The Cossacks; The Death of Ivan Ilyich; Happy Ever After Quotes

“He genuinely believed that he had enemies and convincing himself that he must take revenge on someone and wash away some insult with blood brought him the greatest pleasure. He was quite certain that hatred, vengeance and contempt for human race were the noblest and most poetic of emotion. But his mistress, maintained that he was the kindest and gentlest of men, and that every evening he would enter his melancholy thoughts in a diary, draw up his accounts on ruled paper, and then go down on his knees to pray. And how that man suffered, just to appear in his own eyes the way he wanted to appear, fir his fellow officers and the soldiers could never see him the way he wanted to be seen.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Cossacks; The Death of Ivan Ilyich; Happy Ever After