Tolstoy Made His Will In Thick, Dense Forest

1914

How Tolstoy Made His Will.

How Tolstoy made his will is told in the annual of the Tolstoy society by Alexej Sergejeno, who was one of the witnesses. On July 22, 1910, he was summoned by a lawyer, who said that Tolstoy wanted to make his will without an hour's delay. They rode away at once to the meeting place, a mile from Tolstoy's home. He met them and led the way into a dense forest.

"In the thickest part of all," the narrative continues, "we stopped at a big stump of a tree. Tolstoy sat down on the stump, took a fountain pen from his pocket and asked for a sheet of paper. With feet crossed he began to make the rough sketch of his will." It was completed, signed and witnessed then and there, and then "he rose, and going to his horse said to me. 'How ghastly all this legal business is!' With an activity remarkable in a man of eighty-two, be swung himself into the saddle and vanished quickly in the dark greenery of the undergrowth."