A Confession by Leo Tolstoy - Chapter 11

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eleven of a confession by Leo Tolstoy, translated by
Almer Maud. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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

(00:21):
beliefs and found them meaningless, and yet now accepted them
and found them full of meaning. I understood that I
had erred, and why I had ered. 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 the truth from me,
as much as my life itself in the exceptional conditions
of epicurean gratification of desires in which I had passed it,

(00:41):
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 to it to life in general.
I asked myself what my life is and got the
reply and evil and an absurdity. And really my life,
a life of indulgences of desires, was senseless and evil.
And therefore the reply, life is evil and an absurdity,

(01:04):
referred only to my life, but not to human life
in general. I understood the truth, which afterwards I found
in the Gospel, that men love darkness rather than light,
for their works were evil. For everyone that doth ill
hateth the light, and cometh not to the light lest
his work 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

(01:26):
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 equal four,
but I had not yet acknowledged it, because on admitting
two and two to be four, I had also to

(01:48):
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 confess the truth. Now
all became clear to me. What if an executioner, passing
his whole life and torturing people and cutting off their heads,
or a hope was drunkard, or of a madman settled
for life in a dark room which he had followed,

(02:10):
and imagines that he would perish if he left. What
if he asked himself what is life? Evidently he would
be able to provide no other reply to that question
than that life is the greatest evil. And the madman's
answer would be perfectly correct, but only as it applied
to himself. What if I am such a madman? What
if all we rich and leisured people are such mad men,
and I understood that we really are madmen? I, at

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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

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should a man do? He too, should provide his living
as the animals do, but with this difference that he
will perish if he does 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 those whole thirty years in my responsible life? Far
from producing sustenance for all, I did not even produce

(03:15):
it for myself. I lived as a parasite. 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 have 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 evil. It was both senseless and evil. The life

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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 all
of us and of the whole world. If a naked,
hungry beggar has been taken to the cross roads, brought

(04:01):
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 beggar should first of all move the handle. If
he moves the handle, he will understand that it works
a pump, and that the pump draws water, and that

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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 to ask
why he is there, and certainly will not reproach the master.
So those who do his will, the simple, unlearned, working

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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've
decided that the Master is stupid or does not exist,
and that we are wise. Only we feel that we

(05:04):
are quite useless, and that we must somehow do away
with ourselves. End of chapter eleven.