Uncovering the Secret

Abstract

All mediocre writers are alike; every great writer is great in his own way. Everything about Tolstoy’s life was confusion:

• Proud heir to his rolling acres, about 4,000 of them, complete with 330 serfs, he renounced landed property.

• “Aristocrat to his bone marrow,” to use his brother-in-law’s phrase, he tried to impersonate a poor peasant, complete with folk garb, a plough, bad teeth and no baths.

• The highest-paid and hardest-working writer in Russia, he spoke in favor of nothing but menial labor for one’s daily bread.

• Champion of celibacy, he spent his youth in brothels and the rest of his life producing 13 legitimate children (and at least as many illegitimate ones), forcing on his exhausted wife what he described to Chekhov as his “insatiable”¹ sexual appetite.

• Sadistically cruel to animals, he became a militant, self-righteous vegetarian.

• Having written immortal pages on love and family, he turned his back on both, not to mention on the immortal pages.

• Champion of reason, he denied that science had any value.

• Philosopher of history, he denied history.

• One of the greatest literary artists of all time, he mocked every kind of art.

• Having preached, at the age of 50, that it is impossible to live without faith, he proceeded for the next 30-odd years to do just that. • Calling himself a believer, he denied God. • Calling himself a Christian, he denied Christ. • Preaching Christ’s Gospel, he found himself in conflict with the church and was excommunicated. • Preaching a faith of universal love and tolerance, he attacked other people’s faith with venomous, offensive rudeness. • Having based his philosophy on non-resistance and resignation, he was in fact a rebel. • While most people’s rebellion mellows with age, his became more strident.

Vengeance is mine; I will repay.

Leo Tolstoy