The last station

“What is it, Sonya? She asked solicitiously.

Je crains d’aimer le comte,’’ I said abruptly (I am afraid I love the Count).

“Really?’’ Tanya was astonished, for she had no suspicion of my feelings. She was even a little sad too, for she knew my character. For me “amour’ never meant playing with feelings. Both then and later it was something closer to suffering.’’

Her last thought, of course, was prophetic.

I had bought Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy for a pittance at a garage sale years ago and immediately started reading the tome, a million words long, linking the dates of her writings to my own life, almost 100 years later. They were compelling nightly readings as Sofia wrote about the Tolstoy family life in 19^th-century Russia, recording her wellspring of love, her many births, marriages, illnesses and friendships and revealing in wonderful language her joys, frustrations and fears.

The countess bore 13 children over 25 years within that marriage, three of whom died as babies less than a year old, one after the other from 1872-1875. She wrote an autobiography “My Life’’, managed Leo’s complicated affairs, the household, the servants, and conducted a social life in aristocratic Russian society. As an older woman, she wrote stories for her many grandchildren. She tended to Leo in his failing health and the length and breadth of their marriage deserved to be told if only to deepen the tragedy.

In 1879 she wrote about waiting for her 10^th confinement, which was overdue.

“The thought of this new baby fills me with gloom; my horizons have become so narrow and my world is such a small and dismal place. Everyone here, including the children, is in a tense state, what with the approach of the holidays and the suspense about my confinement. It has been terribly cold, more than 20 degrees below zero. Masha has had a sore throat and a fever for the past week. She got up today. Lyovochka (Leo) has gone to Tula to authorise Bibikov to go to Moscow to deal with the new edition, and he has promised to buy something for the Christmas tree. He is writing a lot about religion, Adryusha is the light of my life and an utter delight.’’

He was the son, born after the three deaths and portrayed in the film. She had three more children until 1888 – 13 pregnancies over 25 years.

Hers was an exceptional life in exceptional times for her husband was writing, within her household, iconic novels such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Countess Tolstoy was a writer, too, working on My Life and stories for her grandchildren, and busied herself with her children’s lives and managing everything relating to her husband’s creative work.

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