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Confession
by Leo Tolstoy
XI
And remembering how those very beliefs had repelled me and had
seemed meaningless when professed by people whose lives
conflicted with them, and how these same beliefs attracted me and
seemed reasonable when I saw that people lived in accord with
them, I understood why I had then rejected those beliefs and
found them meaningless, yet now accepted them and found them full
of meaning. I understood that I had erred, and why I erred. I had
erred not so much because I thought incorrectly as because I
lived badly. I understood that it was not an error in my thought
that had hid truth from me as much as my life itself in the
exceptional conditions of epicurean gratification of desires in
which I passed it. I understood that my question as to what my
life is, and the answer — and evil — was quite correct. The
only mistake was that the answer referred only to my life, while
I had referred it to life in general. I asked myself what my life
is, and got the reply: An evil and an absurdity. and really my
life — a life of indulgence of desires — was senseless and
evil, and therefore the reply, "Life is evil and an
absurdity", referred only to my life, but not to human life
in general. I understood the truth which I afterwards found in
the Gospels, "that men loved darkness rather than the light,
for their works were evil. For everyone that doeth ill hateth the
light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be
reproved." I perceived that to understand the meaning of
life it is necessary first that life should not be meaningless
and evil, then we can apply reason to explain it. I understood
why I had so long wandered round so evident a truth, and that if
one is to think and speak of the life of mankind, one must think
and speak of that life and not of the life of some of life's
parasites. That truth was always as true as that two and two are
four, but I had not acknowledged it, because on admitting two and
two to be four I had also to admit that I was bad; and to feel
myself to be good was for me more important and necessary than
for two and two to be four. I came to love good people, hated
myself, and confessed the truth. Now all became clear to me.
What if an executioner passing his whole life in torturing
people and cutting off their heads, or a hopeless drunkard, or a
madman settled for life in a dark room which he has fouled and
imagines that he would perish if he left — what if he asked
himself: "What is life?" Evidently he could not other
reply to that question than that life is the greatest evil, and
the madman's answer would be perfectly correct, but only as
applied to himself. What if I am such a madman? What if all we
rich and leisured people are such madmen? and I understood that
we really are such madmen. I at any rate was certainly such.
And indeed a bird is so made that it must fly, collect food,
and build a nest, and when I see that a bird does this I have
pleasure in its joy. A goat, a hare, and a wolf are so made that
they must feed themselves, and must breed and feed their family,
and when they do so I feel firmly assured that they are happy and
that their life is a reasonable one. then what should a man do?
He too should produce his living as the animals do, but with this
difference, that he will perish if he does it alone; he must
obtain it not for himself but for all. And when he does that, I
have a firm assurance that he is happy and that his life is
reasonable. But what had I done during the whole thirty years of
my responsible life? Far from producing sustenance for all, I did
not even produce it for myself. I lived as a parasite, and on
asking myself, what is the use of my life? I got the reply:
"No use." If the meaning of human life lies in
supporting it, how could I — who for thirty years had been
engaged not on supporting life but on destroying it in myself and
in others — how could I obtain any other answer than that my
life was senseless and an evil? ... It was both senseless and
evil.
The life of the world endures by someone's will — by the life
of the whole world and by our lives someone fulfills his purpose.
To hope to understand the meaning of that will one must first
perform it by doing what is wanted of us. But if I will not do
what is wanted of me, I shall never understand what is wanted of
me, and still less what is wanted of us all and of the whole
world.
If a naked, hungry beggar has been taken from the cross-roads,
brought into a building belonging to a beautiful establishment,
fed, supplied with drink, and obliged to move a handle up and
down, evidently, before discussing why he was taken, why he
should move the handle, and whether the whole establishment is
reasonably arranged — the begger should first of all move the
handle. If he moves the handle he will understand that it works a
pump, that the pump draws water and that the water irrigates the
garden beds; then he will be taken from the pumping station to
another place where he will gather fruits and will enter into the
joy of his master, and, passing from lower to higher work, will
understand more and more of the arrangements of the
establishment, and taking part in it will never think of asking
why he is there, and will certainly not reproach the master.
So those who do his will, the simple, unlearned working folk,
whom we regard as cattle, do not reproach the master; but we, the
wise, eat the master's food but do not do what the master wishes,
and instead of doing it sit in a circle and discuss: "Why
should that handle be moved? Isn't it stupid?" So we have
decided. We have decided that the master is stupid, or does not
exist, and that we are wise, only we feel that we are quite
useless and that we must somehow do away with ourselves.
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