_Telyatniki, May 15th, 1913._ _Moscow, 1920._ PART III TOLSTOY'S ATTITUDE TO HIS SUFFERINGS I think that to complete what has been said here about Tolstoy's "going away" it would be desirable to look rather more attentively at the growth of Leo Nikolaevitch's inner consciousness in the course of the last decades of his life, and at that side of the development of his spiritual life which is connected with his attitude to suffering, in particular to his own sufferings arising from the conditions of his family life which have been examined in the present book. Let us listen first of all to Leo Nikolaevitch's own words in regard to the thoughts and feelings he had to pass through in this connection. For this purpose we make use of his diary and private letters. Much precious material on this subject is contained in his diary for 1884, which he personally handed to me to take care of immediately after it was finished, and from which I will make the following extracts. This diary was kept by Leo Nikolaevitch just at that time when the great drama of his family life, which in the end brought him to the tomb, was taking shape. I venture to give publicity to the lines quoted below, written by Leo Nikolaevitch in the most difficult moments of his life, solely for the sake of removing those misunderstandings and false deductions which, as I have indicated before, have accumulated in such numbers since his death around the question of his "going away." I hope that the reader will understand my motives and will approach these private notes of Leo Nikolaevitch with the same feeling of reverence with which I reproduce them here. From the Diary of L. N. Tolstoy of 1884. _April 16._--It is very painful at home, painful that I cannot sympathise with them. All their joys, examinations, successes in society, music, furniture, shopping, I look upon all of it as a misfortune and evil for them and cannot say that to them. I can and I do say it, but my words do not take hold of anyone. It seems as though they know not the meaning of my words, but that I have a bad habit of saying them. At weak moments--this is one now--I wonder at their heartlessness. How is it they do not see that, not to speak of suffering, I have had no life at all for these three years? I am given the part of a peevish old man and I cannot get out of it in their eyes. If I take part in their life I am false to the truth, and they will be the first to throw that in my face. If I look mournfully now upon their madness, I am a peevish old man like all old men.