Sometimes, wearying of the cooing of these turtledoves, Marya would slip across to the outbuildings to talk to the passing pilgrims. They stopped off there to eat and sleep, unknown to the prince, who was reputed to have no patience with visionary vagabonds. Hirsute and lice- infested, their packs 011 their backs and their eyes full of sky, they walked from one end of Russia to the other to rcach some miraculous monastery. Without believing a word of their tales, Marya marveled at the strength of their faith. If only she, too, could break her bonds and set off to roam the world! But she was riveted to Yasnaya Polyana. And she was growing old and faded. When she compared herself with her companions, she hated her plain, prematurely old face with its heavy brows and weary mouth. "I shall go to some town to pray," she wrote, "and then, before I have time to settle down and become attached to it, I shall move on. I shall walk until my feet give way beneath me, I shall lie clown and die somewhere, and rcach at last that eternal, peaceful haven where there are no more sorrows or sighs."
She dreamed of ending her life, but it was her father who died. On February 3, 1821 she suddenly found herself alone in the world. She was thirty-one years old and until that day she had lived with the sole aim of coddling the master of Yasnaya Polyana in his old age. With him gone, she was cast adrift and rudderless; she could see nothing of the slightest attraction in the days ahead. Her need to dedicate herself now encountered nothing but empty space. Seeking an outlet for her surplus affection, she took it into her head to marry Louise Henis- sienne's sister to one of her cousins, Prince Michael Alexandrovich Volkonsky.
The rest of the family howled "Misalliance!," but Marya stood her ground, sold one of her estates, and put the money in her companion's name to help the young couple. Bulgakov, postmaster-general of Moscow, wrote indignantly to his brother: "After losing all hope of tasting the joys of wedlock herself, the princess, daughter of the late Prince Nicholas Sergeyevich—an ugly old maid with bushy eyebrows—has given part of her property to an Englishwoman (a Frenchwoman) who lives with her."
Louise Ildnissicnne's sister and Prince Michael Alexandrovich Volkonsky were married in Moscow in April 1821. Marya made a special trip; she was the only member of the fiance's numerous kin to attend the religious ceremony. As she watched the two young people being blessed by the priest, her heart contracted within her. Her thoughts were turning more and more often to love, marriage, motherhood. Was she really to be deprived of these simple joys, the common lot of woman?
In Moscow she lived in the family house, which, although it was much too big for her, held fewer reminders of the old prince than Yasnaya Polyana. Her friends exhorted her to go out and enjoy herself. One day in a drawing room, she found herself face to face with a man of average height, who had wavy hair, a mclancholy expression and a mustache brushed demurely downward. He wore his uniform well and spoke French correctly. He was introduced to Marya: Count Nicholas Ilich Tolstoy. Marya found him quite pleasant but, as always, allowed nothing of her feelings to show. This meeting was not an accident. 'Hie very next day negotiations with a view to matrimony got under way between the plenipotentiaries of the two parties.
To tell the truth, Count Nicholas Ilich Tolstoy was not overjoyed by the prospect of a union with a person who, in addition to being dismayingly homely, was Eve years older than he. But he was on the brink of bankruptcy and a rich marriage was the only thing that could save him. The great name he bore would have rccommcndcd him to any heiress in Russia. 'Hie Tolstoys claimcd dcsccndancy from a Lithuanian knight named Indris, who had settled and been baptized at Chernigov in the fourteenth century; his great-grandson was given the name of Tolstoy, or "The Stout," by Grand Duke Basil the Blind. One Peter Andrcyevich Tolstoy had been appointed ambassador to Constantinople by Peter the Great, and then head of the Secret Chancellery; in 1724 he was raised to the nobility for his services, although this did not prevent him from ending his days in prison for plotting against Catherine II. Less ambitious than his ancestors, Ilya Tolstoy contented himself with squandering his fortune and that of his wife, ncc Gorcliakov, by sending his laundry to be washed in Holland, having his fish shipped directly from the Black Sea, giving balls and theatrical performances on his estate near Belyev, losing substantial sums at hombre and whist— until the day when, crippled with debt, he acccptcd a post as governor of Kazan for want of anything better. In the meantime his son Nicholas, just eighteen years old, had gone off on a sudden impulse to join the army. The year was 1812, Napoleon was marching on Russia, the young were afire with