Note 12 — Chapter XII

We find that M. de Vogüé, in the reproach which he addressed to Tolstoy, unconsciously used the phrases of Tolstoy himself. "Rightly or wrongly," he said, "for our chastisement perhaps, we have received from heaven that splendid and essential evil: thought.... To throw down this cross is an impious revolt." (Le Roman russe, 1886.) Now Tolstoy wrote to his aunt, the Countess A. A. Tolstoy, in 1883: "Each of us must bear his cross.... Mine is the travail of the idea; evil, full of pride and seductiveness." (Letters.)