---
layer: reference
lastUpdated: 2026-05-27
tags: [research, biryukov, doukhobors]
lang: en
source: tolstoy-lit.ru
volume: 3
chapter: 7
---

# Volume III, Chapter 7. *On Life*. New Visitors. Correspondence

**Source:** https://tolstoy-lit.ru/tolstoy/bio/biryukov/biografiya-biryukov-3-7.htm

**Text:** P. I. Biryukov (1860–1931), *Biography of L. N. Tolstoy*, Volume III. Public domain.
**Translation:** English translation for the tolstoy.life research platform (2026-05-27), from the continuous Russian capture in [`../ru/chapter-07.md`](../ru/chapter-07.md).

---

## Part II. 1887–1891. Philosophical Grounding and the Practice of Life


Side by side with his artistic creation there went on within L. N. a profound philosophical labour; firm theoretical positions were being worked out. I remember how, just at the time of his illness, at the end of 1886, L. N. received from Anna Konstantinovna Diterikhs, afterwards Chertkova, a serious letter with inquiries about the meaning of life and about the significance of death; it interested him, and he wrote a fairly thorough reply on several sheets of letter-paper. This reply was copied out fair and returned to L. N.; after which L. N., correcting it, became absorbed in the work and gave to it much intellectual and creative force. He wrote it a fairly long while — a whole year. This "reply to a letter" kept growing, and the inner spiritual labour that accompanied it opened up to him new forms of consciousness, which he set down on paper.

Several times it seemed to him that he had finished this article, and he read it to those close to him, in whom he hoped to find a serious understanding.

On 25 February 1887 L. N. was present at a session of the Moscow Psychological Society. Professor N. Ya. Grot read a paper on the freedom of the will. In a letter to N. N. Strakhov, Lev Nikolaevich says:

> "I listened to the debates and spent the evening excellently, not without instruction, and, chiefly, with great sympathy for the persons of the society. I am beginning to learn not to grow angry at error."

In this way there was established between L. N. and the Psychological Society a moral bond, maintained chiefly by N. Ya. Grot. And so, at one of the next sessions following — namely on 14 March of that same year — L. N. himself came forward with a paper entitled "Life Infinite." This was the temporary title of the article he was then writing. At one time L. N. called this article "The Concept of Life," and afterwards "On Life and Death." But since the more deeply he entered into the sense of the article, the less room and significance death retained in it, then, when he had finished it, the word "death" dropped out of the title altogether, and the article took the title *On Life*.

A few extracts from his letters to me of this year show how this book occupied him.

Thus, in the spring of that year he writes:

> "I have grown lonely for you, dear friends (I turn to you and to the Chertkovs), I think of you incessantly. It is surely because of late I was so carried away by my thoughts on life and death that I thought little of you, and so now I am making up for it. I have still not finished, and keep making it clearer and clearer to myself. When I finish, I shall print, with Obolensky, the latest, in my opinion the best, version, if he wishes it and the censorship lets it through (there is nothing uncensorable, I think)" (*).

(* The Archive of P. I. Biryukov. *)

In April he wrote to Chertkov:

> "I keep working at life and death, and the further I go, the clearer it grows. This work is for me a step which I am climbing. In the course of this work there come thoughts arising out of this same work, which can be expressed only in artistic form; and when I finish or break off, God willing, I shall write them down too."

In summer, in one of his letters to me, he says:

> "My article on life and death keeps not finishing, and grows larger on the one side while it shortens and grows clearer on the other. In general I see that I shall not finish soon, and if I do finish, I shall print it as a separate book, without the censorship, and therefore I cannot give it to Obolensky. And this distresses me. Be my mediator with him, so that he should not be distressed nor bear me any grievance. I shall try to replace it with something else. Please speak with him and write to me."

Finally, still later, he writes: "My article 'On Life and Death' I have kept writing and am still writing, and it is very hard; nevertheless I am sending it to be set in type. Strakhov was here and approved of it; this encouraged me."

Yet he did not send the article off to be set up even after this letter. When I arrived at Yasnaya Polyana at the end of July, I found the manuscript copied out anew and with only minor corrections — a sign that the matter was nearing its end. And indeed, when I, having stayed several days, made ready to drive to Moscow, L. N. gave me the whole manuscript to take with me, with the charge of handing it in to be set at Mamontov's printing-house, which I did. At the same time L. N. asked me to convey to Professor Grot his request to read the proofs. By this he wished artificially to tear himself away from his work, to take off himself the cares of it, in order to free his powers for another work, an artistic one, that was ripening within him.

After my departure he wrote to Chertkov:

> "Dear P. I. left yesterday and carried off to the printing-house the article on life. I began to write of life and death; and when I had finished, it turned out that the second part of the title had to be thrown out, because for me, at least, that word had wholly lost the meaning I had attached to it in the title. God grant that, at least upon some readers, it may produce that same effect."

But he could not free himself entirely. This philosophical work drew him to itself, and he himself guided Grot's proof-work. In November of that same year he writes to me about this:

> "Tell Grot, please, that I have referred the 'introduction' to the notes; but then I think it ought to be left as an 'introduction,' and I waver. Will he not be so good as to decide this for me. And besides this, that I should like to look over what comes after those chapters which you and I corrected. Please tell them the same at the printing-house. They now send me nothing. Imagine, with Kant it is all the very same that is said, and wonderfully so in many places."

At this time he was indeed reading Kant and admiring him.

Here is what, among other things, he writes about Kant in that same letter to me:

> "I have experienced much joy in reading, for the first time, Kant — his *Critique of Practical Reason*. What a strange fate this astonishing work has had. It is the crown of all his profound, reasonable activity, and yet this is known to no one. If you do not read it in the original, and I am alive, I shall translate and expound it as best I can. Is there not a biography of Kant in the public library? Ask for it on my behalf and send it."

About this same matter, more at length, he writes in a letter to N. N. Strakhov of 16 October 1887:

> "I am in great agitation. I have been unwell with a cold these few days and, not having the strength to write, I read, and read for the first time Kant's *Critique of Practical Reason*. Please answer me — have you read it? When? And did it strike you? Some 25 years ago I believed that talented bribery of Schopenhauer's, and read the critique of speculative reason, which is nothing other than an introduction to the exposition of his fundamental views in the *Critique of Practical Reason*; and so I believed that the old man had talked himself into nonsense and that the centre of gravity in him was negation. And I lived for 20 years in such a conviction, and never did anything lead me to the thought of looking into the book itself. Why, such an attitude to Kant is just the same as taking the scaffolding round a building for the building. Is this my personal error, or a general one? It seems to me there is here a general error. I purposely looked (a few days ago I read his Russian biography) into Weber's history of philosophy, which I happened to have, and saw that Herr Weber does not approve of that fundamental position to which Kant came — that our freedom, determined by moral laws, is the thing-in-itself (that is, life itself) — and sees in him only an occasion for the lucubrations of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, and finds the whole merit in the *Critique of Pure Reason*; that is, he does not see at all the temple built upon the cleared ground, but sees only the cleared ground, very convenient for gymnastic exercises. Grot, a doctor of philosophy, writes a paper on freedom and cites certain Ribots and others, whose definitions present a tournament of absurdities and contradictions, while the Kantian definition is ignored, and we listen and discourse, discovering an already-discovered America. If there does not come about, in the midst of our world, a regeneration of the sciences and arts through the extraction of the pearl from the dung, we shall so go on drowning in our privy of ignorant much-bookishness and much-learning-by-rote, one thing after another. Write, please, your opinion of this, and answers to my questions."

