Letters from Readers to Leo Tolstoy

On Forcing the Spirit to Outgrow the Flesh

“Count Lev Nikolaevich! I am a very small person, and perhaps only my years and a whole bunch of suffering give me the right to address you. The thing is that only today I managed to get and read your Kreutzer Sonata… Reading it, I only regretted that it came out now and not twenty years ago; I regretted it selfishly, for my own sake. I wouldn’t have broken my life so foolishly then because of an empty, jealous suspicion; I would have stopped in time. And I think this work is purely pedagogical, because it forces the spirit to outgrow the flesh. And I, now a mother and a grandmother, want to spare my children from those fatal, nasty mistakes that I made. So I decided to write to you and ask you to give me one copy of this Kreutzer Sonata to make it a bedside book for my children. It is impossible to buy it; I can only get it for a day, two at most. I am not a wealthy person, I live by my labor and support the family of my daughter, who married a student who has no time to work because he has to study. I know that my request is very bold. But please forgive me for this and do not refuse me. What can I do if your Sonata has turned my forty-five-year-old soul upside down? <…> O Lev Nikolaevich! I need your Sonata, I need it, I need it, and I need it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Undated

On Love, Physiology, and the Horrors of the Wedding Night

“No, Lev Nikolaevich, Pozdnyshev speaks incorrectly, terribly falsely. I cannot express it, I do not know how, I do not have your talent, and I simply do not have the words to dispute you. It is offensive to tears and I would like to prove the opposite. I recall my youth. I was sixteen years old in 1876 when I finished high school. Compared to girls today, I was foolish, meaning I ‘read little’ and knew nothing of natural sciences. We were not forbidden to read anything… How we devoured War and Peace! We were passionate about The Pugachevs, In the Forests, Anna Karenina—everywhere there is love, ideal, pure love, love with the heart. And we did not know, no one explained to us, that there is no such love with the heart, that physiologically it is something else entirely… I loved one of our old guests (thirty-two years old), I loved him again with my heart, with all my heart, with all my passion, and he loved me too! It was this love with the heart that was dear to me, and if someone proved to me that his love was merely a thirst for a woman—perhaps that would have been enough for me to fall out of love, to stop respecting my fiancé… The month before the wedding passed, understandably, in caresses, passionate embraces, and (I cast an experienced glance back), and if it hadn’t been for the fiancé’s prudence, I could have ‘fallen,’ and (I now add) this would have been completely natural and moral, although the world, which considers the wedding night moral, does not view it this way! That is where the depravity is, that honeymoon night and honeymoon morning with congratulations and curious glances. One needs to acquire a lot of shamelessness in one night to calmly, without being embarrassed, endure the congratulations. Thirteen years later, it is shameful to recall. I will prolong this small digression to tell you the feeling of a woman on her wedding night. As I already wrote, I loved my fiancé to the point of self-forgetfulness, and if I had ‘fallen’ in a surge of mutual caresses and passion, everything would have been made brighter by that, provoked by that, and therefore natural and necessary. But here? All day I was busy packing things, fitting the dress, tight boots. Then congratulations, then the pastor, who appeared for some reason… then we arrived home. Only once was I overcome by a joyful feeling, like in the picture ‘Enfin seuls’ [Finally Alone]; the rest of the day, I hadn’t seen the groom, and had barely thought about him. The husband is tired, almost ill from the fuss and trouble—it would be best for him to sleep for twelve hours, but here, whether you like it or not, go to your young wife. The young wife, lying in bed, felt the oilcloth under the sheet (carefully placed by a loving mother), and that was enough. I was seized by such a nasty feeling, for which I am still ashamed before my husband. One has to ask, what kind of night is this, what kind of congratulations are these? I know a girl, not naive at all, who loved her fiancé terribly, who ran away on the first night—it all seemed so crude, so contrary to her dreams. Then she returned, of course, and has a child. She says she will tell her daughter’s fiancé and warn him. I will too. A man, they say, looks at this entirely differently. But a woman can only find satisfaction in this act when it occurs in a surge of love—then, in the loved one, as in her own child, there is nothing nasty, nothing disgusting. Otherwise, brr. I will stop here. What are you and other writers doing to our girls? It is impossible not to give them books and newspapers to read: they will take them themselves… <…> Is it really better to take away all the illusions that give us happiness, help us live with a person, forgive his past, believe in the possibility of living together harmoniously, lovingly, as a strong family until the end of our days? If it is possible for future men to become better, purer—what could be better, any girl will be happier with such a man. But for now? When you have taught girls to see through all the nasty past and thereby turned her away from the man—is that better? What remains for poor women for comfort? After all, frankly speaking, you only love your children at first because they are from the man you love. I don’t know if I would love my child if he were somehow conceived by a repulsive person. And what a miserable existence for girls in old age! What will you offer her? Good deeds? Alas, they will never be capable of doing for others, they will have no love for others, because they will become hardened, everything will become repulsive, all people will seem vile—and they will love cats.” 1891

