Page:More Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/48

Biography old doubts and misgivings had returned with tenfold force, and Tolstoi was powerless to resist them. Utterly dissatished with the life he was living, convinced that it was both “senseless and terrible,” he looked about him for something which would better satisfy his heart and conscience. First he turned to Science, only to receive an interminable quantity of dark answers to questions he had never asked, but as to the meaning of life he did not receive, and of course could not receive any answer, for Science does not and cannot occupy herself with such a question. Next he applied to Philosophy, but Philosophy could but tell him that the only way out of life was through death. Finally, he arrived at the conclusion that Faith was the one mainstay of life—but where was Faith to be found? To acquire knowledge is easy, but to acquire faith when you have none within you seemed well-nigh impossible. In this dilemma Tolstoi began by consorting with monks and pilgrims, by frequenting the Optinsky monastery, by shutting himself in his own room for private prayer, studying the Scriptures, and consulting Catholics, Protestants, and Raskolniks indiscriminately. He even took lessons in Hebrew from the Chief Rabbi of Moscow—and all without being able to arrive at any conclusion. “I had lived in the world five-and-fifty years,” he pathetically confesses, “and during all that time, excluding fourteen or fifteen childish years, I had lived as a Nihilist in the completest sense of the word, that is to say, not as a socialist or a revolutionist, as the word is commonly understood, but as one who had no faith, who had nothing. Science and