Strakhov answered him with a long letter, beginning with the words: "What a wondrous letter you have sent me, priceless Lev Nikolaevich! I see, as it were, that flame which burns and shines within you."

Strakhov confesses that he had not read Kant's *Critique of Practical Reason*, knowing it only in exposition, and on the whole agrees with L. N.'s point of view.

At last the book *On Life* began to be printed. In December of that same year L. N. wrote to me, among other things, as follows: "I am occupied chiefly with corrections and additions to *On Life*, which is all set up and more than three-quarters printed off."

Before long it was indeed printed off, but, alas, it was not fated to see the light. The censorship of that day found it harmful, and it was destroyed.

And yet its aim and meaning lay in this: that if life is love, then in it there is no death. And this seemed harmful. The censorship fastened upon that chapter in which the scribes and Pharisees are denounced, taking it to their own account. L. N. was distressed and struck by the absurdity of such a decision.

I remember how he rejoiced, re-reading his exposition, which satisfied the demands for a systematic, philosophical grounding of his views.

"Often, in disputes with learned men," he said to me, "I run up against a complete misunderstanding of what I say — it is as though we spoke different languages." And so he came to the conviction that he needed to set forth the logical groundings of his views, in order to lead people into that circle of concepts which form the foundation of his world-outlook. And it was this aim that the book *On Life* was to serve.

In it he depicts the picture of the wretchedness of human life as a consequence of the three contradictions onto which his reasonable consciousness pushes a man. A man who lives consciously cannot but feel the constantly pursuing bugbear of physical sufferings and of death, and this violates his good. Besides this, striving after his own personal good, he enters into struggle with all the beings around him, and the conditions of this struggle poison his life for him. But even if he should succeed in attaining the personal good after which he strove, then, as soon as the personal good is attained, its illusion is destroyed, and it ceases to be a good and only arouses a new, unquenchable desire, which gives a man no good whatever.

Brought to the consciousness of the wretchedness of his existence, a man feels a stoppage of life and comes near to perdition.

This contradiction is resolved by that single means which constitutes also the essence of the teaching of Christ and of all the sages of the world: by service outside oneself, by love, by self-renunciation. And for this it is needful not to destroy the animal personality, but to subordinate it to the higher reasonable consciousness.

> "Love resolves all the contradictions of life. The activity of love meets with no competition, since the competitor too becomes an object of love. The activity of love knows no death. Death is not terrible to it, because the whole world lives eternally, and he who enters upon the path of love is made a partaker of the eternal world. The activity of love knows no satiety, meets with no illusions, because it is the very essence of life, the highest and eternal reality."

In this same book L. N. gives an exact definition of love, distinguishing and setting one against the other two kinds of love: the one — love as the preference of one being or object before another for the sake of one's own interests; and the other — love as the preference of the interests of every other person before the interests of one's own personality.

In touching, poetic expressions L. N. depicts this true love:

> "Love, that love in which alone there is life, manifests itself in the soul of man like a barely visible, tender shoot among the coarse shoots, resembling it, of weeds — the various lusts of man, which we call love. At first it seems to people, and to the man himself, that this shoot is the one from which is to grow that tree in which the birds will shelter, and that all the other shoots are one and the same thing. People even prefer at first the shoots of the weeds, which grow faster, and the single shoot of life is choked and dies. But still worse is what happens even more often: people have heard that among these shoots there is one real, vital one, called love, and instead of it, trampling it down, they begin to nurture another shoot of weed, calling it love. But what is worse still: people seize with coarse hands the very shoot and cry: 'Here it is, we have found it, we know it now, we will raise it up — love, love! The highest feeling, here it is!' And people begin to transplant it, to correct it, and they grip it, crush it, so that the shoot dies without having blossomed, and the same or other people say: it is all rubbish, trifles, sentimentality. The shoot of love, tender at its appearing, not enduring a touch, is mighty only in its full growth. All that people do to it is only the worse for it. It needs one thing only — that nothing should hide from it the sun of reason, which alone makes it grow."

Finally, L. N. ends his book with these words:

> "That to which man strives is given him: a life that cannot be death, and a good that cannot be evil."

This book could be found harmful by the Russian censorship alone. In actual fact it is written in so mild a tone that Sofya Andreyevna — who in general took a negative attitude toward L. N.'s critical religious-philosophical works, and even refused to copy them out — having read this book, took up the copying again, and even the translation of it into French, which she also completed under the editorship of Professor Tastevin and published in Paris. Some of the chapters L. N. looked over in translation, and they served him for the correction of the Russian text. He said that in a translation, as in a mirror, the faults of the drawing are more visible, and it was useful to him to glance at this reflection of his thoughts. Only after 20 years could this book appear in full in Russia. Earlier, there were printed from it only those extracts that the censorship had permitted.

This serious philosophical work L. N. was able to combine with purely practical activity, both in the sphere of his personal life and in the sphere of social movements and of literature.

In his personal life, in the inner sphere of it, there comes a certain quieting. He begins a new artistic work from the life of the Christians of the first centuries, under the title *Walk in the Light While Ye Have the Light*; he sketches this tale to the end, but stops and abandons it, unfinished. By his own account, in order to finish it he would have had to perform a great labour, to study the sources of the everyday life of that time. And for this he had no longer the strength, and, chiefly, no time.

Notwithstanding its incompleteness, this tale presents great interest, both in content and in form. It is written in the form of an interpretation of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. And its meaning lies in this: that for God there is no time, and whenever a man may turn to the true path, in youth or in old age, he will be a welcome labourer in Christ's vineyard, and the good which he will receive is the same for all, because it is the eternal, immeasurable good.

Many pages of this tale present a remarkable philosophical struggle of two world-outlooks, in which the pagan appears fully armed with dialectic, and the Christian in the simplicity and poverty of his arguments, but together with that in the irrefutability of their living truth.

As a prologue to this tale there serves a small story, "A Conversation Among Idle People," in which, in a somewhat light tone, with a shade of humour, the whole sense and significance of the tale is set forth.

Labouring untiringly for the good of the people, L. N. began in that same year an agitation against drunkenness. He founded the first temperance society in Russia, under the title "Compact Against Drunkenness." Whoever wished to enter this compact as a member had to sign the following declaration:

Compact Against Drunkenness

> "Conscious of the dreadful evil and sin of drunkenness, we, the undersigned, have resolved: first, ourselves never to drink anything intoxicating — neither vodka, nor wine, nor beer, nor mead; second, not to buy nor to treat other people to anything intoxicating; third, so far as in us lies, to impress upon other people, especially the young and children, the harm of drunkenness and the advantages of a sober life, and to draw people into our compact.
>
> We ask all who are of one mind with us to start themselves a like sheet, to enter new members upon it, and to inform us. We ask those who, for whatever reason, shall break their compact, to inform us of this."

