ABSTRACT
It is early morning. The old man awakens slowly, looks around. The light of dawn already shows through the window. Nevertheless, curiosity has its way with him. Swiftly he looks through the medley of requests, complaints, business proposals, messages announcing visits, idle chatter. A brahmin writes from India to say that Tolstoy has misunderstood one of the sacred doctrines; a prisoner in a penitentiary tells the story of his life and asks advice; young men put their difficulties before him; beggars ask despairingly for help; one and all declare that he is the only person to whom they can look for succour, that he is the conscience of the world. Looking round almost furtively, as if afraid that someone may be watching him, he goes to a hiding-place and takes out the stories at which he is now secretly working - secretly, because he has publicly stigmatized art as "superfluous" and "sinful".
