Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/56

 gave me a direct answer and only confirmed my despair and showed me that what I had arrived at was not the fruit of my aberration, of a morbid condition of my mind; on the contrary, it only confirmed me in my belief that my thoughts were correct and that I agreed with the deductions of the most powerful minds of humanity.

There is no cause for self-deception. Everything is vanity. Happy is he who is not born,—death is better than life: it is necessary to free oneself from it.