Chapter 20 one eight

The battle was over, the battle in which eighty-two years of life had been the battleground was over.In the glorious battle of tragedy, all living forces, all defects and all virtues take part. —all flaws except one, a lie he never ceases to attack. Intoxicating freedom at first, lusts groping and colliding in distant nights of lightning and storm,--Frenzy of love and dreams, visions of eternity.The Caucasus, Sevastopol, the turbulent and dreary years of youth... Then, the tranquility of the first years of marriage.Love, Art, Natural Happiness, .The peak period of genius enveloped the entire realm of human beings, as well as the scenes of these struggles that have become a thing of the past in terms of soul and soul.He controls all of these, he is the master; and this is no longer enough for him.Like Prince Andrei, his eyes turned to the boundless blue sky of Austerlitz.It is the blue sky that attracts him: "Some people have powerful wings. They fell to the world because of their love for the world, and their wings were broken: for example, I. After that, he bulged his broken wings and rushed to fly, and fell to the earth again. Down. Wings will be healed and whole. I will soar high. God help me!" See October 28, 1879.That page is the most beautiful one, and we transcribe it below: "In this world there are hulking people without wings. They are down below, harassing.

Among them there are also extremely strong ones, such as Napoleon.They leave a terrible mark on the world and sow the seeds of discord. —He who is propelled by his wings, moves forward slowly, soars like a monk. —There are frivolous people, who easily rise and fall, such as those well-meaning idealists. ——He who has mighty wings... ——There is a man in heaven, for the love of the world, he hid his wings and descended to the earth to teach people to fly.Later, when they were no longer necessary, they were called 'Christs'. " This is the sentence he wrote in the most thrilling and stormy age, and it is the memory and echo of this period.Tolstoy fell to the ground many times and broke his wings.And he persevered forever.He starts again.He actually "flyed in the boundless and deep sky", with two huge wings, one for reason and the other for faith.But there he did not find the silence he was looking for.Heaven is not outside of us but within us.Tolstoy, who still stirs up waves of his passion in heaven, differs from all the apostles who renounced the world in this respect: he imbues his renunciation with the same passion as he did in life.What he grasped was always life, and he grasped it as strongly as a lover.He was "crazy to live".He was "intoxicated for life".Without this intoxication, he cannot live. "A man can only live so long as he is intoxicated with life." (1879) "I am mad for life... This is summer, a good summer. This year I have struggled long; but the beauty of nature I am conquered. I rejoice in life." (to Fetter, July 1880) These lines were being written in the midst of his religious frenzy.Intoxicated by happiness, but also by suffering, intoxicated by death, but also by eternal life.October 1865: "The thought of death..." "I wish, I love eternal life." His renunciation of personal life was only the cry of his yearning for eternal life.No, the peace he attained, the peace of the soul he invoked, was not the peace of death.This is the peace of those who rush forward fervently in infinite space.For him, anger is quiet, "I'm intoxicated with anger, I love it, I stimulate it when I feel it, because it's a calming method for me, and makes me, at least for a while, very The elasticity, vigor, and fire of my soul enable me to do something both mentally and physically." (see "Prince Nekhludoff's Diary" 1857) But stillness is boiling.Confidence gave him a new weapon, allowing him to continue the battle against the lies of modern society that he had begun since his early works, even more furiously.He is no longer limited to a few characters in novels, but attacks all the great idols: religion, state, science, art, liberalism, socialism, popular education, charity, peace movement... He for 189 A treatise on war, written at the World Peace Conference held in London one year, was a scathing satire on pacifists who believed in arbitrationism in general: "It is like catching a bird by putting a grain of grain on its tail." Its story. It was so easy to capture it. It is a joke to talk to people about arbitration and state-sanctioned disarmament. It is all nonsense! Of course, the governments will admit: Those good apostles! They know it well This will not prevent them from driving millions of souls to kill each other in their joy." (see Chapter 6 of "The Kingdom of Heaven Within Us") He scolded them and attacked them without any room.

