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CHAPTER XV
“RESURRECTION”
Ten years separated Resurrection from the Kreutzer Sonata;[1] ten years which were more and more absorbed in moral propaganda. Ten years also separated the former book from the end for which this life hungered, famished as it was for the eternal. Resurrection is in a sense the artistic testament of the author. It dominates the end of his life as War and Peace crowned its maturity. It is the last peak, perhaps the highest—if not the most stupendous—
- ↑ Master and Servant (1895) is more or less of a transition between the gloomy novels which preceded it and Resurrection; which is full of the light of the Divine charity. But it is akin to The Death of Ivan Ilyitch and the Popular Tales rather than to Resurrection, which only presents, towards the end of the book, the sublime transformation of a selfish and morally cowardly man under the stress of an impulse of sacrifice. The greater part of the book consists of the extremely realistic picture of a master without kindness and a servant full of resignation, who are surprised, by night, on the steppes, by a blizzard, in which they lose their way. The master, who at first tries to escape, deserting his companion, returns, and finding the latter half-frozen, throws himself upon him, covering him with his body, gives him of his warmth, and sacrifices himself by instinct; he does not know
