XIX. PSS 83: 231, letter of September 12, 1876.
XX. Tolstaya, My Life, 227.
XXI. The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy, 52–53.
XXII. Tolstoy eventually had about 400 horses on his Samara farmland, but by the mid-1880s they were almost all gone—escaped, stolen, or dead. (See Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 282, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/texts/selectpe/ts6/ts62282-.htm.)
XXIII. The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, 53.
XXIV. Donskov, Tolstoy and Tolstaya, 63, July 16–17, 1871.
XXV. The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, 54, September 18, 1876.
XXVI. Tolstaya, My Life, 226.
XXVII. PSS 62: 285, letter of September 25–27, 1876.
XXVIII. PSS 62: 286, letter of September 26–27, 1876.
XXIX. PSS 62: 286–287, letter of September 27?, 1876.
XXX. Gusev, Materials, 298, letter of end of September 1876.
XXXI. Tolstaya, My Life, 229.
XXXII. Tolstaya, My Life, 228.
XXXIII. Gusev, Letopis’, 460.
XXXIV. PSS 62: 287, letter of October 17–18, 1876.
XXXV. Tolstaya, My Life, 228.
XXXVI. PSS 62: 288, letter of late October 1876.
XXXVII. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 287, November 4, 1876, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/texts/selectpe/ts6/ts62287-.htm.
XXXVIII. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 287.
XXXIX. PSS 62: 288, footnote 1.
XL. Tolstaya, My Life, 230.
XLI. Tolstaya, My Life, 230.
XLII. Gusev, Materials, 242.
XLIII. PSS 62: 288, letter of November 12, 1876.
XLIV. PSS 62: 290, letter of November 12–13, 1876.
XLV. PSS 62: 290. [The first two sentences are my translation; they’re followed by Albert Kaspin’s in Eikhenbaum’s book.]
XLVI. Eikhenbaum, Tolstoi in the Seventies, 122.
XLVII. R. F. Christian omits the beginning and end of this letter. Hence, my patchwork translation. PSS 62: 290–291.
XLVIII. PSS 62: 288–289, letter of November 12, 1876.
XLIX. PSS 62: 292, letter of November 17–18, 1876.
L. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 299–300, November 17–18, 1876.
LI. The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, 849, November 20, 1876.
LII. The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, 849, November 21, 1876.
LIII. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 295, November 28, 1876, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/texts/selectpe/ts6/ts62295-.htm.
LIV. PSS 62: 294, letter of December 5–6, 1876.
LV. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 301, December 6–7, 1876.
LVI. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, December 9, 1876, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/texts/selectpe/ts6/ts62297-.htm.
LVII. Gusev, Materials, 245.
LVIII. PSS 62: 296, letter of December 7–15, 1876.
LIX. Gusev, Materials, 247. In the Letopis’ (464), Gusev says Tchaikovsky wrote this memory in his diary on July 1, 1886.
LX. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 301–302, December 19–21, 1876.
LXI. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 301.
LXII. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 21, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_145.htm.
LXIII. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 21, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_145.htm.
LXIV. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 22, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_146.htm. Was Tolstoy aware that in Lidia he was describing Alexandrine Tolstaya? In her letters to him from the time, she did not see herself as Lidia. Sofia did not let on that she saw a connection, so why do I? See insert for photos of Alexandrine Tolstaya, Tolstoy’s second cousin and confidant, http://tolstoy.ru/media/photos/?topic[]=298.
LXV. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 30, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_154.htm.
11 The End of Serialization: January–May 1877
I. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 11, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_200.htm.
II. PSS 62: 304, letter of January 11–12, 1877.
III. PSS 62: 301–302, letter of January 10–11?, 1877.
IV. Anyone familiar with Trollope’s novels will appreciate, especially with Anna Karenina in mind, the novelists’ similarities in presenting multiple, interwoven plots. Trollope’s pen, unlike Tolstoy’s, dreamed and raced its way through his forty-seven novels. There was seemingly no agonizing or hesitating. To change the metaphor, once Trollope got on the horse, he kept the pace steady, writing about 10–12 book pages a day—almost every day for more than thirty years. As distractible and fitful as Tolstoy was, Trollope was almost undistractable and ever persistent.