The world has seen from time to time great rebels of thought who, like John the Precursor, cursed a corrupt civilization.The last of these was Rousseau.In his admiration for nature, nature has always been Tolstoy's "best friend", as he himself said: "A friend, that is very good; but he is about to die, where is he going, We cannot follow him. As for nature, we are so closely related to it that it is bought and inherited, which is better. Mine is cruel and burdensome; but it is a lifelong friend ; when a man dies, he goes into nature." (Letter to Fett, May 19, 1861) He participates in the life of nature, he is reborn in the spring, ("March 4 Best month for my work,"—to Fett, March 23, 1877,) he began to be dull in late autumn ("This is the season of death for me, I don't think, I don't write, I feel comfortable being stupid.”—to Fett, October 21, 1869) in his hatred of modern society, in his extreme independence, in his respect for the Holy Book and Christian morality Rousseau can be said to have heralded the coming of Tolstoy, and Tolstoy himself admitted, saying: "There are many places in his writing that have touched my heart. I think I will write these sentences myself. .” See conversation with Paul Boyer. (Paris "Times", August 28, 1901) In fact, people often can't tell the difference, such as Rousseau's Julie (A Julie is the heroine in Rousseau's novel "New Heloise") ) on his deathbed: "What I cannot believe, I cannot say I believe, I will always say what I believe. That is all that belongs to me." and Tolstoy's "Answer to Saint Sirona in: "It is possible for my beliefs to disgust or hinder others. But it is beyond my power to change it, any more than I can change my body. I cannot believe anything but what I believe Others, especially at this time when I shall return to the God from whom I came." Or Rousseau's "Tabermont" seems to be entirely from Tolstoy's writing: "I am Jesus Christ's Believers. I declare to me that whoever loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law." Or as in: "The whole Sunday prayer is summed up again in these words: "Thy will be done! " (Rousseau's "Miscellaneous Books on the Mountain" No. 3) Compare with the following passage: "I replace all prayers with the Lord's Prayer."All I can ask of God is expressed most fully in the following sentence: 'May your will be done! '" (1852-53 in the Caucasus era) The similarity of the two minds is not only true in religion, but also in art. Rousseau said: "The first rule of modern art , is to speak clearly and accurately express his thoughts. Tolstoy said: "You can think whatever you like, as long as your every word can be understood by everyone."Nothing bad can ever be written in a perfectly lucid text. "In addition, I have also said that Rousseau's satirical description of the Paris Opera House in "New Heloise" is closely related to Tolstoy's criticism in "On Art".

But there is a huge difference between these two hearts and souls, and Tolstoy's is a purer Christian soul!Let me give you two examples of the arrogance, impudence, and hypocrisy of this Genevan: "Eternal beings! Who can tell you—if he dares: I was better than this man!" "I dare to say without any scruples: whoever dares to treat me as a dishonest person deserves to die." Tolstoy wept bitterly for the sins of his past life: "I feel pain like hell. I recall all my past cowardice, and these cowardly memories haunt me, and they poison my life. People usually It is a pity that I cannot keep my memory after death. What a bliss it would be! What a pain it would be if, in this other life, I could recall all the sins I have committed in this world!

He will not write about him like Rousseau, because Rousseau once said: "Because I feel that my good is better than evil, I think it is beneficial to say everything." Four Walks".Tolstoy tried to write his "Memoirs", and finally gave up; the pen fell in his hand, and he did not want people to read it and say: "So is the man who people think is so noble! How cowardly he was! As for us, God himself has made us cowardly." To Birukov. Rousseau never knew the beautiful and moral chastity of the Christian faith, nor the modesty which gave Tolstoy his integrity.Hidden behind Rousseau,—around the bronze statue of the Ile de l'Egret,—we see a St. Pierre of Geneva, a Calvin of Rome.In Tolstoy, we see those pilgrims, innocent believers, who moved his childhood with innocent confession and tears.

The struggle for the world was his common struggle with Rousseau, and there was another, more serious struggle that filled the last thirty years of Tolstoy's life. It was the melee struggle between the two highest forces in his heart and soul: Truth and love. Truth,--"the gaze that penetrates to the soul,"--the deep light that penetrates the gray eyeballs that move within you... It was his first faith, after his art. "The heroine of my work, whom I love with all the strength of my heart and soul, was, is, and will always be beautiful, and this is the truth." "Sebasto, May 1855" Bohr.

