by Cathy Porter
Lyovochka wrote that, begging my forgiveness, but then he lost his temper and crossed it out. He was talking of that terrible time when I had mastitis and my breasts hurt so much I was unable to feed Seryozha, and this made him angry. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to—I longed to, it was what I wanted more than anything. I deserved those few lines of tenderness and remorse from him, but in a moment of rage with me he crossed them out as soon as I had read them.
17th August. I have been daydreaming, recalling those “mad” nights last year, and other mad nights too, when I was utterly free and in such a splendid state of mind. If ever I have known complete happiness it was then. I loved and experienced and understood everything, my mind and my being were completely in tune, and the world seemed so fresh. And then there was the dear poetic Comte,* with his wonderful deep bright gaze. It was a heavenly time. I felt pampered by his love. I certainly must have felt it, otherwise I wouldn’t have been so happy. I remember he was rude to me one evening when Popov* was here and I was terribly hurt, but I pretended I didn’t care and went out and sat on the porch with Popov, straining to hear what the Comte was talking about inside, while all the time pretending to be fascinated by everything Popov was saying. I grew even fonder of the Comte after that, and made a point of never dissembling to him again. I was just thinking about all this when I suddenly realized with incredulous joy that the Comte is now my husband. When he doubts my love for him I feel so stunned I lose my head. How can I prove it when I love him so honestly, so steadfastly?
22nd September. It will be a year tomorrow. Then I had hopes of happiness, now only of unhappiness. Before I thought it was all a joke, but now I realize he means it. So he is off to war.* What sort of behaviour is that? Is he unbalanced? No, I think not, merely erratic. I don’t know whether it’s intentional, but he seems to do all he can to make me unhappy. He has put me in a position where I have to worry from one day to the next that he’ll go off, and I’ll be abandoned with my baby, maybe more than just one. It’s all a joke to them, a fleeting fancy. One day they decide to get married, enjoy it and produce some children—next day it’s time to leave them and go off to war. I only hope now that my child will die, for I shall not survive without him. I have no faith in his love for the “fatherland”, this enthousiasme in a man of thirty-five. Aren’t his children also the fatherland, aren’t they also Russian? But no, he wants to abandon them so he can enjoy himself galloping about on his horse, revelling in the beauties of battle and listening to the bullets fly. His inconsistency and cowardice have made me respect him less. But his talent is more important to him than his family. If only he would explain to me the true motives of his desire. Why did I marry him? Valerian Petrovich* would have been better, as I wouldn’t have minded so much if he left me. What did he need my love for? It was just an infatuation. And I know he’s blaming me, for now he is sulking. He blames me for loving him and not wanting him to die or leave me. Let him sulk. I only wish I had been able to prepare myself for it in advance, i.e. stop loving him, for the parting would have been easier. I love him, that’s the worst of it, and when I see him he looks so depressed, forever morosely searching his soul.
