Two large strikes in Odessa. Peasants near Kiev start to redistribute the land amongst themselves and dispatch one of their number to St Petersburg to petition the Tsar.
January—chapters 1–14 of Anna Karenina appear in the Russian Herald. 2nd February—ten-month-old Nikolai dies in agony of meningitis. 1st November—Sofia gives birth to a baby girl, Varvara, who dies immediately afterwards. December—Aunt Pelageya dies after a fall. Tolstoy prone to ever more severe doubts and depressions.
12th October. This isolated country life is becoming intolerable. Dismal apathy, indifference to everything, day after day, month after month, year after year—nothing changes. I wake up in the morning and lie there wondering who will get me up, who is waiting for me. The cook is bound to come in, then Nurse, complaining that the servants are grumbling about the food and there’s no sugar, which means we must send for more. So then I get up, my shoulder aching, and sit silently darning holes, and then it’s time for the children’s grammar and piano lessons, which I do with pleasure, although with the sad realization that I’m not doing it as well as I should. Then in the evening more darning, with Auntie* and Lyovochka playing endless horrible games of patience together. I get some brief pleasure from reading, but how many good books are there? On days like today I feel I’m living in a dream. But no, this is life, not a dream. Surely it can’t go on much longer. My hope is that God will light the spark of life in Lyovochka and he will be the person he used to be.*