Note 18 — Chapter VI

We may remark that another brother, Dmitri, had already died of the same disease in 1856. Tolstoy himself believed that he was attacked by it in 1856, in 1862, and in 1871. He was, as he writes (the 28th of October, 1852), "of a strong constitution, but feeble in health." He constantly suffered from chills, sore throats, toothache, inflamed eyes, and rheumatism. In the Caucasus, in 1852, he had "two days in the week at least to keep his room." Illness stopped him for several months in 1854, on the road from Silistria to Sebastopol. In 1856, at Yasnaya, he was seriously ill with an affection of the lungs. In 1862 the fear of phthisis induced him to undergo a Koumiss cure at Samara, where he lived with the Bachkirs, and after 1870 he returned thither almost yearly. His correspondence with Fet is full of preoccupations concerning his health. This physical condition enables one the better to understand his obsession by the thought of death. In later years he spoke of this illness as of his best friend:

"When one is ill one seems to descend a very gentle slope, which at a certain point is barred by a curtain, a light curtain of some filmy stuff; on the hither side is life, beyond is death. How far superior is the state of illness, in moral value, to that of health! Do not speak to me of those people who have never been ill! They are terrible, the women especially so! A woman who has never known illness is an absolute wild beast!" (Conversations with M. Paul Boyer, Le Temps, 27th of August, 1901.)