To-day Oct. 16. Y. P.

Did not write yesterday. My health is entirely improved.... From Olga Dieterichs, a letter from Chertkov. It is evident that as a result, he and she also have lived through difficult times.[231]

Last night and to-day, I wanted to write Hadji Murad. Began it. It has a semblance of something, but I did not continue it, because I was not in full mastery. I ought not to spoil it by forcing. Up to now the Peterburgskia Viedomosti has not printed it.[232]

I have noted:

1) I have noted many resolutions, rules, which if I could remember, I would live well. But the rules are too many, and it is impossible to remember them always. The same thing as to imitations of art: the rules are too many, and to remember them always is impossible; it ought to come from within, be guided by feeling. The same thing in life. If only you are touched by feeling, if you live in God, then you would not recede from a single rule and you would do more than is in the rules. If one could only always be in this state.

But to-day, just now, I was in the worst mood. I was angry with everything. What does it mean? How explain this state to oneself?

2) This explanation came to me: the soul, the spiritual essence, can live in its own centre or within its own limits. Living in itself, it is not conscious of its limits; living in the periphery it incessantly and painfully feels its limits. A release from this state is the recognition of the illusion of the material world, to go away from the limits, to concentrate in oneself. (Unclear.)

Oct. 17. Y. P. If I live.

Oct. 17. Y. P. 12 midnight.

... Help me, Lord, to act not according to my will, but according to Thine. Received a letter from N about Beller and other ministers who preach the inconsistency of military service and Christianity,[233] and about Chertkov, that he was fussy, had sinned and had fallen ill.[234]

Am correcting the 10th chapter, it is about to be sent off.[235]... My letter was printed in the Peterburgskia Viedomosti.

I thought: The road of all evil and of all suffering is not so much ignorance as false knowledge—deception. The Appeal ought to be finished with an appeal for all to help towards the abolition of deception.

Oct. 18. Yasn. Pol. If I live.

Yesterday I made no notes; to-day Oct. 19. Y. P.

... Both yesterday and to-day I felt great apathy, although I was well. I don’t feel like working. Corrected Chapters 13, 14, 15. I received the re-copied chapters from Moscow and the conclusion. Yesterday I went to Yasenki. To-day I chopped wood and carried it. Novikov was here. Viacheslav[236] spent the night. To-day a letter from Boulanger. I want to write to him right away and to my wife. I ought to write to Salomon.

Solitude nevertheless is very pleasant.

Oct. 20. Y. P. If I live.

To-day Oct. 21. Y. P.

Received proof of the Carpenter article from Sieverni Viestnik and began to write a preface. Corrected Art, received letters from Chertkov and Boulanger.

Yesterday my work didn’t go. Went to Yasenki.

Just now, remaining alone after my work, I asked myself what I should do, and having no personal desire (except the bodily demands arising only when I want to eat or sleep) I felt so keenly the joy of the knowledge of the Will of God, that I need and want nothing but to do what He wants. This feeling arose as a result of the question which I myself put to myself when I remained alone in the silence: Who am I? Why am I? And the answer came so clearly by itself: No matter who and what I am, I have been sent by some one to do something. Well, let me do that work. And so joyously and so well did I feel my fusion with the Will of God.

This is my second live feeling for God. Then I simply felt love for God. At this moment, I cannot remember how it was; I only remember that it was a joyful feeling.

Oh, what happiness is solitude! To-day it is so good: you feel God.

Oct. 22. Y. P. If I live.

Oct. 22. Y. P.

I am writing in the evening. All day I did not feel like working. I slept badly.... I corrected the 11th chapter in the morning, in the evening I began the 12th. I was unable to do anything—there is a boil on my head and my feet perspire. Is it from the honey? Aphanasi[237] and Maria Alexandrovna were here.

It is evening now. I am alone and horribly sad. I have neither doubts nor hurts, but am sad and want to cry. Oh, I must prepare myself more, more, for the new appointment.

A letter from Grot;[238] I ought to give him “Concerning Art.”

