Shortly after this he married, and was so engrossed by his happy family life that he wholly ceased to inquire into the real meaning of life. He continued to write. "In my writing I taught what for me was the only truth--that the object of life should be our own happiness and that of our family." After some ten years, however, he became hopelessly puzzled by the questions "Why?" and "What after?" and his torment increased until, by degrees, he could think of nothing else. His life had come, as it were, to {69} a sudden stop. He could carry on the mechanical business of existence, he could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep, but he felt as if there were no real use in life, as if its meaning and its savour were gone. What was still stranger and more terrifying was that he could see nothing left even to desire. "Had a fairy appeared and offered me all I desired I should not have known what to say.... The truth lay in this, that life had no meaning for me." His life seemed to him to be a foolish and wicked joke played upon him by he knew not whom, and he refrained from carrying a gun because he was so continually tempted to suicide. His mind dwelt on the inevitable miseries of human life; illness and death would most certainly come both to himself and to those who loved him best, and there would remain nothing of them but stench and worms. He found his favourite reading at this time in Schopenhauer and Ecclesiastes. Solomon, the wisest man who had ever lived, declared that all was vanity, and he exactly agreed with him. There was no escape; the theory of "progress" did not apply at all to the individual life; philosophy was uncertain; science was marvellous in its methods and its intellectual power, but it led to no real result. His conclusion was the conclusion of Schopenhauer and Solomon--that life was an evil poisoned through and through by the thought of death. He began to study other men and their methods of escape. He saw that the young escaped this evil very largely through ignorance, by simply not perceiving the absurdity of Life, but it was impossible for him to take this means, as people cannot unknow what they know. The second method was the Epicurean one; this was the favourite method with men of his class, because they really had plenty of means for enjoyment, and sheer selfishness prevented them from seeing or caring that the vast majority of men had no such resource. For this Tolstoy was too clear-sighted. The third means of escape was suicide, which was possible only to the strong and resolute. "The number of those in my own class who thus act continually increases, and those who do this are generally in the prime of life, with their physical strength matured and unweakened." He considered this means of escape the worthiest, but had not the courage to make use of it.