My last attempts were water-colour paintings of all the Yasnaya Polyana flora and of all the fungi of the Yasnaya Polyana woods.
In 1904 I had to endure the pain of my son, Andrey, leaving to fight in the war against Japan. In my heart I was opposed to war as to any other kind of murder, and it was with a peculiar pain in my heart that I saw my son off at Tambov and with other mothers looked at the carriages full of soldiers--our sons doomed to death.
A happy event for our family in 1905 was the birth of an only child to our daughter, Tatyana Lvovna Sukhotin. This granddaughter, as she grew up, was a favourite of Leo Nikolaevich and of the whole family.
In 1906 I underwent a serious operation, performed by Professor V. F. Snegirev in Yasnaya Polyana. How quietly I prepared myself for death, how happy I felt, when the servants, saying good-bye to me, cried bitterly! I felt a strange sensation, when I fell asleep under the anaesthetic which was given to me: it was new and significant. All external life in its complicated setting, especially of towns, flashed before my inner vision like a quickly changing panorama. And how insignificant human vanity appeared to me! I seemed to be asking myself: what, then, is important? One thing: if God has sent us on to the earth and we are to live, then the most important thing is to help one another in whatever way possible. To help one another to live. I think the same now.
The operation was quite successful, but it seemed as though the will of fate, having aimed at taking my life, wavered and then removed its hand to our daughter Masha. I recovered, and that lovely, unselfish, spiritual creature, Masha, died of pneumonia in our house two and a half months after my operation. This sorrow was a heavy weight on our life and aging hearts. The previous rift, the reproaches and unpleasantness ceased for a while and we humbled ourselves before fate. The time passed in our usual occupations, and Leo Nikolaevich, as a distraction, played cards with his children and friends; he was very fond of whist. In the mornings he wrote, and every afternoon he rode; he lived the most quiet and regular life. He was, however, often worried by visitors who tired him, by applicants, and by letters in which people disagreed with his teaching and reproached him with his way of life, or asked him for money or to get them jobs.