A Confession by Leo Tolstoy - Chapter 16

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter sixteen of a confession by Leo Tolstoy, translated by
Almer Maud. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
And I ceased to doubt and became convinced that not
always true when the religion I had joined. Formerly, I
should have said that it was all false, but I
could not say so. Now the whole of the people
possessed a knowledge of the truth, for otherwise they could
not have lived. Moreover, that knowledge was accessible to me,

(00:21):
for I had felt it and lived by it. But
I no longer doubted that there was also falsehood in it.
And all that had previously repelled me now presented itself
vividly before me. And though I saw that among the
peasants there was a smaller admixture of lies that repelled
me that among the representatives of the church, I still
saw that in the peoples's belief also falsehood was mingled
in the truth. But where did the truth and where

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did the falsehood come from? Both the falsehood and the
truth were contained in the so called holy tradition in
the scriptures. Both the falsehood and the truth had been
handed down by what is called the Church. And whether
I liked it or not. I was brought to the
study and investigation of these writings and traditions which till
now I had been so afraid to investigate. And I
turned to the examination of that same theology which I
had once rejected with such contempt as unnecessary. Formerly it

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seemed to me the series of unnecessary absurdities, where on
all sides I was surrounded by manifestations of life which
seemed to be clearer and full of sense. Now I
should have been glad to throw away what would not
enter a healthy head. But I had nowhere to turn
to on this teaching. Religious doctrine rests, or at least
with it, the only knowledge of the meaning of life
I have found, as inseparably connected, however wild it may
seem to my firm old mind, it was the only

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hope of salvation. It had to be carefully attentively examined
in order to understand it, and not even to understand it.
As I understand the propositions of science, I do not
seek that, nor can I seek it. Knowing the special
character of religious knowledge, I shall not seek the explanation
of everything. I know that the explanation of everything, like
the commencement of everything must be concealed in infinity. But

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I wish to understand in a way which will bring
me to what is inevitably inexplicable. I wish to recognize
anything that is inexplicable as being not so because the
demands of my reason are wrong, they are right, and
apart from that I can understand nothing because I recognize
the limits of my intellect. I wish to understand in
such a way that everything that is inexplicable shall present
itself to me as being necessarily inexplicable, and not as

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being something I am under an arbitrary obligation. To believe
that there is truth in the teaching is to me indubitable,
but is also certain that there is falsehood in it.
And I must find what is true and what is false,
and must disentangle the one from the other. I am
seeking to work upon this task. What if falsehood I
have found in the teaching, and what I have found
of truth, and to what conclusions I came will form

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the following parts of this work, which, if it be
worth it, and if anybody wants it, will probably some
day be printed somewhere. Eighteen seventy nine, the foregoing was
written by me some three years ago, and will be
printed now A few days ago. When revising it, and
returning to this line of thought, to the feelings I
had when I was living through it all, I had
a dream. This dream expressed in the condensed form all

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that I have experienced and described, And I think therefore,
for those who have understood me, a description of this
dream will refresh and elucidate and unify what has been
set forth at such a length in the foregoing pages.
The dream was this. I saw that I was lying
on a bed. I was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. I
was lying on my back. But I began to consider
how and on what I was lying, a question which

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had not until then occurred to me. And observing my bed,
I saw I was lying on plated string supports attached
to its sides. My feet were resting on one such support,
my calves on another, and my legs felt uncomfortable. I
seemed to know that those supports were movable, and with
a movement in my foot, I pushed away the furthest
of them at my feet. It seemed to me that
it would be more comfortable, so but I pushed it

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away too far and wished to reach it again with
my foot, and that movement caused the next support under
my calves to slip away, also, so that my legs
hung in the air. I made a movement with my
whole body to adjust myself, fully convinced that I could
do so at once. But the movement caused the other
supports under me to slip and become entangled, and I
saw that matters were going quite wrong. The whole of
the lower part of my body slipped and hung down,

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though my feet did not reach the ground, I was
holding on only by the upper part of my back.
Not only did it become uncomfortable, but I was even frightened.
And then only did I ask myself about something which
had not occurred to me before. Then I asked myself,
where am I and what am I lying on? And
I began to look around, and first of all, look
down in the direction which my body was hanging and
where I felt I must soon fall. I looked down

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and did not believe my eyes. I was not only
at a height comparable to the height of the highest
towers or mountains, but at a height such as I
could have never even imagined. I could not even make
out whether I saw anything there below in that bottomless
abyss above which I was hanging, and whether I was
being drawn. My heart contracted, and I experienced horror. To
look thither was terrible. If I looked thither, I felt

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that I should at once slip from the last support
and perish. And I did not look. But not to
look was still worse, for I thought of what would
happen to me directly if I fell from the last support.
And I felt that from fear, I was losing my
last supports, and that my back was slowly slipping lower
and lower. Another moment and I should drop off. And
then it occurred to me that this cannot be real.
It is a dream. Wake up. I try to arouse

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my but cannot do so what am I to do?
What am I to do? I ask myself and look
upwards above there is also an infinite space. I look
into the immensity of sky and try to forget about
the immensity below, and I really do forget it. The
immensity below repels and frightens me. The immensity above attracts
and strengthens me. I am still supported above the abyss
by the last supports that have not yet slipped from

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under me. I know that I am hanging, but I
only look upwards, and my fear passes. As happens in dreams,
a voice says, notice this, this is it. And I
look more and more into the infinite above me, and
feel that I am becoming calm. I remember all that
has happened, and how it happened, how I moved my legs,
how I hung down, how frightened I was, and how
I was saved from fear by looking upwards. And I

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asked myself, well, and now am I not hanging? Just
the same, And I do not so much look round
as experience with my whole body the point of support
on which I am held. I see that I no
longer hang about as if to fall, but am firmly held.
I ask myself how I am held. I feel round,
look round, and see that under me, under the middle
of my body, there is one support, and that when

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I look upwards, I lie on it in a position
of securest balance, and that it alone gave me the
support before and then, as happens in dreams, I imagined
the mechanism by means of which I was held, a
very natural, intelligible and sure means, though to one awake
the mechanism made no sense. I was even surprised in
my dream that I had not understood it. Sooner it
appeared that at my head there was a pillar, and

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the security of that slender pillar was undoubted, though there
was nothing to support it. From that pillar, a loop
hung very ingeniously and yet simply, And if one lay
with the middle of one's body in that loop and
looked up, there could be no question of falling. This
was all queer to me, and I was very glad
and tranquil. And it seemed as if someone said to me,
see that you remember. And I awoke. End of chapter sixteen,

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end of a confession by Leo Tolstoi, translated by Almer
Maud