March—law forbidding peasant households to break up unless approved by a two-thirds majority of the village. 6th June—law tightening up labour contracts, while stiffening up penalties for striking.
18th January—four-year-old Alexei Tolstoy dies of quinsy. Tolstoy writing ‘Walk in the Light’, ‘The Death of Ivan Ilich’ and a very long essay called ‘On Life and Death’, and finishes ‘What Then Must We Do?’ He also dictates to Sofia his play, The Power of Darkness. Sofia preparing eighth edition of his works (which Chertkov hopes to produce more cheaply). November—Sofia’s mother dies in the Crimea. The Archbishop of Kherson and Odessa denounces Tolstoy as a heretic.
25th October (Yasnaya Polyana). Everybody in this house—especially Lev Nikolaevich, whom the children follow like a herd of sheep—has foisted on me the role of scourge. Having loaded me with all the responsibilities for the children and their education, the finances, the estate, the housekeeping, indeed the entire material side of life—from which they derive a great deal more benefit than I do—they then come up to me with a cold, calculating, hypocritical expression masked in virtue, and beseech me in ingratiating tones to give a peasant a horse, some money, a bit of flour and heaven knows what else. It is not my job to manage the farm—I have neither time nor aptitude for it. How can I simply give the peasant a horse if I don’t know if it will be needed at the farm at a particular moment? All these tedious requests, when I know so little about the state of affairs here, irritate and confuse me.
My God, how often I long to abandon it all and take my life. I am so tired of struggling and suffering. The egotism and unconscious malice of the people one loves most is very great indeed! Why do I carry on despite all this? I don’t know; I suppose because I must. I can’t do what my husband wants (so he says), without breaking all the practical and emotional chains that have bound me to my family. Day and night I think only of how to leave this house, leave this life, leave this cruelty, all these excessive demands on me. I have grown to love the dark. The moment it is dark I feel happier, for then I can conjure up the things I used to love, all the ghosts from my past. Last night I caught myself thinking aloud, and was terrified that I might be going mad. Surely if I crave the dark I must crave death too?
Although the last two months when Lev Nikolaevich was ill* were an agonizing time for me, strangely enough they were also very happy. I nursed him day and night and what I had to do was so natural, so simple. It is really the only thing I can do well—making a personal sacrifice for the man I love. The harder the work, the happier I was. Now that he is on his feet again and almost well, he has given me to understand that he no longer needs me. So on the one hand I have been discarded like a useless object, and on the other, impossible, undefined sacrifices are demanded of me, in my life and in my family, and I am expected to renounce everything, all my property, all my beliefs, the education and well-being of my children—things which not only I, a fairly determined woman, but thousands of others who believe in these precepts, are incapable of doing.*
It’s a grey and miserable autumn. Andryusha and Misha have been skating on the Lower Pond. Both Tanya and Masha have toothaches. Lev Nikolaevich is starting on a new play, about peasant life.* I pray to God that he may take up this kind of work again. He has rheumatism in his arm. Mme Seuron* is a pleasant, cheerful woman, very good with the children.
The boys, Seryozha, Ilya and Lyova, live mysterious lives in Moscow and it worries me. They have such strange views about human passions and their own weaknesses: according to them these things are completely natural, and if they do manage to resist them they consider themselves very fine fellows indeed. But why are people bound to have these weaknesses? Naturally one struggles to overcome one’s failings, but this is something that happens once in a lifetime, not every day of one’s life. And it is well worth the struggle too, even though it often destroys one’s life and breaks one’s heart. But it has nothing to do with nasty, commonplace little passions like cards or wine.
I am reading the lives of the philosophers.* It is terribly interesting, but difficult to read calmly and sensibly. One always searches for the philosophical teachings that approximate to one’s own convictions, and ignores anything incompatible with them. As a result it is difficult to learn anything new. But I try not to be prejudiced.
26th October. Lyovochka has written the first act of his play and I am going to copy it out. I wonder why I no longer blindly believe in him as a writer.
Andryusha and Misha are playing with the peasant boys Mitrosha and Ilyukha, which I dislike for some reason—I suppose because it will teach them to dominate and coerce these children, which is immoral.
I think a lot about the older boys—it grieves me that they have grown so distant. Why do fathers not grieve for their children? Why is it only women whose lives are burdened in this way? Life is so confusing.
27th October. I have copied the 1st act of Lyovochka’s new play. It is very good. The characters are wonderfully portrayed and the plot is full and interesting; there will be more too. A letter came from Ilya mentioning marriage.* Surely this is just an infatuation, the first awakening of physical feelings for the first woman with whom he has been in close relations? I do not know whether to welcome this marriage or not—I cannot approve of it quite frankly, but I trust in God. I gave Andryusha and Misha their lessons today without much enthusiasm for success—they are both so dear to me. I have been correcting proofs and am very tired. Meanwhile Masha runs about and does no lessons, the boys harass me and things are in a bad way.
30th October. Act 2 is now finished. I got up early to start copying it out, and recopied it this evening. It is good, but rather flat—it needs more theatrical effects, and I told Lyovochka so. I gave Andryusha and Misha their lessons, corrected proofs, and the whole day was taken up by work. Just as I was sitting down to dinner the girls asked me for some money, on Lyovochka’s behalf, for some old woman and for Ganya the thief. I wanted to eat my dinner and was annoyed with everyone for being late, and I had no desire to give any money to that Ganya woman. So I lied and said I didn’t have any—although I did in fact have a few rubles left. But later I felt ashamed, and after I had had my soup I went and got the money. I said nothing, just sat and pondered: can one really find it in one’s heart to love everyone and everything, as Lyovochka demands? Even that woman Ganya the thief, who has systematically robbed every person in the village, has a hideous disease and is a thoroughly vile person.