V. PSS 62: 300.
VI. PSS 62: 300, letter of January 10–11, 1877.
VII. PSS 62: 303, letter of January 10–11, 1877.
VIII. PSS 62: 304, letter of January 11–12, 1877. The “new work,” say the Jubilee editors, was to be “a people’s novel of the 18–19th centuries.”
IX. PSS 62: 304.
X. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 10, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_134.htm.
XI. Kuzminskaya, Tolstoy as I Knew Him: My Life at Home and at Yasnaya Polyana, 289.
XII. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 304, January 11, 1877, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/texts/selectpe/ts6/ts62303-.htm?cmd=2.
XIII. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 26, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_150.htm.
XIV. A. D. Obolenskiy, “Dve vstrechi s L. N. Tolstym” [Две встречи с Л. Н. Толстым], originally in Tolstoy Tolstoy. Memories of Creation and Life. [Толстой. Памятники творчества и жизни], Moscow, 1923, 34–35, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/critics/vs1/vs1-239-.htm.
XV. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 26, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_150.htm.
XVI. Ibid.
XVII. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 26, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_150.htm.
XVIII. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 27, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_151.htm.
XIX. Ibid.
XX. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 27, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_151.htm.
XXI. Ibid.
XXII. Anna Karenina, Part 5, Chapter 27, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_151.htm.
XXIII. Ibid.
XXIV. Tolstaya, My Life, 231.
XXV. PSS 83: 234, footnote 4.
XXVI. Tolstaya, My Life, 232.
XXVII. Tolstaya, My Life, 233.
XXVIII. PSS 83: 233–234, letter of January 14–15, 1877.
XXIX. PSS 83: 234–235, letter of January 16, 1877.
XXX. Tolstaya, My Life, 233.
XXXI. PSS 83: 235, letter of January 17, 1877.
XXXII. Tolstaya, My Life, 234.
XXXIII. Because of the concussion, perhaps the grown-up Seryozha only remembered what he had been told of the accident? Tolstoy, Tolstoy Remembered by His Son, 30.
XXXIV. I have inserted the quotation marks; I presume the last sentence was the French teacher’s.
XXXV. PSS 62: 305, letter of January 24, 1877.
XXXVI. PSS 62: 306, letter of January 24, 1877.
XXXVII. He could have recalled Pascal’s “belt of nails” that he had mentioned a year before (see above, p. 246).
XXXVIII. PSS 62: 306. A small overlap of phrasing occurs between the letter and the novel. Tolstoy opened the letter to Alexandrine: “If you have sins, dear friend Alexandrine, they are probably forgiven you for the good that you did me in the last two letters.” In Chapter 18 of Part 6, that is, the very installment he was now working on, Anna says to Dolly, “ ‘If you had any sins,’ she said, ‘they would all be forgiven you for your coming to see me and these words.’ And Dolly saw that tears stood in her eyes. She pressed Anna’s hand in silence.” (Garnett translation: http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-kare
nina/anna_175.htm.)
XXXIX. The February issue (Chapters 16–32 in the book edition) that he had “faltered” over contains such episodes as Dolly’s summer visit to Anna at Vronsky’s modern progressive estate (16–24); Anna and Vronsky’s dull life on their own in the country in the fall while Vronsky continues his political activity (25); and Levin and Kitty’s move to Moscow for her confinement and Levin’s reluctant involvement in provincial elections, where he unexpectedly encounters Vronsky (26–30). Anna, lonely in the country, desperately writes to Vronsky to ask him to return from the elections for the sake of their little girl, who is ill, and he returns; the child is after all just fine, but the parents are on uneasy terms (31–32). Such artistic falterings have eluded writers of fiction ever since.
