Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/364

350 himself so? He had few pleasures, and many trials and tribulations!

The principal thing was that he felt himself all alone. Hitherto he had had a beloved mother, a father; he certainly had friends; now he had no one. No one loved him. He was a burden to every one. He had succeeded in bringing trouble into all their lives: he had caused his mother to quarrel with his father; he had wasted his father's substance, gathered with so much labor all his life long; he had been a dangerous and disagreeable rival to his friends. There could be no doubt about it,—all would find it a relief if he were dead.

As he reviewed his life, he remembered Pamphilius, and his last meeting with him, and how Pamphilius had invited him to come there, to the Christians. And it occurred to him not to return home, but to go straight to the Christians, and remain with them.

"But was his position so desperate? "he asked himself and again he proceeded to review what had happened, and again he was horror-struck because no one seemed to love him, and he loved no one. His mother, father, friends, did not love him, and must wish he were dead; but whom did he himself love? His friends? He was conscious that he did not love any one. All were rivals of his, all were pitiless toward him, now that he was in disgrace. "His father?" he asked himself, and horror seized him when at this question he looked into his heart. Not only did he not love him, but he hated him for his stinginess, for the affront he had put on him. He hated him, and, moreover, he saw plainly that for his own happiness his father's death was essential.

"Yes," Julius asked to himself, "and supposing I knew that no one would see it or ever find it out, what would I do if I could with one blow, once and for all, deprive him of life and set myself free?"

And Julius replied to this question:—

"Yes, I should kill him!"

He replied to this question, and was horror-struck at himself.