Thought only this:

In childhood, youth, the senses (sens) are very definite, the limits are firm. The longer you live, the more and more do these limits become wiped out, the senses get dulled—there is established a different attitude towards the world.

Oct. 23. If I live.

Oct. 26. Y. P.

A very strange thing: It is the third day that I cannot write. Am displeased with everything that I have written. There is something new and very important for Art, but I cannot express it clearly in any way.

A letter from Vanderveer. It is now morning, will go to the post.

To-day Nov. 10. Y. P.

I have lived through much these two weeks. The work is still the same; I think I have finished it. To-day I have written letters and among them one to Grot to be set up in type. S was here, she left for Moscow from Pirogovo, where we went together. It was good there. Since I have come home, my back has ached and in the evening I have fever. Alexander Petrovich[239] is writing in the house....

To-day I wrote 9 letters. One letter to Khilkov,[240] remained. How terrible, his affair and condition. Mikhail Novikov was here and also a peasant-poet from Kazan.

Have been thinking:

1) The condition of people who are befogged by a false religion is just the same as in blindman’s-buff: they tie their eyes, then they take them by their arms, and then they turn them around and finally let them go. The same with everybody. Without this they do not let them go. (For The Appeal.)

2) The most usual judgment about Christianity, especially among the new Nietzschean reasoners, is that Christianity is a renunciation of dignity, a weakness, a submissiveness. It is just the contrary. True Christianity demands above everything else the highest consciousness of dignity, a terrible strength and steadfastness. It is just the contrary: The admirers of strength ought to debase themselves before strength.

3) I walked in the village, and looked into the windows. Everywhere there was poverty and ignorance. And I thought of the former slavery. Formerly, the cause was to be seen, the chain which held them was to be seen; but now it is not a chain—in Europe they are hairs, but they are just as many as those which held Gulliver. With us the ropes are still to be seen, well—let us say the twine; and there there are hairs, but they hold so tightly that the giant-people cannot move.

There is one salvation: not to lie down, not to fall asleep. The deception is so strong and so adroit that you often see that those very people which it sucks and ruins, defend the vampires with passion and attack those who are against them....

November 11, Y. P. If I live.

November 11, Y. P.

Since morning I have been writing Hadji Murad—and nothing has come of it. But it is becoming clear in my head and I feel like writing very much. I wrote a letter to Khilkov and to others, but I shall hardly send the one to Khilkov. Maria Alexandrovna was here. My health is entirely good.

November 12, Y. P. If I live.

November 12, Y. P.

To-day Peter Ossipov came:[241] “In our place they have begun to sell indulgences.” The Vladimir-ikon was there and it was ordered through the village elder, that the people be driven to the Church.[242]

N. found ore and considers it very natural that people shall live under the ground, in danger of their lives, and he will receive the income.

... The most important thing is that I have decided to write The Appeal; there is no time to postpone it. To-day I corrected On Science. It is evening now, have taken up two versions of The Appeal, and am going to work on it.

Nov. 14, Y. P.

... One thing I want: To do what is better before God. I don’t know how yet. I slept badly at night; bad thoughts, wicked ones. And I am apathetic, no desire to work. Corrected the preface On Science.

I made the following notes:

1) I read of the behavior of the English in Africa. It is all terrible. But the thought came to my head: Perhaps it was unavoidably necessary in order that enlightenment should penetrate these peoples. At first I was absorbed in the thought and it occurred to me that thus it had to be done. What nonsense! Why should not people, living a Christian life, go in simply like Miklukha-Maklai,[243] live with them, but is it necessary to trade, make drunkards of them, kill? They say: “If people were to live as Christians, they would have no work.” Here is the work and it is an enormous work: while the Gospels are being preached to all creation.

2) Science, losing its religious basis, has begun to study trifles—in the main, it has ceased to study important things. From that time on was formed the theory of experimental science, Bacon.

