"Both of them are heresiarchs," Akhmatova used to say about Dostoyevski and Tolstoi. She compared the two greatest Russian writers to twin towers of the same building. Both of them sought salvation from imminent catastrophe, the nature of which was understood by Dostoyevski, though not by Tolstoi. In their actual proposals for salvation both of them exhibited license in the highest degree. In fact, however, not even the best of proposals would have been able to halt a process of decomposition already so far advanced.