Starting into "Family Happiness"

Leo Tolstoy is the last person I'd expected to write a short story that feels as though it's familiar to fans of the Brontë sisters or Jane Austen.

Of course, my knowledge of Russian history and literature (of anything historically Eastern European in fact) is pretty sparse. Awareness of what that region's literary legends did definitely falls into the category of such knowledge.

But what I find particularly curious as I read "Family Happiness" is that Tolstoy's Mashechka doesn't sound like she's written by a man. No more than Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet does. It's much clearer to me now how nineteenth century readers so easily assumed books written by women were actually done by men.

What I'm reading is a collection of four of Tolstoy's short stories. The first of these is "Family Happiness." It's as dour as everyone says Russian literature is, with its heroine going on frequent late night walks alone and being called out for the affecting happiness only in the presence of others. Where I've left things, the main character, Mashechka, expects her confession of love to the quite older Sergey Mikhaylych to go well.

I've not read much Russian literature before this, but I have read enough to know that something's going to go awry. Based on Sergey's dwelling on his calling Mashechka Masha, I'm willing to guess that this is either Mashechka's mother's name, or the name of some previous lover. If things get really interesting, it will be the name of Mashechka's father. Alternately, and possibly most disappointingly, it could just be a matter of calling her by a familiar form of her name. Without proper understanding of Russian names, it's hard to guess with certainty.

Actually, the age gap between these lovers-to-be is kind of startling. Mashechka is seventeen and Sergey is 36. So Mashechka definitely fails the "half-your-age-plus-seven" rule.

The mid nineteenth century was a different time, I know, but still. Under the auspices of that rule, Mashechka's a full eight years too young.

If things do go as wrong as I expect them to, I'll be sure to chalk it up to this disparity in age.