A Confession
Leo Tolstoy
Language: English
Pages: 100
ISBN: 1603862366
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
An unabridged, digitally enlarged edition to include an epilogue by the author.
thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Such is the way in which most people, who belong to the circle in which I move, reconcile themselves to their fate, and make living possible. They know more of the good than the evil of life from the circumstances of their position, and their blunted moral perceptions enable them to forget that all
believers, satisfied the lusts of the flesh, and led lives as evil as, if not worse than, those of infidels themselves. No arguments were able to convince me of the sincerity of the faith of these men. Only actions, proving their conception of life to have destroyed that fear of poverty, illness, and death, so strong in myself, could have convinced me, and such actions among them I could not see. Such actions, I saw, indeed, among the open infidels of my own class in life, but never among
of more importance to me to feel that I was good, more binding on me, than to believe 2 x 2 = 4. I loved good men, I hated myself, and I accepted truth. Now it was all clear to me. What if the executioner, who passes his life in torturing and cutting off heads, or a confirmed drunkard, asked himself the question, What is life? He could but get the same answer as a madman would give, who had shut himself up for life in a darkened chamber, and who believed that he would perish if he left it; and
of more importance to me to feel that I was good, more binding on me, than to believe 2 x 2 = 4. I loved good men, I hated myself, and I accepted truth. Now it was all clear to me. What if the executioner, who passes his life in torturing and cutting off heads, or a confirmed drunkard, asked himself the question, What is life? He could but get the same answer as a madman would give, who had shut himself up for life in a darkened chamber, and who believed that he would perish if he left it; and
the greatest importance was given to what I believed to be of the least, and I either held fast to the explanation which quieted me most, or else shut my eyes so as not to see what disquieted me. This feeling came upon me strongest whenever I took part in the most ordinary, and generally considered the most important, sacraments, as christening and the Holy Communion. Here I had to do with nothing difficult, but with what was easy to be understood: such acts appeared to me a delusion, and I