3) I was thinking, pendant to Hadji Murad, of writing about another Russian brigand, Gregori Nicholaev. He should see the whole lawlessness of the life of the rich, he should live as a watchman of an apple-orchard on a rich estate with a lawn-tennis.[244]

4) To-day I am in a very bad mood, and it is very difficult for me to remember, to imagine to myself what I am when I am in a good mood. But it is absolutely necessary, so as not to despair and not do something bad when in a bad mood, to abstain from every activity. Is it not the same in life? One ought not to believe that I am this good-for-nothing which I feel myself to be, but to make an effort, remember what I am there, what I am in spirit, and live according to that remembered “self,” or do not live at all—abstain.

5) “Toute réunion d’hommes est toujours inférieure aux éléments qui la composent.”[245] This is so because they are united by rules. In their own natural union, as God has united them, they are not only not lower, but many times higher.

I read Menshikov’s article. There is much that is good in it: about one-God and many Gods, and much that is very weak; the examples.[246]

Nov. 15, Y. P. If I live.

Nov. 15, Y. P.

I worked badly on the preface to Carpenter. After dinner, in the blizzard, I went to Yasenki. Took Tania’s letter. Returned—and here for the first time I knew prostration. Then drank tea—recovered. Read but did nothing. Wrote a letter only to Maude in answer to his remarks.[247]

I thought this trifle: that love is only good then when you are not conscious of it. It suffices to be conscious of the love, and moreover to rejoice in it—and there is an end to it.

Nov. 16, Y. P. If I live.

To-day, Nov. 17. Y. P.

For the second day, I have been thinking with special clearness about this:

1) My life, my consciousness of my personality, gets weaker and weaker all the time, will become still weaker and will end in coma, and in an absolute end of the consciousness of my personality. At the same time, absolutely simultaneously and in the same tempo with the destruction of my personality, that thing will begin to live, and will live ever stronger and stronger, that which my life made, the results of my thought, feelings; it is living in other people, even in animals, in dead matter. And so I feel like saying that this is what will live after me.

But all this lacks consciousness, and therefore I cannot say that it lives. But who said that it lacked consciousness? Why can I not suppose that all this will be united in a new consciousness which I can justly call my consciousness, because it is all made from my consciousness? Why cannot this other new being live among these things which live now? Why not suppose that all of us are particles of consciousness of other higher beings, such as we are going to be?

“My Father has many dwellings.”[248] Not in the sense that there are various places, but that the various consciousnesses, personality, are inter-enclosed and interwoven one into the other. In fact, the whole world as I know it, with its space and time, is a product of my personality, my consciousness. As soon as there is another personality, another consciousness, then there is an entirely different world, the elements of which are formed by our personalities. Just as when I was a child, my consciousness awoke little by little (which made it so that even when a child, an embryo, I saw myself as a separate being), so it will awake and is awakening now—in the consequences of my life, in my future “self” after my death.

“The Church is the body of Christ.”[249] Yes, Christ, in his new consciousness, lives now through the life of all the living and dead and all the future members of the Church. And in the same way each one of us will live through his own church. And even the most valueless man will have his own valueless and perhaps bad church, but a church which will create his new body. But how? This is what we cannot imagine, because we cannot imagine anything which is beyond our consciousness. And there are not many dwellings, but many consciousnesses.

But here is the last, most terrible, insoluble problem: What is it for? For what is this movement, this passing over from some lower, more separate consciousnesses, into a more common, higher one? For what—that is a mystery which we cannot know. It is for this that God is necessary and faith in Him. Only He knows it and one must have faith that so it ought to be.

2) And again I thought to-day, entirely unexpectedly, about the charm—exactly the charm—of awakening love, when against the background of joyous, pleasant, sweet relationships, that little star suddenly begins to shine. It is like the perfume of the linden or the falling shadow from the moon. There is no full-blown blossom yet, no clear light and shadow, but there is a joy and fear of the new, of the charming. This is good, but only when it is for the first time and the last.

3) And again I thought about that illusion which all are subjected to, especially people whose activity is reflected on others—the illusion that, having been accustomed to see the effects of your acts on others, you verify the correctness of your acts by their effect on others.

