An event which occupies me very much at present is Sergey's examinations, which begin on the 27th.... What a terrible summer! Here it is dreadful and mournful to look at the wood, especially at the young trees. They have all perished.
On 18th May he wrote again:
I have been slow in answering your long and cordial letter because I have been unwell and dispirited, as I still am, but I will write at least a few lines. Our house is full of people: my niece Nagórnaya with two children, the Kouzmínskys with four children; and Sónya [the Countess] is still poorly, and I dejected and dull-minded. Our one hope was for good weather, and that we have not got. As you and I resemble one another, you must know the condition in which one feels oneself to be, now a God from whom nothing is hid, and now stupider than a horse. In that state I am at present. So do not be exacting. Till next letter, yours,
L. Tolstoy.
The Kouzmínskys referred to above were Tánya, her husband, and their family. They spent every summer at Yásnaya, in the 'wing' house. When discussing any excursion or other undertaking with Mr. Kouzmínsky, Tolstoy would often say, 'But we must hear what the Authorities have to say about it,' the Authorities being their wives.
Passing into his 'summer condition,' Tolstoy's attention to Anna Karénina slackened; but before the end of the year he set energetically to work to finish it. The interest aroused by the book was extreme, and the story goes that Moscow ladies used to send to the establishment where the novel was being printed, to try to find out what the continuation would be.
On 21st July Tolstoy writes inviting Fet's brother, Peter Afánasyevitch, a great lover of horses, to accompany him to Samára; and in the same letter he makes an allusion to the troubles of the Slavs in Turkey, where fighting had already been going on for a twelvemonth with the Herzegovinians. Peter Afanásyevitch had gone as a volunteer, and had returned after the failure of the insurrection.
21 July 1876.
I am very much to blame, dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch, for having been so slow in writing to you. I prepare to write every day, but cannot find time because I am doing nothing.... Stráhof was here a week ago, and we philosophised to the point of weariness....
I press the hand of Peter Afanásyevitch. I should like to hear his stories about Herzegovina, in the existence of which I do not believe!