too; he had even taken a cottage in
the village," Aunt Masha sadly recalled.

"When he left me to go back to the hotel where he was staying, it seemed
to me that he was rather calmer.

"When he said good-by, he even made some joke about his having come to
the wrong door.

"I certainly would never have imagined that he would go away again that
same night."

It was a grievous trial for Aunt Masha when the old confessor Iosif,
who was her spiritual director, forbade her to pray for her dead brother
because he had been excommunicated. She was too broad-minded to be able
to reconcile herself to the harsh intolerance of the church, and for a
time she was honestly indignant. Another priest to whom she applied also
refused her request.

Marya Nikolayevna could not bring herself to disobey her spiritual
fathers, but at the same time she felt that she was not really obeying
their injunction, for she prayed for him all the same, in thought, if
not in words.

There is no knowing how her internal discord would have ended if her
father confessor, evidently understanding the moral torment she was
suffering, had not given her permission to pray for her brother, but
only in her cell and in solitude, so as not to lead others astray.

MY FATHER'S WILL. CONCLUSION

ALTHOUGH my father had long since renounced the copyright in all his
works written after 1883, and although, after having made all his real
estate over to his children, he had, as a matter of fact, no property
left, still he could not but be aware that his life was far from
corresponding to his principles, and this consciousness perpetually
preyed upon his mind. One has only to read some of his posthumous works
attentively to see that the idea of leaving home and radically altering
his whole way of life had presented itself to him long since and was a
continual temptation to him.

This was the cherished dream that always allured him, but which he did
not think himself justified in putting into practice.

The life of the Christian must be a "reasonable and happy life IN
ALL POSSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES," he used to say as he struggled with the
temptation to go away, and gave up his own soul for others.

I remember reading in Gusef's memoirs how my father once, in
conversation with Gusoryof, the peasant, who had made up his mind
to leave his home for religious reasons, said, "My life is a hundred
thousand times more loathsome than yours, but yet I cannot leave it."