by Cathy Porter
14th January (Moscow).* I am alone again and sad. Yet we have managed to make peace. I don’t know what reconciled him to me or me to him, it happened of itself. All I know is that I have my happiness back. I want to go home. I have so many dreams of how I will live in Yasnaya with him. I feel sad to have broken so completely from the Kremlin crowd. I see terribly clearly how much my world has changed, yet I love my family more than ever, especially Maman, and it saddens me that I’m no longer part of their lives. I live completely through him and for him, and it’s often painful for me to realize that I am not everything to him and that if I were suddenly to die he would be able to console himself somehow, for he has so many resources, whereas I have such a weak nature. I have given myself to one man and would never be able to find another world for myself.
Life in this hotel depresses me. I am happy only when I am sitting with my family, and with Lyovochka, of course. I could leave for home at once I know, it’s largely up to me, but I haven’t the heart to say goodbye to my family so soon after arriving, and I’m too lazy to move. I had such a bad dream last night. Our Yasnaya peasant girls and women were visiting us in a huge garden, all dressed up as ladies, then started going off somewhere, one after the other. A.* came last, wearing a black silk dress. I began speaking to her and was seized with such violent rage that I picked up her child and began tearing him to pieces. I tore off his head and legs—I was like a madwoman. Then Lyovochka came up and I told him they would send me to Siberia, but he picked up the legs and arms and all the other bits and told me it was only a doll. I looked down and saw that it was indeed, with just cloth and stuffing for a body. And that made me furious.
I often torture myself thinking about her, even here in Moscow. Maman was right when she said I had become sillier than ever—rather, I think my mind is lazier. It’s an unpleasant feeling, this physical lethargy. And physical lethargy produces mental lethargy too.
I regret my former liveliness. But I think it will return. I feel it would have as good an effect on Lyovochka as it once had on the Kremlin crowd.
17th January. I’ve been feeling angry that he loves everything and everyone, when I want him to love only me. Now that I’m alone in my room I realize I was just being wilful again; it’s his kindness and the wealth of his feelings that make him good. The cause of all my whims and miseries is this wretched egotism of mine, which makes me want to possess his life, his thoughts, his love, everything he has. This has become a sort of rule with me. The moment I think fondly of someone I tell myself no, I love only Lyovochka. But I absolutely must learn to love something else as he loves his work, so I can turn to it when he grows cold towards me. These times will become more frequent. I see this clearly now—why should Lyovochka study all the subtleties of our relations as I do, for want of anything else to occupy me? From this I also learn how I should behave with him, and I do this not as a duty but quite involuntarily. I can’t yet put this knowledge into practice, but everything comes in time. We must get back to Yasnaya very soon; there he devotes himself more to me, for there is nobody else but Aunt and me. I know I can make the house a happier place, as long as he doesn’t want visitors, for I don’t know where I would find the right people to ask, and besides I don’t like them. But if he wants me to I’ll entertain whomever he cares to invite; anything to keep him happy and not bored, for then he’ll love me and there’s nothing else I want.
I waited and waited for him and have now sat down again to write. Some people live in solitude, but it’s terrible to be alone. I don’t suppose we shall go to that lecture now. Perhaps I annoyed him. This thought often torments me. I have grown terribly close to Maman and it frightens me, for we can never live together now.
29th January. Kremlin life is oppressive; it evokes the lazy, aimless life I led here as a girl. All my illusions about the aims and duties of marriage vanished into thin air when Lyovochka let me know that one can’t be satisfied merely with one’s family, one’s husband or wife, but needs something more, a larger cause. (“I need nothing but you. Lyovochka talks a lot of nonsense sometimes.” [L.N. Tolstoy’s note])
3rd March (Yasnaya Polyana). Still the same old story—writing on my own. But I’m not lonely now, I’m used to it. And happy in the knowledge that he loves me, and loves me constantly. When he gets home he comes up to me so kindly and asks me or tells me something. My life is cheerful and easy now. I read his diary and it made me happy.* There is me and his work—nothing else matters to him. Yesterday and today he has been preoccupied. I am afraid to disturb him when he is writing, and that he’ll get angry and my presence will be unbearable to him. I’m glad he’s writing. I wanted to go to church this morning, but instead I stayed at home and prayed here. Since my marriage every form of ceremony has become loathsome to me. I long with all my heart to manage the household and do something. But I haven’t yet learnt how, I don’t know how to go about it. It will come in time.
