These three stories of Tolstoy's maturity show him increasingly grappling with fundamental issues of religion and morality. In Master and Man, he depicts an employer, bent on closing a business deal, travelling with his servant through the swirling snow - little realizing how soon he may have to settle his accounts with his maker. Father Sergius portrays a priest tormented beyond endurance by the longings of his body, while Hadji Murat dramatizes the divided loyalties of a leading figure in Russia's struggle to subdue the Caucasus. With a compelling combination of moral seriousness and extraordinary sympathy and understanding, these stories reveal Tolstoy as a writer at the height of his creative powers.