On Family Life and the Position of Women

“How can one understand that people who deny houses of tolerance, who deny with horror and disgust the necessity of regularly visiting these houses, are establishing something worse than that house in their own home! Why, not allowing the thought of the necessity of debauchery, can they not do without using their wife like a prostitute, despite any protest? Yes, precisely like a prostitute. This cannot be called otherwise if a husband spends the whole day talking about her bad character, about her misunderstanding of him, about her bad influence on the children and on his life, curses the moment he began to live this way, that is, with her, and then appears at night and, despite any protest, uses her—what can one call this? How to understand such a life? Is this a family, is this a lawful marriage? Lawful because I have no right to dispose of myself… Dear Lev Nikolaevich, please write about this, you will be able to instill in the hearts of such people that one must live differently not only by day but also by night. After all, they will listen to you, they will understand. The horror of the situation of a woman who gives birth and nurses for ten, fifteen, twenty years in a row without interruption and rest, and at the same time serves her husband for his lust without interruption. I am writing this not because I do not love my husband or love another person… I love both my husband and my children. And not because I do not want to bear and raise children, but because I want to do it reasonably, as all creatures on earth do it, and not so humiliatingly, nastily. After all, this is so true, Lev Nikolaevich, I feel that much in human relations depends on this. So explain to people the whole horror of such a life! Only quickly, quickly, I have no more strength to endure!” 1901

On an Illegitimate Family and How to Pay for Sins

“Gracious Sir, knowing your good understanding of religion, I ask you what you will tell me in answer to my question. The question is as follows. My religion is Orthodox, and at sixteen, even fifteen and a half, I first had intercourse, and I did it with a young girl, whom I, therefore, violated. After a few months, she gave birth, but, my God, what a lot of trouble it was. After a few more months, she gave birth again, consequently, two children, and I only turned eighteen this month. Therefore, according to the church’s rules, I can only get married now. One of the infants died, the other is sick, and I think that if it dies, I want to give her some money and, so to speak, settle the score with her, but, turning to priests, they advised me to get married, and since she is poor, I do not quite agree to get married. But I am a merchant’s son, and yet I have the opinion to get married, but I don’t know what to do, and I ask you, be so kind as to write to me how the Savior of the world taught people in such a situation to act. If you grant me the favor of an answer, please write to the editorial office of the Saratov Provincial Gazette… Please, as soon as you read my letter, or even if you don’t, destroy it immediately, either burn it or tear it up. It is too unpleasant for me; I haven’t told anyone about this, I have only confided in you. I strongly request that you show it to no one, my conscience torments me too much at such a young age to have an illegitimate wife and two children. It is too sickening before people and God. Please, I ask for an answer, what should I do and how is it best to live. I desperately want to know what your opinion of me will be and what I have done wrong or will do wrong.” Undated

On Bigamy and Conscience

“Your Excellency, I beg you to answer in print and immediately, how, in your opinion, should Nekhlyudov have acted if he had already been married. The fact is that before the appearance of your novel, my son-in-law began a relationship with his child’s nanny, who has now given birth. Now, under the influence of your novel, he considers himself obliged to take her in, to settle her in a separate annex (they live in the countryside), in a word, to set up another family before his wife’s eyes. You understand how much my daughter suffers from this. She wants to leave, but her husband will not give her their son, whom she worships. In the end, my daughter will not endure this torment, will secretly take the son and leave, but she is a very young woman without any means; what if she becomes a Katyusha Maslova? There are many Nekhlyudovs in Russia, and there are many such dramas. Answer, answer, teacher, to the cry of a mother and wife, what should be done in such a case. Does the husband have the moral right to calm his conscience at the cost of his wife’s health and peace?” 1899

