"The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the world. We marry to assist each other in this task. The most selfish and hateful life of all is that of two beings who unite in order to enjoy life. The highest calling is that of the man who has dedicated his life to serving God and doing good, and who unites with a woman in order to further that purpose."
Before sending the letter, Tolstoy read it to his family. The girls found it sublime, but were surprised that it made 110 mention of "the love of man for woman and the blessings of procreation." The recipient's feelings were in no way altered by this cold shower and on February 28, 1888 Ilya married Sofya Philosofov, with the uneasy blessing of Leo and Sonya Tolstoy.
Leo, the third son, born in 1869, was a restless, changeable boy who, after a brief flirtation with the Tolstoyan doctrincs, soon derided them. For the present, acute inertia was the only noteworthy feature of An- drcy and Michael, the youngest boys, really 110 more than children.
Disappointed in his sons, Tolstoy took what comfort he could in his daughters. Tatyana (Tanya), the eldest, was a light-hearted, obedient, bright girl with mannish features and a brusque manner. Painting was her passion, but she also wanted to elevate her soul. At first she was attracted by society, but quickly abandoned it in favor of her father's precepts. In 1885 he had written: "It is far more important for you to take carc of your own room and cook your own soup than to make
a good marriage." This sentence dominated her for the rest of her days. With the zeal of a neophyte, she forced herself to wash her own linen, care for the poor and follow a vegetarian diet. Her private diary hears witness to her strivings after perfection. If she saw Mikhailo the tailor and his apprentice Sergey sewing a "sleeveless bolero" for her, she immediately loathed herself for her selfishness and uselessness: "The money I give them cannot compensate for the fact that two human beings have bent their backs and labored for me all day, whilst I did nothing for them." If a few days passed without her meeting any beggars, she deplored the fact as a guilty respite for her conscience: "Everything is hidden from us, even this living reproach, so that it may be impossible for us to remember that there arc men who are starving and naked." She thought of death, and calmed her fears by recalling her father's words: "If you rcgTct the loss of your body, think that every gram of it will surely serve some purpose and nothing will be lost. Nor will your spirit die." If the coachman caught cold waiting for her while she played cards with friends, she asked herself, in shame, "When will these poor people cease their senile obcdicncc to those who pay them?"3
Nevertheless, in spite of her desire to be worthy in all rcspccts of the great man whose name she bore, she could not always stifle nature. She loved the theater, she liked young men to pay court to her, and found it both "odious and enjoyable" to order pretty new dresses and shoes. Also, she understood her mother, although she did not agree with her, and pitied her and endeavored, by a constant display of affection, to make life bearable for her at home. "Mainan is torn apart," she wrote. "She works hard for the money that we, that is, Ilya, Masha and I, consider superfluous; and yet we insist on having it, in clothcs and all sorts of other things, and she is continually irritated by our inconsistency. It hurts rnc so to see her fighting against the good, that is, what Papa believes to be good, and is good indeed; to see how intolerant she is with anyone who makes an effort to improve Ills life. ... I am talking nonsense. I sound as though I am judging her, when in fact all I feel for her is love, tenderness and compassion."
She wanted to be her father's favorite, and was hurt because he seemed to take more interest in Masha. She secretly observed her younger sister and found her deceitful, obsequious and intriguing. "She licks Father's boots!" she wrote in disgust. Out of pride, in order not to be like her, she forced herself to disagree with the great man when all the time she was wanting to say he was right. After she chanced upon Masha's diary, she vented hcT spleen in her own: "It is a great misfortune to have a nature like hers: lying, scheming and, at the same
time, senuous and ostentatiously lofty and noble." And later, "When she is away, Papa is much sweeter to me. Comparing us, he must naturally see that she models herself after him more than I do, is more attentive to him, believes in him more blindly than I do."
If the thought of marriage occasionally crossed her mind, she thrust it out of sight. No husband could ever measure up to her father's knee. "Why marry, as long as he is there? If I were to get married I should be terribly afraid of losing contact with him," she wrote. Besides, she was horrified by her mother's description of the sexual relations between couples. "I am very happy to think that I am a virgin and have not had to undergo that fearful humiliation all married women suffer, as Mother's remarks have made so clear to me; she was so ashamed the morning after her wedding that she did not want to leave her room. She hid her face in the pillow and cricd. I am proud not to have known that and I wish I may never know it!"4
On this point Masha agreed with her older sister. For her, too, the ideal husband was Papa. She looked like him, moreover; she had his penetrating little gray eyes, his too high forehead, his thick nose and high chcekbones. Six and one-half years younger than Tanya, she was less easy-going, less sociable, more tormented and possessive than her sister. She had felt her father's moral isolation at a very early age, and resolved always to remain by his side. Putting "Tolstoyan Christianity" into practice, she, like Tanya, but even more than Tanya, followed a vegetarian diet and went in for manual labor and deeds of charity. She wanted to bccome a schooltcacher and devote her life to the muzhiks. Sonya, who had scant affection for her, disdainfully replied, "You were born counts and countcsses and counts and countesses you will remain." But Tolstoy was touched by his daughter's noble aspirations, and wrote in his diary, "I feel great tenderness toward her. Her only. She makes up for the others, I might say."
Gradually, he began to give her his correspondence to file and his manuscripts to copy, and dictated his letters to her. Every time Masha entered the paternal study, Sonya choked with jealousy. After serving him faithfully as secretary for twenty-five years, she could not bear to see her own daughter take her place beside Lyovochka. It was as though her husband were being unfaithful to her with the child. She would probably have suffered less had he hired an outsider, if only because adultery is easier to accept than incest. "I used to be the one who copied everything he wrote," she recorded on November 20, 1890. "It was my joy. Today he assiduously hides everything from me and entrusts his manuscripts to his daughter to copy. He is systematically killing me, cutting me off from his personal life, and it hurts me dreadfully. . . .
I would like to commit suicide, run away, fall in love with someone else." Less than a month later, observing that young Paul Biryukov, Chertkov's friend and Lyovochka's disciple, had become sufficiently enamored of Masha to contemplate marriage, she was at first offended by his impertinence and then took a malicious delight in it: "I'd like to get rid of Masha. Why keep her here? Let her marry Biryukov. Then I shall have my old placc next to Lyovochka, I shall copy his manuscripts and keep his affairs in order."5 A short while later came this dreadful cry: "Masha is a cross Cod has given me to bear. From the day of her birth she has given me nothing but trouble. She is a stranger in the family."0
The stranger remained in the family despite the young man's sighs, and Sonya was both relieved and disappointed. In fact, Masha's departure would not really have clcarcd the air in the house. It was impossible, in the same time and place, to lead the social life Sonya delighted in and the communitarian existence Lvovochka dreamed of. At Yasnava Polyana the countess continued her custom of entertaining extensively, neighbors, friends and relatives, all people of good breeding, polished by culture and dressed with discrimination, who rolled up with their servants in tow. There were picnics, bathing parties, croquet and tennis matches, concerts, amateur plays. But in addition to these distinguished guests, there were what the servants called "the Dark Ones." They came to look at the master, tell him how much they admired him, extort some piece of advice or money from him and help with his manual labors. Sonya wrinkled up her nose in their presence, for many of them gave off an unpleasant smell. She perceived the same smell on her husband's clothes after lie had been with them, and would light her perfume burner; and he would say, with a laugh, that she was "chasing away the evil spirits with incense."