'I'm not the sort of husband you dream of when you're walking alone along the avenue in the evening, am I?

'I'm not the sort of husband you dream of when you're walking alone along the avenue in the evening, am I?

• And it would be a disaster, wouldn't it?'*

How does love die?

This question lies at the heart of Tolstoy's desperately sad novella. It tells the story of seventeen-year-old Masha who, despite their differences, falls passionately in love with an older man, and marries him. Soon, however, the gap between them becomes unbridgeable.