by Cathy Porter
Like Anna Karenina, she asserts the finer feelings in a barbaric society hostile to enlightenment. Her struggle too is against sexual hypocrisy, but it is also against herself, against her own split psyche and her unloving husband. “If personal salvation and the spiritual life means killing one’s closest friend, then Lyovochka’s salvation is assured,” she writes. “But isn’t this the death of us both?” Her diaries are a terrible reminder of the price of genius and the sacrifices made in its name.
The translation of these immense diaries has given me an all too uncomfortably close understanding of Sofia Tolstoy’s despair. The burden has been lightened by help and encouragement from many people too numerous to mention, but I am especially grateful to Professor Reginald Christian, of St Andrews University, for his invaluable suggestions and corrections; to Della Couling, for her patient and sensitive editing; to Barbara Alpern Engel, of the University of Colorado, for her inspiring work on women in nineteenth-century Russia; to Lily Feiler, for sharing with me her enthusiasm for Sofia Tolstoy, and to Dr Faith Wigzell, of the School of Slavonic Studies, London University, for her help with the translation.
In a work of this length, problems of accuracy seem to multiply exponentially, and all such errors are my responsibility. However, because I have opted whenever possible for a literal translation, I have tried not to alter Sofia’s own inconsistencies and inaccuracies, particularly when these are clarified in the notes, so that when a name, date or book title in the text does not correspond with that given in the notes, it is the note version which should be taken as correct.
Unless otherwise stated, dates given in the diaries correspond to the old (Julian) calendar, twelve days behind the Western (Gregorian) calendar in the nineteenth century, and thirteen days behind in the twentieth. Russia didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1918, a year before her death.
I
Diaries 1862–1910
1862
Tsar Alexander II’s emancipation of the serfs the previous year ushers in the “era of great reforms”—of law courts, the army and local government.
On 23rd September, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy and Sofia Behrs are married in Moscow, and move immediately to Tolstoy’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana, near Tula. December to February 1863, the Tolstoys visit Moscow to see his novel The Cossacks published.
8th October. My diary again. It’s sad to be going back to old habits I gave up since I got married. I used to write when I felt depressed—now I suppose it’s for the same reason.
Relations with my husband have been so simple these past two weeks and I felt so happy with him; he was my diary and I had nothing to hide from him.
But ever since yesterday, when he told me he didn’t trust my love, I have been feeling terrible. I know why he doesn’t trust me, but I don’t think I shall ever be able to say or write what I really think. I always dreamt of the man I would love as a completely whole, new, pure person. In these childish dreams, which I find hard to give up, I imagined that this man would always be with me, that I would know his slightest thought and feeling, that he would love nobody but me as long as he lived, and that he, like me and unlike others, would not have to sow his wild oats before becoming a respectable person.
Since I married I have had to recognize how foolish these dreams were, yet I cannot renounce them. The whole of my husband’s past is so ghastly that I don’t think I shall ever be able to accept it.* Unless I can discover other interests in my life, like the children I long for, since they will give me a firm future and show me what real purity is, without all the abominations of his past and everything else that makes me so bitter towards my husband. He cannot understand that his past is another world to me, with thousands of different feelings, good and bad, which can never belong to me, just as his youth, squandered on God knows what or whom, can never be mine either. I am giving him everything; not one part of me has been wasted elsewhere. Even my childhood belonged to him. My fondest memories are of my first childish love for him, and it is not my fault if this love was destroyed. He had to fritter away his life and strength, he had to experience so much evil before he could feel anything noble; now his love for me seems to him something strong and good—but only because it’s such a long, long time since he lived a good life as I do. There are bad things in my past too, but not so many as in his.
He loves to torment me and see me weep because he doesn’t trust me. He wishes I had lived as evil a life as him, so that I might more fully appreciate goodness. It irritates him that happiness has come so easily to me, and that I accepted him without hesitation or remorse. But I have too much self-respect to cry. I don’t want him to see me suffer; let him think it’s easy for me. Yesterday while Grandfather was here I went downstairs especially to see him and was suddenly overwhelmed by an extraordinary feeling of love and strength. At that moment I loved him so much I longed to go up to him; but then I felt the moment I touched him I shouldn’t feel so happy—almost like a sacrilege. But I never shall or can let him know what is going on within me. I have so much foolish pride—the slightest hint that he misunderstands or mistrusts me throws me into despair. What is he doing to me? Little by little I shall withdraw completely from him and poison his life. Yet I feel so sorry for him at those times when he doesn’t trust me; his eyes fill with tears and his face is so gentle and sad. I could smother him with love at those moments, and yet the thought haunts me: “He doesn’t trust me, he doesn’t trust me.” Today I began to feel we were drifting further and further apart. I am creating my own world for myself and he is making himself a practical life filled with distrust. And I thought how vulgar this kind of relation was. And I began to distrust his love too. When he kisses me I am always thinking, “I am not the first woman he has loved.” It hurts me so much that my love for him—the dearest thing in the world to me because it is my first and last love—should not be enough for him. I too have loved other men, but only in my imagination—whereas he has loved and admired so many women, all so pretty and lively, all with different faces, characters and souls, just as he now loves and admires me. I know these thoughts are petty and vulgar but I can’t help it, it is his past that is to blame. I can’t forgive God for making men sow their wild oats before they can become decent people. And I can’t help feeling hurt that my husband should come into this common category of person. And then he thinks I don’t love him. Why would I care so much about him if I didn’t love him? Why else would I try to understand his past and his present, and what may interest him in the future? It’s hopeless—how can a wife prove her love to a husband who tells her he married her only because he had to, even though she never loved him? As if I had ever, for one moment, regretted my past, or could dream of not loving him. Does he enjoy seeing me cry when I realize how difficult our relations are, and how we shall gradually drift further apart spiritually? Toys for the cat are tears for the mouse. But this toy is fragile, and if he breaks it, it will be he who cries. I cannot bear the way he is wearing me down. Yet he is a wonderful, good person. He too loathes everything evil, he cannot bear it. I used to love everything beautiful, my soul knew the meaning of ecstasy—now all that has died in me. No sooner am I happy than he crushes me.