1st April. I am unwell and in low spirits. Lyova has gone off again. My misfortune is that I have no inner resources to draw on, and this is indeed necessary and important in life. The weather is wonderful, it’s almost summer, and my mood is like the summer—sad. It’s bleak and lonely here. He has his work and the estate to think about while I have nothing…What am I good for? I can’t go on living like this. I would like to do more, something real. At this wonderful time of year I always used to long for things, aspire to things, dream about God knows what. But I no longer have these foolish aspirations, for I know I have all I need now and there’s nothing left to strive for. So much happiness and so little to do.
6th April. We have started attending to the estate together, he and I, him taking it all very seriously, me so far pretending to. But it interests me greatly. He seems preoccupied and unwell, and this makes me anxious. I’m afraid to let him know how much these blood rushes of his worry me. It’s a terrible thought, but I can’t help worrying that this life of ours and our happiness together is not real happiness at all but just a trick of fate, and will suddenly be snatched away. I’m afraid…It’s stupid, but I cannot write it down. I wish this fear would pass quickly, for it poisons my life. He has bought some bees, which pleases me very much; managing the estate is interesting, but hard work. He certainly has something on his mind; he’s being so unstraightfoward and secretive. Or is it just a headache? What’s the matter with him? What does he want? I would do anything he wanted if only I could. He is out now, but I fear when he comes back he’ll be in a bad temper and will find something to irritate him. I love him desperately, I feel I could endure anything for his sake if I had to.
10th April. He has gone to meet Papa in Tula and I already feel miserable. I have been rereading his letters to V.A.* They seem so youthful. It wasn’t her he loved but love itself and family life. I recognize him well—his moral precepts, his splendid strivings for all that is noble and good. What a wonderful man he is! And reading through these letters I almost stopped feeling jealous, as if it wasn’t V. at all but me, the woman he had to love. I put myself into their world. She was apparently rather a pretty girl, essentially empty-headed, morally good and lovable only because she was so young, while he was just as he is now, not really in love with V. so much as with his love of life and goodness. Poor man, he was still too young to realize that you can never plan happiness in advance, and will inevitably be unhappy if you try. But what noble, splendid dreams these were.
24th April. Lyova is either old or unhappy. He seems to think of nothing but money, the estate and the distillery—nothing else interests him.* If he isn’t eating, sleeping or sitting in silence he is roaming about the estate alone the whole day. And I am wretched and alone, always alone. He shows his love for me merely by kissing my hands in a mechanical fashion, and by being kind to me and not cruel.
25th April. The same wretchedness all morning, the same premonition of something terrible. I still feel very shy with him. I cried as if demented and afterwards couldn’t understand why this was always happening�
�I knew only that I had good reason to cry, and even possibly to die, if he had stopped loving me as he used to. I didn’t mean to write today, but I am all alone downstairs and have given in to my old habit of scribbling. I’ve been interrupted—
29th April, evening. I get annoyed about trifles—some parcels, for instance. I make great efforts not to be irritable, and shall soon achieve this. Towards Lyovochka I feel terribly affectionate and rather shy—a result of my petty moods. Towards myself I feel a disgust such as I haven’t felt for a long time. I want to go out and look at the bees and the apple trees and work on the estate.* I want to be active, but I am heavy and tired, and my infirmity tells me to sit still and look after my stomach. It’s infuriating. It distresses me that it should make him so unkind to me, as if it’s my fault I am pregnant. I’m no help to him at present. And there is another thing which makes me disgusted with myself. (One must above all speak the truth in a diary.) It made me happy to recall the time when V.V.* was in love with me. I wonder if it could make me happy if someone fell in love with me now? Oh, how loathsome. I always laughed at him then and never felt anything for him but contempt. Lyova ignores me more and more. The physical side of love is very important for him. This is terrible. For me it’s quite the opposite.
