Alexandra Tolstaya on Maria Lvovna Tolstaya

“Masha died quietly, conscious to the last. Father and Kolya were sitting by her bed. They raised her on her pillow. An hour before she died she opened her eyes wide, saw Father and laid his hand on her breast. Father leaned over her and raised her thin, transparent hand to his lips. "I am dying," she whispered almost inaudibly.”

“Masha was on bad terms with her mother; wholeheartedly devoted to her father, she suffered more than anyone else on his account. … Following in her father's footsteps, aflame with renunciation and self-sacrifice, Masha mortified her flesh, slept on hard boards covered with a thin layer of felt; she lived on a vegetarian diet, worked from morning to night in the fields, teaching children, helping the sick, the unfortunates, or visiting peasant families.”