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.