Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/146

114 not lose a single minute, and come at once, and bring the children with you. Maybe, I shall live long enough to embrace and bless them; that is my one last wish. I know what a blow I am striking you, but you would all the same, sooner or later, receive it from me, or from others. Let us try with fortitude and with hope in the mercy of God to bear this misfortune! Let us submit to His will!

"Do not imagine that what I write is the delirium of a diseased imagination; on the contrary, my thoughts are unusually clear at this moment, and I am perfectly calm. Do not console yourself in vain with the hope that these are false and dim presentiments of a fearsome soul. No, I feel, I know, — and I know because it has pleased God to reveal it to me, — that I am to live only a short time.

"Will my love for you and my children end together with my life? I have come to understand that this is impossible. I feel too strongly this minute, to think that the feeling without which I cannot understand existence should ever be annihilated. My soul cannot exist without love for you; and I know that it will exist for ever, for this reason alone, if for no other, that such a feeling as my love could not have originated, if it were ever to come to an end.

"I shall not be with you; but I am firmly convinced that my love will never leave you, and this thought is so comforting to my soul that I await my approaching death in peace and without fear.

"I am calm, and God knows that I have always looked at death as a transition to a better life; but why do tears choke me? Wherefore are the children to lose their beloved mother? Why should such a blow be struck you? Why must I die, when your love has made me boundlessly happy?

"His holy will be done!

"I cannot write any more for tears. Maybe I shall