“I was born and spent my first childhood in the village of Yasnaya Polyana. I don’t remember my mother at all. I was one and a half years old when she died. By a strange coincidence, not a single portrait of her remains... in my idea of her there is only her spiritual appearance, and everything that I know about her is wonderful, and I think it’s not just because everyone who told me about my mother tried to say only good things about her, but because there really was a lot of this good in her...”