Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction: Anna Karenin, Volume II, by Leo Tolstoy, Translated by Constance Garnett; Ivan the Fool by Leo Tolstoy, Translated by Count Norraikow
Standing at the first litany, Levin attempted to revive in himself his youthful recollections Of the intense religious emotion he had passed through betwee'n the ages of sixteen and seventeen.
But he was at once convinced that it was utterly impossible to him. He attempted to look at it all as an empty custom, having no sort Of meaning, like the custom Of paying calls. But he felt that he could not do that either. Levin found himself, like the majority of his contemporaries, in the vaguest position in regard to religion. Believe he could not, and at the same time he had no firm conviction that it was all wrong. And consequently, not being able to believe in the significance of what he was doing nor to regard it with indifference as an empty formality, during the whole period Of preparing for the sacrament he was conscious Of a feeling Of discomfort and shame at doing what he did not himself understand, and what, as an inner voice told him, was there fore false and wrong.
During the service he would first listen to the prayers, trying to attach some meaning to them not discordant with his own views; then feeling that he could not understand and must condemn them, he tried not to listen to them, but to attend to the thoughts, Observations, and memories which ?oated through his brain with extreme vividness during this idle time Of standing in church.
He had stood through the litany. The evening service and the midnight service, and the next day he got up earlier than usual, and without having tea he went at eight O'clock in the morning to the church for the morning Service and the confession.
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