Page:Tolstoy - Demands of Love and Reason.djvu/20

 these arguments; he suffers, and cries out, and hides the sore parts, and says, “You can’t cure me, and I don’t want to be cured; I will go on as before, if you can’t help me without giving me pain.”

And he is right. What is a spiritual illness? It is error, the loss of the right path, the non-fulfilment of the law, the entanglement in the net of temptation. What then are those to do, who, moved by the ties that unite all men, and knowing themselves to be in the right path, try to help the others and to deliver them from the nets of temptation? A man who has just turned into the wrong path can be simply pulled back, and it will not hurt him; but the man who is caught fast in the net cannot be pulled back—that would hurt him too much; he must first be disentangled very gently and softly. And that is just the chloroform of love. If you do not do this, what is the result? I see a man caught in a net and held fast by his neck and hands and feet. I want to help, and so I catch hold of him at random and begin to pull; and I strangle him, cut his flesh, and entangle him worse. The closer a man is caught, the more he needs love.

I understood this a little before, now I understand it fully, and am beginning to feel it.

My Father, help me!