[22] I permit myself to quote this letter without asking Alexandra Lvovna's permission to do so, because it has already, without our previous knowledge, appeared in print in the historical journal, _Facts and Days_ (Petrograd, 1920), and because it makes a less one-sided impression in connection with the other contents of the present book. [23] "Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoy to his wife, 1862-1910" (Kushnerev & Co., 1915). [24] The words "sufferings such as we have endured in the past" have been left out of Tolstoy's letters by Sofya Andreyevna without any indication of an omission. CHAPTER IX THE MOTIVES THAT DECIDED HIS GOING AWAY For us, the nearest friends of Leo Nikolaevitch, who watched step by step what was taking place at Yasnaya Polyana during the last days of his presence there, the reason why he could do nothing but go away was easy to understand. But the reader who is not so closely acquainted with all the circumstances may ask, Why exactly did Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour on the last night have such an influence on Leo Nikolaevitch? What did she do then that was new and not to be expected from her previous behaviour? Of course Sofya Andreyevna's behaviour on that night only gave the final impetus to Leo Nikolaevitch's going away. In reality the question of leaving home had already been decided in his soul, and, as it seems to me, he was, as it were, instinctively only awaiting the inevitable final impulse for carrying out his intention. And the key to the understanding of Leo Nikolaevitch's spiritual state at the time is hidden in the words with which he concluded the note in his diary concerning his departure: "I feel that I have saved myself, not as Leo Nikolaevitch, but have saved what at times at least to some small degree there is in me." These words are marvellous in their touching humility on the lips of a man whose soul was filled to overflowing and was the reflection of the highest principle, and at the same time remarkable from the light which they throw on the deeper motives of his departure. In these words one is conscious of the dread--under the conditions beginning to exist about him--of being deprived of the spiritual independence essential for the preservation of the inviolability of his "holy of holies"--the dread of being deprived of the possibility of resisting the ever-persisting attacks from outside--which might very naturally come to pass, considering Leo Nikolaevitch's extreme age and the gradual weakening of his physical powers.