As Tolstoy was sitting atop his suitcase in the carriage shed, wearing an old armyak over a cotton underclothing and an old knitted cap, he seemed to be fully equipped and capable of making his most cherished dream come true. But... this time period, five o'clock in the morning, this hour "between the wolf and the dog"... This dank end of October is the nastiest Russian off-season. That unbearable languor of waiting, when everything had been prepared for the departure, when he had already left the walls of his home behind and there was indeed no way back, but.... the horses were not ready yet, therefore he was unable to leave Yasnaya Polyana..... And his wife, with whom he had lived for forty-eight years, who had given birth to thirteen children, of whom seven were still alive and from whom in their turn twenty-three grandchildren had been born... his wife, on whose shoulders he was leaving the entire Yasnaya Polyana household, who had been handling all the publishing matters for his literary works, who had several times rewritten parts of his two major novels and many other works, who had stayed up throughout many long nights in the Crimea, where he had nearly died nine years ago, had stayed because no one but her could take the most intimate care of him - this dear soulmate of his could wake up at any second, find the doors closed, see the mess in his room, and realize that what she feared more than anything else in the world had actually happened!