Lev Tolstoy

“ For the time of my childhood these éclaircies very very rarely open out amid the sea of mist or smoke, afterwards they occur more and more frequently; but even now I have times that leave no memories behind. In childhood there are very few memories, and the farther back the fewer there are.
I have spoken of the clearings that belong to my early life: Sophia Bénkendorf’s death, the good-bye to my parents, and Constantine’s mimicking, but several other memories of that period open out now as I think of the past. ”

“ But if I placed my welfare first (and this is not only possible, but is what ought to be) and considered my highest welfare to lie in liberation from passions and an approach towards God, then everything that brought me nearer to death – old age, and illness – would be a fulfillment of my one great desire. That is so, and I feel it when I am well. But when I have indigestion, as was the case yesterday and the day before, I cannot awaken that feeling, and though I do not resist death I am unable to wish to draw nearer to it. ”

“ Life consists in that. And it occurs to me that if the whole of life consists in the birth of wishes and the joy of life lies in their fulfillment, then is there a wish which would be natural to man, to every human being, always, and would always be fulfilled or rather would be approaching fulfillment? And it has become clear to me that this would be so for a man who desired death. His whole life would be an approach to the fulfillment of that wish and the wish would certainly be fulfilled. ”

“ The drums still beat and the flutes played – so the tortures were still going on. My chief feeling was that I ought to approve of what was being done to this double of mine; or if not approve at least acknowledge that it was the proper thing to do, but I could not. Yet I felt that if I did not admit it to be necessary and right, I should have to admit that my whole life and all my actions were bad, and should have to do what I had long wished to: abandon everything, go away, and disappear. ”

“ My father and mother had gone abroad, and I and my brother Constantine, born two years after me, were in our grandmother’s complete control for the whole of their absence. My brother had been named Constantine to denote that he was to become Emperor of Constantinople.
Children love everybody and especially those who love and caress them. My grandmother caressed and praised me, and I loved her in spite of the smell, repulsive to me, which always hung about her, notwithstanding her perfumes, and was especially noticeable when she took me on her lap. ”

“ I put on my elk-skin dressing-gown and went out. Behind the snow-clad larches and pines glowed a rosy-orange sky. I brought in the firewood I chopped yesterday, lit the stove, and chopped some more wood. It grew lighter. I ate some moistened rusks. The stove had grown hot and I closed the damper and sat down to write.
I was born just seventy-two years ago, on the 12th of December, 1777, in Petersburg, in the Winter Palace. By my grandmother’s wish I was named Alexander, to betoken, as she told me herself, my becoming as great a man as Alexander the Great and as holy as Alexander Névski. ”

“ My head nurse was Sophia Ivánovna Benkendorf, a German; and the second nurse was an Englishwoman named Hessler. Sophia Ivánovna Benkendorf was a stout, white-skinned, straight-nosed woman, of majestic appearance when giving orders in the nursery but surprisingly servile in grandmother’s presence – bowing and curtseying low to her who was a head shorter than herself. She was very obsequious to me and yet severe. Sometimes she was a queen, in her broad skirts and with her majestic straight-nosed face, and then suddenly she became an affected young hussy. ”

“ During the lifetime of the hermit Fëdor Kuzmích, who appeared in Siberia in 1836 and lived there in different parts for twenty-seven years, strange rumors were rife that he – concealing his real name and rank – was none other than Alexander the First. After his death these rumors became more definite and widespread. That he really was Alexander the First was believed during the reign of Alexander III not only by the common people, but also in Court circles and even by members of the Imperial family. Among others, the historian Schilder, who wrote a history of Alexander’s reign, believed it. ”

“ My whole life from my birth to my present old age makes me think of a place enveloped in a thick mist, or even of the battlefield at Dresden: everything is hidden, nothing visible, and suddenly here and there little islands open out, des éclaircies [22] in which one sees people and objects unconnected with anything else and surrounded on all sides by an impenetrable curtain. ”

“ Constantine was dressed in the same way; on our heads we wore plumed hats which we continually raised as we bowed. The people everywhere stopped and bowed; some of them ran after us. ‘On vous salue,’ [20] Nicholas Ivánovich kept repeating. ‘A droite.’ [21]
We went past the guard-house and the guards ran out. Those I always noticed, for I loved soldiers and military exercises from my childhood. We were told, especially by grandmother – the very one who believed it least of all – that all men are equal and that we ought to remember this, but I knew that those who said so did not believe it. ”

“ Another important event connected with Sophia Ivánovna’s death was our being transferred to the charge of a man, and Nicholas Ivánovich Saltykóv being appointed our tutor – not the Saltykóv who in all probability was our grandfather, but Nicholas Ivánovich who was in service at my father’s court; a little man with a huge head and a stupid face with a continual grimace, which my little brother Constantine imitated wonderfully. Being entrusted to a man grieved me, because it meant parting from my dear nurse, Praskóvya Ivánovna. ”

“ Instead of the feeling of dependence on grown-up and older persons natural to a child, instead of gratitude for all the blessings which we enjoyed, we were led to believe that we were some kind of exceptional beings who not only ought to be supplied with all the good things a human being can have, but by a word or a smile alone would not only more than pay for all those blessings, but would also reward people and make them happy. ”

“ I used often to think that man cannot help having desires. I always had and still have desires. First I wished to conquer Napoleon, I wished to give peace to Europe, I wished to be released from my crown: and all my wishes were either fulfilled and as soon as that happened ceased to attract me, or became impossible of fulfillment and I ceased to wish for them. ”

“ Those who have not the misfortune to be born in a royal family must, I think, find it difficult to realize how distorted is the view of people and of our relation towards them which is instilled into us and was instilled into me. ”

“ In this cell Kuzmích began his diary. L. T.↑ ‘A fortunate accident.’↑ Fóti (1792–1838) . An archimandrite who enjoyed much influence in court circles.↑ G. F. von Parrot (1767–1852) , Member of the Russian Academy of Science. His letters to Alexander I were published in 1894–5.↑ Baroness B. J. Krüdener (1764–1824) , pietist and authoress, at one time a friend of Alexander I.↑ The exceedingly harsh Minister to whom Alexander entrusted the government when he himself began to cease to exercise power.↑ The grandmother was Catherine the Great. ”