17 APRIL 1926, Page 34

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An amazing account of how, at the age of fifty-two, Tolstoy was almost overcome by the charms of his scullery-maid, and saved himself from temptation by insisting that a yonng man living in his house should accompany him on his daily walks, is given in the preface to The Devil by Leo Tolstoy, now translated for the first time by Mr. Aylmer Maude (Unwin. 3s. 6d.). Tolstoy vividly iniagined what might have resulted from yielding to the temptation, and this book is the result—a companion work to the Kreutzer Sonata.

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