Free The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy by Cathy Porter Page B

I opened it, and today I decided to creep off while nobody was watching and write whatever came into my head. I wanted desperately to love everyone and enjoy everything, but someone only has to brush against me when I’m in this state and it goes away. I feel a sudden trust and tenderness for my husband, perhaps because it occurred to me yesterday how easily I might lose him. Today I resolved never to think of it again, come what may. I shall refuse to listen if anybody, even he, so much as mentions it. I love my sister Tanya so much, why are they trying to ruin her? Although they needn’t bother, for she’ll never be spoilt. I can give her emotional support but can do almost nothing about the situation she is in. At any rate, I shall do my best to distract her. I think I am less selfish than I was a year ago. Then I moped around pregnant, depressed because I couldn’t have fun with the others. Now I have my own joy and am happier than anyone else.
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    22nd April . I am all alone. There’s nothing to write about, there’s no life in this place. I can control myself when I am looking after Seryozha, but in the evening, when he is asleep, I bustle about frantically as if I had a million little tasks to do, when in fact I am simply trying to avoid thinking and worrying. I keep imagining he has just gone out hunting or to look at the estate or see to the bees, and will return at any moment, for I am so used to waiting, and he always seems to return when my patience is about to give out. I am always trying to think of something unpleasant in our life together so as not to feel sorry for him, but I cannot, for the moment I think of him I realize how deeply I love him and I want to weep. The moment I catch myself thinking I am not sad, it’s as if I deliberately make myself so. Tonight for the first time in my life I am going to bed alone. They said I should put Tanya’s bed in my room but I didn’t want to—I want no one but him beside me, ever. I keep thinking Tanya will hear me crying from the sitting room and I shall feel ashamed, and I haven’t been so sensible all day.*
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    3rd November . It’s odd that in these happy surroundings I should be feeling so disconsolate, so filled with dread about him. Last night, and every other night too, I was stricken with such fear and grief that while I was sitting with my little girl* I cried, for I could picture his death so clearly. It started when he dislocated his arm* and I suddenly realized the possibility of losing him; ever since then I have thought of nothing else. I almost live in the nursery now, and looking after the babies sometimes distracts me. I often think he must find this female world of ours insufferably dull, and that I cannot possibly make him happy. I am a good nursemaid, nothing more. No intelligence, education or talent, nothing. I wish something would happen soon. Looking after the children and playing with Seryozha can be delightful, but deep in my heart I sense that my old happiness has fled for good and nothing can give me joy any more. I often have premonitions of his bad moods; now he secretly hates me.

1865
    6th April—“Provisional Rules” for the press (in force for the next forty years). Most books and journals exempt from preliminary censorship, but punitive censorship continues, under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. The excitement over the “great reforms” is over, and is followed by intense disillusionment. Some Land and Liberty members favour violence and form a secret society, the Organization, bent on assassinating particularly hated officials .
    June—Tanya Behrs betrothed to Sergei Tolstoy, who deserts her at the last moment for the gypsy woman with whom he has been living for many years. July—first fragment of War and Peace ( called The Year 1805) published .
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    25th February . I am so often alone with my thoughts that the need to write my diary