Nearly twenty years later, in his Confession, Tolstoy referred to his brother's death in the words:
Another event which showed me that the superstitious belief in progress is insufficient as a guide to life, was my brother's death. Wise, good, serious, he fell ill while still a young man, suffered for more than a year and died painfully, not understanding why he had lived, and still less why he had to die. No theories could give me, or him, any reply to these questions during his slow and painful dying.
Any one who has read the works Tolstoy wrote during the quarter of a century which succeeded his brother's death, will be aware how long he remained in doubt on this matter of a future life, and how he expressed now one, and now another view.
At Hyères he continued to study the question of education, and for that purpose made many visits to Marseilles. He also wrote: continuing The Cossacks and commencing an article on Popular Education. We get a glimpse of him at this period from his sister, who tells us that they had been invited to an At Home at Prince Doundoukóf-Korsákof's; but Tolstoy, who was to have been the lion of the occasion, failed to put in an appearance. The company, which included all the 'best' people, were getting dull, despite everything the hostess could devise for their amusement, when at last, very late, Count Tolstoy was announced. The hostess and her guests immediately brightened up; but what was their astonishment to see him appear in tourist garb and wearing wooden sabots! He had been for a long walk, and returning late, had come to the party without calling at his lodgings; and no sooner was he in the room than he began assuring everybody that wooden sabots were the very best and most comfortable of foot-gear, and advising every one to adopt them. Even in those days he was a man to whom all things were allowed, and the evening, instead of being spoilt, became all the gayer from his eccentricity. There was a great deal of singing, and it fell to Tolstoy's lot to accompany the singers.
At Hyères, after his brother's death, Tolstoy lived with his sister and her three children in a pension where the only other lodgers were a Madame Pláksin and her delicate nine-year-old son Sergéy, whose lungs were thought to be affected, but who lived to become a poet and to publish his recollections of Tolstoy. Pláksin describes him as having been at that time a strongly built, broad-shouldered man, with a good-natured smile on his face, which was fringed by a thick, dark-brown beard. Under a large forehead, still bearing a deep scar from the wound inflicted by the bear two years before, wise, kind eyes shone out of very deep sockets. 'Tolstoy,' says Pláksin, 'was the soul of our little society, and I never saw him dull; on the contrary, he liked to amuse us with his stories, which were sometimes extremely fantastic.' Tolstoy rose early, and while he was at work the children were not allowed to disturb him beyond running in for a moment to say 'good-morning.' Being himself an indefatigable walker, Tolstoy used to plan out excursions for the company, constantly discovering new places to visit: the salterns on the peninsula of Porquerolle; the holy hill where the chapel with the wonder-working image of the Madonna stands; or the ruins of the castle called Trou des Fées. They used to have with them on these excursions, a small ass carrying provisions, fruit and wine.
On the way Tolstoy used to tell us various tales; I remember one about a golden horse and a giant tree, from the top of which all the seas and all towns were visible. Knowing that my lungs were delicate, he often took me on his shoulder and continued his tale as he walked along. Need I say that we would have laid down our lives for him?
At dinner-time Tolstoy used to tell the French proprietors of the pension the strangest stories about Russia, which they never knew whether or not to believe until the Countess or Madame Pláksin came to their rescue by separating the truth from the fiction.
After dinner, either on the terrace or indoors, a performance commenced, opera or ballet, to the sound of the piano: the children 'mercilessly tormenting the ears of the audience' (which consisted of the two ladies, Tolstoy, and Pláksin's nurse). Next came gymnastic exercises, in which Tolstoy acted as professor. 'He would lie at full length on the floor, making us do the same, and we had then to get up without using our hands.' He also contrived an apparatus out of rope, which he fixed up in the doorway; and on this he performed somersaults, to the great delight of his juvenile audience.
When the latter became too turbulent and the ladies begged Tolstoy to subdue the noise, he would set the children round the table, and tell them to bring pens and ink.
The following is an example of the sort of occupation he provided: