In so far as I could tear myself from domestic matters, I lived in my husband's creative activity and loved it. But one can not put into the background a baby who has to be fed day and night, and I nursed ten children myself, which Leo N. desired and approved.
You mention among professional writers Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, and I would add Lermontov and others; all of them were bachelors without families, and that is a very different matter. This was reflected in their work, just as Leo N.'s family life was completely reflected in his works.
It is perfectly true that Leo N. was generally a man, and not merely a writer. But it is not true, if you will pardon me, that he wrote easily. Indeed, he experienced the 'tortures of creative activity' in a high degree; he wrote with difficulty and slowly, made endless corrections; he doubted his powers, denied his talent, and he often said: 'Writing is just like childbirth; until the fruit is ripe, it does not come out, and, when it does, it comes with pain and labour.'
Those are his own words.
And now, Semen Afanasevich, with regard to your last remark, that Yasnaya Polyana of the years 1862 to 1870 gives the impression of a 'home' in which literary interests had been removed to the second floor—I repeat once more that there was no such 'home'; it is true that I was quite a young girl, in my eighteenth year, when I married, and I only vaguely realized the great importance of the husband whom I adored. Now I have come to the end of the page.
With respect and devotion,
S. Tolstoy.
Nearly three years separate the going away and death of Leo N. Tolstoy from the writing of her autobiography by S. A. T. It might have been expected that that interval of time would have stilled the pain in her heart and that her soul would have found peace from her sufferings. But S. A. T. is far from peace and reconciliation. Pain, a void in her heart, a protest against some one or something are felt in every word of her autobiography. In her work she has given new and interesting information about her family; she has dwelt upon her children, the guests who visited Yasnaya Polyana, the literary works of her husband, without giving us anything new; and then she concentrated all her attention upon the domestic drama. The domestic drama is the centre round which all the thoughts and all the feelings of S. A. T. turn.
In her story about this domestic drama she has not sinned against the truth; she has gone back again into the past deeply and with sincerity—every one who reads her work without prejudice will admit this. And yet one feels that it is not for nothing that she tells of family difficulties and pours out before us the pain of her soul. Continual references to the difficulties of her position as a mother, insistent emphasis upon the mutual love of herself and her husband, and the allusions to "friends" who entered the house, got possession of the mind, heart, and will of Leo N., and disturbed the harmony of their married life—all this creates an impression in the reader's mind that S. A. T., in writing her autobiography, was guided by a definite purpose, that of contradicting the unfavourable rumours about her which circulated everywhere and were getting into newspapers and magazines.
This desire, which is masked in the autobiography, is definitely expressed by S. A. T. in another place, in her preface to Leo N. Tolstoy's Letters to His Wife, published in 1913. There she says frankly: "This, too, has induced me to publish these letters, that after my death, which in all likelihood is near, people will, as usual, wrongly judge and describe my relations to my husband and his to me. Then let them study and form their judgment upon living and genuine data, and not upon guesses, gossip and inventions."