Favourite Quotes
“Passion! It is a necessity to me: I cannot live without it. To make life a romance is the one thing worth doing.” - p. 68
Short Summary
- Follows the story of a teenager named Masha and her love for her late father’s friend, Sergey Mikhaylych who is in his mid-30s
- At the beginning, Masha is madly in love with him, while he is more hesitant. Not because he doesn’t love her back, but he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for them to get married.
- He believes this because she’s young and youthful, and would want ‘excitement’ in her life while he’s a boring old man
- eventually they get married and are happy
- Slowly Masha’s happiness starts to dwindle. She even have bouts of depression.
- she has an inner monologue on page 48 talking about how she feels about her marriage
- it all boils down to Masha wanting a ‘flowing life’ and not a stagnate one in the country side. This is exactly what Sergey was worried about before they got married
- Masha expresses this to Sergey. Eventually he suggests they go to Petersburg to leave the countryside.
- in Petersburg, Masha is loving ‘society’. She often goes to balls and enjoys her time there. Everyone also loves her. She becomes quite known.
- her love for Sergey increases
- Sergey becomes bored and depressed in Petersburg. He wants to go back to the country side
- when it’s time to return home to the country side, someone convinces Masha to stay a bit longer to attend a ball that a famous Prince, who has eyes for Masha, will be attending
- Masha rejects the offer as a ‘sacrifice’ for her husband (she wants to go, but knows he wants to leave Petersburg)
- they have a HUGE argument over this, page 58-60
- gist of the argument: Sergey thinks its ridiculous that Masha said she’s ‘sacrificing’ this for his sake. Why would she even want to go to meet a man she doesn’t know who admires her - she is willfully forgetting about her husband
- Masha is very combative. She takes back her saying ‘sacrifice’ and says she’ll go to the ball anyways.
- Sergey tells her that their relationship might be over
- later on, Sergey goes to her and tells her he regrets saying what he said. Things get better between them but it’s still weird/awkward
- They both decide to go to the ball. They both act strange - Masha acts shy, especially to the Prince, and Sergey is rude
- their relationship is not doing the best at this time
- on the way home from the ball, Masha is riding with the princess and they talk about how Sergey is unsociable and stuff
- Masha later regrets talking behind her husbands back and realizes the rift between them is growing
- 3 years go by; their relationship is just how it was after the ball incident, i.e. they don’t have that same love for one another anymore, things are stagnant
- during this long elapsed time, they have a child
- the birth of their child had a profound impact on Sergey; he became his old self again - gentle, composed, home-loving
- Masha was profoundly changed for the first two months, then she went back to her old self - going out to balls all the time
- Masha is alone in a city named Baden (Austria?), doing her usual thing of going to balls. She meets an Italian man who loves her. He gives you a kiss in the cheek. She feels insanely guilty and leaves immediately back to where Sergey was staying. She tells him that all she wants to do is go back to Russia and stay there forever.
- They are both in Russia back home now. Masha is still depressed and ‘in her feels’. They have a long discussion about their current love and marriage, page 76 - 80
- At the end, Masha comes to the realization that her old love (her infatuation ‘lovey dovey’ feeling) is gone and will never come back. But she found new happiness elsewhere, the feeling of love for her children and the father of her children
- “That day ended the romance of our marriage; the old feeling became a previous irrecoverable remembrance; but a new feeling of love for my children and the father of my children laid the foundation of a new life and a quite different happiness; and that life and happiness have lasted to the present time.” p. 81
Analysis
Notes and Quotes
Love
- “to love him was not enough for me after the happiness I had felt in falling in love” - p. 48
- it seems like she was in love with the process of falling in love
Other
- “I have no complaint to make of you. I am merely bored and want not to be bored” - p. 52
- Masha said this to Sergey
- it just proves that Sergey’s worries pre-marriage were valid and unfortunately came true
- when Lady S, the beautiful English lady came into town, Masha basically become depressed - p. 66-67
- this just proves that Masha’s happiness is derived from getting attention from others. Usually she’s the center of attention because she’s the beauty, but when someone more beautiful rolls around, she becomes defeated.
Main Idea of the Book
- happiness can come from many places, and you must find a place where you can find permanent happiness.
- Masha’s happiness first came from her love for her husband at the beginning of their marriage, i.e. the ‘butterflies’ stage, which never lasts forever.
- Then her happiness came from external sources, i.e. greater society. She liked the validation she was getting from princes and princesses.
- Finally, she finally accepted a new source of happiness: loving her children and the father of her children. And this love “lasted to the present time”:
- “That day ended the romance of our marriage; the old feeling became a previous irrecoverable remembrance; but a new feeling of love for my children and the father of my children laid the foundation of a new life and a quite different happiness; and that life and happiness have lasted to the present time.” p. 81
- the idea of permanent happiness is interesting. How can you achieve permanent happiness? Reminds me of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck which argues that only by finding problems you enjoy and solving them, can you be in a state of happiness. And if you continually do this process, you have permanent happiness
- permanent happiness does NOT mean you are ALWAYS happy, it actually refers to having a source of happiness that is more fixed and not dependent on external factors or out of your control, which again is a principle often repeated in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
Reflections
Very interesting book. Tolstoy really can write about so many different types of characters.
Masha’s character development was really well done especially in such a short book.