hing, yet in the case of the children of the mujiks the
difficulty could easily be surmounted by permitting the children to
learn what they liked.

I also tried through my own newspaper to indoctrinate the people, but my
mind grew more and more embarrassed. At length I fell sick, rather
mentally than physically. I went off to the Steppes to breathe the pure
air and to take mare's milk and to live the simple life. I married soon
after my return to my estate. As time passed on I became happily
absorbed in the interests of wife and children, largely forgetting
during a happy interval of fifteen years the old anxiety for individual
perfection. For this desire was superseded by that of promoting the
welfare of my family.

All this time, however, I was writing busily, and was gaining much money
as well as winning great applause. And in everything I wrote I
persistently taught what was for me the sole truth--that our chief
object in life should be to secure our own happiness and that of our
family. Then, five years ago, supervened a mood of mental lethargy. I
grew despondent; my perplexity increased, and I was tormented by the
constant recurrence of such questions as--"Why?" and "What afterwards?"
And by degrees the questions took a more concrete form. "I now possess
six thousand 'desyatins' of land in the government of Samara, and three
hundred horses--what then?" I could find no answer. Then came the
question, "What if I could excel Shakespeare, and Moliere, and Gogol,
and become the most celebrated the world has ever seen--what then?"
Answer, there was none; yet I felt that I must find one in order to go
on living.

Life had now lost its meaning, and was no longer real to me. I was a
healthy and happy man, and yet so empty did life seem to me that I was
afraid of being tempted to commit suicide, even though I had not the
slightest intention to perpetrate such a deed. But, fearing lest the
temptation might come upon me I hid a rope away out of my sight, and
ceased carrying a gun in my walks.

_III.--The Spirit of Despair_

It was in my 50th year that the question "What is life" had reduced me
to utter despair. Various queries clustered round this central
interrogation. "Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there
any signification in life that can overcome inevitable death?" I found
that in human knowledge no real answer was forthcoming to such
yearnings. None of the theories of the philosophers gave any