Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/387

Rh new doctrine, and had renounced everything external and pagan which had constituted a charm for Julius. As he did not find this in his wife, he took up with a woman of frivolous character, and enjoyed with her those leisure moments which remained to him above his duties.

If Julius had been asked whether he was happy or unhappy in these years of his life, he could not have replied.

He was so busy! He hurried from affair to affair, from pleasure to pleasure, but there was not one so satisfying to him that he would have it last. Everything he did was of such a kind that the quicker he got through with it the better he liked it; and none of his pleasures was so sweet as not to be poisoned by something, not to have mingled with it the weariness of satiety.

This kind of existence Julius was leading when an event happened which very nearly revolutionized the whole nature of his life. At the Olympic games he was taking part in the races, and as he was driving his chariot successfully near the goal, he suddenly collided with another which he was just outstripping: the wheel was broken, he was thrown out, and two of his ribs and an arm were fractured. His injuries were serious, but not fatal; he was taken home, and had to lie in bed for three months.

In the course of these three months, in the midst of severe physical sufferings, his thought began to ferment, and he had leisure to review his life as if it were the life of a stranger, and his life presented itself before him in a gloomy light, the more because during this time three unpleasant events, deeply mortifying to him, occurred.

The first was that a slave in whom his father had reposed implicit trust, having gone to Africa for him to purchase precious stones, had run away, causing great loss and confusion in Julius' business.

The second was that his concubine had deserted him, and accepted a new protector.

The third and most unpleasant blow was that during his illness the election for the position of administrator