Truth, was all that remained when all was destroyed after his brother's death. "Truth... the only thing left in my moral conception, the only object I will worship." (October 17, 1860) Truth is the center of his life, the rock in the sea. ...but before long, the "brutal truth" was no longer enough for him.Love has taken its place.This was the source of his childhood vivacity, "the natural state of his soul." "Pure love of humanity is the natural state of the mind, and we do not notice it." When insanity occurred in 1880 (when he was a student at Kazan), he never abandoned the truth, he put It leads to the realm of love. "Truth leads to love..." (1879-81) "I place truth on a unit of love..." (ibid.) Love is "the foundation of power." You are always referring strength?But the basis of power is love. "(See Anna's words in the second volume) Love is the "meaning of existence", the only meaning. Of course, so is beauty. "Beauty and love are the two meanings of existence. "(Volume Two) Love is the essence of Tolstoy who has been tempered and matured by life, and is the essence of the life of the author of "Answer to the Holy Religious Conference". "I believe in God, and God is "love" to me (Answer to Saint Sirona, 1901) "Yes, love!"

But this fraternal connection is difficult to maintain.Sometimes, the phenomena and pains of life are so tragic that they seem to be a blow to our love. At that time, in order to save this love and this faith, we have to put it above the world, so that it has nothing to do with the world. The danger of breaking away from all ties.And what of the man who has the wonderful and terrible gift of seeing the truth, and absolutely cannot but see it?In the last few years of Tolstoy, his sharp eyes saw the cruelty of reality, and his warm heart was always looking forward to training love. Who can express the pain he felt because of the constant contradiction between heart and purpose?

We have all experienced this tragic struggle.We have repeatedly fallen into the samsara that we can't bear to see or hate!How could an artist,--an artist worthy of the name, a writer who knew the wonderful and terrible power of words--felt wrought by a miserable emotion when he wrote some--one truth: number! Tolstoy never deceived either of his two beliefs.In his mature works, love is the flame of truth.In the works of his later years, it is a kind of light shot down from above, a candle of divine grace shining on life, but it is no longer in harmony with life.We see in it that belief governs reality, but still stands outside it.Characters described by Tolstoy.Whenever he looked at their faces separately, they seemed weak and useless, but as soon as he thought about them in an abstract way, these figures immediately had a godlike holiness.See "A Gentleman's Morning", - or in the ideal description, how simple and kind those people are, satisfying their fate, keeping themselves safe, and gaining the meaning of life, - or at the end of the second part, when Neh When Liudov met the workers returning from work, "this human being, this new world" appeared before his eyes. ——In his daily life, there is the same contradictory expression as in his art, and it is even more cruel.Though he knows what love has set him to do, his actions are always inconsistent; he does not live by God, he lives by the world.That is love, where to grasp it?How to distinguish among its different faces and contradictory systems?Is it the love of his family, or the love of all mankind? ... until the last day, he was still wandering between the two.

How to solve? --he does not know.Let those proud intellectuals criticize him contemptuously.Of course, they found the solution, they found the truth, they had certainty.To these people Tolstoy was a weakling, a sentimental man, uneducable.Undoubtedly, he was not an example for them to follow: they had no considerable vitality.Tolstoy did not belong to the vain elite class, nor did he belong to any sect—he was neither a hypocrite nor a Jewish priest, as he called it.He was the highest type of free Christian, and his whole life was inclined to a further and further ideal. "A Christian is never spiritually higher or lower than another; but he can move faster in the way of perfection, which makes him a purer Christian. Hence the stagnation of hypocrites Virtue is less Christian than the thieves who were crucified at the same time as Christ, because the hearts and souls of these thieves are always moving towards the ideal, and they have repented on the cross." (see "Cruel Pleasure") Tolstoy He doesn't speak to those who are intellectually privileged, he only speaks to the common people. —He is our conscience.He speaks of thoughts common to us ordinary people, which we dare not face up to in our own hearts.And he is not to us a proud master, like those proud geniuses who sit upon the thrones of their art and wisdom and loom over mankind.He was—as he called himself in his letters, the sweetest and sweetest of all names—"our brother."