8th May. My pregnancy is to blame for everything—I’m in an unbearable state, physically and mentally. Physically I’m always ill, mentally there is this awful emptiness and boredom. As far as Lyova is concerned I don’t exist. I feel I am hateful to him, and want only to leave him in peace and cut myself out of his life as far as possible. I can do nothing to make him happy, because I’m pregnant. It’s a cruel truth that a wife only discovers whether her husband really loves her when she is pregnant. He has gone to his beehives and I would give anything to go too but shan’t, because I have been having palpitations and it’s difficult to sit down there, and there’ll be a thunderstorm any moment, and my head aches and I’m bored—I feel like weeping, and I don’t want him to see me in this state, especially as he is ill too. I feel awkward with him most of the time. If he is occasionally kind to me it’s more a matter of habit, and he still feels obliged to continue the old relations even though he doesn’t love me any more. I’m sure it would be terrible for him to confess that he did once love me—not so long ago either—but all this is over now. If only he knew how much he has changed, if only he could step into my shoes for a while, he would understand how hard life is for me. But there’s no help for it. He will wake up again after the baby is born, I suppose, for this is what always happens.
9th May. He promised to be here at twelve o’clock and now it’s two. Has something happened? How can he take such pleasure in tormenting me? You don’t drive out a dog that licks your hand. Maman endured a similar fate to mine in the first year of her marriage, only it was worse for her, for Papa was always travelling around visiting patients and playing cards, whereas Lyova merely walks around the estate. But I am also lonely and bored, also pregnant and ill. You learn so much more from experience than from the intellect. Youth is a misfortune, not a blessing, if you are married. You simply cannot be happy sitting there sewing or playing the piano alone, completely alone, and gradually becoming convinced that even though your husband may not love you, you are stuck there for ever and there you must sit. Maman told me her life got happier as she grew older; when her youth passed and her children arrived and she found something to focus her life on. That is how it will be with me too. I am moody and bad-tempered only because I’m bored with waiting for him since twelve o’clock alone. It is wicked of him not to have pity on me, as any moderately decent person would have for another suffering fellow creature.
6th June. My brother Alexander and sister Tatyana have arrived to disturb our life and I’m sorry. They don’t seem very cheerful. Or maybe it’s just the chilly atmosphere here. They haven’t cheered me up a bit, they’ve merely made me more anxious. I love Lyovochka intensely but it angers me that I should be in a relationship in which we’re not equals. I am entirely dependent on him, and God knows I treasure his love. But he either takes mine for granted or doesn’t need it, he seems to be alone in everything. I keep reminding myself that autumn will soon be here and all this will soon be over. I don’t know what I mean by “all this”, though. And what sort of winter we shall have—or whether there will be a winter at all—I cannot imagine. It’s terribly depressing that I should wish for nothing and nothing makes me happy, like an old woman, and how unbearable it would be to be old. I didn’t want to go for a drive with them after he said: “You and I are old folk, let’s stay put.” And it seemed such fun to stay at home with him, just the two of us, as though I had fallen in love with him against my parents’ wishes. Now the others have driven off and he has gone out, and I am alone with my melancholy thoughts. I am angry with him for not giving me a carriage, which means I can never go out for a drive. It’s much simpler for him to leave me on the sofa with a book and not bother his head about me. If I can stop being angry for a moment though, I realize he has a mountain of work which has nothing to do with me, and that running the estate is a gruelling labour; then there are the peasants visiting him all the time and never giving him a moment’s peace. And there are those people who cheated him over the carriage, and it wasn’t his fault—no, he is a wonderful man, I love him with all my heart.