4) I thought still further: For hypnotism it is necessary to have faith in the importance of that which is being suggested (the hypnotism of all artistic delusions). And for this faith, it is necessary to have ignorance and cultivation of credulence.

To-day I corrected the preface to Carpenter. Received a telegram from Grot. I want to send off the 10th chapter. A sad letter from Boulanger.

Well, Nov. 18, Y. P. If I live.

To-day, Nov. 20. Evening.

Wrote the preface to Carpenter. Thought much about Hadji Murad and got my materials ready. I still haven’t found the tone.

... I think with horror of the trip to Moscow.[250]

Last night I thought about my old triple remedy for sorrow and offence:

1) To think how unimportant it will be in 10, 20 years, just as is unimportant now that which tortured you 10, 20 years ago.

2) To remember what you did yourself, to remember those deeds which were no better than those which are hurting you.

3) To think of that which is a hundred times worse, and might be.

This could be added; to think out the condition, the soul of the man who makes you suffer, to understand that he cannot act in any other way. Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.

The most important and the strongest and the surest of all is to say to oneself: Let there not be my will, but Thine, and not as I wish but as Thou wilt; and not that which I wish but that which Thou wilt. My work, then, is under those conditions in which Thou hast placed me, to fulfil Thy Will. To remember that when it is difficult, it is just this very thing which has been assigned to you, it is the very instance which will not be repeated, in which you may have the happiness of doing that which He wishes.

Father, help me to do only Thy Will.

...

To-day I corrected the Carpenter translation. My stomach is not good; bad mood and weakness.

Nov. 21, Y. P. If I live.

Nov. 21, Y. P.

I am still thinking and gathering material for Hadji Murad. To-day I thought much, read, began to write but stopped at once. Went to Yasenki, took S’s letter.[251] Received nothing.

Maria Alexandrovna was here. She is evidently tired, a poor girl and nice.[252]

I thought and noted down:

1) I thought about death—how strange it is that one does not want to die, although nothing holds one—and I thought of prisoners who have become so at home in their prisons that they do not want to leave them for freedom and are even afraid to. And so we have become at home in the prison of our life and are afraid of freedom.

2) We have been sent here to do the work of God. In this sense, how good is the parable about the servants who in the absence of their master, squander his fortune away instead of doing his work.

3) When you are angry, when you do not love some one, know that it is not you, but a dream, a nightmare, a most horrible nightmare. As when they stop mowing in order not to spoil the grass, so it is here. One ought to pray.

Rozanov discusses Menshikov and makes fun of him.[253] How ... (I have forgotten) made fun of Nicholai, but he remained silent and smiled at me gaily. How touching this always is.

Nov. 22, Y. P. If I live.

Nov. 22, Y. P.

I saw very clearly in a dream, how Tania fell from a horse, has broken her head, is dying, and I cry over her.

Nov. 24, Y. P.

... Yesterday and to-day I prepared some chapters to send them off to Maude[254] and to Grot. There have been no letters for a long time either from Maude, or from Chertkov. To-day there was a nice letter from Galia. Exquisite weather; I took a walk far on the Tula road.

In the morning I worked seriously revising Art. Yesterday I worked on Hadji Murad. It seems clear.

During this time I thought:

1) What a strange fate: at adolescence—anxieties, passions begin, and you think: I will marry and it will pass. And indeed it did pass with me, and for a long period, 18 years, there was peace. Then there comes the striving to change life and again the set-back. There is struggle, suffering, and at the end, something like a haven and a rest. But yet it wasn’t so. The most difficult has begun and continues and probably will accompany me unto death....

2) It would be easy to treat erring people mildly, simply, patiently, with compassion, if these people would not argue and would not argue in such a truth-like fashion. One has to answer these arguments somehow or other, and this you cannot stand.

3) Each of us is in such a condition that whether he wants to or does not want to, he has to do something, to work. Every one of us is on the treadmill. The question lies only in this, on which step will you stand?

Nov. 25. Y. P. If I live.

Nov. 25, Y. P.

