The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy by Cathy Porter

always told me I wasn’t egotistical, although this is really the most complete egotism. But I love him so much that this too will pass. Only I shall need a lot of patience and strength of will, otherwise it will be no good. There are days when I am morbidly in love with him, and this is one of those days. It is always so when I have done something wrong. It hurts me to look at him, listen to him or be with him, like a devil in the presence of a saint.
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    14th January (Moscow) .* I am alone again and sad. Yet we have managed to make peace. I don’t know what reconciled him to me or me to him, it happened of itself. All I know is that I have my happiness back. I want to go home. I have so many dreams of how I will live in Yasnaya with him . I feel sad to have broken so completely from the Kremlin crowd. I see terribly clearly how much my world has changed, yet I love my family more than ever, especially Maman, and it saddens me that I’m no longer part of their lives. I live completely through him and for him, and it’s often painful for me to realize that I am not everything to him and that if I were suddenly to die he would be able to console himself somehow, for he has so many resources , whereas I have such a weak nature. I have given myself to one man and would never be able to find another world for myself.
    Life in this hotel depresses me. I am happy only when I am sitting with my family, and with Lyovochka , of course. I could leave for home at once I know, it’s largely up to me, but I haven’t the heart to say goodbye to my family so soon after arriving, and I’m too lazy to move. I had such a bad dream last night. Our Yasnaya peasant girls and women were visiting us in a huge garden, all dressed up as ladies, then started going off somewhere, one after the other. A.* came last, wearing a black silk dress. I began speaking to her and was seized with such violent rage that I picked up her child and began tearing him to pieces. I tore off his head and legs—I was like a madwoman. Then Lyovochka came up and I told him they would send me to Siberia, but he picked up the legs and arms and all the other bits and told me it was only a doll. I looked down and saw that it was indeed, with just cloth and stuffing for a body. And that made me furious.
    I often torture myself thinking about her, even here in Moscow. Maman was right when she said I had become sillier than ever—rather, I think my mind is lazier. It’s an unpleasant feeling, this physical lethargy. And physical lethargy produces mental lethargy too.
    I regret my former liveliness. But I think it will return. I feel it would have as good an effect on Lyovochka as it once had on the Kremlin crowd.
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    17th January . I’ve been feeling angry that he loves everything and everyone, when I want him to love only me. Now that I’m alone in my room I realize I was just being wilful again; it’s his kindness and the wealth of his feelings that make him good. The cause of all my whims and miseries is this wretched egotism of mine, which makes me want to possess his life, his thoughts, his love, everything he has. This has become a sort of rule with me. The moment I think fondly of someone I tell myself no, I love only Lyovochka. But I absolutely must learn to love something else as he loves his work , so I can turn to it when he grows cold towards me. These times will become more frequent. I see this clearly now—why should Lyovochka study all the subtleties of our relations as I do, for want of anything else to occupy me? From this I also learn how I should behave with him, and I do this not as a duty but quite involuntarily. I can’t yet put this knowledge into practice, but everything comes in time. We must get back to Yasnaya very soon; there he devotes himself more to me, for there is nobody else but Aunt and me. I know I can make the house a happier place, as long as he doesn’t want visitors, for I