Note 22 — Chapter XVI
Bernard Miall translation
It was a bitter trial to him that he could not contrive to be persecuted. He had a thirst for martyrdom; but the Government very wisely took good care not to satisfy him.
"They are persecuting my friends all around me, and leaving me in peace, although if any one is dangerous it is I. Evidently I am not worth persecution, and I am ashamed of the fact." (Letter to Teneromo, 1892, Further Letters.)
"Evidently I am not worthy of persecution, and I shall have to die like this, without having ever been able to testify to the truth by physical suffering." (To Teneromo, May 16,1892, ibid.)
"It hurts me to be at liberty." (To Teneromo, June i, 1894, ibid.)
That he was at liberty was, Heaven knows, no fault of his! He insults the Tsars, he attacks the fatherland, "that ghastly fetish to which men sacrifice their life and liberty and reason." (The End of a World.) Then see, in War and Revolution, the summary of Russian history. It is a gallery of monsters: "The maniac Ivan the Terrible, the drunkard Peter I., the ignorant cook, Catherine I., the sensual and profligate Elizabeth, the degenerate Paul, the parricide Alexander I. [the only one of them for whom Tolstoy felt a secret liking], the cruel and ignorant Nikolas I.; Alexander II., unintelligent and evil rather than good; Alexander III., an undeniable sot, brutal and ignorant; Nikolas II., an innocent young officer of hussars, with an entourage of coxcombs, a young man who knows nothing and understands nothing."