7th October. What gloom. At least my son gives me some joy. But why is Nurse always fussing over baby clothes and distracting me? Of course he can see how low I feel, it’s no use trying to conceal it, but he’ll soon find it insufferable. I want to go to the ball, but that isn’t the reason I feel low. I shan’t go, but it irritates me that I still want to. And this irritation would have spoilt the fun, which I doubt it would have been anyway. He keeps saying, “I am being reborn.” What does he mean? He can have everything he had before we were married, if only he can be rid of his terrible anxieties and restless strivings. “Reborn”? He says I’ll soon understand. But I get flustered and cannot understand a word he is talking about. He is undergoing some great change. And we are becoming more estranged. My illness and the baby have taken me away from him, this is why I don’t understand him. What else do I need? Am I not lucky to be close to these inexhaustible ideas, talents and virtues, all embodied in my husband? But it can be depressing too. It’s my youth.*
17th October. I wish I could understand him fully so he might treat me as he treats Alexandrine,* but I know this is impossible, so I mustn’t be offended and must accept that I am too young and silly and not poetic enough. To be like Alexandrine, quite apart from any innate gifts, one would need to be older anyway, childless, and even unmarried. I wouldn’t mind at all if they took up their old correspondence, but it would sadden me if she thought his wife was fit for nothing but the nursery and humdrum superficial relationships. I know that however jealous I may be of her soul, I mustn’t cut her out of his life, for she has played an important part in it for which I should have been useless. He shouldn’t have sent her that letter.* I cried because he didn’t tell me everything he had written in it, and because he said, “Something which I alone know about myself. And I’ll tell you too, only my wife doesn’t know anything about it…” I should like to know her better. Would she consider me worthy of him? She understands and appreciates him so well. I found some letters from her in his desk and they gave me a clear impression of what she was like, and of her relations with Lyova. One was particularly fine. Once or twice it has occurred to me to write to her without telling him, but I can’t bring myself to. She interests me greatly and I like her a lot. Ever since I read his letters to her I have been thinking about her constantly. I think I could love her. I’m not pregnant, judging by my state of mind, and long may this continue. I love him to distraction, and it worries me to think I shall love him even more in the future.
28th October. My love cannot be very strong if I am so weak. But no, I love him terribly, there can be no doubt about it. If only I could raise myself up. My husband is so good, so wonderfully good. Where is he? Probably working on The History of 1812.* He used to tell me about his writing, but now he thinks I’m not worthy of his confidence. In the past he shared all his thoughts with me, and we had such blissful, happy times together. Now they are all gone. “We shall always be happy, Sonya,” he said. I feel so sad that he has had none of the happiness he expected and deserved.
13th November. I feel sorry for Aunt—she won’t last much longer. She is always sick, her cough keeps her awake at night, her hands are thin and dry. I think about her all day.
He says, let’s live in Moscow for a while. Just what I expected. It makes me jealous when he finds his ideal in the first pretty woman he meets. Such love is terrible because it is blind and virtually incurable. There has never been anything of this in me, and there never will be. I am left alone morning, afternoon and night. I am to gratify his pleasure and nurse his child, I am a piece of household furniture, I am a woman. I try to suppress all human feelings. When the machine is working properly it heats the milk, knits a blanket, makes little requests and bustles about trying not to think—and life is tolerable. But the moment I am alone and allow myself to think, everything seems insufferable. He doesn’t love me, I couldn’t keep his love. In a moment of grief, which I now regret, when nothing seemed to matter but the fact that I had lost his love, I thought even his writing was pointless. What did I care what Countess So-and-So in his novel said to Princess So-and-So? Afterwards I despised myself. My life is so mundane. But he has such a rich internal life, talent and immortality. I have become afraid of him, and at times he is a complete stranger.
19th December. I’ve lit two candles, sat down at the table and I feel perfectly happy. Everything seems funny and unimportant. I feel like flirting, even with someone like Alyosha Gorshkoi,* or losing my temper with a chair. I played cards with Aunt for four hours, which made him furious, but I didn’t care. It hurts me to think of Tanya, she’s a thorn in my flesh.* But I have put even this out of my mind today. The baby is better, maybe that’s why I am so happy. At this moment I should love to go to a dance or do something amusing. He is old and self-absorbed, and I am young and long to do some
thing wild. I’d like to turn somersaults instead of going to bed. But with whom?
24th December. Old age hovers over me; everything here is old. I try to suppress all youthful feelings, for they seem out of place in this sombre environment. The only one who is younger in spirit than the others is his brother Seryozha,* which is why I like it when he comes. I am gradually coming to the conclusion that Lyova wants only to restrain me; this is why he is so reserved, and why he constantly frustrates my spontaneous outbursts of love. How can I love him in this sober, sedate atmosphere? It’s so monotonous here, so lacking in love. But I won’t do anything. I complain as if I was really unhappy—but then I am really unhappy, for he doesn’t love me so much. He actually told me so, but I knew it already. As for myself I’m not sure. I see so little of him and am in such awe of him that I can’t be sure how much I love him. I dearly want to marry Tanya off to Seryozha, but it frightens me. What about Masha?* All Lyova’s pronouncements on the compartments of the heart are nothing but fanciful idealism and are no comfort to me.