Reasonable as this attempt to hold people back from a ruinous habit seemed, yet many of us were confused by this declaration, and it appeared an inconsistency on L. N.'s part.

The signing of this declaration was a solemn promise, of the nature of an oath concerning one's future conduct. There was imprinted on the heart of all of us L. N.'s strong argumentation in his interpretation of the words of Christ: "but I say unto you, Swear not at all." And the proposal, on L. N.'s part, of a kind of oath confused many. Some, such as, for example, V. G. Chertkov, besides this, did not sympathize with the setting-apart of people into separate groups or societies according to their relation to this or that particular sphere of relations.

On this occasion a correspondence sprang up between me and L. N. I expressed to him all my doubts, and together with them my consciousness of the importance of the matter he had conceived.

I soon received an answer to this letter, in which L. N. wrote, among other things:

> "I knew you would take fright at the temperance society, but you yourself have uttered all the chief things in its favour. Chertkov too shies away from it…
>
> For me, what speaks in favour of the temperance society, besides its practical use (already now dozens of people, for the space of 10 days, have not stupefied themselves, have not quenched their reason), is this: that in the dissolute world in which we live, it summons people at least to a tiny manifestation of moral activity, points out that in our everyday life all sorts of things — eating, sleeping, moving about, speaking, reading, looking, and drinking — can be done morally and immorally. Here is a sharp instance, and therefore people see it. And it is astonishing: like litmus paper, such things as vegetarianism, sobriety, divide people. There are good people who are beside themselves and grow furious at the temperance society, grow furious unexpectedly, evidently at the manifestation of some such power, forgotten by them, that demands something of them. As for its being a society or a compact, that is only a name, and there is nothing to fear in it. The first thing I always tell everyone is that the sheet is only a chance expression of my thoughts on the harm of drunkenness, which came into my head. But let everyone, and you too, express his relation to this as he wishes, only let there be the desire to counteract evil. We have already several versions. The newspapers have brought it about that letters keep coming in… We send out our own redaction."

The enrolment of members in this compact went very rapidly; after individuals there began collective accessions. Whole sectarian communities joined. From Voronezh Province there came a declaration of the accession of more than a thousand peasants of one rural district, in the person of a compact of several thousand which they had founded.

Since the private character of this society did not permit of carrying on a public propaganda, L. N. resolved to take steps for the administrative confirmation of this society. He wrote about this to his court friend, Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstaya, asking her to procure this confirmation from whomever was needful. Alexandra Andreyevna applied to the then Minister of the Interior, Tolstoy; he passed the request to the chancellery for inquiry, and from there they answered that, for the confirmation of the society, its statute must be submitted. Since L. N. did not set about writing a statute, the society remained simply a private compact against drunkenness.

L. N.'s activity on the question of sobriety did not, of course, confine itself to this appeal. He writes a whole series of articles on this question.

The more remarkable of them are "Why Do People Stupefy Themselves?", written in the form of a preface to Doctor Alekseyev's book *On Drunkenness*. For popular editions L. N. wrote "To God or to Mammon," for the popular theatre "The First Distiller," and so on. Besides this, L. N. by his example called forth a whole series of other like attempts, translated articles from foreign languages, and in general laid in Russia the beginning of this movement.

At this same time L. N. begins to take a serious attitude toward vegetarianism, or non-slaughter feeding, and draws many onto this path. We shall return again to this question when we come to speak of his article "The First Step," written considerably later.

L. N.'s fame grew and drew to him many remarkable visitors.

In April, in Moscow, whither L. N. came from Yasnaya for a few days, he made the acquaintance of the writer Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, who visited him and who had long, with love, followed the development of L. N.'s religious thought; Leskov was a friend of *Posrednik* ("The Intermediary"), having given it a whole series of his works, much prized by L. N. L. N., in a letter to Chertkov, speaks thus of this first acquaintance with Leskov: "Leskov was here. What an intelligent and original man."

In April too, on his return to Yasnaya Polyana, L. N. was visited by the Czech professor, doctor of philosophy Masaryk. Beforehand he had sent L. N. his doctoral dissertation *On Suicide*. In this book there had already shown itself the serious religious foundation of the young scholar, and it disposed L. N. favourably toward its author.

The personal meeting only strengthened their mutual sympathies. I had occasion several times to be present at their conversation and to hear from L. N. himself a kindly opinion of the intelligence, simplicity and religiousness of his new friend.

Probably Masaryk came to L. N. on the recommendation of N. N. Strakhov, since in a letter to him of 20 May L. N. writes:

> "I thank you very much for Masaryk. He was at Yasnaya too, and I came to love him very much." From that time on, the communion of L. N. with Masaryk did not cease, and for his devotion to him Masaryk received a reproach in the Vienna parliament, when he was a deputy for Prague.

Probably a consequence of this visit of Masaryk's to L. N. was the election of L. N. as an honorary member of the Czech literary society "Umělecká beseda," which took place on 11 December 1887.

A different impression was left within L. N. by the visit paid him by the American Kennan, who came to L. N. at this same time, that is, in the summer of 1887.

A brilliant scholar, the author of the well-known book *Siberia and the Exile System*, who had managed to penetrate into such places and to lay bare such sores as no other investigator, either before him or after him, ever had to see, he was absorbed in this activity of his — the denunciation of, and struggle with, the Russian state power — and could not assimilate L. N.'s views on the complete denial of violence; and in his account of his meeting with him this dissatisfaction is evident.

In the summer of that year L. N. made the acquaintance of Anatoly Fedorovich Koni. The famous jurist, writer, and attractive man left a trace in L. N.'s life and, beyond doubt, himself experienced his mighty influence. A. F. Koni gave us captivatingly written reminiscences of his acquaintance with L. N. Describing to us, step by step, the time of his stay at Yasnaya Polyana, he gives an interesting picture of the intimate evening conversations with L. N. before sleep. Here is one lyrical picture:

> "When, on the first evening, having said good night, I asked to be shown the way to the wing occupied by the Kuzminskys, Lev Nikolaevich told me that I had been lodged in his workroom downstairs, and went to conduct me there. It was a spacious room, divided by a low partition into two unequal parts. In the first, the larger, with a way out onto a little terrace and into the garden, stood cabinets of books, and there hung, so far as I remember, a portrait of Schopenhauer. There too, by the wall, in a box, lay the tools and materials of the shoemaker's craft. In the smaller part of the room stood a large writing-table, at which in their time *Anna Karenina* and *War and Peace* had been written. By the shelves of books in this part of the room a bed had been set up for me. Here, in the course of the day, Lev Nikolaevich worked. Having brought me into this room, he busied himself with something in the larger part of it while I undressed and lay down, and then came in to bid me good night. But here there began between us one of those typical Russian conversations which are carried on with especial love in the anteroom at parting, or on the edge of the bed. So did Tolstoy. He sat down on the edge, began a heartfelt talk — and bathed me in the radiance of his spiritual force…" (*)

(* A. F. Koni, *On Life's Path*. From the notes of a judicial investigator. Encounters in Life. Vol. 2, pp. 13–15. *)

Another time there sprang up between them, in like circumstances, an interesting conversation about Nekrasov.