... Corrected Art, it is pretty good; wrote a letter to Maude. A good letter from Galia.

Have been thinking:

1) It always seems to us that we are loved because we are good, but it does not occur to us that we are loved because they who love us are good. This can be seen if you listen to what that miserable, disgusting and vain man says whom with a great effort you have pitied: he says that he is so good you could not have acted otherwise. The same thing, when you are loved.

2) “Lobsters like to be boiled alive.” That is no joke. How often do you hear it, or have said it yourself or are saying it: Man has the capacity of not seeing the suffering which he does not want to see. And he does not want to see the suffering which he himself causes. How often I have heard it said about coachmen who are waiting, about cooks, lackeys, peasants at their work, that they are having a good time—“Lobsters like to be boiled alive.”

Nov. 26. Y. P. If I live.

To-day, Nov. 28, Y. P.

Two days I haven’t written. I am still busy with Art and the preface to Carpenter....

This morning Makovitsky arrived, a nice, mild, clean man. He told me many joyful things about our friends. I went to Yasenki: a letter from Maude, a good one, and from Grot—not a good one.[255]

All these days, have not been in a good mood. How to be in Moscow in such a state?

Have been thinking:

1) Often it happens that you are speaking to a man and suddenly he has a tender, happy expression, and he begins to speak to you in such a way that you think he is going to tell you something most joyful, but it turns out—he is speaking about himself. Zakharnin[256] about his operation, Mashenka[257] about her audience with Father Ambrose[258] and his words.

When a man speaks about something which is very near to him, he forgets that the other one is not he. If people do not speak about abstract or spiritual things, they all speak necessarily about themselves, and that is terribly tedious.

2) You dash about, struggle—all because you want to swim in your own current. But alongside of you, unceasing and near to every one, there flows the divine and infinite current of love, in one and the same eternal course. When you are thoroughly exhausted in your attempts to do something for yourself, to save yourself, to secure yourself—then drop all your own courses, throw yourself into that current—and it will carry you and you will feel that there are no barriers, that you are at peace forever and free and blessed.

3) Only not to love oneself, one’s very self, one’s own Leo Nicholaievich (Tolstoi)—and you will love both God and people. You are on fire and you can’t help but burn; and burning you will set fire to others and you will fuse with that other fire. To love oneself means to be niggardly with one’s light and to put out the fire.

4) When a man says an obvious untruth or an offence to you, then certainly he doesn’t do it from joy: and both are very difficult. If he does it then evidently he can’t do otherwise, and doing it, he suffers. And you, instead of pitying him, get angry at him. On the contrary, you ought to try to help him.

5) The tragedy of a man kindly disposed, wishing only the good, when in this state and for this state, which he cannot help but count as good, he meets hissing malice and the hatred of people.

Nov. 28. If I live. Y. P.

To-day, Dec. 2. Y. P.

Agonising, sad, depressed state of body and spiritual force, but I know that I am alive and independent of this condition, yet I feel this “self” but little....

I was busied all this time with corrections and additions to Art. The principal thing during this time, was that Dushan was here whom I love very much and learned to love still more. Together with the Slavonian Posrednik, he is forming a center of a small, but I think divine work.[259] From Chertkov there is still no news.

An anguish, a soft, mild, sweet anguish, but yet an anguish. If I were without the consciousness of life, then probably I would have had an embittered anguish.

Have been thinking:

1) I was very depressed at the fear of vexation and severe conflicts, and I prayed God—prayed almost without expecting aid, but nevertheless I prayed: “Lord, help me to go away from this. Release me.” I prayed like this, then rose, walked to the end of the room and suddenly I asked myself: Have I not to yield? Yes, to yield. And God helped—God who is in me, and I felt light-hearted and firm. I entered that divine current which flows there alongside of us always and to which we can always give ourselves when things are bad.[260]

2) I had a talk with Dushan. He said that since he has become involuntarily my representative in Hungary, then how was he to act. I was glad for the opportunity to tell him and to clarify it to myself that to speak about Tolstoyanism, to seek my guidance, to ask my decision on problems, is a great and gross mistake. There is no Tolstoyanism and has never been, nor any teaching of mine; there is only one eternal, general, universal teaching of the truth, which for me, for us, is especially clearly expressed in the Gospels. This teaching calls man to the recognition of his filiality to God and therefore of his freedom or his slavery (call it what you want): of his freedom from the influence of the world, of his slavery to God, His will. And as soon as man understands this teaching, he enters freely into direct communication with God and he has nothing and no one to ask.

