Leo Tolstoy полностью

Andrei and Liubov’ had five sons and three daughters. Tolstoy loved to spend time with the teenage girls and even played leapfrog with them. The sisters, all of whom had developed literary interests, admired ‘the count’ (‘le comte’) as they called him among themselves. Unlike Levin, his future novelistic alter ego, Tolstoy also had the allure of being a famous writer. In Russian families it was traditional to marry off daughters in order of age. When the Berses first detected Tolstoy’s matrimonial intentions, they were confident that he was interested in nineteen-year-old Liza (Elizaveta), the most serious and well behaved of their daughters, whom they believed to be better prepared for matrimony than her younger siblings.

Tolstoy also was considering this possibility: ‘Liza Bers tempts me, but nothing will come of it’ (Ds, p. 145), he wrote in his diary in September 1861. Next year events took a sudden and dramatic turn. On his way to the Samara steppes for a course of kumys treatment, Tolstoy stayed with the Berses for a day. After his departure, the youngest sister, Tanya (Tatiana), found the middle one, Sonya (Sofia), in tears. ‘Do you love the count?’ asked a surprised Tanya, well known for her ability to ask awkward questions. ‘I don’t know,’ answered Sonya, sobbing. ‘His two brothers died from consumption’ (Kuz, p. 89). Sonya had already promised her heart to a student, Mitrofan Polivanov, and fifteen-year-old Tanya, as she recalled many decades later, was struck by a sudden realization of the inherent duality of human feelings. After ‘the count’ returned from Samara the Berses paid two short visits to Yasnaya Polyana, where Tolstoy first took notice of Sonya not so much as a little girl, but as a charming young woman. By the time he reached Moscow in August 1862, Tolstoy was already asking himself the perennial question: did the feelings he was experiencing amount to real love? ‘I am afraid for myself – what if this is only the desire for love, and not love? I try to look only at her weak sides, but still. A child! It could be’ (Ds, p. 146).

Sisters Sofia (Sonya) and Tatiana (Tanya) Bers in 1861.

In the short and tumultuous romance that rapidly started to unfold between a 34-year-old man with rich and varied experience and an innocent girl of eighteen, Sonya took a definite lead. Already in August she was telling Tolstoy that she had written a story describing the complex situation in the family. As her younger sister recalled, the story had two characters: the middle-aged Prince Dublitsky, energetic and intelligent with ‘unattractive appearance’ and ‘fickle opinions’, and Smirnov, a young man of positive, calm temperament with ‘lofty ideals’. The female character Elena was a young and beautiful girl with big black eyes. She had two sisters: the elder, cold Zinaida in love with Dublitsky, and the younger, lively Natasha. Smirnov fell in love with Elena, and proposed to her, but her parents were hesitant, considering the couple too young for marriage. Suddenly Elena started to realize that she loved Dublitsky, who also preferred her to her sister, and felt guilty before both Zinaida and Smirnov. At some point, exhausted by the inner conflict, Elena contemplated retiring to a convent, but finally managed to arrange a marriage between Dublitsky and Zinaida while herself marrying Smirnov.

The Preshpekt, the main route to the house in Yasnaya Polyana, 1903–5.

On 26 August 1862 Sonya handed the story to Tolstoy who, as usual, was deeply unsure whether he deserved to be loved. It is difficult to imagine a more provocative move. Sofia’s story made the renowned author feel encouraged, touched, excited and mortified at the same time:

She gave me a story to read. What force of truth and simplicity! The uncertainty torments her. I read it without a sinking heart, jealousy or envy, but ‘unusually unattractive appearance’ and ‘fickleness of opinions’ touched me on the raw. I am calmed down now. All this is not for me. (Ds, p. 146)

In his diary Tolstoy reflected further about Sonya’s possible intentions, using his characteristic psychological analysis of the layered structure of human motives: ‘On the way back I thought: either it is all unintentional, or her feelings are unusually subtle, or it is the basest coquetry . . . or else it’s unintentional and subtle and coquettish’ (Ds, p. 147).