Tolstoy often took Tanya riding with him in the forest, while Sonya moped at home. At the side of the nineteen-year-old girl, he savored the coolness of a mountain spring; but all the time he was basking in the ambiguous pleasure of her company, the novelist in him was not forgotten. During their halts under the shade of the big trees, he questioned his sister-in-law about her adolescent loves. Flattered by his interest, she told him of her first crushes, her wild schemes, her passion for her cousin Alexander Kuzminsky, followed by a more intense attachment to a bold and glamorous hothead named Anatol Shostak. He listened, his mind vibrant. Unwittingly, Tanya was injecting life into the veins of Natasha Rostov, and in the novel Anatol Shostak became Anatol Kuragin, the man who wanted to elope with Natasha.*
At Yasnaya Polyana, however, the forsaken spouse took umbrage at these long rambles by her husband and sister. "I am angry with Tanya, she is taking up too much space in Lyovochka's life," she wrote as early as May 3, 1865. "They arc inseparable. Going to Nikolskoye, hunting, on horseback or on foot, always together. Yesterday, for the first time, I felt jealous of Tanya and today I am suffering because of her. I let her take my horse, which I think was very good of me. . . . And
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• Tolstoy often let the characters in his books keep the first names of their leal- life models, changing only their family names.
they have gone off hunting in the forest, alone. . . . Gocl knows what is going through my head. . . ."
The only thought that could allay her suspicions was that although Tanya admired Lyovochka, she was really in love with his brother Sergey. True, she was only nineteen and Sergey thirty-nine, but he was not unattractive, with his world-weary air, blue eyes and casual elegance. lie was said to have "lived" a great deal. Looking into the distance, he would sigh, "The only good things in life are the song of the nightingale, love, moonlight and music." Tanya found him extremely attractive. Their idyl had gone on for two years and, despite the difference in their ages, the Behrs were not opposed to the idea that their youngest daughter should also marry a Tolstoy. Sonya, at any rate, was wildly in favor of the scheme. Was Tanya's happiness uppermost in her thoughts, or was it her own peace of mind? She decided that the marriage must be consummated before the end of the summer. Under pressure from her, the couple let themselves be convinced. "The fate of Tanya and Sergey was decidcd the day before yesterday," she wrote on June 9, 1865. "They will marry! What a pleasure to see them, to sec their happiness, I can enjoy it more than I did my own. They arc out walking in the garden. . . . The wedding will take place in four or five weeks. . . ." After a month of negotiation, kissing, daydreaming on the balcony and planning for the future, coup de theatre! Sonya, foaming with rage, flung herself upon her diary, her pen scorching the paper: "July 12, 1865. It's all off. Sergey has let Tanya down and behaved like the lowest of cowards. ... I shall do everything in my power to get even with him!"
She ought, however, to have known what was coming. For years Sergey had been living at Pirogovo with Marya Shishkin, the gypsy, and had several children by hcr.f Tins disreputable liaison did not count in Sonya's eyes, and she was convinced that her brother-in-law, being a man of honor, would find some way of disposing of the wretched woman before the wedding. But Sergey—the fool!—had a last-minute attack of conscience. When he was with Tanya, nothing was too great a sacrifice for her, but when he went back to Pirogovo, he did not have the heart to evict his companion of such long standing, a gentle, humble and defenseless woman. He entrusted Leo with the task of explaining his compunctions to the young lady. Listening to her brother-in-law's halting speech, Tanya was so ashamed and miserable that she wanted to die. That evening, out of pity for Marya Shishkin and her children, she wrote to her fiancЈ to release him from his troth. He replied, "You
f Three daughters, already grown up in 1865, and a son, who died of tuberculosis on Maicli 16 of that year. "Sergey's son is dead," wrote Sonya that day. "I cried all morning long. It made me so sad." gave a beggar a million, and now you take it back." But in the end he resigned himself. When announcing the break to his wife's parents, Tolstoy paid emphatic tribute to the noble soul of his little sister-in- law: "Before, admiring her gaiety, I already sensed the quality' of her soul. Now she has proved it with this act, so fine and generous that tears come to my eyes when I think of it. He is certainly guilty, utterly unpardonable. ... I would feel better if he were a stranger and not my own brother. . . . She has suffered atrociously, but she can tell herself—and that is the greatest consolation in life—that she has behaved nobly."
Pale, disconsolate and red-eyed, Tanya stared through many sleepless nights, dragged from room to room, refused to eat and confided in no one. To distract her, Leo and Sonya took her with them to their property at Nikolskoye, then to Marya Tolstoy's home at Pokrovskoye. Wherever she went, she thought of Sergey. "There arc three doctors nursing mc here," she wrote, "but pills and drops will not cure me. God! Why can't anyone understand that? Leo is the only one who Understands."
And Tolstoy did lavish such solicitude upon her that she slowly began to recover, and her laughter and lovely contralto voice filled the house again. Sometimes she said she could not go on living with her sister, she must return to her parents in Moscow. Tolstoy blustered: "What nonsense! Surely you don't suppose you arc not paying for your keep? Why, you arc posing for your portrait, my dear. I am putting down everything I know about you, black on white." While commiserating with his sister-in-law's sorrow, the author in him was also busily digesting it. He could only thank God for having staged this sentimental drama before his eyes.
To the extent that he was preoccupied by his characters, he forgot his own worries. But he did not lose interest in himself altogether: physical considerations took the place of moral ones, that was all. In his diary reports of his basest bodily functions now took precedence over accounts of his most lofty processes of thought. While, with masterly clairvoyance, he was describing the war of 1805 through the eyes of Prince Andrey, Captain Denisov and cadet Nicholas Rostov, the pages of his intimate notebook bore witness to his acid stomach and flatulence. "The humming in my cars has stopped, I feel better, but I am still belching and my tongue is coated, especially in the morning." (October 30.) "Same rigorous hygiene, slept well, did not urinate or defecate, tongue still white and headache." (October 31.) "Dry mouth, tongue coated . . . Good stool in the evening." (November 2.) "Supper brought on pleasant slumber, gas and slight humming in the ears." (November 3.)
'l'he holidays were dreary. Tanya had gone back to her parents in Moscow. After long months of work Tolstoy, too, felt a desire to dip into life in the capital again, in order to refresh his "memory of society," which he needed to continue his book. "I must be able to judge people accurately, since I am trying to describe them," he wrote in a letter to Alexandra Tolstoy.14
At the end of January 1866 he left for Moscow with his wife, who was pregnant again, and their two children. They rented a six-room furnished apartment, 011 the "right floor," on Dmitrovka Street. The rent was one hundred and fifty rubles a month, "heat, samovar, water, dishes, everything included!" Sonya, suddenly enamored of music, attended numerous concerts, and Tolstoy corrected proofs, saw friends and worked out at the gymnasium. He read a few more unpublished chapters of his book at the Perfilyevs' house and commissioned Bashilov, the painter, to illustrate a bound edition of The Year 1805. Then, Bashilov having revived his interest in the fine arts, he decided to attend classes in sculpture. After modeling a horse in clay he became discouraged and stopped. I lis heart wasn't in it. He was worried about his wife: even pregnant, she could be attractive. In Moscow they had met Sonya's former suitor, Mitrofan Polivanov. She had been clumsily kittenish with him, and he had been exceedingly impertinent with her. Stung by jealousy, Tolstoy heatedly berated his wife. "Lyova is too severe and harsh in his judgment of me," she wrote. "Even so, I am glad of it; it proves he cares for me."15