It is like a man swimming in a river with an enormous overflow. As long as the man isn’t in the middle current, but in the overflow, he has to swim himself, to row, and here he can be guided by the course taken in swimming by other people. Here also I could direct people while I myself approach the current. But as soon as we enter the current, then there is no guide and cannot be. We are all carried along by the strength of the current, all in one direction, and those who were behind can be in front. When a man asks where shall he swim, that only shows that he has not yet entered the current and that he from whom he asks, is a poor guide if he were unable to bring him into the current, i.e., to that state in which it is impossible—because it is senseless—to ask. How ask where to swim, when the current with irresistible force is drawing me in a direction that is joyous to me?

People who submit themselves to a guide, who have faith in him and listen to him, undoubtedly wander in the dark together with their guide.

I think I have finished Art.

Dec. 3. Y. P. If I live.

My work on Art has cleared up much for me. If God commands me to write artistic things, they will be altogether different ones. And to write them it will be both easier and more difficult. We shall see.

To-day, Dec. 6, Moscow.

On the 4th I went to Dolgoe.[261] I had a very tender impression from the ruined house; a swarm of memories.

Almost two days that I haven’t written. I only prepared the chapters on Art and packed my things ... I have jotted down nothing. I woke feeling badly.

Dec. 7, Moscow.

... I was at Storozhenko’s.[262] Kasatkin was here[263] in the evening. I asked for examples. In the morning I corrected Art.

I jotted down nothing: there is much bustle. Health good.

Dec. 8, Moscow. If I live.

To-day, 11th.

I have already spent so many days in Moscow. I have done almost nothing, only corrected Art. A pile of people and letters. Thank God the most important is good, i.e., I have done nothing that I ought not to have done. To-day I wrote a letter to Gali.

It seems to me that the divisions of Art have turned out just as they were before.

A sad impression was produced by what N told about Chertkov[264] and by the letter of Ivan Michailovich. Moreover, A, B, C, D,—they are all suffering. Well, it is forgivable in them, but how can a Christian suffer?

During this time N N’s condition became clear. He is mentally diseased, like all people who are non-Christians.

I have consented to give to Troubetskoi by instalments.[265]

A sad letter from Chertkov. I want to write to him.

Dec. 12, Moscow. If I live.

To-day, the 13th. Morning.

I wrote a letter to the Chertkovs. It seems to me I have corrected the 16th chapter very well.

Yesterday I read the correspondence of Z on the sex-problem and I was very indignant and I spoke disagreeably to him at Rusanov’s.

Rusanov has the head of Hadji Murad. This morning I wanted to write Hadji Murad—I lost the outline.

I wrote down something. I now want to write out the themes which are worth while and which can be treated as they ought to be:

1) Sergius, 2) Alexander I, 3) Persianninov, 4) the tale of Petrovich—the husband, who died a pilgrim. The following are worse: 5) the legend of the descent of Christ into hell and the reconstruction of hell, 6) a forged coupon, 7) Hadji Murad, 8) the substituted child, 9) the drama of the Christian resurrection and perhaps 10) Resurrection—the trial of a prostitute, 11) (excellent) a brigand killing the defenceless, 12) a mother, 13) an execution in Odessa.[266]

It is depressing in the house, but I want to be and will be joyous.

I am going to write out only two things:

1) That the physical union with an accidental husband is one of the means established by God for the spread of His truth: for the testing and the strengthening of the stronger and for the enlightenment of the weaker.