patriotism. From standard-bearer in a regiment of hussars, Nicholas soon became an aide-de-camp to General Gorchakov —a close relative of his mother—but despite this powerful protector, he did not shine in the campaign of 1813. Shortly after the blockade of Erfurt he was taken prisoner by the French on his way back from a mission to St. Petersburg. He was liberated in 1814 when the allied troops entered Paris, returned to Russia, and was made a major, then a lieutenant-colonel. Was this security at last? No; the extravagance of old Count Ilya Tolstoy in his post as governor of Kazan had assumed such proportions that there could no longer be any question of his son honorably pursuing a military career. The family was ruined, the Belyev estate mortgaged. Nicholas, smelling bankruptcy in the air, resigned his commission and went to live with his parents at Kazan. Aline and Pelagya, his two sisters, had married while he was away, the first to Count Ostcn-Sakcn and the second to V. I. Yushkov, and left home. Even without them, the household had preserved its appeal, thanks to a distant cousin—'Tatyana Alexandrovna Ergolskaya, nicknamed "Toi- nette." She was a poor orphan, who had been taken in by the Tolstoys when a child and brought up with their own children. She was the same age as Nicholas, and mutely adored him. Thick brown braids framed her handsome, slightly severe face, and her brown eyes sparkled like agate. Her bearing was full of grace and energy. When her cousin first came back to Kazan, she thought he was going to ask for her hand. But for the moment, although Nicholas was aware of the discreet affection she had borne him for so many years, he was interested only in having fun. Every salon in town clamored for him, lie was the life of ever)' party. Dancing and playing, he forgot the sorry state of the family affairs. After all, his father set a perfect example of irresponsibility: the budget of the government of Kazan was being increasingly imperiled by his mismanagement and disreputable dealings, yet old Count llya Tolstoy kept smiling through it all; everything, he thought, would come right in the end. A committee of investigation appointed by the Russian Senate suddenly decided to look into his accounts. Horror-stricken, he fell ill and died before lie had time to write out his defense. Some people even claimed he committed suicide.
Overnight, Nicholas Tolstoy, who had scarcely given a thought to money in the past, opened his eyes upon an abyss. lie auctioned off his land and moved into a mcxlcst apartment in Moscow with his cousin Toinette and his mother and, to provide for them, grudgingly accepted a post as deputy director of the Veterans' Orphanage. Toinette ran the household, and took care of her aunt—read to her, endured every whim of the spoiled, tyrannical, pernickety old woman. The dominant feature of Toinctte's personality was a need to suffer for the happiness of others; her all-embracing affcction encompassed both the countess, from whom she tried to hide the truth about the family's financial predicament, and the servants, with whom she was kind and firm. But her cousin Nicholas Tolstoy was always at the center of her mind, superb and unattainable. He held no secrets for her; she did not idealize him, and cherished his very faults. He was far from being "a paragon of virtue." At sixteen his parents had offered him one of their servant girls, to teach him the facts of life. A child, Mishcnka, was born of this liaison, and subsequently became a postilion and died a pauper.8 While in his regiment the count had also had numerous affairs, to which he made covert allusion in Toinctte's presence. She hoped that, wearying of so many different adventures and sobered by a shortage of ready cash, it would occur to him that she alone could make him happy. And, it was true, there were days when he looked at her so tenderly that she was thrown into a flutter of confusion. But he never talked about their future. He was accustomed to life on a grander scale and he chafed against his straitened circumstances. Having to count his money made him misanthropic. He sometimes stayed in his room for hours, smoking his pipe. The countess moaned that a good marriage was the only thing that could save them. Toinctte thought back to the time when, as a little girl, she had been carried away by the story of Mucius Scaevola, and resolved to prove to her cousins that she, too, was capable of heroism, which she did by applying a red-hot iron ruler to her forearm. She did not utter a sound while her flesh smoked, and she still bore the scar; she smiled at it ruefully and thought that the time had come once again to demonstrate her strength of character. When the family began talking about this Marya Nikolayevna Volkonsky, who was so homely, almost middle-aged, with the heavy eyebrows and the great fortune, she stifled her jealousy and urged Nicholas Tolstoy to make a marriage of reason.