He later lived in various Ottoman towns as a Russian consular agent, devoting his leisure time to writing oriental fiction on many themes, some of which included a condemnation of anti-homosexuality and implied that he may have been bisexual. In the summer of 1871, after praying to the Virgin Mary, he was cured of cholera and dysentery and promised Her to take monastic vows. Later that fall, he moved to the Russian monastery on Mount Athos. In 1880, he moved to the censorship department in Moscow, where he published several acclaimed analyses of Leo Tolstoy's novels.