Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy at age 20, 1848 (Wiki Image)

i just read that on this 23rd day of September 1862, 34-year-old Leo Tolstoy married 18-year-old Sophia Behrs; that they shared everything and used their diaries to say to one another what they didn’t dare and shan’t say aloud. They were married over 50 years and had 13 children; from what i’ve read their marriage seemed impassioned & bitter, with love at times turning into hate & mistrust. personally, i can’t imagine hating my beloved while still loving him… perhaps i might hate what he does, but i don’t think i would hate the person, just the person’s misdeeds ~ sb 

Click link to read more diary excerpts…

Love and Hate: A Tolstoy Family Tale : NPR

www.npr.org

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina opens with the line: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” A new book about Tolstoy’s wife shows how their marriage seems to have fallen into the second category.DIARY ENTRY (LEV)
8 January 1863
I’m just cold, and I clutch at any work with ardor. She will stop loving me. I’m almost certain of that. The one thing that can save me is if she doesn’t fall in love with someone else, and that won’t be my doing. She says I’m kind. I don’t like to hear it; it’s just for that reason that she will stop loving me.DIARY ENTRY (SONYA) 9 January 1863
Never in my life have I felt so wretched with remorse. Never did I imagine that I could be so much to blame. I have been choked with tears all day. I feel so depressed. I am afraid to talk to him or look at him. … I am sure he must suddenly have realized just how vile and pathetic I am.

read more ->  Love and Hate: A Tolstoy Family Tale : NPR

Related articles

• Keira Knightley confirmed for Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina (guardian.co.uk)
• Tolstoy thought Chekhov ‘worse than Shakespeare’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Atonement for Anna Karenina (rt.com)
• 08-23-2011 Tolstoy on Difficulty, 1897 (boingboing.net)