Note 3 — Chapter X

See Anna Karenin. "And Levine, who had the love of a woman, and was the father of a family, put every kind of weapon away out of reach, as though he was afraid of yielding to the temptation of putting an end to his sufferings." This frame of mind was not peculiar to Tolstoy and his characters. Tolstoy was struck by the increasing number of suicides among the wealthy classes all over Europe, and in Russia more especially. He often alludes to the fact in such of his books as were written about this period. It was as though a great wave of neurasthenia had swept across Europe in 1880, drowning its thousands of victims. Those who were young men at the time will remember it; and for them Tolstoy's record of this human experience will have a historic value. He has written the secret tragedy of a generation.