On the Cursed Instinct and Salvation from Falling

“Knowing your teaching on the sexual question, I think that you alone can clarify the doubts that torment me. There is not a single fresh person around me, and therefore I allow myself to turn to you. Now I am at a difficult transitional age, when the cursed instinct awakens, with which one does not know how to fight. In addition, the question arises: is this struggle necessary, and should I go against nature? I know what our ‘scientists’—doctors—will answer me; I know what the ‘intelligent people’ will say, who are all without exception ‘not without sin.’ In your writings on this matter, I found this thought: ‘What should one who has not yet fallen do? Guard against falling with all one’s might.’ Show me, then, how to guard against falling. Explain to me how you, who consider communication with nature a condition of human happiness, in this case, go against this nature. I do not know what is truth. Is it the life that all the people around me lead, or the one that you set as an ideal? I know one thing: that my reason is struggling with feeling and gradually losing all its arguments and strength, furthermore confused by all the debauchery that is now raging in our society. I have one unwavering desire left—not to be like everyone else, and this desire holds me back. Answer me, Lev Nikolaevich. I so much want to follow the right path, I so do not want to perish.” From L. Ostroumov, at the time still a student, 1907

On Domestic Violence and Pity

“Deeply respected Count Lev Nikolaevich, I have long wanted to turn to you for advice, but did not dare, fearing to bother you. I am the daughter of a colonel, a landowner… At the age of twelve, my father raped me and lived with me until 1907, that is, until I came of age. I could do nothing, my relatives knew, but no one wanted to intervene. I will not speak of the moral suffering I had to endure. I never loved my father, I was afraid of him, by nature he is very crude. I could never share anything spiritual and good with him, he never caressed me properly. In 1905, I gave birth to a child, whom he placed in the Moscow foundling home in Moscow. No one knew about the birth of the child, as I was in a secret ward. After giving birth, I settled in an estate and lived alone, supervising the management of the household… My father began to write me crude letters. I decided to file a complaint in the St. Petersburg District Court. At present, many witnesses have already been questioned who testified in my favor. Of all my relatives, only my aunt (father’s sister) and her children intervened. I have heard from many that my father is currently suffering greatly. I began to pity him. After all, he is sixty-eight years old. He was educated in the Corps of Pages, lived well all his life, and suddenly—hard labor. I thought that when I filed the complaint, it would be easier for me, and now I am convinced that it will not be easier for me because of it. And he, perhaps, has suffered more during this time than I have over all these years. He may be arrested soon. Count, but I can save him. If I withdraw the statement, I face six months in prison under prosecutor’s supervision. After all, I am younger than him, I can endure it more easily… What should I do, give me advice, Count. It is difficult for me; in my soul, I have forgiven him. What is past cannot be brought back. I have a notebook where I describe my whole life in detail, but I write briefly to you—you will understand anyway. I no longer want to go to a monastery, there is no such affection, no simplicity there, which, in my opinion, should exist among the sisters. Count, answer my letter, give me advice on how to proceed with my father, and what to do with my life. I am currently living in St. Petersburg with my cousin.” 1908

On the Depravity of the Bride

“Deeply respected Lev Nikolaevich, peace and many years! I have long hesitated about what to do—should I turn to you for advice? I know you are bothered so much, and yet you need peace—but what could I do when I realize that only your advice will relieve me and serve as a guiding star for me. <…> I am a Jewish law student at Kyiv University, finishing in May. This summer, I intended to marry an educated, poor girl. The wedding day was set for August 7th. My joy knew no bounds: I thought I had found happiness—a pure, innocent girl. But suddenly, oh horror! — I learn that she had been in relations with one young man for a year. And from whom do I learn this? — From that same young man, my former student. I found out three days before the wedding. The bride’s parents were ruined by the preparations for the wedding, and here… I could have refused everything by telegram, as there was irrefutable evidence of my bride’s criminal relationship with this young man; but what a misfortune that would be for my bride—a girl whom I loved so passionately with the purest love! What horror, what disgrace! She would not survive it! And I decided to marry her to remove the stain of her past, but then to divorce if she did not confess and express repentance before… I waited, I thought she would prove to be honest and repent of her sins, but—not at all. When I later… expressed my opinion that she was not a virgin, she swore her innocence and even wished that her daughters would be so innocent. Then I gave her the letter from that young man—a letter in which he reminded her of all the sinful past. She could no longer deny it and confessed. Since then, the worm of nightmarish thoughts and memories gnaws at me, and I cannot be calm, I cannot reconcile myself to the thought that my wife, for whom I gave up wealth, gave up honors, sinned so much before marriage and even wanted to hide it from me, to deceive me. Fully determined to divorce her, I left her in Odessa with her parents and returned home. For five weeks, I have been tormented by the pains of hell and do not know what to do. At times, it seems to me that I will still be able to be happy with her (I love her—she is very good, kind), but at times it seems to me that vice must be punished, and meanwhile, she threatens suicide. What should I do, great teacher of wisdom and high ideals? Point the way—I will follow it with the assurance that this path is the best. Even if your enlightened advice does not bring me external happiness, I will be internally satisfied, as there will not be a drop of doubt for me that of the two evils, you pointed out the lesser. Advise me, deeply revered Lev Nikolaevich! I will honor your advice as sacred and inviolable, whatever it may be…” 1909

