There Is No Vain Page in Tolstoy

I read pages and pages of Tolstoy and my mind seems to wonder, “Why so much time spent elsewhere?” The feeling is that, in Tolstoy, there is no vain page, we are always before characters who confront the essential. They confront, that is, they reason, see and judge the circumstances around them; sometimes they let themselves act unthinkingly, then they bitterly regret the psychological consequences, mulling over the past. The past! always an object of torture, an inexhaustible source of regrets… But what seems to impress most in these constructions so vivid, so full of verve and sincerity, is the meticulous insertion of details that endow them with realism, making them more than convincing. And to think of the mind that produced these thousands of golden pages… is to bow the head and take off the hat.