XL. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 302–303, January 25–26, 1877.
XLI. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 302–303, June 25–26, 1877.
XLII. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 1, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_158.htm.
XLIII. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 311–312, beginning of February 1877, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/texts/selectpe/ts6/ts62311-.htm.
XLIV. PSS 62: 309, letter of February 3–4, 1877.
XLV. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 303, February 5–9, 1877.
XLVI. PSS 20: 597.
XLVII. Tolstaya, My Life, 234.
XLVIII. The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy, 54.
XLIX. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 24, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_181.htm.
L. Ibid.
LI. Ibid.
LII. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 24, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_181.htm.
LIII. Ibid.
LIV. Ibid.
LV. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 32, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_189.htm.
LVI. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 32, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_189.htm.
LVII. Eikhenbaum, Tolstoi in the Seventies, 153.
LVIII. PSS 62: 315, footnote 4.
LIX. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 25, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_182.htm.
LX. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 32, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_189.htm.
LXI. Anna Karenina, Part 6, Chapter 32, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_189.htm.
LXII. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 316, March 1, 1877.
LXIII. PSS 62: 312, letter of March 5–6, 1877.
LXIV. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 319, March 10, 1877.
LXV. PSS 62: 313, letter of March 5–6, 1877.
LXVI. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 304, March 11–12, 1877.
LXVII. Ibid.
LXVIII. PSS 62: 315–316, letter of March 22–23?, 1877.
LXIX. PSS 62: 316, letter of March 23–24, 1877.
LXX. On May 18, 1877, Strakhov mentioned in a letter to Tolstoy that he had not seen the Epilogue. See Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 335.
LXXI. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 9, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_198.htm.
LXXII. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 10, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_199.htm.
LXXIII. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 11, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_200.htm.
LXXIV. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 11, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_200.htm.
LXXV. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 12, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_201.htm.
LXXVI. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 12, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_201.htm.
LXXVII. PSS 62: 318, letter of April 5, 1877.
LXXVIII. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 324, April 4–5, 1877.
LXXIX. PSS 62: 320, letter of April 13–14, 1877.
LXXX. PSS 62: 322, letter of April 15–20, 1877.
LXXXI. PSS 62: 323–324, letter of April 21–22, 1877.
LXXXII. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 304–305, April 21–22, 1877.
LXXXIII. Tolstaya, My Life, 236.
LXXXIV. Ibid.
LXXXV. PSS 62: 324.
LXXXVI. PSS 62: 325.
LXXXVII. Susanne Fusso, Editing Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy: Mikhail Katkov and the Great Russian Novel (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2017), 193.
LXXXVIII. Mills Todd III, “V. N. Golitsyn Reads Anna Karenina: How One of Karenin’s Colleagues Responded to the Novel,” 189–200. (Note 6: “… while a ‘thick journal’ such as the Russian Herald might have a subscription list of only 5000 […] it would be read by many more than this […]. Still, even allowing for ten readers a copy, it is hard to dispute Dostoevsky’s estimate that only one Russian in five hundred could read this level of literature.”)
LXXXIX. Ibid.
12 Suicidal Tendencies
I. G. K. Chesterton, “The Flag of the World,” Orthodoxy (London: John Lane Co., 1908).
II. Goldenweizer, Talks with Tolstoy, 92.
III. Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays, trans. Aylmer Maude (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1937), 157.
IV. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 24, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_213.htm.
V. Ibid.
VI. See above, pages 201–202.
VII. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 25, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_214.htm.
VIII. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 26, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_215.htm.
IX. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 27, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_216.htm.
X. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 28, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_217.htm.
XI. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 29, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_218.htm.
XII. Sofia wrote and told Tolstoy a dozen years later, when he had gone off meat: “How stupid vegetarianism is.… Kill life in yourself, kill all impulses of the flesh, all its needs—why not kill yourself altogether? After all you are committing yourself to slow death, what’s the difference?”; Tolstoy, Tolstoy: A Life of My Father, 301–302.
