to her soul to help him, and that such prayer always did. She seems to have been a gifted and delightful woman, speaking five languages and playing the piano exceptionally well. She had a gift for telling stories too. At balls, it is said, her young girl-friends would leave the dance and gather together in a dark room to hear her tell a story, for the Princess had to have the room darkened or she felt shy.
Tolstoy's mother was hot-tempered, yet self-controlled. She was generous and hardly ever condemned anybody, and she was very truthful. Her son Leo inherited many of her qualities.
Tolstoy lost his father when he was nine years old, but he remembered him quite well, and writes of him as a good, conscientious man, who spent his life looking after his estate, not very cleverly, but who was especially humane and kind for those days, as he never beat his serfs and was considered lacking in firmness. He was, however, an independent-minded man, who refused to bow down before the will of the Russian Government: indeed, he refused always to serve under it. Tolstoy had a great love and admiration for his father, but nothing like the feeling he had for the memory of his mother.
Tolstoy and his three brothers and a sister were brought up at Yasnaya Polyana by a distant relative, whom they called Aunt Tatiana. She was rather a remarkable character, and Leo was devoted to her. He tells us she greatly helped to form his character.
