Family happiness

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Lev Tolstoy in 1860

Family happiness , also happiness of marriage ( Russian Семейное счастие , Semeinoje stschastije ), is a novel by Lev Tolstoy , the writing of which began in mid-1858 and which appeared in the July and August 1859 issue of the Moscow Russki Westnik . In 1856 and 1857, Tolstoy had a liaison with Valeria Vladimirovna Arsenyeva. He even wanted to marry Valeria and used episodes from the relationship in the little novel.

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The aristocratic Maria Alexandrovna - called Mascha - tells of the first five years of her love affair with her aristocratic husband Sergei. In a sad, dark winter, the 17-year-old orphan Mascha waits idly for spring on her country estate in Pokrovskoye. In this monotony, the visit of her guardian, 36-year-old neighbor Sergej Michailytsch, is a welcome change. Masha remembers her blessed mother's words. She would want a man like Sergej for Mascha one day. Masha has not seen this friend of her blessed father for six years. The visitor is amazed at the blossomed beauty. The simple Mascha, who in the opinion of the visitor is not flirtatious, can breathe a sigh of relief. With their financial situation, everything was "in the best order".

Mascha states that the feelings are in harmony. At that time, however, Mascha remembers, she did not yet know that it was love. But the young girl was already striving for a quiet family life in the country with constant self-sacrifice. Finally, Masha calmly and confidently accepts the reticent Sergei's proposal. After the wedding in the smallest possible circle, the young couple lives in the household of Masha's mother-in-law Tatiana Semyonovna. Looking back on her anxious feeling of strong love after the marriage, Mascha writes: "I realized that I was entirely his, and felt happy in the awareness of his power over me." But with "constant self-sacrifice" for third parties this selfish mutual Love nothing in common. The sensitive Mascha registers the existence of a special world inside her husband. She is refused entry to this. Sergei realizes that his wife is tired of the quiet life, the desert. She wants to get out of the tightness of her mother-in-law's household. He's going to Petersburg with her . Mascha writes: "I needed a fight." In the Neva metropolis it is from the High Society certifies natural, rural charm and surprisingly "gracious, graceful self-confidence and adaptability." Masha is blooming after such warm rain. Sergei, on the other hand, despises those people who establish false relationships and destroy real ones. They arouse unrealizable desires. Masha is noticed at balls. That flatters their self-love. Sergej, in Mascha's eyes now “proud, uncontrolled, unsociable and haughty”, wants to go back to the country, wants to leave the “swamp of this narrow-minded society indulging in idleness and luxury” behind as quickly as possible. That can't be done on the spot with Mascha, who has got a taste for it. There is no rift. Sergej stays with his wife in Petersburg and Mascha wants to please him - despite all his lust for pleasure.

At home, Mascha gives birth to her first son. The now 21-year-old mother perceives her indifference to the child as appalling. The couple spent the following summer in Baden-Baden . Sergej goes to Heidelberg . Mascha continues her cure in Baden-Baden and is heavily courted by the Italian Marchese D. She describes the climax of the rapprochement - the love kiss of the Italian: "I had the insurmountable desire to surrender to the kisses of his brutal yet beautiful mouth, the embrace of his ... hands." Immediately afterwards Mascha travels to Heidelberg and wants to confess everything to Sergej. But it remains at will. Money is running out. Sergei welcomes his wife's willingness to return to the Russian provinces. Mascha gives birth to her second son - Ivan - there. She wants to make up for the omitted debate. Whenever Masha tries to do this, Sergei means to her that he knows everything she wants to say. Each word is one too many, because she says one thing and will do the other. From now on, man and woman live side by side. Finally Masha is satisfied with her husband, who is a good father. For his part, Sergei claims that he is completely happy. But Masha wants to cry ruefully for her unshed tears and accuses Sergei of the freedoms he has given her. As they saw it, it was actually unforgivable. When she didn't know life!

Tolstoy delivers a slightly hypothermic happy ending: When the wet nurse and Vanya, as Ivan is called, enter the room, Sergei kisses his wife; not like the lover, but like an old friend.

German-language editions

  • The Cossacks, in the snowstorm, family happiness. German by August Scholz . B. Cassirer, 1923, Berlin
  • Family happiness. German by Hermann Röhl . Pp. 206-314 in: Gisela Drohla (Ed.): Leo N. Tolstoj. All the stories. Third volume. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1961 (2nd edition of the edition in eight volumes 1982)
  • Family happiness. From the Russian. Translation by Hermann Asemissen . Pp. 162-259 in: Lew Nikolajewitsch Tolstoi. Early narratives. 459 pages, Verlag Philipp Reclam jun. Leipzig 1986 ( RUB 735, 3rd edition, licensor: Rütten and Loening, Berlin)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Russian Валерия Владимировна Арсеньева (1836–1909)
  2. Russian comments on the history of the writing
  3. Edition used, p. 210, 8. Zvu
  4. Edition used, p. 218, 3rd Zvu
  5. Edition used, p. 244, 1. Zvu
  6. August Scholz (* 1857 in Immenau (Kr. Pleß) , † 1923 in Berlin ) was a writer and translator.
  7. Russian Владимир Яковлевич Линков, entry at istina.msu.ru in 2016