“In the first place, as to our state after death, it is impossible to say that it will be. Immortality neither will be, nor was, but is. It is outside the forms of time and space. People who keep on asking what is going to happen after death should be told: the very same thing that was before birth. We do not know, neither can we or must we know what existence outside of the body, fusion with God, is like, and, when people begin telling me about it—even if some one from the other world were to come to tell me about it—I would not believe and I should say that I do not need it. That which we need, we always are aware of and know without doubting. One ought to live so that one’s life should help on the happiness of other people.”
Marie Nikolaevna said that although she neither believes in nor admits the existence of paradise and hell with real suffering, nevertheless there is hell for the soul in the constant suffering which comes from realization of evil done or of good undone.
“I can’t admit,” she added, “that one who lives badly and has done no good will achieve the same fusion with God as the man who has lived justly.”
Tolstoi was about to say something, but Marie Nikolaevna interrupted him.
Tolstoi said quietly and gently:
“I listened to you, Mashenka; now do you listen to me. Compared with the perfection of God, the difference which exists in life between the most righteous man and the most wicked is so insignificant that it is simply equal to nothing. And how am I to admit that God, the God whom I realize through love, can be revengeful and punish?”
“But suppose one lived wickedly all one’s life and died without repenting?” Marie Nikolaevna said.
“Ah, Mashenka,” Tolstoi said, “but what man wishes to be bad? The man whom we think bad we must love and pity for his sufferings. Nobody wants to live a bad life and to suffer. He must not be punished, he must be pitied, because he does not know the truth.”
Marie Nikolaevna still could not give up her point of view.
Tolstoi said to her: