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 His wife and children, the praise of men, art—he turned from it all. His family at first could not understand why he should be in such despair; it was difficult to feel sympathy with his sufferings. To them he appeared to possess everything that most people considered good and desirable, and the life he was leading excellent and blameless. So they could not help him, and he had to suffer alone.

Tolstoy's second son, who has written his recollections of his father, says he began to notice a change in his habits about this time. He left off hunting and shooting and riding, and took instead long walks on the road, where he could meet pilgrims and beggars and have talks with them. At dinner he would tell his family about them. He became gloomy and irritable, and quarreled with his wife over trifles. He no longer played with his children. When they were enjoying themselves acting or playing croquet he would walk in and spoil it all by a word or even a look.

He did not want to spoil their fun, but for all that he did. He had often not said anything, but he had thought it. "We all knew what he had thought, and that was what made us so uncomfortable," his son says.

It was trying for the children to lose their jolly, delightful companion, who had brought such zest into their games and whose gaiety had been so infectious.