Although Resurrection has not the harmonious fullness of the work of his youth, and although I, for my part, prefer War and Peace, it is none the less one of the most beautiful poems of human compassion; perhaps the most truthful ever written. More than in any other book I see through the pages of this those bright eyes of Tolstoy's, the pale-grey, piercing eyes, "the look that goes straight to the heart,"[8] and in each heart sees its God.
[1] Master and Servant (1895) is more or less of a transition between the gloomy novels which preceded it and Resurrection; which is full of the light of the Divine charity. But it is akin to The Death of Ivan Ilyitch and the Popular Tales rather than to Resurrection, which only presents, towards the end of the book, the sublime transformation of a selfish and morally cowardly man under the stress of an impulse of sacrifice. The greater part of the book consists of the extremely realistic picture of a master without kindness and a servant full of resignation, who are surprised, by night, on the steppes, by a blizzard, in which they lose their way. The master, who at first tries to escape, deserting his companion, returns, and finding the latter half-frozen, throws himself upon him, covering him with his body, gives him of his warmth, and sacrifices himself by instinct; he does not know why, but the tears fill his eyes; it seems to him that he has become the man he is seeking to save—Nikita—and that his life is no longer in himself, but in Nikita. "Nikita is alive; then I am still alive, myself." He has almost forgotten who he, Vassili, was. He thinks: "Vassili did not know what had to be done. But I, I know!" He hears the voice of Him whom he was awaiting (here his dream recalls one of the Popular Tales), of Him who, a little while ago, had commanded him to lie upon Nikita. He cries, quite happy: "Lord, I am coming!" and he feels that he is free; that nothing is keeping him back any longer. He is dead.
[2] While on the other hand he had mixed in all the various circles depicted in War and Peace, Anna Karenin, The Cossacks, and Sebastopol; the salons of the nobles, the army, the life of the country estate. He had only to remember.
[3] "Men carry in them the germ of all the human qualities, and they manifest now one, now another, so that they often appear to be not themselves; that is, themselves as they habitually appear. Among some these changes are more rare; among others more rapid. To the second class of men belongs Nekhludov. Under the influence of various physical or moral causes sudden and complete changes are incessantly being produced within him." (Resurrection.)
[4] "Many times in his life he had proceeded to clean up his conscience. This was the term he used to denote those moral crises in which he decided to sweep out the moral refuse which littered his soul. At the conclusion of these crises he never failed to set himself certain rules, which he swore always to keep. He kept a diary; he began a new life. But each time it was not long before he fell once more to the same level, or lower still, than before the crisis." (Resurrection.)
[5] Upon learning that Maslova is engaged in an intrigue with a hospital attendant, Nekhludov is more than ever decided to "sacrifice his liberty in order to redeem the sin of this woman."
[6] Tolstoy has never drawn a character with so sure, so broad a touch as in the beginning of Resurrection. Witness the admirable description of Nekhludov's toilet and his actions of the morning before the first session in the Palace of Justice.
[7] The word "act" to be found here and there in the text in such phrases as "act of faith" "act of will," is used in a sense peculiar to Catholic and Orthodox Christians. A penitent is told to perform an "act of faith" as penance; which is usually the repetition of certain prayers of the nature of a creed. The "act," in short, is a repetition, a declamation, a meditation: anything but an action.—(TRANS.)
[8] Letter of Countess Tolstoy's, 1884.