> "Sometimes, having said good night to me, Tolstoy went behind the partition and there sorted something out, starting up the conversation anew; but, touched or interested by some answer of mine, he came again into my compartment, and the interrupted conversation was resumed. One of these occasions has stayed in my memory.
>
> 'And what is your opinion of Nekrasov?' he asked me from behind the partition, shifting something about.
>
> I answered that I rate Nekrasov's lyrical works highly and consider that he brought immense benefit to the young Russian generation, born and brought up in the towns, in that he, together with Turgenev, taught it to know, to value and to love Russian rural nature and the simple Russian man, having sung them in verses that take hold of the soul; and that, as for his personal qualities, I do not believe the furious slanders against him, and in any case consider that his having been a gambler does not yet give the right to set a cross upon his personality and to call him a bad man. He was," I went on, "possessed by a passion for play, which had turned, if you like, into a vice; but a vicious man is not always a bad man. Often, outside the narrow bounds of their pernicious passion, vicious people display such sides as redeem much. On the contrary, so-called good people sometimes, with outward irreproachability, display a coarse egoism and heartlessness. The experience of life gives frequent confirmation of this. Gamblers are not seldom bold and magnanimous people, strangers to base avarice and to dry calculation; drunkards often distinguish themselves, when sober, by a true goodness. Not for nothing did Dostoevsky say that in Russia the good people are almost always drunken people, and drunken people are always good people. Finally, history has left us examples of 'open adulterers,' imbued with a deep love of mankind and, outside the service of their passions, displaying models of civic valour and depth of thought. Having heard out this opinion, Tolstoy came out from behind the partition with a bright expression of face and, sitting down on the 'edge,' said to me joyfully:
>
> 'Well, there, there, that is just what I have always thought and said — this distinction must needs be made!'
>
> And between us there began again a long conversation on this theme, with the adducing of factual references and proofs in confirmation of our common thought."

And here is a poetic picture of an evening walk which L. N. took that same day with A. F. Koni, all but wearing him out with the walking.

> "From my first stay at Yasnaya Polyana there comes back to me with especial vividness an evening spent with Tolstoy on a journey to a kinswoman of his wife's, who lived some seven versts from Yasnaya Polyana and was celebrating some family festivity. Lev Nikolaevich proposed that we go on foot, and the whole way he was charmingly merry and engagingly talkative. But when we arrived at a rich gentleman's house with a luxuriously appointed tea-table, he grew bored, frowned, and suddenly, half an hour after our arrival, sitting down beside me, said in an undertone: let us leave! And so we did, withdrawing, after the English custom, without taking leave. But when we had come out onto the road, already lit by the moon, I implored him of the impossibility of going back on foot, for that day, in the morning, we had already taken a long hour-and-a-half walk, in the course of which Tolstoy, with a suppleness and lightness astonishing for his years, ran up the little knolls and leaped across the ditches with swift and resolute movements of his springy legs. We sat down in the wood, in a clearing, awaiting the *katki* (so is called, in that locality, a carriage of the sort of a long dray or wagonette). Again the conversation flowed on, and so more than half an hour passed. At last we heard, far off, the noise of the approaching *katki*. I made a movement to come out onto the road to meet them, but Tolstoy said to me insistently: let us go on foot, please!… When we were half a verst from Yasnaya Polyana and had crossed the highway, glow-worms began to flash in the bushes around us. With a wholly childlike joy Tolstoy began to gather them into his little cap and triumphantly carried it home in his hands, while the strong greenish phosphoric light that came from it lit up his animated face. He stands, even now, as it were before me, beneath the warm covering of the June night, as though in the reflection of the inner radiance of his lofty and pure soul…"

At the end of July L. N. was visited by his old friend, Countess Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstaya. We have already more than once mentioned the character of their friendship. The former attachment, once clouded by nothing, was now often darkened and subjected to trial in consequence of large religious disagreements. Only their mutual tolerance held them at the level of friendship. It must be done justice to L. N. that he never forced his new views upon his friend; while his friend rather often tried to turn him onto the true path, and much softness, and at the same time firmness, was needed in L. N. to guard himself against these attacks without doing harm to their relations. A sincere, old friendship drew Countess Alexandra Andreyevna to a meeting with "Lev," as she called him; and, having at last chosen a convenient time, she came to Yasnaya Polyana in the company of A. M. Kuzminsky. She described this stay of hers at Yasnaya very vividly in her reminiscences of L. N. We borrow from there a few characteristic passages. Here is how she passed the morning with L. N.:

> "I greatly loved these morning hours. Lev, renewed by sleep, was in excellent spirits and uncommonly charming. We talked perfectly calmly; he often read me his favourite verses of Tyutchev and some of Khomyakov, which he prized especially; and when, in some poem, the name of Christ appeared, his voice trembled and his eyes filled with tears… This memory comforts me even now: he, without himself being aware of it, deeply loves the Saviour and, of course, feels in Him not an ordinary man; it is hard to understand the contradiction of his words and his feeling.
>
> Going off to work in his study, he usually left me all the journals, books and letters received the day before. One cannot imagine what a heap of this material the post brought daily, not only from Russia, but from all the countries of Europe and even from America — and all of it was steeped in incense, incense… I often wondered how he was not stifled by it, and even set it down to him as a great merit.
>
> — Quelle effrayante nourriture pour votre orgueil, mon cher ami; je crains vraiment que vous ne deveniez un jour comme Nabuchodonosor avant sa conversion.
>
> — Pourquoi voulez-vous que j'en sois fier, — he answered, — lorsque je vais dans le grand monde (so he called the peasants' huts), ma gloire n'existe pas pour eux — donc elle n'existe pas du tout." (*)

(* — What a dreadful food for your pride, my friend; I am truly afraid lest you should one day become like Nebuchadnezzar before his conversion.

— Why do you think I am proud of it? In my "great world" my fame does not exist, and so it does not exist at all. *)

What a paradox! And yet he believed in it.

L. N. was at this time occupied with the working-over of his composition *On Life*.

We have already said that Sofya Andreyevna took part in the copying-out of the book *On Life*. Alexandra Andreyevna noticed this and remarks upon it in her reminiscences:

> "I have already said, I think, that Sofya Andreyevna, notwithstanding her household cares, was incessantly copying out what L. N. was preparing for the press; his reworkings and corrections had no end, and all together it made up an enormous labour, of the sort to which, in fairy-tales, wicked enchantresses subjected their victims. Being entirely free, I once offered Sophie my services for the copying, but she declined them, assuring me that I should not make out her husband's gibberish; however, a few days later Lev himself, having urgent work to send off to Moscow, asked me and others to help him in this matter. We were seated in pairs at separate tables, each lady with a cavalier; six pairs were made up. To me fell A. M. Kuzminsky, and we sat apart in the little drawing-room, while all the others were in the great hall. He dictated, and I wrote. Quite unexpectedly there suddenly began to turn up such clumsy phrases that I involuntarily recalled the 'impassable bogs,' as Turgenev once expressed himself about Tolstoy, and could not bring myself either to step across the bogs or to hand them over to the press in this shape; Kuzminsky, though he agreed with me, considered it impossible for simple mortals to correct Tolstoy. I, however, stood my ground. At this time Lev, who was pacing through the rooms from one table to another, came up to us too.
>
> — Savez-vous, mon cher, que je viens de corriger votre prose au grand scandale de votre beau-frère, — said I.
>
> — Et vous avez eu parfaitement raison, je ne tiens qu'à l'idée et ne fais aucune attention à mon style, — L. N. answered me (*).

