Free The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy by Cathy Porter

and when I see him he looks so depressed, forever morosely searching his soul.
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    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 .*
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    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.
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    28th October . My love cannot be very strong if I am so weak. But no, I love him terribly, there can be no doubt about it. If only I could raise myself up. My husband is so good, so wonderfully good. Where is he? Probably working on The History of 1812 .* He used to tell me about his writing, but now he thinks I’m not worthy of his confidence. In the past he shared all his thoughts with me, and we had such blissful, happy times together. Now they are all gone. “We shall always be happy, Sonya,” he said. I feel so sad that he has had none of the happiness he expected and deserved.
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    13th November . I feel sorry for Aunt—she won’t last much longer. She is always sick, her cough keeps her awake at night, her hands are thin and dry. I think about her all day.
    He says, let’s live in Moscow for a while. Just what I expected. It makes me jealous when he finds his ideal in the first pretty woman he meets. Such love is terrible because it is blind and virtually incurable. There has never been anything of this in me, and