Family Happiness
by Leo Tolstoy
'Family Happiness' Summary
The story is narrated by Masha. After a courtship that has the trappings of a mere family friendship, Masha's love grows and expands until she can no longer contain it. She reveals it to Sergey Mikhaylych and discovers that he also is deeply in love. If he has resisted her it was because of his fear that the age difference between them would lead the very young Masha to tire of him. He likes to be still and quiet, he tells her, while she will want to explore and discover more and more about life. Ecstatically and passionately happy, the pair immediately engages to be married. Once married they move to Mikhaylych's home. They are both members of the landed Russian upper class. Masha soon feels impatient with the quiet order of life on the estate, notwithstanding the powerful understanding and love that remains between the two. To assuage her anxiety, they decide to spend a few weeks in St. Petersburg. Sergey Mikhaylych agrees to take Masha to an aristocratic ball. He hates "society" but she is enchanted with it. They go again, and then again. She becomes a regular, the darling of the countesses and princes, with her rural charm and her beauty. Sergey Mikhaylych, at first very pleased with Petersburg society's enthusiasm for his wife, frowns on her passion for "society"; but he does not try to influence Masha. Out of respect for her, Sergey Mikhaylych will scrupulously allow his young wife to discover the truth about the emptiness and ugliness of "society" on her own. But his trust in her is damaged as he watches how dazzled she is by this world. Finally they confront each other about their differences. They argue but do not treat their conflict as something that can be resolved through negotiation. Both are shocked and mortified that their intense love has suddenly been called into question. Something has changed. Because of pride, they both refuse to talk about it. The trust and the closeness are gone. Only courteous friendship remains. Masha yearns to return to the passionate closeness they had known before Petersburg. They go back to the country. Though she gives birth to children and the couple has a good life, she despairs. They can barely be together by themselves. Finally she asks him to explain why he did not try to guide and direct her away from the balls and the parties in Petersburg. Why did they lose their intense love? Why don't they try to bring it back? His answer is not the answer she wants to hear, but it settles her down and prepares her for a long life of comfortable "Family Happiness".
Book Details
Author
Leo Tolstoy
Russia
Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, Tolstoy is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878),often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved litera...
More on Leo TolstoyListen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
The Wounded Name by D. K. Broster
It tells the story of a young girl named Veronica who moves to Scotland to attend a boarding school. The book was written in 1917 and remains an impor...
Countess Erika's Apprenticeship by Ossip Schubin
The baron is busy building ventures which are doomed to fail. He thinks the next one would be better, and mourns the absence of his wife who went to b...
Exile from Space by Judith Merril
The basic story is young woman going to the city for the first time, but there's clearly something a bit odd about this young woman because of how she...
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
The Custom of the Country is a 1913 tragicomedy of manners novel by American Edith Wharton. It tells the story of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern girl who...
The Luckiest Girl in the School by Angela Brazil
It tells the story of a young girl who is the luckiest in her school, not just because of her good fortune, but also because of her adventurous spirit...
The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit by Arthur Scott Bailey
Jimmy Rabbit was the most curious creature in the Green Forest. He always wanted to know how things worked and why things were the way they were. The...
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
It transports readers to the enchanting landscapes of the American West, offering a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the ever-changing nature o...
Victory by Lester Del Rey
In the gripping science fiction novel "Victory" by Lester del Rey, humanity's survival hangs in the balance as a desperate battle unfolds on an alien...
The Portrait of Mr. W. H. by Oscar Wilde
The story is about an attempt to uncover the identity of Mr. W. H., the enigmatic dedicatee of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It is based on a theory, origina...
The House Behind the Cedars by Charles Chesnutt
The story occurs in the southern American states of North and South Carolina a few years following the American Civil War. Rena Walden, a young woman...
Reviews for Family Happiness
No reviews posted or approved, yet...