(* — Do you know, my dear, that I have just been correcting your prose, to the great scandal of your brother-in-law.

— And you did perfectly right: I value only the thought, and pay not the least attention to the style. *)

> The next day he proposed to read something of what we had copied out; it was a philosophical composition under the title *Life*; and since he addressed himself to me, I answered:
>
> — I shall be very glad to hear a sample of your wisdom, but I am hardly likely to understand anything: philosophy is as foreign to me as the Sanskrit tongue.
>
> — If you do not understand, it will of course be not your fault, but mine; but I hope this will not be so, — answered Lev.
>
> At seven o'clock we all gathered round him; he was particularly merry and amiable.
>
> — What a marvellous audience I have! — he jested, casting his eye over us. — What representatives: Al. M. Kuzminsky as procurator, a representative of jurisprudence; Nikolai Yakovlevich Grot, himself a professor of philosophy; and, finally, — he added, pointing to me, — a countess, a representative of religion (here, in truth, is an undeserved honour).
>
> The reading lasted about two hours. I understood far more than I had expected; there were beautiful passages, but my heart did not tremble and did not burn. It seemed to me now that I was sitting in an anatomical cabinet, now that I was running along crooked little paths in a half-lit labyrinth, and was forever going astray, getting confused, and unable to draw breath freely… Of course I told this to no one, and if I stopped the reading with some question, it was solely in order to give the other listeners the chance to say their word, since I noticed that with Grot and the others there had accumulated many objections on the tongue, but he, like the others, did not dare to interrupt the teacher; for the rest, Lev was very indulgent toward his opinions, and the evening ended beautifully, smoothing over the impression of the previous storms."

The storms at which Alexandra Andreyevna here hints were the small collisions which the friends could not avoid, for all their wish to do so, when religious questions were touched upon in conversation. These collisions were so insignificant that L. N., after Alexandra Andreyevna's departure, wrote to Chertkov:

> "P. I. found many guests with us… among them Alex. Andr. Tolstaya, who also left today. We, thank God, lived with her some 10 days without clashing, but lovingly, and parted in the same way."

But probably a closer acquaintance with L. N.'s new views and with his new relations to his family and to other people aroused in Alexandra Andreyevna the desire to try once more whether her friend might not be turned onto the true path; and she, on her return from him, writes him a long letter in French, in which it was easier for her to set forth her thoughts. The substance of this letter lay in this: that she, fully understanding and prizing L. N.'s lofty moral strivings toward the carrying-out of the teaching of Christ in life, asked him whether he could become better by his own powers, without the help of "grace," which is given by faith in the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, that covers our sins.

L. N. answered her with a gentle letter, thanking her for the friendly tone with which her letter was imbued, and pointing out to her the circumstance that a Christian, sincerely striving toward the fulfilment of the teaching of Christ, cannot but move forward, however small that rate of progress may be. But faith in redemption and grace seemed to him both an impossibility, by its unreasonableness, and directly to violate this striving toward perfecting, transferring the responsibility for one's acts onto some dogmatic principle and thereby depriving a man of the chief stimulus of his moral struggle.

With this exchange of letters there ended also this new attempt at conversion.

Finally, in this same autumn L. N. acquired a new, devoted friend in the person of Evgeny Ivanovich Popov, of whom it will be necessary often to make mention in the further exposition.

From the artistic world, let us mention the visit paid to L. N. during this time by the well-known actor Andrei Burlak, who entertained L. N. with his tales until two o'clock at night.

In August L. N. was visited by the painter Repin. He painted an excellent portrait of L. N. seated in an armchair. This portrait is now in the Tretyakov Gallery. But, besides the portrait, Repin painted yet another remarkable picture, *Tolstoy the Ploughman*. This picture, full of profound content, superbly painted, points emblematically to the union of the giant of the spirit with mother-earth. There breathes from it something epically beautiful, and one feels the irresistible might of the people's genius. Of Repin's visit L. N. wrote to N. N. Strakhov: "Repin was here, painted a good portrait. I came to love him still more. A living, growing man, and he draws near to that light toward which all goes — we sinners too."

Before long Repin published this picture in the form of a chromolithograph. This was the first exhibiting, to the judgment of the public, of events of L. N.'s private life, and L. N.'s family was very displeased at it. Of course L. N. hastened to quench this arisen feeling of displeasure toward a man dear to him, and wrote to N. N. Strakhov, who was defending Repin, a kind letter, in which he said, among other things:

> "All that you write of Repin is perfectly just; and so is what you write of the absurdity and inconsistency of forbidding the circulation of his picture. You very truly describe my attitude to the talk about me: it is conscious, and I do not cease to hold to that same rule, restful for me; but here it happened so that, when we received from Stasov the news of the circulation of this little picture undertaken by Repin, it seemed disagreeable to us all; my wife wrote to Stasov to this effect, and I wrote to him too; but afterwards, when there came a second letter from Stasov and Repin, in which they wrote that the work had been begun and that this prohibition distressed them, I saw that this disagreement of ours had been wrong; but my wife, wishing to spare me what was disagreeable to me, wrote to them, explaining the motive of the refusal and confirming it. Now, however, I see that I acted wrongly at first, and that you are perfectly right. The chief thing is that in the name of these trifles I have, as it were, distressed Repin, whom I prize as highly as you do, and love with all my heart. Therefore be so good as to convey to him that I withdraw my refusal and am very sorry if I have caused him anything disagreeable. I know that he loves me, as I love him, and that he will not be angry with me."

With this this episode ended; the picture was published, and the edition quickly sold out.

On 23 September of that year, 1887, L. N. and Sofya Andreyevna modestly celebrated their silver wedding in the circle of relatives and friends who had gathered.

L. N., on this occasion, recorded in his diary, of the family life he had lived through: "it might have been better."

A few days after this, the whole Tolstoy family moved to Moscow.

At this time V. G. Chertkov, with his family, was living at a country house not far from Moscow, on the estate of his kinsman Pashkov.

L. N. made ready to go and visit him, and I went together with him. The Chertkovs were expecting us, but some misunderstanding occurred in the telegrams, and we got off the train not at the station where the horses from Chertkov were waiting. We hired horses and set off. It was a dark night, and the driver inexperienced, and we lost our way. Instead of the hour and a little more in which we should have covered the distance of 12 versts from Golitsyno station to Pashkov's estate, we wandered about some three hours, drove into some village where they set us on the road, and late at night arrived at last at Chertkov's without any special damage. The whole thing was limited to the loss of a travelling-rug. L. N., on learning of the loss, said: "A pity; we shall cause Sofya Andreyevna unpleasantness."

