The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy (6 page)

 

9th May
. He promised to be here at twelve o'clock and now it's two. Has something happened? How can he take such pleasure in tormenting me? You don't drive out a dog that licks your hand. Maman endured a similar fate to mine in the first year of her marriage, only it was worse for her, for Papa was always travelling around visiting patients and playing cards, whereas Lyova merely walks around the estate. But
I am also lonely and bored, also pregnant and ill. You learn so much more from experience than from the intellect. Youth is a misfortune, not a blessing, if you are married. You simply cannot be happy sitting there sewing or playing the piano alone, completely
alone
, and gradually becoming convinced that even though your husband may not love you, you are stuck there for ever and there you must sit. Maman told me her life got happier as she grew older; when her youth passed and her children arrived and she found something to focus her life on. That is how it will be with me too. I am moody and bad-tempered only because I'm bored with waiting for him since twelve o'clock alone. It is wicked of him not to have pity on me, as any moderately decent person would have for another suffering fellow creature.

 

6th June
. My brother Alexander and sister Tatyana have arrived to disturb our life and I'm sorry. They don't seem very cheerful. Or maybe it's just the chilly atmosphere here. They haven't cheered me up a bit, they've merely made me more anxious. I love Lyovochka intensely but it angers me that I should be in a relationship in which we're not equals. I am entirely dependent on him, and God knows I treasure his love. But he either takes mine for granted or doesn't need it, he seems to be alone in everything. I keep reminding myself that autumn will soon be here and all this will soon be over. I don't know what I mean by “all this”, though. And what sort of winter we shall have—or whether there will be a winter at all—I cannot imagine. It's terribly depressing that I should wish for nothing and nothing makes me happy, like an old woman, and how unbearable it would be to be old. I didn't want to go for a drive with them after he said: “You and I are old folk, let's stay put.” And it seemed such fun to stay at home with him, just the two of us, as though I had fallen in love with him against my parents' wishes. Now the others have driven off and he has gone out, and I am alone with my melancholy thoughts. I am angry with him for not giving me a carriage, which means I can never go out for a drive. It's much simpler for him to leave me on the sofa with a book and not bother his head about me. If I can stop being angry for a moment though, I realize he has a mountain of work which has nothing to do with me, and that running the estate is a gruelling labour; then there are the peasants visiting him all the time and never giving him a moment's peace. And there are those people who cheated him over the carriage, and it wasn't
his
fault—no, he is a
wonderful
man, I love him with all my heart.

 

7th June
. I love him madly. This feeling has taken a hold over me and overwhelms me. He is on the estate all the time, but I am not moping now and I feel happy. And he loves me, I think I can sense that. I fear this means I shall die—how terrible it would be to leave him. The more I get to know him the dearer he becomes to me. I think each day that I have never loved him so much—and next day I love him even more. Nothing exists for me but him and everything that concerns him.

 

14th July
. It's all over, the baby* has been born and my ordeal is over. I have risen from my bed and am gradually entering into life again, but with a constant feeling of dread about my baby and especially my husband. Something in me seems to have collapsed, and I sense that whatever it is it will always be there to torment me; it's probably the fear of not doing my duty towards
my family
. I feel terribly timid with my husband, as if I had wronged him in some way. I feel I am a burden, a foolish person (the same old theme!), even rather vulgar. I am frightened by the womb's love for its offspring, and frightened by my somewhat unnatural love for my husband. All this I try to hide, out of a feeling of shame I know to be stupid and false. I sometimes comfort myself with the thought that most people see this love of one's husband and children as a virtue. I shall never go any further than this I fear, although I should like to be a bit better educated—my education was so bad—again if only for my husband's sake and that of my children. But how strong these maternal feelings are! It strikes me as quite natural and not at all strange that I am now a mother. He is Lyovochka's child, that's why I love him. His present state of mind makes me very anxious. He has such a wealth of ideas and feelings and it is all being wasted. I truly appreciate his great qualities. God knows I would give anything to make him happy.

 

23rd July
. I have been married for ten months and my spirits are flagging. I automatically seek support as my baby seeks the breast, and I am in agonizing pain. Lyova is murderous. He cannot run the estate—I'm not cut out for it, he says. He is restless.* Nothing here satisfies him; I know what he wants and I cannot give it to him. Nothing is sweet to me. Like a dog I have grown used to his caresses, but he has grown cold. I console myself that there are bound to be days like this. But they are all too frequent.
Patience
. I shall now go and sacrifice myself to my son…

 

31st July
. What he says is so
banal
. I know things are terrible, but why should he be so angry?* Whose fault is it? Our relations are frightful, and at such a painful time as this too. He has become so unpleasant that I try all day to avoid him. When he says, “I'm going to bed,” or “I'm going to have a bath,” I think, thank God. It breaks my heart to sit with my little son. God has taken both my husband and my son from me—to think how devoutly we used to pray to Him. Now I feel everything is over. Patience, I keep telling myself. We were at least blessed with a happy past. I have loved him so much and am grateful to him for everything. I have just been reading his diary. At that wonderful poetic moment everything seemed vile to him. “These past nine months have been practically the worst in my life,” he wrote—to say nothing of the tenth. How often he must secretly have asked himself why he got married. And how often he has said aloud to me, “What has become of my old self?”*

 

2nd August
. It was not written for me to read. Why am I idling my life away? You'd do well to pull yourself together, Sofia Andreevna. Grief like this can wear you down. I have sternly forbidden myself ever to mention his name again. Maybe it will pass.

 

3rd August
. It has started raining and I'm afraid he'll catch cold. I am not angry any more. I love him. God bless him.

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.