1864
In London, Marx’s International Workingmen’s Association (the First International) formed.
4th October—the Tolstoys’ daughter, Tatyana (Tanya, Tanechka) is born. At the end of the year Tolstoy visits Moscow for an operation on his broken arm.
2nd January. My sister Tanya is all I can think about. I am worn out with grieving and planning and wrestling with it. Lyova, Aunt and I are in God’s hands. Yet I desperately, passionately, want them both to be happy. I am in a dismal mood. Tula was so cheerless today, it exhausted me. I wanted to buy up the whole town, how pathetic, but I soon came to my senses. Lyova is being sweet; there was an almost childlike expression on his face when he was playing the piano. I thought of Alexandrine and understood her perfectly; I realized how much she must adore him. “Grandmother”,* he calls her. He annoyed me just now when he said, “When you’re cross you talk to your diary.” What does he care? I’m not cross at the moment. Yet the slightest sarcastic remark from him hurts me terribly; he should cherish my love for him more. I am afraid of being ugly, morally and physically.
27th March. My diary is covered in dust, it’s so long since I opened it, and today I decided to creep off while nobody was watching and write whatever came into my head. I wanted desperately to love everyone and enjoy everything, but someone only has to brush against me when I’m in this state and it goes away. I feel a sudden trust and tenderness for my husband, perhaps because it occurred to me yesterday how easily I might lose him. Today I resolved never to think of it again, come what may. I shall refuse to listen if anybody, even he, so much as mentions it. I love my sister Tanya so much, why are they trying to ruin her? Although they needn’t bother, for she’ll never be spoilt. I can give her emotional support but can do almost nothing about the situation she is in. At any rate, I shall do my best to distract her. I think I am less selfish than I was a year ago. Then I moped around pregnant, depressed because I couldn’t have fun with the others. Now I have my own joy and am happier than anyone else.
22nd April. I am all alone. There’s nothing to write about, there’s no life in this place. I can control myself when I am looking after Seryozha, but in the evening, when he is asleep, I bustle about frantically as if I had a million little tasks to do, when in fact I am simply trying to avoid thinking and worrying. I keep imagining he has just gone out hunting or to look at the estate or see to the bees, and will return at any moment, for I am so used to waiting, and he always seems to return when my patience is about to give out. I am always trying to think of something unpleasant in our life together so as not to feel sorry for him, but I cannot, for the moment I think of him I realize how deeply I love him and I want to weep. The moment I catch myself thinking I am not sad, it’s as if I deliberately make myself so. Tonight for the first time in my life I am going to bed alone. They said I should put Tanya’s bed in my room but I didn’t want to—I want no one but him beside me, ever. I keep thinking Tanya will hear me crying from the sitting room and I shall feel ashamed, and I haven’t been so sensible all day.*
3rd November. It’s odd that in these happy surroundings I should be feeling so disconsolate, so filled with dread about him. Last night, and every other night too, I was stricken with such fear and grief that while I was sitting with my little girl* I cried, for I could picture his death so clearly. It started when he dislocated his arm* and I suddenly realized the possibility of losing him; ever since then I have thought of nothing else. I almost live in the nursery now, and looking after the babies sometimes distracts me. I often think he must find this female world of ours insufferably dull, and that I cannot possibly make him happy. I am a good nursemaid, nothing more. No intelligence, education or talent, nothing. I wish something would happen soon. Looking after the children and playing with Seryozha can be delightful, but deep in my heart I sense that my old happiness has fled for good and nothing can give me joy any more. I often have premonitions of his bad moods; now he secretly hates me.