I had to sleep in one room with L. N., and I dimly remember our nocturnal conversation. He again, for some reason, recalled the family life he had lived through, and said that it was pleasant to him to be conscious that neither on his side nor on his wife's side had there been the slightest unfaithfulness, and that they had lived an honest and pure family life.

Let us adduce a few extracts from L. N.'s letters of that time, in which his conception of art finds expression; thoughts about it constantly occupied L. N., and he expressed them on various occasions, for the most part speaking of the works of people close to him.

Thus, in connection with a new work of the writer V. Savikhin — a contributor to *Posrednik* of the first period, the author of "Grandfather Sofron," "The Crooked Lot," and others — L. N. utters such thoughts in a letter to me:

> "Chertkov writes about Savikhin. The language of his poem, the images too, are superb. The verse is good in places, but it would do no harm to make it still more even and better; but the content is not so much bad as wholly lacking. The content is only an imitation of that which need not be imitated in Nekrasov — that is, an exaggeration of the people's poverty and a despairing attitude to it, arousing only indignation against somebody… Why has the 'gentleman in spectacles' got in there? What is he doing? And, chiefly, by what does he feed himself? Sympathy can in no way be on his side, because there is something mysterious, hidden, in him. And sympathy is involuntarily on the side of the peasants, and one is vexed that the author treats them with contempt and treats with respect that which arouses only perplexity and suspicion. On no work have I for a long time seen with such clearness how impossible it is for a man to write without having drawn for himself a definite line between good and evil. A writer-artist, besides outward talent, needs two things: first, to know firmly what ought to be; and second, so to believe in what ought to be as to depict that which ought to be as though it were, as though I were living in the midst of it. In incomplete artists, the unready ones, there is the one thing and not the other. Savikhin has the capacity to see what ought to be as though it were. But he does not know what ought to be. In others it is the reverse. The majority of giftless works belong to the 2nd category; the majority of so-called artistic works belong to the first. People feel that one cannot write what is, that this will not be art; they do not know what ought to be, and they begin to write what was (historical art — Surikov's pictures), or they write not what ought to be, but what pleases them or their circle. Both are bad. The first defect is Ivanov's, the second Savikhin's. Mix them together — and a great artist will come out. But even without mixing them, each, having worked out what he lacks, may become a good intellectual labourer, that is, a writer."

Soon after this there appeared in our publishing circle a new person, who brought into the work much of his own talent, love, and energy, and who carries on this work to this very day. This was Iv. Iv. Gorbunov-Posadov. The first work which he communicated to us was his poem "Christ's Night." Having long inclined in heart toward what L. N. expressed, Gorbunov turned to him for judgment with this work. Fearing that, amid the mass of correspondence which L. N. receives, the work of a person unknown to him might be lost, Iv. Iv. asked me somehow to draw L. N.'s attention to his verses and to learn the impression produced upon him by these verses. I hastened to fulfil Iv. Iv.'s request, and to my inquiry I received the following opinion of L. N.'s:

> "Gorbunov's verses are good verses; in them one feels a sincerity which one rarely meets with in verses. I have marked some weak lines — evidently in consequence of the conditions of metre and rhyme — for instance, 'lit up — fields,' glow-worms are not in the fields, 'arcades,' and so on. But this poem pleases me even with its weaknesses, and even on account of the weaknesses. The feeling breaks through the fetters of the form. Why could not this very thought be expressed not in prose, but also not in verse? I am answering you in reply to Gorbunov's letter, in which he asks an opinion about the significance of verse poetry. This we all know. Boileau already said that the thought should not be maimed by the rhyme. If a poet can so say a thing in verse that we do not even notice that it is verse — good; but without that, it is better to speak as one can, with all one's might. For everything, even the very best, has become so vulgarized that everything must be begun anew. Verses… It seems to me thus: if one is to treat poetry quite seriously — even this thought of the Bright Resurrection of Christ — I would begin to speak — to write — as I see, as I feel, not in verse; and then there would come a place where my thought would demand more compactness, force, finish, and verses would come out, and perhaps it would end so in verse, or perhaps a few strophes, and then again prose. Only for this one must thoroughly forget all poems, the places where they are printed, and poetics, and thoroughly remember one's own soul."

Thoughts of a like kind Lev Nikolaevich uttered also with reference to the work of painting of his friend N. N. Ge. In one letter he wrote to him almost in the same words as about Savikhin's works:

> "In order to produce what are called works of art, it is needful: 1) that a man, clearly, unquestionably knowing what is good and what is evil, should finely see the dividing line, and therefore should write not what is, but what ought to be. And should think what ought to be as though it were. So that for him what ought to be should *be*. Is it not so? And with you both terms are very strong and equal, and therefore you ought to write when you wish to and nothing hinders you."

In one of the following letters he utters such thoughts:

> "All true artists are artists because they have something to write, because they know how to write, and because they have the capacity to write and at one and the same time to read or look on and judge themselves by the strictest judgment. It is this capacity I fear in you too much, and it hinders you from doing for people what they need. I am speaking of the Gospel pictures. Apart from you, no one knows that content of these pictures which is in your heart; apart from you, no one can express them so sincerely, and no one can paint them so. Let some of them be unfinished; but the very lowest in level will all the same be a great and important acquisition in true art and in the true, single business of life. This presented itself to me especially vividly when I received the beautiful proof of *The Last Supper*, made for M. A. (S. A. made 10 of them without your permission. You will allow it, will you not?) I know that one cannot advise and direct an artist what to do. There his own inner work goes on; but it is dreadful to me to think that the begun, wondrous work should not be realized."

Equally profound thoughts about literature L. N. utters in connection with reading Gogol's *Correspondence with Friends*.

In a letter to me he says:

> "Every time I read Gogol's *Correspondence*, it produced a strong impression upon me, and now stronger than ever. I crossed out the superfluous, and we read it aloud; upon all it produced a strong and indisputable impression. Forty years ago a man who had the right to say it said that our literature is on a false path — is worthless — and with extraordinary force showed, explained, what it ought to be, and, in token of his sincerity, burned his former writings. But he said much in his letters, in his own expression, that is more important than all his tales. The vulgarity that he denounced cried out: he is mad; and for forty years literature continues to go along this false path, the falsity of which he showed with such force, and Gogol, like Pascal, lies buried in obscurity. Vulgarity reigns, and I strive with all my strength, as something new, to say what was said by Gogol. One must publish selected passages from his correspondence and his brief biography."