On a Husband’s Infidelity and How to Live On

“Deeply respected Lev Nikolaevich. I turn to you with a great request, with confidence in your readiness to help the suffering, that you will not refuse me advice. I have been married for thirteen years, I have two children… I married for love, I loved strongly, purely—as one should love… By family circumstances, we moved from the countryside to the city and have been living for a year now with my mother and my twenty-three-year-old sister. Recently, I found out that my husband is living with my sister. This struck me terribly. I sobbed, kissed his feet, asked him to tell me the truth—why deceive; if he loves her, then why deceive me, let him say so—and I will leave. He answered that he does not love her, calls me holy—pure, that he lives with her just because he is a nasty man, that I should not leave, but if I want to leave myself, he will not hold me, and if I love him, then let me love him as he is. My sister also confessed that she was only playing at love, but does not love seriously and will try to stop; my husband promised the same. But I see that they continue as before, and living in the same house and in cramped conditions, I have to constantly stumble upon their intimate meetings. And I suffer unspeakably because I then have to accept my husband’s caresses—when my sister does not desire them; if I do not accept his caresses—I am afraid of pushing him to something worse. No one in the house knows anything, and I will not tell; they cannot help me, I see and feel this. I cannot advise myself. Leave? — but how will I feed my children… and will I be doing the right thing by depriving my children of their father? Die? — what about the children? Live together and endure? — I also do not know if that is good, or perhaps bad. All day and all night I just think and think and suffer, and again I think and do not know what to decide. My husband, too, seems to be suffering, but I do not know the reason for his suffering: he does not speak; and in general, we now try not to touch upon this issue. His temperament is quiet, he is not a spendthrift, he is phlegmatic. Your teaching is—do not resist evil. But I cannot figure out if that applies to this case. For the sake of everything holy to you, I beg you, advise me what to do, how to act. I believe you, your word will be law for me. Whatever you advise me, I feel it will not be difficult for me to fulfill. I will undertake nothing until you answer me. Your advice will be alms for me, which you always crave to give to the poor…” 1908

On Whether Pure Love Exists

“I re-read your Kreutzer Sonata several times, and it always produced such a heavy feeling in me, although I do not count myself among the fainthearted young ladies, that sometimes I could not fall asleep for several nights in a row. That was about two years ago. It did not fall into my hands for a long time, but now I have just fallen in love,—I will be frank, allow me,—I became his fiancée, and I came across it again. That he is a highly moral and good person, both I and my parents know. I have known him and his family since the age of nine. But when I read the Sonata again, I thought about what might happen after—our wedding is postponed for a year until he comes of age—it became unspeakably difficult for me. Is it really true, is there really no pure love, is there really none? What is this? Is everything, everything like this? He writes wonderfully, has read a mass of serious good books; I myself, as they say, have read a lot for my age. Although both he and I have good means, we wanted to work: he—to write… I wanted to help him with all my strength, and then—don’t laugh, I am telling the truth—I wanted to do everything best for the theatre: to help artists in their needs, to promote talents, to renew the good, classical repertoire… And what then? If there is no pure, even if conjugal, love, if a husband needs not a helper… but only a woman, a female, then getting married is absurd, and not loving, you understand, at eighteen is impossible. Everything we dreamed of, all our plans, thoughts, all comes down to the fact that it is sensuality. Then life is not worth living, because of how many conflicts one will have to endure… “For God’s sake, Lev Nikolaevich, explain, is all this really true?” No, it is not from faintheartedness that I would want to die, but because everything that seems good, pure, all of this is just scenery for sensuality, everything is nasty and bad. For God’s sake, Lev Nikolaevich, explain, is all this really true? You know, I value this love so much and I am so afraid to shatter Volya’s life, and my own! I don’t sleep whole nights, I think about every word, I keep thinking that I don’t understand it correctly. But I have spoken with many people who have established reputations as good and, most importantly, smart, and from no one have I gotten any sense, nothing. Someone says: it’s too early to know. But how is it too early when I am announced as a fiancée? I am going crazy, I don’t know what to think. For God’s sake, help me understand, I am completely confused. Forgive me, for God’s sake, for disturbing you, but only you and no one else can save me, literally save me, because if there is nothing good, if everything is nasty and dirty, a woman cannot live. Forgive the dirty and confused letter again, my hands are shaking from excitement. Your answer, if you only want to save me, will decide my life.” Undated