Tolstoy, Misery and Marriage

I'm in the midst of a pretty great time of my life. I have great plans in motion for the future and I am desperately in love, still, after more than 3 years. I don't think you could ask for better.

However, I know that other people may not be in such a place. For those of you in the weird gloomy emotions inseparable from fall, this is for you.

One of my favorite catty blogs, requisite with celebrity pictures of asses and such, has proven to be an intellectual beyond just contemporary culture. He (?)
posted this, from Tolstoy's short story The Kreutzer Sonata:

“In our world, everything is just the opposite. If a man practices abstinence while a bachelor, as son as he gets married he considers abstinence no longer necessary. After all, those trips taken after the wedding, that seclusion in which the young people withdraw with the sanction of their parents—it is nothing but the sanction of profligacy. But moral laws inflict their own punishment if violated. Hard as I tried to turn our holiday into a honeymoon, I did not succeed. From beginning to the end it was shameful, disgusting, and boring. But soon it became even more trying. Very soon. On the third, or perhaps the fourth day I found my wife depressed. I asked her the reason and began to pet her, thinking that might be what she wanted, but she pushed my arm away and began to cry. Why? She could not tell me. But she was unhappy, she was miserable. Probably her strained nerves told her the truth as to how loathsome our relations were, but she could not express it. I pressed her, she muttered something about missing her mother. I felt it was not the truth. I began to coax her, ignoring what she had said about her mother. I did not understand that she was simply miserable and used her mother as an excuse. But she took offense with me for having ignored her mother, as if I had not believed her. She said she was sure I did not love her. I accused her of being capricious, and suddenly her face changed completely; the expression of misery was supplanted by one of irritation, and in the most biting terms she began to accuse me of selfishness and cruelty. I looked at her. Her whole face expressed utter frigidity and hostility, almost hatred of me. I remember how shocked I was ‘how is this?’ I thought. ‘Instead of love, a union of souls—this. Impossible! She is not herself.’ I tried to mollify her, but I found myself confronted by such an implacable wall of cold, caustic hostility, that before I knew it I myself had flown into rage and we said a lot of nasty things to each other. That first quarrel made a dreadful impression on me. I recall a quarrel, but it was not really a quarrel: it was merely a revelation of the great gulf that lay between us. Our love was exhausted as soon as our desire was satisfied, and now we stood facing each other in our true relationship, which was of two completely alien and completely selfish individuals who only wanted to get the greatest amount of satisfaction out of each other.

“I have called what happened a quarrel, but it was not a quarrel; it was merely the exposure of our true relationship brought about by the cessation of sensual desire. I did not realize that this attitude of cold hostility was the normal relationship between us, and I did not realize it was because soon this attitude of hostility was hidden from sight by a new wave of sensuality, of being in love.

“I thought we had quarreled and made it up, and that we would never do such a thing again. But in this first month of honeymooning we soon reached another period of surfeit when no longer needed each other, and this brought on another quarrel. I found the second quarrel more painful than the first. ‘And so our first quarrel was not an accident after all,’ I thought. ‘It was only what was to be expected and will surely be repeated.’ I found the second quarrel particularly shocking because it arose from the most trivial of causes—something about money, of which I was never sparing and could not possibly have begrudged my wife. I only remember that she twisted something I had said into meaning that my money gave me power over her and that I alone had the right to dispose of my money, or something equally vile and stupid and unworthy of either of us. I became angry and accused her of showing a lack of tact, she answered me back, and again we were off. In her words, in the expression of her face and eyes, I again saw that cold, cruel hostility that had shocked me so the first time. I remember having quarreled with my brother, my friends, even my father, but never had there been that peculiarly poisonous malevolence that I saw here.

“With the passage of time, however, this mutual hatred was again screened by the state of being in love, that is to say by sensuality, and again I consoled myself with the thought that these two quarrels had been mistakes that could be righted. But then there came the third and the fourth, and I realized once and for all that they were not accidents, that they could not have been avoided then and could not be avoided in the future, and the prospect horrified me. I was further tormented by the thought that it was only my marriage that had turned out so badly, so differently from my expectations, and that other marriages were successful. I was not then aware that this is everyone’s fate, and that everyone thinks, just as I then thought, that his misfortune is an exception and hides this exceptional and shameful misfortune not only from others, but even from himself, refusing to admit it.

“Our hostility began as soon as soon as we were married and went on and on, growing deeper and more relentless. From the very first week I felt in my heart that I was caught, that instead of being a great happiness, was a great misfortune. But I, like everyone else, did not want to admit it (I would never have admitted it if it had not been for the outcome) and I hid the truth not only from others, but from myself as well. When I think back over it I was amazed that for so long a time I could have failed to see things as they really were. The very fact that our quarrels began with matters of trivial that we could not even remember them afterward should have made everything clear to me. Our reason was given no opportunity to invent weighty motives, to support the perpetual state of hostility we found ourselves in. But even more shocking were the sham motives for our reconciliations. Sometimes there were words, explanations, even tears, but at others—how loathsome the recollection!—after having said the most cruel things to each other, we would steal shy glances, smile, kiss, embrace. Ugh, how low! How could I possibly have failed to the vileness of it all?”
(pg. 313-316, Six Short Masterpieces by Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata)

Perfect time of the year for Tolstoy. I need a fireplace, a nice bottle of wine, a lap quilt, and the smell of scattered, colored leaves floating about. Prepare yourselves, kids, Just So Stories may be in order for the month.