nothing higher than to bear contempt for your good life.' The temptation to glorify oneself is so pernicious and unavoidable, and so intermingled with all good acts, that one cannot help feeling sympathy for those who not only try to evade praise, but actually provoke contempt. Such a Yurodivy was my sister's godmother, Maria Gerasimovna, the simpleton Evdokimushka, and some others."
All these influences created the peculiar, charming, poetic-spiritual atmosphere of Leo Tolstoy's early childhood, and made it possible for him to write in such enthusiastic terms on the memories of that time: "Happy, happy past years of childhood! How could I fail to love and cherish their memory! Their remembrance refreshes, lifts up my soul, and is the source of my greatest delight."
The children grew up and required increased attention. For the sake of the more serious studies of the elder brother, Nicolas, the whole family removed to Moscow.
Just at that time three deaths occurred, one following the other: first, Leo Tolstoy's father, eighteen months later the grandmother, and finally the aunt and guardian of the children Baroness Osten-Saken. The guardianship then passed to another aunt, Pelagie Yushkoff. She