7th June. I love him madly. This feeling has taken a hold over me and overwhelms me. He is on the estate all the time, but I am not moping now and I feel happy. And he loves me, I think I can sense that. I fear this means I shall die—how terrible it would be to leave him. The more I get to know him the dearer he becomes to me. I think each day that I have never loved him so much—and next day I love him even more. Nothing exists for me but him and everything that concerns him.
14th July. It’s all over, the baby* has been born and my ordeal is over. I have risen from my bed and am gradually entering into life again, but with a constant feeling of dread about my baby and especially my husband. Something in me seems to have collapsed, and I sense that whatever it is it will always be there to torment me; it’s probably the fear of not doing my duty towards my family. I feel terribly timid with my husband, as if I had wronged him in some way. I feel I am a burden, a foolish person (the same old theme!), even rather vulgar. I am frightened by the womb’s love for its offspring, and frightened by my somewhat unnatural love for my husband. All this I try to hide, out of a feeling of shame I know to be stupid and false. I sometimes comfort myself with the thought that most people see this love of one’s husband and children as a virtue. I shall never go any further than this I fear, although I should like to be a bit better educated—my education was so bad—again if only for my husband’s sake and that of my children. But how strong these maternal feelings are! It strikes me as quite natural and not at all strange that I am now a mother. He is Lyovochka’s child, that’s why I love him. His present state of mind makes me very anxious. He has such a wealth of ideas and feelings and it is all being wasted. I truly appreciate his great qualities. God knows I would give anything to make him happy.
23rd July. I have been married for ten months and my spirits are flagging. I automatically seek support as my baby seeks the breast, and I am in agonizing pain. Lyova is murderous. He cannot run the estate—I’m not cut out for it, he says. He is restless.* Nothing here satisfies him; I know what he wants and I cannot give it to him. Nothing is sweet to me. Like a dog I have grown used to his caresses, but he has grown cold. I console myself that there are bound to be days like this. But they are all too frequent. Patience. I shall now go and sacrifice myself to my son…
31st July. What he says is so banal. I know things are terrible, but why should he be so angry?* Whose fault is it? Our relations are frightful, and at such a painful time as this too. He has become so unpleasant that I try all day to avoid him. When he says, “I’m going to bed,” or “I’m going to have a bath,” I think, thank God. It breaks my heart to sit with my little son. God has taken bo
th my husband and my son from me—to think how devoutly we used to pray to Him. Now I feel everything is over. Patience, I keep telling myself. We were at least blessed with a happy past. I have loved him so much and am grateful to him for everything. I have just been reading his diary. At that wonderful poetic moment everything seemed vile to him. “These past nine months have been practically the worst in my life,” he wrote—to say nothing of the tenth. How often he must secretly have asked himself why he got married. And how often he has said aloud to me, “What has become of my old self?”*
2nd August. It was not written for me to read. Why am I idling my life away? You’d do well to pull yourself together, Sofia Andreevna. Grief like this can wear you down. I have sternly forbidden myself ever to mention his name again. Maybe it will pass.
3rd August. It has started raining and I’m afraid he’ll catch cold. I am not angry any more. I love him. God bless him.
Sonya, forgive me, I have only just realized that I am to blame and have wronged you greatly. There are days when one seems guided not by one’s will but by some irresistible external law. That was why I treated you like that then—to think I could have done such a thing. I have always recognized that I have many failings and very little generosity of spirit. And now I have acted so cruelly, so rudely, and to whom? To the person who has given me the finest happiness of my whole life and who alone loves me. I know this can never be forgotten or forgiven, Sonya, but I know you better now and realize how meanly I treat you. Sonya darling, I know I have been vile—somewhere inside me there is a fine person, but at times he seems to be asleep. Love him, Sonya, and do not reproach him too much. [L.N. Tolstoy’s note]