During the writing of War and Peace Tolstoy generally enjoyed good spirits, and on days when his work had gone well, he would gleefully announce that he had left 'a bit of my life in the inkstand.' One of his chief recreations was to go out hare-hunting with borzoi dogs, and this he often did in company with a neighbouring landed proprietor, Bíbikof.
From October 1865 he ceased to keep his Diary, and did not renew it during the period covered by this volume.
1866
On Twelfth Night a grand masquerade was held at Yásnaya, and the festivities were kept up till past two in the morning, and were followed by a troika drive next day.
That same January the family moved to Moscow, where they hired a six-roomed apartment for Rs. 155 a month (say about £23); and there they remained for six weeks while the second part of War and Peace was being printed for the Russian Messenger.
Among the friends Tolstoy saw most of at this time were Aksákof and Prince Obolénsky. He also attended the Moscow drawing school, and he tried his hand at sculpture—modelling a bust of his wife. It does not appear, however, that he continued this occupation long.
In May 1866 a second son, Ilyá, was born, and an English nurse introduced into the family.
During this summer an infantry regiment was stationed near Yásnaya, in which a young Sub-Lieutenant named Kolokóltsef was serving, whom the Countess Tolstoy had known in Moscow. He visited the Tolstoys, and introduced to them his Colonel Únosha, and his fellow-officer Ensign Stasulévitch (brother of the Liberal editor of the monthly magazine, The Messenger of Europe), who had been degraded to the ranks because, while he was on prison-duty, a prisoner had escaped. Ensign Stasulévitch was middle-aged, but he had only recently regained his rank as officer and joined the regiment commanded by his former comrade, Colonel Únosha.
One day Stasulévitch and Kolokóltsef called on Tolstoy and told him that a soldier, serving as secretary in one of the companies of the regiment, had struck his Company Commander, and was to be tried by court-martial. They asked Tolstoy to undertake the man's defence, and he, having always regarded capital punishment with abhorrence, readily agreed to do so.