Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/499

 I think, in the first place, that you judge quite incorrectly when you say that you must not turn to the father of your children (you write: "I will not, and I cannot "). The union between a man and a woman from whom children were born is insoluble, independently of whether it is sanctified in an external manner, by ecclesiastic marriage. And so I think that, no matter who the father of your children may be, whether he be married or single, rich or poor, bad or good, whether he has offended you or not, you must turn to him and point out to him, if he has neglected it, his duty to serve his children and their mother with his life. If he should answer to this not only with indifference, but also with contempt and insult, you are none the less obliged before God, before yourself, before your children, and, above all, before him, to turn to him, to remind him, to beg him for his own sake to do his duty,—to ask him meekly, to ask him meekly, lovingly, but persistently, as the widow of the Gospel begged the judge. This is my well-considered and sincere opinion; you may leave it without attention or follow it. But I have felt it to be my duty to tell it to you.

The physical connection with the accidental husband is one of the means established by God for the dissemination of his truth: for the trial and confirmation of the stronger and the enlightenment of the weaker.

In the Bible and the Gospel it says that man and wife are not two beings, but one, and this is true, not because it was supposedly said by God, but because it is a confirmation of the undoubted truth that the sexual intercourse of two beings, which has childbirth for its consequence, unites these two beings in some mysterious manner, which is distinct from any other union, so that these two in a certain way cease to be two and become one being.