1865
6th April—“Provisional Rules” for the press (in force for the next forty years). Most books and journals exempt from preliminary censorship, but punitive censorship continues, under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. The excitement over the “great reforms” is over, and is followed by intense disillusionment. Some Land and Liberty members favour violence and form a secret society, the Organization, bent on assassinating particularly hated officials.
June—Tanya Behrs betrothed to Sergei Tolstoy, who deserts her at the last moment for the gypsy woman with whom he has been living for many years. July—first fragment of War and Peace (called The Year 1805) published.
25th February. I am so often alone with my thoughts that the need to write my diary comes quite naturally. Today it feels wonderfully pleasant to sit alone with my thoughts, not having to reveal them to a soul. Yesterday Lyovochka said he felt very young and I understood exactly what he meant. Now I am well again and not pregnant—it terrifies me how often I have been in that state. He said that for him being young means “I can achieve anything”. For me it means I want and can do anything. When the feeling passes, reason tells me there is nothing I want or can do beyond nursing, eating, drinking, sleeping and loving and caring for my husband and babies, all of which I know is a happiness of a kind, but why do I feel so woeful all the time, and weep as I did yesterday? I am writing this now with the pleasantly exciting sense that nobody will ever read it, so I can be quite frank with myself and not write for Lyovochka. He is away at the moment; he spends so little time with me now anyway. But when I feel young I prefer not to be with him, for I am afraid he will find me stupid and irritating. Dunyasha* says, “The Count has grown old.” Is this true? I often annoy him, he is absorbed in his writing, but it gives him no pleasure. Can it be that he has lost his capacity for enjoyment and fun? He talks of spending next winter in Moscow. I am sure he will be happier there, and I shall try to make the best of it. I have never admitted this, but even with Lyovochka, I am sometimes unconsciously a bit devious in order that he won’t see me in a bad light. I have never admitted to him just how vain and envious I am. When we are in Moscow I shall feel ashamed if I don’t have a carriage and horses with a liveried footman in attendance, a nice dress to wear, a fine apartment to live in and all the rest of it. Lyovochka is an extraordinary man; he cares nothing for any of this. That is true wisdom and virtue.
The children are my greatest joy. When I am alone I disgust myself, but they awaken the possibility of better feelings in me. Yesterday I prayed over Tanya, but I forget why. With the children I don’t feel young, but calm and happy.
6th March. Seryozha is ill. I am in a dream. Nothing is real. Better or worse, that’s all I understand. Lyovochka is energetic and independent, with the strength of mind to carry on writing. I feel he is strength and life itself, and I am a worm crawling over him and feeding off him. I am afraid of being weak. My nerves have been bad and I feel ashamed. I have such rever
ence for him, but I realize I have fallen so low as to sometimes pounce on his weaknesses. He has gone for a walk, I am alone and everything is silent. The children are fast asleep, the big stove is burning; upstairs it’s so clean and bare that the vivid scented orange blossoms seem out of place and even the sound of my own breathing frightens me. Lyovochka came in for a moment and I felt brighter. He is like a breath of fresh air.
8th March. I am feeling much gayer. Seryozha is better and the illness has passed. Lyova too is better, and is in thoroughly good spirits, but to me he is cold and indifferent. I am afraid to say he doesn’t love me. Yet the thought torments me, and that is why I feel so hesitant and bashful in my relations with him. I was in a frightful state during those sad days when Seryozha was ill. Suffering doesn’t subdue me, and that is bad. I was pursued by ghastly thoughts I am frightened and ashamed to admit. As Lyovochka was treating me so coldly and was forever going out of the house, I got it into my head that he was going off to see A.* This thought has been tormenting me all day, but now Seryozha has taken my mind off it, and I feel terribly ashamed. I should know him better by now. If it were true, how could he be so open and natural with me? It must be said, however, that as long as she and I live in close proximity every bad mood or cold word from him will reduce me to an agony of jealousy. What if he were suddenly to return and tell me?…Oh, what a lot of nonsense, I ought to be ashamed. I just felt obliged to confess this terrible thought that hovers in my mind.