XIII. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 30, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_219.htm.
XIV. Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 31, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_220.htm.
XV. Confession, 41.
13 Finishing Off: May 7, 1877–January 1878
I. Andrew Donskov (L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov) points us to the “little finger” in Part 7, Chapter 25. Garnett translates it this way: “She lifted her cup, with her little finger held apart [отставленный мизинец], and put it to her lips. After drinking a few sips she glanced at him, and by his expression, she saw clearly that he was repelled by her hand, and her gesture, and the sound made by her lips.”
II. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 332–333, May 7, 1877.
III. Ibid.
IV. PSS 62: 325, letter of May 8–9, 1877.
V. Donskov, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, 335.
VI. PSS 62: 326, letter of May 21–22, 1877.
VII. Fedor Fedorovich Ris was the printer who had published War and Peace and Tolstoy’s children’s stories.
VIII. PSS 62: 328, letter of May 28–29, 1877.
IX. PSS 83: 237, letter of May 28–29, 1877.
X. See PSS 62: 328, footnote 2.
XI. PSS 83: 238, footnote 4.
XII. PSS 62: 329, letter of June 2, 1877.
XIII. Christian, Tolstoy’s Letters, 305–306.
XIV. Tolstaya, My Life, 235.
XV. Chekhov: “Goethe’s words were all recorded, but Tolstoy’s thoughts are being lost in the air. That, my dear fellow, is intolerably Russian. After his death they will all bestir themselves, will begin to write reminiscences, and will lie.” Maxim Gorky, Reminiscences of L
eo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, 47.
XVI. Donsko, L. N. Tolstoy – N. N. Strakhov, xxvii, http://feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/texts/selectpe/ts6/ts61013-.htm; Strakhov’s second note concerned the typeset but redacted first draft of 64 pages in 1874 that features the pre-Anna Anna.
XVII. These are Turner’s translations. (C.J.G. Turner, A Tolstoy Companion, 90.)
XVIII. These are Turner’s translations. (C.J.G. Turner, A Tolstoy Companion, 91.)
XIX. In this he was like his peasant-student Fedka: “Thus, for example, he would not allow words to be transposed; if he once said, ‘I have sores on my feet,’ he would not permit me to say, ‘On my feet I have sores.’ His soul, now softened and irritated by the sentiment of pity, that is, of love, clothed every image in an artistic form, and denied everything that did not correspond to the idea of eternal beauty and harmony.” Tolstoy on Education, 196.
XX. I had become convinced that Tolstoy never read the novel after it was printed as a book; then I stumbled back across a quotation of a reminiscence by L. E. Obolenskii in Turner’s book: “ ‘Willy nilly I have just been reading the proofs of my Anna Karenina and all the time I was thinking: what a bad man (Tolstoy used a much stronger expression) it was to write such filth.… Well, wasn’t I right when I said that this novel was written by a very bad man?’ ” (See C.J.G. Turner. A Tolstoy Companion, 51.) This proofreading was for an 1886 edition of his Works. Sofia soon relied on herself and Strakhov and others to do the proofreading.
XXI. PSS 62: 328.
XXII. Garnett’s translation “as though he were going to pick something up” puzzled me. The Maudes (and almost everyone else) translate this phrase [как будто припоминая что-то] as “as if trying to remember something.” I like, in any case, that Garnett reminds us that remembering is an attempt to put our finger on something.
XXIII. Anna Karenina, Part 8, Chapter 2, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_222.htm.
XXIV. Ibid.
XXV. Anna Karenina, Part 8, Chapter 4, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_224.htm.
XXVI. Ibid.
XXVII. Anna Karenina, Part 8, Chapter 4, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_224.htm.
XXVIII. Ibid.
XXIX. Anna Karenina, Part 8, Chapter 5, http://www.literatureproject.com/anna-karenina/anna_225.htm.
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