9th October. Yesterday we opened our hearts and I feel much better. We went horse riding today, which was splendid, but I feel downcast all the same. I had a depressing dream last night and it is weighing on me, although I don’t remember it in detail. I thought of Maman today and grew dreadfully sad, but I don’t regret my past, I shall always bless it, for I have known great happiness. My husband seems much calmer now and I think he trusts me again, God willing. It’s true, I realize I do not make him very happy. I seem to be asleep all the time and unable to wake up. If I did, I am sure I would be a completely different person, but I don’t know how. Then he would realize how much I love him, for I should be able to tell him of my love. I should be able to see into his soul as I used to, and know how to make him happy again. I must wake up at once, I must. I am fright
ened of being on my own. He won’t let me into his room, which makes me very sad. All physical things disgust him.
11th October. I am terribly sad, and am withdrawing further and further into myself. My husband is ill and out of sorts and doesn’t love me. I expected this, but never imagined it would be so terrible. He grows colder and colder every day, while I love him more and more. His coldness will soon be unbearable to me. Of course, he is much too honest to deceive me. If he doesn’t love me he would never pretend to do so, but when he does love me I can see it in his every movement. Lyovochka is a wonderful man, and I feel everything is my fault, yet I am afraid to show him how sad I am for I know how bored men are by foolish melancholy. I used to console myself that it would pass and everything would be all right again, but now I feel things will never get better and will become a great deal worse. Papa writes to me: “Your husband loves you passionately.” It’s true, he did love me passionately, but passion passes, and what nobody realized is that he was attracted to me without loving me. Why have I ruined this dear man whom everybody loves so much?
“You’ll be happy, you’ll see,” people used to tease me. “Don’t worry so much!” Now I have lost everything, all my energy for work, life and household tasks has been wasted, and I want only to sit in silence all day, thinking bitter thoughts. I wanted to do some work, but couldn’t; why should I dress up in that stupid bonnet which makes my head ache? I long to play the piano but it’s so awkward; upstairs you can be heard all over the house and downstairs the piano is too bad to play. I can hear him now playing a piano duet upstairs with Olga. Poor man, he is always looking for something to divert him and take him away from me. What is the point of living?
13th November. An unlucky date. But I have spoken to him, and like a true egoist, I always feel much better after I have had him in my room and set my mind at rest.
It is true, I cannot find anything to occupy me. He is fortunate because he is talented and clever. I am neither. One cannot live by love alone, but I am too stupid to do anything but sit and think about him. He has only to feel slightly under the weather and I think, “What if he dies?” and these hideous thoughts make me wretched for the next three hours. When he is cheerful, I worry only that this mood will pass and can think of nothing else. Whenever he is away or busy I think of him constantly, listening out for him or watching the expression on his face. It’s probably because I am pregnant that I am in such an abnormal state; it affects him too I know. It’s not hard to find work, there’s plenty to do, but first you have to enjoy breeding hens, tinkling on the piano, reading a lot of fourth-rate books and precious few good ones and pickling cucumbers. I am sure all this will come once I’ve forgotten my idle girlhood ways and grown used to living in the country. I am waiting for that bright day when things run as smoothly as a machine and I can start to live an active life. I am asleep now, nothing brings me excitement or joy—neither the trip to Moscow, nor the thought of the baby. I wish I could take some remedy to wake me up.
I haven’t prayed for a long time. Before, I used to love the external aspects of religious ritual. When nobody was looking I would light a wax candle before the icon, put some flowers there, lock the door, kneel on the floor and pray for hours. It seems silly and ridiculous, but I love remembering it. My life is so serious now. Over the next few years I shall make myself a serious female world, and love it even more than the old one because it will contain my husband and my children, whom one loves more than one’s parents and brothers and sisters. But I haven’t settled down yet. I still swing between my past and my future. My husband loves me too much to tell me how to live my life; besides, it’s difficult, it’s something I must work out for myself. He too feels I have changed. With patience I shall be as I used to be, although no longer a young girl but a woman; I shall wake up then, and both of us will be happy.
