All a matter of experience

Masha and Sergey are now married. But such was not a psychologically easy undertaking for Masha. 

I feel that Tolstoy's handling of the female psyche took a bit of a dive once it turned to the matter of marriage. He had a lot to work with because of the age and experience gap, but Masha's worry and concern over feeling things that she'd not felt before when with and thinking of Sergey seem slightly overwrought to me. 

I've lost the impression that Masha is particularly a woman being written by a man. This sense has since been replaced with knowledge of a person with very little experience of the world entering into a commitment with another who has a great deal of experience of the world. 

However, some of Masha and Sergey's talks circle around Masha's fears about their marriage. And, in doing so, it's possible that some of her anxieties were implanted, or perhaps just encouraged, by Sergey's questions to her. 

I imagine that part two (where my bookmark currently sits) of this story will be much like act two in a play. We'll rejoin the characters after some time has passed and see just what their marriage has come to.