leovochka, why do you insist on dressing like that?

Leo Tolstoy:
What do you mean, like what?

Sofya Tolstaya:
Like a man who looks after the sheep!

Leo Tolstoy:
It wasn't meant to offend you.

Sofya Tolstaya:
You're a count, for God's sake!

Leo Tolstoy:
Despite good cause for it, I have never stopped loving you.

Sofya Tolstaya:
Of course.

Leo Tolstoy:
But God knows you don't make it easy!

Sofya Tolstaya:
Why should it be easy? I am the work of your life, you are the work of mine. That's what love is!

Sofya Tolstaya:
I'm your little bird, you know the sounds I make.

Leo Tolstoy:
And that was some sort of love call, I suppose?

Sofya Tolstaya:
Brought you back to me.

Sofya Tolstaya:
[to Leo] Look at me! This is who I am, *this* is what you married. We may be older, maybe we're old, but I'm still your little chicken. And you're still my big cock.

Valentin:
Love and be loved. That's the only reality there is in the world.

Masha:
He said that?

Valentin:
Yes, Tolstoy said it, but l'm saying it.

Leo Tolstoy:
"Your youth and your desire for happiness reminds me cruelly of my age and the impossibility of happiness for me." When I was courting Sofya, she was so young and pure, it seemed impossible that I'd ever have her. I didn't want to tell her how I felt and I wanted to tell her nothing else. So I wrote down a string of letters and asked her if she could decipher them. She looked completely confused, thinking it was a game or... I gave her one clue. The firs two Y's, I said, stand for "your youth" and then the most miraculous thing happened. She simply spoke the phrase, my phrase as if she had read my mind. In that moment, we both knew we would always be together. For those first years, we were incredibly happy, terrifyingly happy.