ABSTRACT
Leo Tolstoy drops on his knees before the ikons; he fasts, makes pilgrimage to monasteries, argues with popes and bishops, and flutters the pages of the gospels. For three years, he tries to be orthodox; but the incense-laden air of the churches strikes chill into a soul that is already shivering with cold. Perhaps the philosophers will know more about this mysterious "meaning of life". At once, with berserker rage, Tolstoy, whose thoughts have never before been concerned with suprasensual matters, begins to read helter-skelter the writings of the philosophers of all ages, gulping down their words far too rapidly to digest their meaning. But the revelations of the peasants are of use only to art and to the artist. The best of Tolstoy's writings are embellished with the results of these rural conversations, and henceforward his phrasing is vivified and strengthened by peasant metaphors.
