| Chapter 1: | Life |
|
|
always will err, and in nothing more so than in what they regard as just and unjust.”
“Unjust is that which is bad for another man,” said Pierre, noticing with delight that this was the first time since his arrival that Prince Andrey had become animated, and wanted to speak, and to tell him what had made him such as he now was.
“And who has told you what is bad for another man?” he asked.
“What is bad? Bad?” said Pierre. “We all know what is bad for us.”
“Yes, we do; but what is bad for me I cannot inflict upon another,” Prince Andrey said, with ever growing animation, apparently wishing to tell Pierre his new view on things. He spoke in French. “Je ne connais dans la vie que deux maux bien réels: c'est le remord et la maladie. Il ne de bien que l'absence de ces maux. To live for myself, escaping these two evils, that is now my wisdom.”
“And the love of your neighbor? and self-sacrifice?” Pierre hastened to say. “No, I cannot agree with you. It is not enough to live in such a way as to not wrong and not to have remorse. I lived so: I lived for myself and wasted my life. And only now that I live, at least that I try” (Pierre modestly corrected himself) “to live for others, only now have I grasped the whole happiness of life. No, I will not agree with you, and you yourself do not believe what you say.”
Prince Andrey glanced silently at Pierre and smiled a sarcastic smile.
—Tolstoy, War and Peace 35
Tolstoy's vision of the power of death and nothingness was neither entirely sudden nor unexpected. His concern with death is revealed even in his earliest works. 36 But in the 1870s, life for Tolstoy became so meaningless that it seemed a cruel joke played upon the human being and, he believed, it was only weakness that prevented him from committing suicide. Philosophy could provide no answer for him. Reason was Tolstoy's indispensable tool in his quest for meaning, and yet his reason presented him with no answer. He examined the people around him to see how they managed to deal with this question. Those of his own class and education he found to have four means of escape. The first was