The Raid

Today’s passage is taken from one of the twelve short chapters in Tolstoi’s, “The Raid: A Volunteer’s Story.” The story is believed to be a slightly veiled autobiography that retells Tolstoi's own military experience. I was drawn to this particularly passage by the last paragraph in which Tolstoi questions the relationship between Nature and man. He ends the paragraph with a sentence that begins, “All the evil in man, one would think, should disappear…….”

“I could distinctly hear all the mingling sounds of night, so full of enchanting mystery: the mournful howling of distant jackals, now like a despairing lament, now like laughter, the sonorous, monotonous song of crickets, frogs, quails; a rumbling noise whose cause baffled me and which seemed to be coming ever nearer; and all of Nature’s barely audible nocturnal sounds that defy explanation or definition and merge into one rich, beautiful harmony that we call the stillness of night.And now that stillness was broken by—or rather, blended with—the dull thud of hoofs and the rustle of the tall grass as the detachment slowly advanced. Only occasionally did I hear the clang of a heavy gun, the clatter of clashing bayonets, hushed voices, or a horse snorting. Nature seemed to breathe with pacifying beauty and power. Can it be that there is not enough space for man in this beautiful world under those immeasurable, starry heavens? Is it possible that man’s heart can harbour, (sic) amid such ravishing natural natural beauty, feelings of hatred, vengeance, or the desire to destroy his fellows? All the evil in man, one would think, should disappear on contact with Nature, the most spontaneous expression of beauty and goodness.”

                                               Apparel for the Enlightened Reader