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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: Heartiness he had and in a very high degree.
His description of the death of my Uncle Nikolái is
characteristic in this connection. In a letter to his other
brother, Sergéi Nikoláyevitch, in which he described
the last day of his brother's life, my father tells how he helped
him to undress.
"He submitted, and became a different man. . . . He had a
word of praise for everybody, and said to me, 'Thanks, my friend.'
You understand the significance of the words as between us two."
It is evident that in the language of the Tolstoy brothers the
phrase "my friend" was an expression of tenderness beyond which
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