Thoughts of a like kind, in a still sharper form, were uttered by him in a letter to N. N. Strakhov:

> "I had yet another strong impression, like that of Kant — some three weeks ago, on re-reading, for the 3rd time in my life, Gogol's *Correspondence*. Why, here again, with respect to the significance of true art, I am discovering an America discovered by Gogol 35 years ago. The significance of a writer in general is defined there (the letter to Yazykov) so that it could not be better said. And indeed the whole correspondence (if one exclude a little that is private) is full of the most essential, profound thoughts; a great master of his own craft saw the possibility of a better making, saw the defects of his works, pointed them out, and proved the sincerity of his conviction, and showed, if not models, then at least a programme of what can and ought to be done; and the crowd, which had never understood the meaning of the things made and their worth, having found a brisk representative of its invariable point of view, set up a cackle, and for 35 years there has lain buried in obscurity, in the highest degree, the touching and significant instruction of a devotee of our guild, of our Russian Pascal. The one understood the unsuitable place which, in his consciousness, science occupied; the other — art. But the one they understood, having drawn out the true and eternal that was in him, while ours they once mixed with the mire, and so he lies, and we go on for 30 years performing over him that very work whose senselessness he showed so clearly, both in words and in deeds. I dream of publishing selected passages from the correspondence in *Posrednik*, with a biography. It will be a wondrous life of a saint for the people — they, at least, will understand. Is there a biography of Gogol?"

L. N.'s correspondence with his friends, acquaintances and like-minded people takes on at this time ever wider and wider dimensions. What correspondents do not enter into communication with him! Tiflis young ladies write to him, asking what they should do in order to be useful to the people, and he answers them with an interesting letter, taking into account their social position — among the local intelligentsia — and advises them to share with the people their intellectual property. Here is his answer:

> "You ask for work. Besides the work common to us all — to strive to lessen those labours which are expended by others on the maintenance of our life, reducing our needs and doing with our own hands what one can do for oneself and for others — those who acquire knowledge have yet another work: to share that knowledge, to give it back again to that people which reared us. And here is such a work that I have.
>
> There exist in Moscow publishers of popular books: of primers, arithmetics, histories, calendars, pictures, tales. All this is sold in enormous quantities, independently of the worth of the content, but only because purchasers have been accustomed to it and there are skilful sellers… One of these publishers — Sytin, an acquaintance of mine, a good man, who wishes to improve the content of these books as far as possible. The work I propose to you is this: to take one or several of these books — a primer, a calendar, a novel (work upon the tales is especially needed: they are bad, and many of them go out) — to read it through and to correct it, or wholly to make it over.
>
> If you correct the misprints, the absurdities that occur in them — the geographical and historical errors and absurdities — that too will be of use, because, however bad the book, it will all the same be sold. The use will be that less rubbish and absurdity will be communicated to the people. If, beyond this, you also throw out the stupid or immoral passages, replacing them with such as do not violate the sense, that will be better still. But if you, under the same title and making use of the plot, compose your own tale or novel with a good content, that will be very good indeed. The same of calendars, primers, arithmetics, histories, pictures. And so, if this work pleases you, choose that kind in which it seems to you that you can work best, and write to me. I will send you several books. I should very much wish you to agree to my proposal.
>
> The work is, beyond doubt, a useful one. The degree of its usefulness will depend upon the love which you put into it."

The dealings with these young ladies were entrusted to T. Lvovna, and from the correspondence it is evident that the work gave significant results.

In the autumn of that year L. N. received a letter from the Frenchman Romain Rolland — now already a man of world-wide fame and of the reputation of one not afraid to utter publicly the truth as he recognizes it — then still a young student of the École Normale in Paris. In his book about Tolstoy, recently published, Romain Rolland speaks of the strong influence which Tolstoy had upon the French youth, upon contemporary literature and art.

He was troubled at that time by the question of the compatibility of the service of science and of art — which seemed to him higher than all else — with the moral demand for physical labour and, in one form or another, the immediate service of one's neighbour. Lev Nikolaevich answered him with a large letter in French; I had then, under L. N.'s guidance, to translate it into Russian, and this letter received wide circulation under the name of "A Letter to a Frenchman on Physical Labour and Mental Activity." For the first time it was printed in the newspaper *Nedelya*, and afterwards it entered into the collected works.

In this letter, sufficiently well known to all the reading public, L. N. gives in compressed form the essence of his views, set forth by him in the books *What Then Must We Do?* and *On Life*. He considers the vocation of the scholar or the artist a very lofty and responsible one, redeemed by suffering, and demands the subordination of his activity to the all-embracing and all-resolving feeling of self-renouncing love.

Finally, L. N.'s influence reaches into the very depths of the people through the best representatives of its rationalist sectarians.

By this time the sect of the Stundists was spreading in the south-west of Russia. One of the communities of the Kherson district came very close, in its understanding of the Gospel, to L. N.'s views. They drew up an exposition of their creed in the form of a catechism, in questions and answers, and sent a copy, printed on a Remington, to L. N. with the following letter:

The Lord bless.

In the name of reason, life, and ethics.

From the Stundists of the Kherson district, to a brother in JESUS,

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Greeting.

Since thy faith differs from ours only in the dogma of the Holy Trinity and in the understanding of the Lord's Prayer, then, in sending thee our catechism, we hope that thou, having made acquaintance with it, wilt reckon thyself too among the number of the members of Jesus' BROTHERHOOD ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL.
The plenipotentiary of the brotherhood, Dimitri Kudryavtsev.

Novy Bug, Kherson Province.

The 1st day of August, in the year 1887.

To the thanks expressed to them by L. N., he received the following reply from the plenipotentiaries of the brotherhood.

> "Lev Nikolaevich!
>
> To your responsive lines I reply.
>
> Stundism, as a manifestation of religious rationalism, is very widespread in the New Russia region. Its adepts are reckoned by hundreds of thousands.
>
> Stundism, this schism of Lutheranism, denies rites, sacraments, the priesthood, fasts, icons, the Old Testament teaching, and recognizes as the foundation of the faith the Gospel alone.
>
> But in view of the fact that the administration by all measures hinders the communion of the Stundists among themselves, in each locality, in almost each village, the Stundists, while remaining faithful to the chief foundations of their faith, diverge in details.
>
> JESUS' BROTHERHOOD ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL has set itself the thought of uniting all the Stundists into one spiritual family.
>
> With this aim, some five years ago, there was compiled by the popular teacher Tkachenko the catechism sent by me to you.
>
> Within the bounds of the Antonovka and Novobug rural districts, of the Kherson district, this catechism has been adopted, but its circulation was attended with great difficulties, in view of the small number of persons able to read manuscript, even among those who had finished the popular school.
>
> Now, with the acquisition of a Remington machine and the hectographing of its impressions, the brotherhood hopes considerably to widen the circle of persons capable of assimilating the truths set forth in the catechism.
>
> The first copy of the new edition was the one sent to you.
>
> Having widened the circle of readers of the catechism, the brotherhood halted at that consideration which you too express in your letter.
>
> An editorial unskilfulness may damage the cause.
>
> The enemies of the truth will fasten upon the least inaccuracy in order to condemn the whole, you say.
>
> We too were conscious of this, and, having secured your agreement with the foundations of the teaching of Jesus' brotherhood, we approach with our chief request: correct, Lev Nikolaevich, the inaccuracies and forced points you have noticed in the catechism, and thereby ensure the success of the spreading of the truth.
>
> Your brother, D. R. Kudryavtsev.
>
> Novy Bug, Kherson Province."

