Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

Everything turned out favourably. On the 9th, by some peculiar fate, I fell ill of a fever. I stayed in bed for about a week, during which time I considered my idea thoroughly, and became more confirmed in it. On the 16th I got up feeling quite well again.

I shaved as usual on that day and cut myself rather badly. I bled a great deal, and feeling faint dropped down on the floor. People came rushing in, and I was immediately raised. I could see at a glance that the incident might prove useful to my purpose, and though I had quite recovered, pretended to be very weak, and going back to bed and asked for Doctor Villier’s assistant. I knew it would have been impossible to bribe Villier, but I had hopes of his assistant. I told him of my purpose and offered him eighty thousand roubles, if he would do everything I wanted of him.

I had hit on the following plan, having heard that Strumensky was not expected to live through the day, I pretended to be irritated and annoyed with everybody, and allowed no one to come near me except the young doctor, whom I had bribed. He was to bring Strumensky’s body hidden in a bath, put him in my place, and announce my sudden death. It all happened as we had arranged it, and on the 7th day of November I was a free man.

Strumensky’s body was buried in great state. My brother Nicholas came to the throne, condemning the conspirators to hard labour. I met several of them later in Siberia. I have suffered very little in comparison to the enormity of my crime, and have enjoyed the greatest of all happiness. But I will speak of this in due course.

An old man of seventy-two, on the brink of the grave, fully realising the vanity of my former life and the deep significance of my present one as a wanderer, I will now endeavour to relate the whole story of the past.

December 12, 1849,
Near Krasnorechinsk, Siberia.

Today is my birthday. I have reached my seventy-second year. Exactly seventy-two years ago I was born in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. My mother, the Empress, was then the Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna.

I slept well last night, and feel better than I did yesterday. I have come out of my spiritual torpor and can turn once more to God. During the night I prayed in the darkness, and a consciousness came upon me that my one and only purpose in life was to serve Him who had sent me into the world.

It is within my own power either to serve or not to serve Him. Serving Him I add to my own good and to the good of the whole world; not serving Him I forfeit my own good, and deprive the world of that good which was in my power to create; not, however, of its potential good. What I ought to have done, others will do after me, and His will shall be fulfilled. This is the meaning of free will. But if He knows everything that is to be, if all is ordained by Him, then how can there be free will? I do not know. This is the boundary of thought and the beginning of prayer. Let Thy will be done, O Lord. Help us. Come and dwell within us. Or more simply: Lord have mercy upon us! Lord have mercy upon us! Lord have mercy upon us, and forgive us our sins! Words fail me, O Lord, but Thou knowest what is in my heart, for Thou dwellest in it. And so I fell asleep. I was restless as usual, woke up several times, and had bad dreams. I seemed to be swimming in the sea, and wondering how it was that I lay so high above the water; why the water did not cover me. The sea was a beautiful green, and some people seemed to be in my way.

I wanted to come out of the water, but could not, because several women were standing on the shore and I was naked. I took the dream to mean that the power of the flesh was strong within me, standing in my way, but deliverance was close at hand. I got up before dawn, struck a flint, but could not light the tinder for a long time, after which, putting on my dressing-gown of elk skin, I went out into the fresh air. The rosy orange glow of the rising sun could be seen behind the snow-clad pines and larches. I brought in the wood which I chopped yesterday, lit my stove, and began chopping some more. It grew lighter. I had my breakfast of soaked rusks, shut the damper of the stove as soon as the logs were red, and sat down to write.

I begin again. I was born on 10th December 1777, and was named Alexander by my grandmother’s wish, in the hope, as she afterwards told me, that I should become as great as Alexander of Macedonia, and as holy as Alexander Nevsky. I was christened a week after my birth in the big church of the palace. I was carried into the church by the Duchess of Courland on a brocade pillow, whilst a number of other great personages held a cover over me. The Empress was my godmother, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia were my godfathers.

My room was arranged according to my grandmother’s taste. I can of course remember nothing about it, but have been told by other people. It was a large room with three high windows. A space was portioned off in the middle by four columns, with a velvety canopy overhead fastened to the ceiling, and silk curtains falling to the ground. Under this canopy there was a little iron bedstead with a leather mattress, a little pillow,