When the 34-year-old Tolstoy went to a friend's house as a guest, he fell in love at first sight with his friend's 18-year-old daughter Sophia and decided that she was the only one in his life. Immediately, the young and older, average-looking Tolstoy face, while ashamed of himself, won Sophia's heart with only a courtship letter.
The combination with Sophia made Tolstoy's creative style change significantly, and during the days of living with Sophia, Tolstoy's masterpieces continued, creating many famous works such as "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", "Resurrection" and so on. #我在岛屿读书 #
Tolstoy's creation encountered a serious "bottleneck" after he was 30 years old. Between 1859 and 1862, Tolstoy almost interrupted his writing and spent a great deal of his time traveling abroad.
One day, Tolstoy went to visit his friend doctor Berers in Moscow. At his home in Berrs, Tolstoy met one of his three daughters, 18-year-old Sofia Andreevna Berers.
Although Sophia was only 18 years old at the time, she was a very talented woman. Because he was young and intelligent, and his appearance was also dignified and beautiful, Tolstoy fell in love with Sophia at first sight. However, in the face of the young and beautiful Sophia, Tolstoy, who is older and average-looking, feels ashamed of himself.
However, Tolstoy, who fell in love with Sophia at first sight, finally summoned up his courage and wrote a courtship letter to Sophia. In his letter, Tolstoy told Sophia that he could not hide his feelings and that he had to tell her what was in his heart. Tolstoy felt that he could get as much happiness from Sophia as he did from children.
In the letter, Tolstoy, who could not hide his feelings, also asked Sophia directly, "Will you be my wife?" If you really want to, just answer: 'Yes'. Otherwise, simply say, 'No.'" ”
Tolstoy asked Sophia like this, so that people who did not know the situation at that time thought that they had been in love for a long time, to the point of talking about marriage. But in fact, his letter was written three days after meeting Sophia.
However, Sophia actually agreed to Tolstoy with "willingness". A week later, Tolstoy and Sophia got married.
In the week before the wedding, Tolstoy gave Sophia his past diary in order to be sincere with his fiancée. In this diary, Tolstoy recorded in detail his various previous affaires.
One can imagine how much impact these events will have on Sophia, who is only 18 years old. Tolstoy's idea of doing this is actually quite simple, he believes that it is his responsibility to let Sophia fully understand what kind of person he wants to marry. If you really can't accept it, you can refuse to marry him, or even socialize. However, despite the pain, Sophia finally accepted everything about Tolstoy's past and successfully married him.
Tolstoy and Sophia lived very happily after they got married. In the shelter of marriage, with Sophia doing her best to take care of both work and life, Tolstoy survived the creative "bottleneck period" of self-doubt and self-boredom.
In the second year of marriage, Tolstoy began to officially create the literary masterpiece "War and Peace", which had been conceived for 3 years. War and Peace was very difficult to create, and Tolstoy spent a lot of effort, only at the beginning of the first draft, Tolstoy wrote more than 15 drafts before it was finalized, and the book underwent 8 major rewrites and 26 detailed revisions, and the final Russian manuscript reached 5202 pages.
In the nearly 7 years that Tolstoy wrote War and Peace, his wife, the intelligent and talented Sophia, fully supported his ideals and pursuits. She took the initiative to take on the oral recording, proofreading, transcription and other work of the entire manuscript, and also took full care of Tolstoy's daily life.
In the summer of the same year that Tolstoy began writing War and Peace, he and Sophia's eldest son were born. Tolstoy happily declared himself: "I am a happy and peaceful husband and father. After lunch, I lay down to rest while she was copying the manuscript. Incredible happiness. She is unimaginably pure and beautiful. ”
Sophie became even busier after becoming a mother, raising children, breastfeeding, and copying books for Tolstoy. However, after a year of such a busy life, Sophia became pregnant again, and she gave birth to a daughter. Sophia, who was already a child at this time, planned to stop having children, but Tolstoy's opposition was very firm, and Sophia had to obey.
And Tolstoy still put all his mind into his creation, and did not care about his wife and children. All the housework and the affairs of the estate fell on the shoulders of his wife Sophia, who was busy from morning to night.
After the publication of "War and Peace", it had an extraordinary effect, Tolstoy existed like a god in "War and Peace", he revived the changes and battles of the entire Russian nation in a historical era; He resurrected the bravery and strength of those peoples full of heroism; He resurrected the glory of that era.
However, Tolstoy did not stop writing because the aura of "War and Peace" shone, and he began to conceive the next full-length work. In 1873, Tolstoy abandoned the original novel concept about the time of Peter I, and used "the love story of himself and his wife Sophia" as the prototype, which was completely presented in "Anna Karenina".
