AND then there began my lonely life in Yasnaya Polyana, and the energy which I used to spend on life was and is directed only to this, that I may endure my sorrowful existence worthily and with submission to the will of God. I try to occupy myself only with what in some way or another concerns the memory of Leo Nikolaevich.

I live in Yasnaya Polyana keeping the house and its surroundings as they were when Leo Nikolaevich was alive, and looking after his grave. I have kept for myself two hundred desyatins of land with the apple orchard and the plantations, the making of which had given us such pleasure. The greater part of the land (475 desyatins), with the fine, carefully preserved woods, I sold to my daughter Alexandra to be transferred to the peasants.{73}

I also sold my Moscow house to the municipality,{74} and I sold the last edition of the works of Leo Tolstoy, and gave all the proceeds to my children. But they, and particularly the grandchildren, are so numerous! Including the daughters-in-law and myself, we are now a family of thirty-eight, and my help was, therefore, far from satisfactory.

I always feel in my heart profound gratitude to the Sovereign Emperor for granting me a pension, which allows me to live in security and to keep the manor of Yasnaya Polyana.

Three years have now passed. I look sadly on the havoc in Yasnaya Polyana, how the trees which we planted are being cut down, how the beauty of the place is gradually being spoiled, now that everything has been handed over to the timber-merchants and peasants who frequently have painful quarrels, now about the land and now about the woods. And what is going to happen to the manor and the house after my death?

Almost daily I visit the grave; I thank God for the happiness granted to me in early life, and as to the last troubles between us, I look upon them as a trial and a redemption of sin before death. Thy will be done.{75}

Countess Sophie Tolstoy.

October 28, 1913.
Yasnava Polyana.