“The matter which I bring before you ought to remain unknown to any one except to us, and therefore speak to no one about this letter, but answer me (Station Kozlovka on the Moscow-Kursk Railway), where you are now, and whether you are ready to help me. I am writing thus briefly, because I have little hope that with the insufficient address, my letter will reach you. “LEO TOLSTOI.” In explanation of this letter Järnefelt communicated the following to the editors: “I quickly answered Tolstoi’s question. I was convinced that he wanted to leave Yasnaya and to plan an escape. But when we met later in Moscow in 1899, Tolstoi immediately said: ‘Yes, yes, you understood me, but the temptation passed by me in time.’ And then glancing about him with a deep sigh of pain he said, ‘You will excuse me, Järnefelt, that I live as I do, but probably it is as it ought to be.’ And we did not speak any more about this matter.” And so, in his letter to Järnefelt of December 16, 1898, i.e., still before this meeting with him, Tolstoi wrote: “If I should ever meet you, which I want to very much, I will then tell you what kind of help I expected from you. Now the temptation which forced me to seek help from you has passed.” In his letter to V. G. Chertkov of July 21st of that year, i.e., three days after the above mentioned note in the Journal, Tolstoi wrote: “_Read this to no one._ I teach others, but do not know how to live myself. For how many years have I given myself the question, Is it fitting that I continue to live as I am living, or shall I go away?--and I cannot decide. I know that everything is decided by renouncing oneself and when I attain that then everything is clear. But they are rare moments.” [348] See Note 347. [349] A collection in the church Slavonic tongue, _Love of Good_, or _Words and Chapters of Sacred Sobriety_, collected from the writings of the Saints and God-inspired fathers. In his library, Tolstoi had a volume of _Love of Good_ with a great many notes in the margin made in his own hand. [350] With I. I. Gorbunov, who came for a short time to Ovsiannikovo to his brother, who lived there at this time, the actor N. I. Gorbunov. At this meeting, Tolstoi said to I. I. Gorbunov that it was the gentlemanly state of his life that had become more agonising to him, that he was “ashamed to look in the eyes of his lackeys” and that he wanted to go away. He said among other things that he was thinking of going away with I. I. Gorbunov to Kaluga (where Gorbunov lived at that time)--and further than that, he still had another plan ... perhaps it was the plan about which Tolstoi had written a little while before to Järnefelt. (See Note 347.) [351] Tolstoi’s brother, Count Serge Nicholaievich. [352] Tolstoi’s sister, Countess M. N. Tolstoi.