I am terribly dispirited. The work I have begun is fearfully hard, there is no end to the preparatory study necessary. The plan of the work is ever increasing, and my strength, I feel, grows less and less. One day I am well, and three days I am ill.
The work here referred to as 'fearfully hard' was a study of the reign of Peter the Great, in preparation for a novel treating of that period.
On 20th February he again wrote to Fet:
I may not correspond with my friends for years at a time, but when my friend is in trouble, it is terribly shameful and painful not to know of it.... Now, being in Moscow, I wished to call on the Bótkins to hear about you, but I fell ill myself, took to my bed, and it was all I could do to get home. Now I am better. At home all is well; but you will not recognise our house: we have been using the new extension all winter. Another novelty is that I have again started a school. My wife and children and I all teach and are all contented. I have finished my ABC Book and am printing it....
The next letter shows that his hope that he had finished the ABC Book was premature:
16 March 1872.
How I wish to see you; but I cannot come, I am still ill.... My ABC Book gives me no peace for any other occupation. The printing advances on the feet of a tortoise, and the deuce knows when it will be finished, and I am still adding and omitting and altering. What will come of it I know not; but I have put my whole soul into it.
In May 1872 the Countess gave birth to another boy, who was christened Peter.
The Moscow firm who were printing the book for Tolstoy were not able to give him satisfaction. Not only was the printing a matter of difficulty owing to the variety of type required for a school-book of this kind, but Tolstoy, in accord with his invariable practice, revised the work time after time while it was going through the press. At last, in May, he wrote to his trusty friend and admirer, N. Stráhof, saying that after four months' labour the printing was 'not only not finished, but had not even begun,' and begging Stráhof to have the book printed in Petersburg, and to take on himself for ample payment the whole task of revising the proofs. After some correspondence matters were arranged, though Stráhof declined to accept any payment for the help he rendered.
Tolstoy explained to his friend that he wanted to make a profit on the book if possible. As a rule, all Tolstoy's later teaching seems to grow out of his experience of life; but it would be hard for any one to work more conscientiously than Tolstoy laboured over this book, and yet in later life he speaks as though any admixture of mercenary motives is sure to be fatal to good literary work. We here seem, therefore, to come upon an exception to that rule.