2. Sensuality. Struggle very difficult.
3. Vanity. The most terrible of all.
At the very moment when he was dreaming of living for others and of sacrificing himself, voluptuous or futile thoughts would assail him: the image of some Cossack woman, or "the despair he would feel if his moustache were higher on one side than the other."—"No matter!" God was there; He would not forsake him. Even the effervescence of the struggle was fruitful: all the forces of life were exalted thereby.
"I think the idea of making a journey to the Caucasus, however frivolous at the time of conception, was inspired in me from above. God's hand has guided me. I never cease to thank Him. I feel that I have become better here; and I am firmly convinced that whatever happens to me can only be for my good, since it is God Himself who has wished it...."[3]
It is the song of gratitude of the earth in spring. Earth covers herself with flowers; all is well, all is beautiful. In 1852 the genius of Tolstoy produces its earliest flowers: Childhood, The Russian Proprietor, The Invasion, Boyhood; and he thanks the Spirit of life who has made him fruitful.[4]
[1] The 11th of June, 1851, in the fortified camp of Starï-Iourt, in the Caucasus.
[2] Journal.
[3] Letter to his Aunt Tatiana, January, 1852.
[4] A portrait dated 1851 already shows the change which is being accomplished in his mind. The head is raised; the expression is somewhat brighter; the cavities of the orbits are less in shadow; the eyes themselves still retain their fixed severity of look, and the open mouth, shadowed by a growing moustache, is gloomy and sullen; there is still a quality of defiant pride, but far more youth.