Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/35

 free. And why could you not be content with this Christian, brotherly love? And therefore, pardon me, what you say about your love to her supporting you in purity is an insult to woman. Every human being especially a Christian, desires to be the medium of spiritual, not physical influence. Your purity you should guard with your own powers, but you should offer her your love free from any personal advantages for yourself. Do not exchange God for man; God will give you incomparably more of what you least expect, and will into the bargain give you her affection. Your write that she must be saved by your love. I do not at all understand "from what?" Nor why and for what you pity her. Amongst us the mistake often occurs that men wish to marry in some special, novel way. As Jesus said and Paul corroborated, and is corroborated also by our reason, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it," -and he who cannot, let him marry. And one cannot marry in any new way. One cannot marry otherwise than as all do; that is, having chosen a partner, to decide to be true to him or her, not to forsake until death, and to endeavor with him or her to re-establish the lost chastity. If we do not attach importance to the fulfillment of rites and various customs, we nevertheless cannot understand marriage otherwise than everyone does. And as marriage has always been realized as the natural consequence of mutual attraction, so will it ever be. And if this mutual attraction does not exist, then marriage as such is an evil thing.

... I think I understand you both, and I should very much like to help you by extracting from your relations all that is painful and disquieting, leaving the good and joyous. She is quite right when she says that exclusive love, far from being love towards God, hinders it.