Before the year closed, Tolstoy's aunt, Pelagéya Ilýnishna Úshkof, with whom he had lived in his young days in Kazán, also passed away. She had been separated from her husband before his death in 1869, and had long not even seen him, though they remained quite friendly towards one another. She was very religious in an Orthodox Church way, and after her husband's death retired to the Óptin nunnery. Subsequently she moved to the Toúla nunnery, but arranged to spend much of her time at Yásnaya; where in her eightieth year she fell ill and died. She was in general a good-tempered though not clever woman, and all her life long strictly observed the ceremonies of the Church and thought that she firmly believed its teaching about redemption and resurrection; yet she was so afraid of death that on her death-bed she was reluctant to receive the eucharist, because it brought home to her mind the fact that she was dying; and as a consequence of the sufferings caused by the fear of death, she became irritable with all about her.
A servant who lived in the house at the time, tells that while at Yásnaya she used, on the first of each month, to send for a priest. As soon as he arrived, and began the usual ceremony of blessing with holy water, Tolstoy would escape and hide himself. Not till the gardener, Semyón—whom he used to send into the conservatory to reconnoitre—brought him word that the priest had gone, would Tolstoy reappear in the house.
About that time, however, his attitude towards Church ceremonies altered. His man-servant Sergéy Arboúzof (who saw only the external signs of the complex inner struggle going on in Tolstoy) tells us:
Suddenly a wonderful change came over him, of which I was a witness. In 1875 a priest, Vasíly Ivánovitch, from the Toúla Seminary, used to come to teach theology to Tolstoy's children. At first, Leo Nikoláyevitch hardly ever talked to him, but it once happened that a snow-storm obliged Vasíly Ivánovitch to stop the night at our house. The Count began a conversation with him, and they did not go to bed till daylight. They talked the whole night.
From that day Leo Nikoláyevitch became very thoughtful, and always talked with Vasíly Ivánovitch. When Lent came round, the Count got up one morning and said, 'I am going to do my devotions, and prepare to receive communion. You can go back to bed, but first tell the coachman not to get up. I will saddle Kalmýk (his favourite horse at that time) myself. Forgive me, Sergéy, if I have ever offended you!' and he went off to church.
From that day for a couple of years he always went to church, seldom missing a Sunday. The whole village was surprised, and asked, 'What has the priest told the Count, that has suddenly made him so fond of church-going?'
It used to happen that the Count would come into my hut when I was teaching my little boy religion.
'What are you teaching him?' he would ask.
And I used to say, 'To pray.'
'Ah!' said he, 'that is right. A man who does not pray to God is not a real man.'