Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/34

Biography attracted by its novelty, but decamped the moment they felt they had learnt enough, and the attempt to found fourteen establishments of the same sort in other places failed for want of public support, whereupon Tolstoi abandoned the scheme altogether, and buried himself in the steppes inhabited by the nomadic Bashkirs, in order to "breathe fresh air, drink kumiss, and live the healthy, natural life of the brute beasts." To this residence among the Bashkirs we are indebted for that piercingly vivid story: "How much land does a man want?" which will be found in this volume.

Tolstoi presently exchanged the rough hospitality of the nomadic Bashkirs for the comfort of a home of his own. On September 23rd, 1862, he married Sophia Ber, the second daughter of a Moscow physician. The bride was eighteen, the groom four-and-thirty, and at first the lady was not only indifferent to her wooer, but took no pains to conceal the fact. It seems to have been a point of honour with the Ber family that the three daughters should be married in order of seniority, and they took it quite amiss when Tolstoi, passing over the eldest daughter, set his heart upon the second. The gentleman's final declaration, which was ultimately successful, is minutely described in "Anna Karenina," where Kitty Shcherbatskaya is Miss Ber, while Tolstoi has described himself to the life in the character of Levin. This union proved to be of the happiest, and was blessed with nine children, five boys and four girls, the youngest of whom was born in 1891. With his marriage the most joyous period of Tolstoi's life begins. Writing xxvi.