Not far from us an estate was for sale on very advantageous terms. I went to see it. Everything was excellent and advantageous; especially so was the fact that the peasants there had no land of their own except their kitchen-gardens. I saw that they would have to work on the landlord’s land merely for permission to use his pastures. And so it was. I grasped all this, and by old habit felt pleased about it. But on my way home I met an old woman who asked her way. I had a talk with her, during which she told me about her poverty. I got home, and when telling my wife of the advantages that estate offered, I suddenly felt ashamed and disgusted. I told her I could not buy it because the advantages we should get would be based on the peasants’ destitution and sorrow. As I said this I suddenly realized the truth of what I was saying – the chief truth, that the peasants, like ourselves, want to live, that they are human beings, our brothers, and sons of the Father as the Gospels say. Suddenly something that had long troubled me seemed to have broken away, as though it had come to birth. My wife was vexed and scolded me, but I felt glad.
That was the beginning of my madness. But my utter madness began later – about a month after that.
It began by my going to church. I stood there through the liturgy and prayed well, and listened and was touched. Then suddenly they brought me some consecrated bread: after that we went up to the Cross, and people began pushing one another. Then at the exit there were beggars. And it suddenly became clear to me that this ought not to be, and not only ought not to be but in reality was not. And if this was not, then neither was there either death or fear, and there was no longer the former tearing asunder within me and I no longer feared anything.
Then the light fully illumined me and I became what I now am. If there is nothing of all that – then it certainly does not exist within me. And there at the church door I gave away to the beggars all I had with me – some thirty-five rubles – and went home on foot talking with the peasants.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS
LOUISE and AYLMER MAUDE spent much of their lives in Russia. Their Quaker background led them to share many of Tolstoy’s views on spiritual life, moral obligation and passive resistance to violence, and they helped him to organize the Doukhobor migration to Canada in 1893. Aylmer Maude, whose business activities left him time to write a biography of his friend, also translated most of Tolstoy’s major works in partnership with his wife. These translations, which were commended by the author himself, are still widely regarded as the best.
NIGEL J. COOPER read French and Russian at Christ Church, Oxford. He has recently retired from Middlesex University where he was a Principal Lecturer in Modern Languages.
ABOUT THE INTRODUCER
JOHN BAYLEY is former Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. His many books include Tolstoy and the Novel; Pushkin: A Comparative Commentary; The Short Story: Henry James to Elizabeth Bowen; An Essay on Hardy, Shakespeare and Tragedy and a detailed study of A. E. Housman’s poems. He has also written several novels.
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CHINUA ACHEBE
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Things Fall Apart
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History of My Life
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MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
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ANTON CHEKHOV
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The Awakening
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On War
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The Moonstone
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Victory
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The Book of Common Prayer
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