2012 Reprint of 1921 Edition. This is Tolstoy’s answer to the age old question of life’s meaning. As he explains, .. .five years ago something very strange began to happen to me. At first I experienced moments of perplexity and arrest of life, as though I did not know what to do or how to live; and I felt lost and became dejected. But this passed and I went on living as before. Then these moments of perplexity began to recur oftener and oftener, and always in the same form. They were always expressed by the questions: What is it for? What does it lead to? Tolstoy recounts how he sought to resolve these questions in A Confession.