23rd November. He disgusts me with his talk of the “people”. I feel it’s either me, representing his family, or the people, whom he loves so passionately. If this is selfish, so be it. I live through him and want him to live for me, otherwise I feel suffocated in this place. Today I ran out of the house because everyone and everything disgusted me—Auntie,* his peasant students, the walls, life. I slipped out and ran off alone, and wanted to laugh and shout for joy. L. no longer disgusted me, but I suddenly realized how far apart we were: his “people” could never absorb all my attention, and I could never fully absorb his as he does mine. If I don’t interest him, if he sees me as a doll, merely his wife, not a human being, then I will not and cannot live like that.* Of course I am idle at present, but I am not so by nature; I simply haven’t discovered anything I can do. He gets angry. Let him, I feel happy and free today because I am on my own, and although he has been very morose he has left me alone, thank God. I know he has a brilliant mind, he is poetic and intelligent and has many talents, but it makes me angry that he sees only the gloomy side of things. He has been so gloomy these days I could have wept. He won’t talk to me. It’s terrible to live with him—he’ll get carried away by his love for the common people again and I shall be done for, because he loves me merely as he used to love his school, nature, the people, maybe his writing, all of which he loved a little, one after the other, until it was time for something new. Aunt came in and asked why I had run out and where I had been, and I wanted to needle her and said I was escaping from the students, for she always defends them. But it wasn’t true. I’m not the least bit angry with the students, it’s only old habit that makes me grumble and complain like this. I went out simply because I was bored with doing nothing. I shall go and play the piano now. He is in the bath. He is a stranger to me today.
16th December. One of these days I think I shall kill myself with jealousy. “In love as never before!” he writes. With that fat, pale peasant woman—how frightful!* I looked at the dagger and the guns with such joy. One blow, I thought, how easy it would be—if only it weren’t for the baby. Yet to think she is there, just a few steps away. I feel demented. I shall go for a drive. I may even see her. So he really did love her! I should like to burn his diary and the whole of his past.
I have returned and am feeling worse; my head aches, I am distraught, my heart is heavy. I felt free outside in the open air—if only I could always breathe as freely as that. But life is so petty. Love is hard—when you love it takes your breath away, you lay down your life and soul for it and it’s with you as long as you live. It would be narrow and mean, this little world of mine, if it weren’t for him. Yet it’s impossible for us to join together our two worlds. He is so intelligent, he has such energy, and then there is that dreadful, endless past of his. And mine is so small and insignificant. I felt terrified today by the thought of our journey to Moscow, for I shall become even more insignificant there. I have been reading the openings of some of his works, and the very mention of love or women makes me feel so disgusted and depressed I would gladly burn everything.
If I could kill him and create a new person exactly the same as he is now, I would do so happily.
1863
28th June—birth of the couple’s son, Sergei. Shortly afterwards Tolstoy talks of going to war (possibly to put down the Polish uprising against Russian domination). But instead he starts on War and Peace. Summer—Sofia’s seventeen-year-old sister Tanya Behrs visits Yasnaya Polyana and embarks on a romance with Tolstoy’s brother Sergei, twenty years her senior.
9th January. Never in my life have I felt so wretched with remorse.* Never did I imagine I could be so much to blame. I have been choked with tears all day, and am afraid to talk to him or look at him. I love him deeply, he has never been so precious to me, and I feel so worthless and loathsome. Yet he is not even angry and still loves me, and his face is so gentle and saintly. A man like this could make one die of humility. Mental pain has made me physically ill. I thought I would miscarry, I was in such pain. I have been praying all day, trying to lighten my crime and undo what I have done. I feel a little easier when he isn’t here, for t
hen I can cry and love him. When he is here my conscience tortures me; it’s agony to see his sweet face, which I have avoided looking at since yesterday evening. How could I have treated him so badly? I have racked my brains for some way of making amends for that stupid word—or not so much make amends as make myself a better person for him. I cannot love him any more than I already do. I already love him to such excess, with all my heart and soul, that there is nothing in my mind but my love for him, nothing. There is absolutely no evil in him, nothing I could ever dream of reproaching him for.
11th January. I am calmer now because he is being a little kinder to me. But my unhappiness is still so fresh that every memory of it brings on a terrible physical pain in my head and body—I feel it passing through my veins and nerves.
He saw this diary but hasn’t referred to it, I don’t know if he has read it. It was vile and I have no desire to reread it.
I am alone and afraid, which is why I wanted to write sincerely and at length, but fear has confused my thoughts. I am afraid of being frightened now that I’m pregnant. My jealousy is a congenital illness, or maybe in loving him I have nothing else to love; I’ve given myself so completely to him that my only happiness is with him and I am afraid of losing him, as old men fear to lose an only child on whom their whole life depends. People always told me I wasn’t egotistical, although this is really the most complete egotism. But I love him so much that this too will pass. Only I shall need a lot of patience and strength of will, otherwise it will be no good. There are days when I am morbidly in love with him, and this is one of those days. It is always so when I have done something wrong. It hurts me to look at him, listen to him or be with him, like a devil in the presence of a saint.
