[6] The death of three children (November 18, 1873, February, 1875, November, 1875); of his Aunt Tatiana, his adopted mother (June, 1874), and of his Aunt Pelagia (December, 1875). [7] Letter to Fet, March, 1876. [8] "Woman is the stumbling-block of a man's career. It is difficult to love a woman and to do nothing of any profit; and the only way of not being reduced to inaction by love is to marry." (_Anna Karenin._) [9] The motto at the commencement of the book. [10] Notice also, in the epilogue, the hostility towards warfare, nationalism, and Pan-Slavism. [11] "Evil is that which is reasonable to the world. Sacrifice and love are insanity." [12] (_Anna Karenin,_ vol. ii.) [13] _Anna Karenin,_ vol. ii. [14] _Ibid._ CHAPTER X THE CRISIS The misery which oppressed Levine, and the longing for suicide which he concealed from Kitty, Tolstoy was at this period concealing from his wife. But he had not as yet achieved the calm which he attributed to his hero. To be truthful, this mental state is hardly communicated to the reader. We feel that it is desired rather than realised, and that Levine's relapse among his doubts is imminent. Tolstoy was not duped by his desires. He had the greatest difficulty in reaching the end of his work. _Anna Karenin_ wearied him before he had finished it.[1] He could work no longer. He remained at a standstill; inert, without will-power, a prey to selfterror and self-disgust. There, in the emptiness of his life, rose the great wind which issued from the abyss; the vertigo of death. Tolstoy told of these terrible years at a later period, when he was newly escaped from the abyss.[2]