In 1877, Tols' second landmark novel, Anna Karenina, was published. This work, which he has worked over a period of four years, is comparable to, if not perfect, the maturity of War and Peace. However, "Anna Karenina" was influenced by Tolstoy's more negative and sad state of mind at that time, and it no longer had the burning passion and vitality of "War and Peace". The love described in "Anna Karenina" is not cheerful and feminine, but with a "harsh, sensual, and domineering characteristic".
And during this period, as Tolstoy's wife, Sophia followed her husband's wishes and continued to have children. She became pregnant 16 times and gave birth 13 times in her lifetime, 5 of which unfortunately died. Constant pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, as well as taking care of the family and working for Tolstoy, made Sophia very tired, even to the point of mental exhaustion.
In 1871, when giving birth to her fifth child, Sophia contracted severe puerperal fever and was on the verge of death, which was rescued before being rescued. Sophia was so afraid of pregnancy that even doctors advised her not to have children again. But when she asked her husband Tolstoy for contraception, but Tolstoy believed that it was a woman's duty to have children, so that a fierce quarrel broke out between the husband and wife.
At this time, Tolstoy was working on "Anna Karenina", and he borrowed the words of Anna's sister-in-law Dory, the protagonist of the book, and said: "Contraception is immoral. ”
Tolstoy was a typical machismo, who ignored his wife's wishes and asked for it. Childbearing, manuscript copying, and housekeeping became the whole content of Sophia's life for more than ten years after marriage.
However, Tolstoy, who completed two world-famous masterpieces "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", was not yet 50 years old at this time. Although his artistic creation has reached the peak of maturity, his mind is no longer at peace. Tolstoy was once again tired and disgusted with himself, even dizzy in the face of death.
At this time, Tolstoy no longer seemed to have any desire for life, he looked back at all the efforts of the past nearly 50 years, and felt that he still had nothing, and he no longer wanted to pursue the truth, and even always had the urge to live.
In the eighties of the nineteenth century, Tolstoy's thinking underwent great changes, and at the same time he was distressed by acute social problems, but also by family problems. Tolstoy felt that there was a huge contrast between his aristocratic family life and the poor life of the vast number of peasants, and he repeatedly wanted to get rid of this life of his own.
However, his wife Sophia was unwilling to give up the enjoyment of the upper aristocracy, and there were deep differences and contradictions between the husband and wife. Sophia's spirit was strongly stimulated, the happy life of the family came to an end, and Tolstoy repeatedly moved the idea of running away from home and living a secluded life in the countryside.
On June 8, 1897, Tolstoy wrote a letter for Sophia and prepared to leave quietly, but after a mental struggle, he did not succeed, so he quietly hid the letter in the closet.
For his property and rich life, Tolstoy believed that it was exploitative, and enjoying this life was a crime. Therefore, in addition to writing for many years, Tolstoy personally engaged in housework and field life, helping peasants to cultivate, harvest, build houses, and also lived a frugal life of coarse tea and light rice.
Tolstoy did not feel that this was enough, and he also publicly stated that he would give up his property, give up the publishing rights of his works after 1881, and give it to the society to enjoy. His wife Sophia was firmly opposed to this, so the relationship between the couple became more tense.
So, the willful and machismo Tolstoy took his youngest daughter Sasha and his friend Chertkov and others to the forest to write a secret will. The will stated that after his death, he would give his book tree to the common use of society, and Chltkov would be responsible for publishing.
Later, when Sophia learned of this from Tolstoy's diary, she often quarreled with him and asked him to destroy the will.
On July 22, 1910, Tolstoy secretly wrote a final will, stating that his youngest daughter Sasha would inherit the copyright of his creation and be responsible for carrying out her father's last words. And Sophia knew that she would not get the right to inherit the property, so she cried and claimed to commit suicide by taking poison.
Tolstoy could not take it anymore, so he once again decided to run away from home and leave his wife Sophia, who had lived with him for forty-eight years.
In the middle of the night on October 27, 1910, Tolstoy woke up his sleeping little daughter Sasha, quietly sorted out his things, and at 5:30 a.m., in the carriage of his best friend Dr. Makoviecki, headed straight for the Schechkino railway station.
However, this time he ran away from home, so that the 82-year-old Tolstoy never returned. Old and infirm, Tolstoy, who could not withstand the hard work of travel, contracted lung disease due to the cold weather, and died in the early hours of the morning on November 7, 1910.
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