Roots of Vasilyev

“Kornay Vasilyev” Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoj** – a late-scient, deep and shocking story with his dramatic strength about the destructive nature of pride, the severity of misery and the rescue force of Christian mercy. The lively and harsh rural trader Kornay Vasilyev, suspecting his wife in deceit, in the wake of blind anger cruelly kills her and expels her out of the house with her little daughter. Years later, after losing all his wealth, broken down and blinded, Corney turns into a weak, lonely poor, walking on the roads in search of food. The fate leads the old, broken by life man to the threshold of his adult daughter's house. The encounter with the past becomes for Corney a moment of great spiritual breakthrough, vision and humiliation before death. Tolstoy, with a surprising laconicity and psychological accuracy, shows how purifying forgiveness and refusal from harassment can transform the human soul and give peace even at the very edge of death. **Who to read:** Fans of the late philosophical and similar proza of Leo Tolstoy, lovers of deep psychological dramas about human errors, repentance and spiritual rebirth.