What a beautiful book—or rather, how beautifully it is written! I must confess, I’ve fallen in love with Leo Tolstoy and would love to date him—not in the modern sense, but just to sit, talk, and listen to him endlessly.

The plot is simple: a young girl, Masha, falls in love with an older man, Sergey, and then falls out of it. What makes the novella extraordinary is not the storyline but the narration and the way Tolstoy expresses emotions and thoughts. This is one of the few stories narrated by a woman, offering a rare, intimate perspective through the voice of a male author. I imagine Tolstoy must have had top-notch powers of observation and a deep well of empathy to write with such insight.

I carry a belief that everything changes and evolves. Reading this story reinforced that belief—love and relationships evolve, too. Someone once said it right: there is nothing more transient than relationships.

As the story unfolds, Masha, once exposed to Petersburg’s glittering social life, begins yearning for more from the relationship—for action, adventure, and newness. What exactly she seeks is unclear, perhaps even to her, but it’s certainly a call from her restless spirit. For me, this longing resonates deeply. My own search for “newness” hasn’t been tied to people- for me its travel, work, or adventure—but the essence is the same: to satisfy that inner spark, that restless urge to feel alive.

I’ll admit, life sometimes feels boring when everything is going too well. sometimes I almost feel like I rock my own boat, just to stir up some adventure. But setting my musings aside, Tolstoy weaves his arguments with such grace that they sound not only beautiful but also logically convincing.

Sergey, too, is crafted with great depth. Toward the end, his words are both sensible and compelling. He comes across as mature and grounded. (Of course, I sense a little bias—how could Tolstoy betray his own species (read it as gender)? Jokes apart, Sergey’s perspective felt refreshingly wise.)

One of his lines still feels strikingly relevant today:

“All of you, and especially you women, must live through all life’s nonsense in order to return to life itself. It’s no good taking someone else’s word for it.”

It makes complete sense—experience life on your own terms, and only then decide what holds meaning.

At another point, Sergey describes his version of a perfect life:

“I have found what is necessary for happiness: a quiet secluded life in our rural backwoods, with an opportunity of doing good to people for whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to it; then work, which one may hope will be of benefit; then rest, nature, books, music, love of those close to me—such is my happiness.”

This vision of happiness resonates with me.

Even at the start of the novella, his words fall like music, lifting Masha from her melancholy:

“It’s not much of a young lady who’s only alive as long as she’s admired, and as soon as she’s left alone, simply goes to pieces. She’s all just for show and has nothing in herself to fall back on. You have music, books, study, you have your whole life ahead of you. Now is the time to prepare, so that later you won’t regret. Another year and it will be too late. Occupy yourself with study, and don’t brood.”

Some fun facts discovered during my conversation with ChatGPT: I learned that this novella is said to be partly autobiographical. Scholars believe it mirrors Tolstoy’s own relationships and inner struggles with love, passion, and family. Published in 1859, it was one of his early works, well before War and Peace and Anna Karenina. The language is much simpler, yet it retains Tolstoy’s elegance.

I think I have found the author I truly relate to—someone who manages, at times, to put my own thoughts into words. I dream of reading every one of his works and, in some impossible way, of knowing him as a person.

Right now, I’m slowly making my way through Anna Karenina. August has not been too kind to my reading pace, but hope and optimism are all we have.

Until next time,

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