L. N., on receiving this catechism, rejoiced greatly that his thoughts had penetrated into the people. But he did not undertake to correct it. He feared lest this work should draw him in and divert him from works more independent.

In his constant correspondence with Chertkov, L. N. often uttered to him profound thoughts on various questions of life. Chertkov possessed a special capacity for drawing L. N. into the exposition of his thoughts by putting various questions to him. From the letters of this time we select the most interesting, which characterize the spiritual aspect of L. N. in this epoch of his life.

L. N. could not be called a propagandist of his teaching. He cared little for the spreading of his views, but firmly believed in the force of the light of truth. Of this he wrote thus to Chertkov:

> "If one is to speak at all of acting upon others — of which I ought not to think and do not try to think — then I always strive unconsciously after one thing: to direct people's gaze toward the one eternal sun, and to spring aside myself; whereas to see that I am taken for the sun — not from modesty (there can be no question of that here), but from shame and pity and loathing of myself — I always, on this occasion, experience a tormenting feeling. As when one cuts something sticky, and it clings to the knife, and instead of cutting there comes out some dirty muddle. So it is too when one's own personality clings to this knife, or rather when the knife is unclean, soiled with one's own personality, and instead of cleaning off — one soils."

Around this time V. G. Chertkov conceived the idea of compiling a body of the opinions of the closer friends on the concept of "God." He turned to L. N. too with the request to give his own definition, and L. N. answered him thus in a letter:

> "Now, look, understand me at half a word, and do not demand definitions, and do not cavil at the words. God for me is that toward which I strive, that in the striving toward which my life consists, and which therefore exists for me, but exists necessarily as such that I cannot comprehend Him, cannot name Him. If I comprehended Him, I should reach Him, and there would be nowhere to strive, and there would be no life. But — and this seems a contradiction — I cannot comprehend Him and name Him, and yet together with that I know Him, know the direction toward Him, and even, of all my knowledge, this is the most certain. I do not know Him, and yet together with that I am always afraid when I am without Him, and only then am I not afraid, when I am with Him. Stranger still is this: that to know Him more and better than I know Him now is, for me now, in my present life, even unnecessary. To draw near to Him I can and wish, and in this is my life; but the drawing-near in no way increases, and cannot increase, my knowledge. Every attempt of the imagination at conceiving that I know Him (for instance, that He is the Creator, or merciful, or something of the kind) removes me from Him and stops my drawing-near to Him. Stranger still is this: that to love truly — that is, more than myself and more than everything — I can only Him alone; only in this love is there no halt, no diminution (on the contrary, all is increase), there is no sensuality, no influences, no obsequiousness, no fear, no self-satisfaction. Everything that is good one loves through this love; so that it comes out, further, that one loves, and consequently lives, only through Him and by Him. Well, that is how I think, or rather feel. One need add only this, that the pronoun He already somewhat violates God for me. 'He' somehow diminishes Him."

Chertkov was at that time tormented by the question of money, and he raised the question of its complete abolition, and communicated to L. N. his thoughts about this. L. N. answered him thus:

> "I see that you are drawing near to the needs of the people, to our forgotten brothers. They have been forgotten so long, so finally, that for all of us who wish to restore this brotherhood, the consciousness of kinship alone is little; there is needed a long labour, which with me is not only not finished, but is only beginning; and you are behind me in this respect, and therefore I rejoice for you; but about money, about my own relation to it, I can say nothing. Each washes himself in his own way. The thing is not to ascribe significance to this very outward object; otherwise it is the same sin as with money. Significance must be ascribed only to that which destroys the significance of many empty things, among them money too. I should like to write a little tale of this sort. There was a king, and nothing succeeded with him, and he went to the sages to ask why he met with failure. One sage said: because he does not know the hour when to do what. Another said: because he does not know the man who is more needful to him than all. A third said: because he does not know which work is dearer than all other works. And the king sent again to ask of the sages, of these and of others: which hour is more important than all, which man more needful than all, and which work dearer than all. And no one could guess. And the king kept thinking about this and asking everyone. And a maiden guessed it for him. She said that the most important of all hours is the present one, because there is no other such. And the most needful of all men is the one with whom you have to do at this moment, because only this man do you know. And the dearest of all works is to do good to this man, because this one work is surely for your good. — Now this thought does not resolve for me the question of money either, but it puts it in the place that befits it."

At this time Chertkov's wife, Anna Konstantinovna, often ailed, and in Chertkov's family the question of medical aid often arose and was decided one way or another. L. N. then uttered, in a letter to Chertkov, the following opinion about medicine:

> "There is a view of medicine such as is ascribed to me — that medicine is an evil, and that one must rid oneself of it and on no account make use of it: this view is incorrect. There is another view such — that a man dies and suffers not because it is proper to him so, but only because the doctor did not arrive in time, or made a mistake, did not find the medicine, or because medicine has not yet contrived to invent everything. This view, unhappily, is the most widespread (especially among physicians) and the most false and harmful. From the first error sometimes the body suffers, but from the 2nd the spirit always suffers. For us, unlearned people, a reasonable attitude to medical aid will always be (and for the learned too) this: I will not seek beforehand aid against threatening death and sufferings (because, if I begin to do this, my whole life will go on it, and even so it will not suffice); but I will make use of those means of guarding oneself from death and sufferings which are devised by people specially occupied with this matter, and which involuntarily intrude into my life — but only within the bounds of that which is confirmed for me by the clearness of its action, by experience, by its diffusion and the convenience of its acquisition; that is, by those means the use of which does not violate my moral needs. Here, of course, there are incessant dilemmas, and the decision of them is in the soul of each:

In a letter to me this same autumn L. N. communicates information about a new teaching, kindred to him in spirit:

> "I told you of the Christian Science teaching, which has recently arisen in America. They greatly sympathize with my views and write to me and send both books and pamphlets. In this teaching there is much that is far more important than it seemed to me at first. Their weak side, strengthened by their women, is that one can cure diseases spiritually, and this is foolish; but the fundamental thought, beautifully expressed, which I gave my niece to translate, is this: diseases and sins are just the same as movement and heat — the one passes into the other. Diseases are for the most part the consequences of sin, and in order to be rid of them, one must be rid of the sin — of error. And, living in error, one must know that one lives in a disease, which, if it has not yet appeared, will inevitably appear. It is important, further, that every man, in being subject to diseases, bears responsibility for the errors of others — both of his forebears and of his contemporaries; and that each, living in error, brings diseases and sufferings into others — into his descendants and into his contemporaries. And that each, living without disease, is indebted for this to others — both to his forebears and to the good people of his own day; and that each, freeing himself from errors, cures not himself alone (oneself alone is impossible), but his descendants and his contemporaries as well."

All these thoughts are highly characteristic of L. N. and show the breadth of his views, the absence of all pedantry. What is important to him is not the formal decision of a question, but its decision in essence. He sought, in the word of the Gospel, first of all the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, knowing that all the rest would be added unto him.

L. N.'s general mood at this time was exceedingly cheerful and joyful. In October 1887 he wrote, among other things, to Strakhov:

> "Not to dare to be anything other than happy, grateful, and joyful, I repeat to myself with success. And I am very glad that you agree with this."