" Some one in the room suggested playfully to
Tolstoi that he try a similar commencement and write a novel. He
immediately withdrew, and wrote the first sentence of Anna Karenina.
The next day the Countess said in a letter to her sister: "Yesterday
Leo all of a sudden began to write a novel of contemporary life. The
subject: the unfaithful wife and the whole resulting tragedy. I am
very happy."
The suicide of the heroine was taken almost literally from an event
that happened in January 1872. We learn this by a letter of the
Countess, written on the 10 January in that year: "We have just
learned of a very dramatic story. You remember, at Bibikov's, Anna
Stepanova? Well, this Anna Stepanova was jealous of all the
governesses at Bibikov's house. She displayed her jealousy so much
that finally Bibikov became angry and quarrelled with her; then Anna
Stepanova left him and went to Tula. For three days no one knew where
she was. At last, on the third day, she appeared at Yassenky, at five
o'clock in the afternoon, with a little parcel. At the railway station
she gave the coachman a letter for Bibikov, and gave him a ruble for a
tip. Bibikov would not take the letter, and when the coachman returned
to the station, he learned that Anna Stepanova had thrown herself
under the train and was crushed to death. She had certainly done it
intentionally. The judge came, and they read him the letter.
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