It is not the suffering and mutilation and death of man's body that most needs to be diminished,--but it is the mutilation and death of his soul. Not the _Red_ Cross is needed, but the simple cross of Christ to destroy falsehood and deception.... I was finishing this Preface when a cadet from the Military College came to see me. He told me that he was troubled by religious doubts.... He had read nothing of mine. I spoke cautiously to him of how to read the Gospels so as to find in them the answers to life's problems. He listened and agreed. Towards the end of our conversation I mention wine, and advised him not to drink. He replied: 'but in military service it is sometimes necessary.' I thought he meant necessary for health and strength, and I intended triumphantly to overthrow him by proofs from experience and science, but he continued: 'Why, at Geok-Tepe, for instance, when Skóbelef had to massacre the inhabitants, the soldiers did not wish to do it, but he had drink served out and then....' Here are all the horrors of war--they are in this lad with his fresh young face, his little shoulder-straps (under which the ends of his hood are so neatly tucked), his well-cleaned boots, his naïve eyes, and with so perverted a conception of life. This is the real horror of war! What millions of Red Cross workers could heal the wounds that swarm in that remark--the result of a whole system of education! CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER IV Birukof. Behrs. Bitovt. Nekrasof's letters to Tolstoy, _Niva_, February 1898. Also, Tolstoy's _Sevastopol_, and his Preface to Ershof's _Recollections of Sevastopol_. Kropotkin, _Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature_: London, 1905. CHAPTER V PETERSBURG; LOVE AFFAIR; DROUZHÍNIN Petersburg. Tourgénef. The _Contemporary_. Death of his brother Demetrius. Drouzhínin. The Behrs. Love affairs. Engagement with V.V.A. Illness. Leaves the army. Engagement broken off. Correspondence with Tourgénef. Writings. Drouzhínin's criticism of _Youth_ and of Tolstoy's style. Books that influenced him. Emancipation of serfs. Poúshkin. Self-condemnation in his _Confession_. A NUMBER of distinguished writers have recorded their opinions of the talented young officer who appeared in Petersburg before the war was quite over, and immediately entered the fraternity then supporting the _Contemporary_. From their memoirs one sees what Tolstoy was like at this, perhaps the stormiest and least satisfactory period of his life.