SOURCE: “The Last Judgment: Tolstoy's Last Works,” in Tolstoy: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall, 1967, pp. 157-72.

In the following excerpt, originally published in 1932, Shestov summarizes the plot and outlines the major themes of Master and Man.

Many people, in the effort to calm themselves and dissipate the uneasiness which seizes them on reading Tolstoy's works, have thought to explain his struggles and his wild outbursts as the result of his fear of death. They think that such an explanation would free them once and for all from every difficulty and would also re-establish in their old strength the solutions which he had rendered null and void. This proceeding is not new, but it is effective. Aristotle had already suggested it when, with firm hand, he traced a definite line to mark the limit beyond which human endeavour and inquiry must not go. The ultimate mystery must not...