Was Lyoff Nikolaievich Tolstoy likely of his own accord to
have recourse to the protection of the law? And, if he did, was
he likely to conceal it from his wife and children?
He had been put into a position from which there was
absolutely no way out. To tell his wife was out of the question;
it would have grievously offended his friends. To have destroyed
the will would have been worse still; for his friends had suffered
for his principles morally, and some of them materially, and had
been exiled from Russia. He felt himself bound to them.
And on the top of all this were his fainting fits, his
increasing loss of memory, the clear consciousness of the approach
of death, and the continually growing nervousness of his wife, who
felt in her heart of hearts the unnatural estrangement of her
husband, and could not understand it. If she asked him what it was
that he was concealing from her, he would either have to
say nothing or to tell her the truth. But that was impossible.
So it came about that the long-cherished dream of leaving
Yasnaya Polyana presented itself as the only means of
escape. It was certainly not in order to enjoy the full
realization of his dream that he left his home; he went away only
as a choice of evils.
"I am too feeble and too old to begin a new life," he had said
to my brother Sergei only a few days before his departure.
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