Levin

Before reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, I already knew about the tragic story of the heroine from popular culture or other literary works (i.e. The Unbearable Lightness of Being). However, what they fail to mention is the parallel, redemptive plotline of Konstantine Dmitrievitch Levin, the fellow protagonist. As I was getting frustrated at Anna's frivolity and pitiful nature towards the end of the novel, I was absorbed in Levin's story of personal growth and discovery of spiritual faith (I had no idea that Tolstoy was such an avid Christian). I found Levin's struggle with his faith so real and similar to my own.

And Levin, a happy father and husband, in perfect health, was several times so near suicide that he hid the cord that he might not be tempted to hang himself, and was afraid to go out with his gun for fear of shooting himself.

But Levin did not shoot himself, and did not hang himself; he went on living.

When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair, but he left off questioning himself about it. It seemed as though he knew both what he was and for what he was living, for he acted and lived resolutely and without hesitation. Indeed, in these latter days he was far more decided and unhesitating in life that he had ever been.

Reasoning had brought him to doubt and prevented him from seeing what he ought to do and what he ought not. When he did not think, but simply lived, he was continually aware of the presence of an infallible judge in his soul, determining which of two possible courses of action was the better and which was the worse, and as soon as he did not act rightly, he was at once aware of it.

So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and what he was living for, and harassed at this lack of knowledge to such a point that he was afraid of suicide and yet firmly laying down his own individual definite path of life.

***

(But after Fyodor, a peasant, talked to him about "living for God," Levin comes to a realization).

"Not living for his own wants, but for God? For what God? And could one say anything more senseless than what he said? He said that one must not live for one' own wants, that is, that one must not live for what we understand, what we are attracted by, what we desire, but must live for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one can understand nor even define. What of it? Didn't I understand those senseless words for Fyodor's? And understanding them, did I doubt of their truth? Did I think them stupid, obscure, inexact? No, I understood him, and exactly as he understands the words. I understood them more fully and clearly than I understand anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted nor can I doubt about it. And not only I, but every one, the whole world understands nothing fully but this, and about this only they have no doubt and are always agreed.

And I looked out for miracles, complained that I did not see a miracle which would convince me. A material miracle would have persuaded me. And here is a miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it!

I looked for answer to my question. And thought could not give an answer to my question- it is incommensurable with my question. The answer has been given me by life itself, in my knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. And that knowledge I did not arrive at in any way, it was give to me as to all men, given, because I could not have got it from anywhere.

Where could I have got it? By reason could I have arrived at knowing that I must love my neighbor and not oppress him? I was told that in my childhood, and I believed it gladly, for they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law that requires us to oppress all who hinder the satisfaction of our desires. That is the deduction of reason. But loving one's neighbor reason could never discover, because it's irrational.

Well, but the Jews, the Mohammedans, the Confucians, the Buddhists- what of them? Can these hundreds of millions of men be deprived of that highest blessing without which life has no meaning? But what am I questioning? I am questioning the relation to Divinity of all the different religions of all mankind. I am questioning the universal manifestation of God to all the world with all those misty blurs. What am I about? To me individually, to my heart has been revealed a knowledge beyond all doubt, and unattainable by reason, and here am I obstinately trying to express that knowledge in reason and words... the question of other religions and their relations to Divinity I have to right to decide, and no possibility of deciding."

I had decided I will name my firstborn son Levin.