Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/34

 and did not know what to think farther. Or, when I thought of the education of my children, I said to myself: “Why?” Or, reflecting on the manner in which the masses might obtain their welfare, I suddenly said to myself: “What is that to me?” Or, thinking of the fame which my works would get me, I said to myself: “All right, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Molière, and all the writers in the world,—what of it?” And I was absolutely unable to make any reply. The questions were not waiting, and I had to answer them at once; if I did not answer them, I could not live.

I felt that what I was standing on had given way, that I had no foundation to stand on, that that which I lived by no longer existed, and that I had nothing to live by.