Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/88

 theirs confirmed for him the terrible truth which had been revealed to him the night before. In them he saw himself, all that he had been living by, and saw clearly that all that was not the right thing, that it was all a terrible, huge deception, which concealed both life and death. This consciousness increased, multiplied tenfold his physical sufferings. He groaned and tossed about and picked at his clothes. It seemed to him that his clothes choked and suffocated him. And for this he hated them.

He was given a big dose of opium and he fell into oblivion, but at dinner the same began once more. He drove all away from himself, and tossed from one place to another.

His wife came to him, and said:

"Jean, my darling, do this for me." ("For me?") "It cannot hurt, and frequently it helps. Healthy people frequently do it."

He opened his eyes wide.

"What? Communion? What for? It is not necessary! Still—"

She burst out weeping.

"Yes, my dear? I will send for our priest,—he is such a nice man."

"All right, very well," he muttered.

When the priest came and took his confession, he softened, seemed to feel a relief from his doubts, and so from his suffering, and for a moment was assailed by hope. He began once more to think of his blind gut and the possibility of mending it. He took his communion with tears in his eyes.

When, after the communion, he was put down on the bed, he for a moment felt easier, and again there appeared hope of life. He began to think of the operation which had been proposed to him. "I want to live, to live," he said to himself. His wife came back to congratulate him; she said the customary words, and added: