On 12th April 1868 Tourgénef, writing to Fet, said:

I have just finished the fourth volume of War and Peace. There are things in it that are unbearable, and things that are wonderful; and the wonderful things (they predominate) are so magnificently good that we have never had anything better written by anybody; and it is doubtful whether anything as good has been written.

About the same time V. P. Bótkin wrote from Petersburg: 'Tolstoy's novel is having a really remarkable success; every one here is reading it, and they not merely read it but become enthusiastic about it.'

1869

The Epilogue was not completed till late in 1869. On 30th August Tolstoy writes: 'Part VI [i.e. Part II of the Epilogue] which I expected to have finished a month ago, is not ready'; and then in the next sentence, he goes into ecstasies over Schopenhauer:

Do you know what this summer has been for me? An unceasing ecstasy over Schopenhauer, and a series of mental enjoyments such as I never experienced before. I have bought all his works, and have read and am reading them (as well as Kant's). And assuredly no student in his course has learnt so much and discovered so much as I have during this summer. I do not know whether I shall ever change my opinion, but at present I am confident that Schopenhauer is the greatest genius among men. You said he had written something or other on philosophic subjects. What do you mean by 'something or other'? It is the whole world in an extraordinarily vivid and beautiful reflection. I have begun translating him. Won't you take up that work? We would publish it together. After reading him I cannot conceive how his name can remain unknown. The only explanation is the one he so often repeats, that except idiots there is scarcely any one else in the world....

He goes on to say that he was starting next day for the Government of Pénza to look at an estate he meant to buy 'in those out-of-the-way parts.' The servant who accompanied Tolstoy has told how they travelled third class from Moscow to Nízhni, and how Tolstoy chatted with his fellow-travellers, so that many of them took him 'for a common man.' The idea of buying the estate in Pénza was ultimately abandoned.

He had by then completed the last part of War and Peace, which was to appear complete in book form in November. Two volumes had been published in 1866, three more in 1868, and the sixth was not ready till this year, 1869. (In subsequent editions the book was rearranged, first into five and then into four volumes.)

Though he had so completely conquered the laziness of which he accused himself in early manhood as to have become a regular, indefatigable and extremely hard worker, yet after the completion of so gigantic a task he felt the need of recuperation and in summer wrote to Fet: 'It is now my deadest time: I neither write nor think, but feel happily stupid,' and he adds that he goes out shooting woodcock and has killed eight at an outing.

That at this time he already felt something of the strong repugnance he so strenuously expressed in later years for luxury and profuse expenditure, is indicated by his comment on the death of his acquaintance, the author V. P. Bótkin, which took place in 1869. The latter, a member of a wealthy family of tea-merchants, having lived with economy till he knew his death was approaching, then hired a splendid lodging in Petersburg, fitted it up with all possible comfort and luxury, engaged a chef from the kitchen of the Tsarévitch, paid daily attention to the dinner menu, and engaged famous musicians to perform quartets at his lodgings. To the magnificent feasts he gave every day (at which, owing to the state of his health, he himself participated chiefly as a spectator) he gathered a select circle of those friends whose conversation interested him. He told his brother that these arrangements for the close of his life gave him the keenest pleasure, and that 'birds of Paradise are singing in my soul.' On 4th October a quartet and a banquet had been arranged as usual, and many guests were expected—but V. P. Bótkin lay dead in his bed.