But that was impossible. So it came about that the long-cherished dream of leaving Yasnaya Polyana presented itself as the only means of escape. Harassed, ill in body and in mind, he started forth without any object in view, without any thought-out plan, merely in order to hide himself somewhere, wherever it might be, and get some rest from the moral tortures which had become insupportable to him. I asked my sister Sasha on October 29, when she was on the point of going to join him at Shamerdino. I confess that my explanation of my father's flight by no means exhausts the question.
Life is complex and every explanation of a man's conduct is bound to suffer from one-sidedness.
Besides, there are circumstances of which I do not care to speak at the present moment, in order not to cause unnecessary pain to people still living. It may be that if those who were about my father during the last years of his life had known what they were doing, things would have turned out differently. The years will pass. The accumulated incrustations which hide the truth will pass away. Much will be wiped out and forgotten.