ABSTRACT
ON February 23rd, 1895, the Countess Tolstoy recorded: "My dear Vanichka died at eleven o'clock at night. And, my God! to think that I am still alive." Alexey, the youngest boy but one, had died in 1886; but the birth of Ivan two years later had more than compensated for his loss, so deeply beloved was he by the whole family. Now that he too was gone, the household was plunged in grief. "A highly gifted child, with a warm and gentle heart" (as Anna Dostoevsky called him), he was not only his mother's, but his father's favourite; and Tolstoy had often said of him that he hoped that he would live to carry on his work. To Tania and to Mary, both as yet unmarried, he had also been an object of maternal affection: to Alexandra, an inseparable companion. While Tolstoy took his wife into Tania's empty bedroom, and, seated on the sofa, the Countess rested her head on his breast, both of them "nearly unconscious with sorrow," Alexandra wandered forlornly about the house, not knowing what to do.
