he met, some sympathy with these questions and their solution.
More than by anything else, he was surprised and puzzled by the fact that the men of his class, who for the most part had, like himself, substituted science for religion, seemed to experience not the least moral suffering, but to live entirely satisfied and content. Thus in addition to the main question there were others which tormented him: Were these men sincere? Were they not hypocrites. Or did they understand more clearly than he did the answer science gave to these troublesome questions? And he took to studying these men, and books which might contain the solutions which he so desired.
One thing which he had discovered, however, since these questions had begun to occupy him, was that he had made a gross error in taking up with the idea of his early university friends, that religion had outlived its day, and no longer existed. The best people whom he knew were believers,—the old prince, Lvof, of whom he was so fond, Sergyeï Ivanovitch, and all women had faith; and his wife believed just as he had believed when he was a child, and nine-tenths of the Russian people—all people whose lives inspired the greatest respect—were believers.
Another strange thing was that, as he read many books, he became convinced that the men whose opinions he shared did not attach to them any importance; and that without explaining anything they simply ignored these questions, without an answer to which life seemed to him impossible, and took up others which were to him utterly uninteresting,—such, for example, as the development of the organism, the mechanical explanation of the soul, and others.
Moreover, at the time of his wife's illness, he had what to him seemed a most extraordinary experience: he, the unbeliever, had prayed, and prayed with sincere faith. But as soon as the danger was over, he felt that he could not give that temporary disposition any abiding-place in his life.