2) For people professing filiality to God, not to rejoice in life, to yearn, is a dreadful sin, an error. If you understood that the end of life is the activity for God for no personal ends, then nothing could hinder this activity, could hold it back. The main thing is that life willy-nilly goes forward to the better: one’s own life and the life of the world. How not rejoice at this movement? One has only to remember that life is movement.

I write and I sleep and therefore express myself badly. Until evening, if I live.

To-day, December 14, Moscow. Morning.

Yesterday I received an unpleasant letter from Chertkov and sent him an answer (about the publications).[267]

The day before yesterday, I read the correspondence of Z about sex relations and became vexed and went to the Rusanovs’ and met Z there and showed my condemnation of him sharply. That tortured me and I wrote him a note yesterday apologising and I received a nice answer which touched me.

I feel very ill. I am in the worst mood and therefore am dissatisfied with everything and cannot love. And just now am thinking:

We find sickness a burden; but sickness is a necessary good condition of life. Only it alone (perhaps not alone, but one of the most important and generally common conditions) prepares us for death, i.e., for our crossing over into another life. Therefore indeed it was sent to every one: to children, to adults, to old people, because all, at all ages, die. And we find it burdensome. The fact that we find sickness burdensome shows only that we do not live as we ought to: both a temporary and at the same time an eternal life—but we live only a temporary life.

Sickness is the preparation for the crossing-over and therefore to grumble against sickness is just the same as grumbling against cold and rain. One ought to make use of them and not grumble. In fact, only those who live playing, get angry at the rain, but those who live seriously rejoice at it. The same with sickness. More than this: not only sickness but a bad mood, disappointment, sorrows, all these help to detach oneself from the worldly and facilitate the crossing-over into the new life.

I am now in such a state of crossing-over.

Evening, the 14th.

The whole day I have been ill and I am in the worst mood. I cannot master myself and everything is disagreeable and burdensome. I did nothing. I read and talked.

Dec. 15, Moscow. If I live.

To-day, December 17.

To-day, I am still in the very worst spirits. I am struggling with ill-will. I gave the essay away.[268] Telegraphed to England. No answer as yet.[269]

A pile of people here, all evening. To-day I wrote twelve letters, but did not work at all.

To-day I thought the very oldest thing: That one ought to perfect oneself in love, in which no one can interfere and which is very interesting. But love is not in exclusive attachments, but in a good, not in an evil attitude to every living being.

Wrote letters: 1) Posha, 2) Masha, 3) Ivan Michailovich, 4) Prince Viazemsky, 5) Bondarev, 6) Strakhov, 7) the school teacher Robinson, 8) Priest, 9) Crosby, 10) Chizhov,[270] 11) Nicholaev in Kazan, and 12) ——[271]

I am finishing the note-book in a bad mood. To-morrow I begin a new one. To-day I am also displeased with the essay on art.

The diary of the year 1897, Dec. 21, ’97. Moscow.

I am beginning a new notebook, almost in a new spiritual mood. Here are already 5 days that I have done nothing. I am thinking out Hadji Murad, but I have no desire or confidence. On Art is printed. Chertkov is displeased and those here also.[272]

Yesterday I received an anonymous letter with a threat to kill, if I do not reform by the year 1898; time is given only up to 1898. I was both uneasy and pleased.[273]

I am skating. A sign of an inactive mood is that I have noted down nothing.

Just now I read through Chekhov’s, On a Cart. Excellent in expressiveness, but rhetorical as soon as he wants to give meaning to his story. There is a remarkable clearness in my mind, thanks to my book on art.

Dec. 26, ’97. Moscow.

The day before yesterday I fell ill and I am still not well.[274] I am reading much. My heart is heavy. Evening.

Dec. 27, ’97. Moscow. If I live.

To-day, Dec. 29, ’97. Moscow. Morning.

I thought of Hadji Murad. All day yesterday a comedy-drama, “The Corpse,”[275] took shape. I am still unwell. Yesterday I was at Behrs’.[276]

I have received letters with threats of killing. I regret that there are people who hate me, but it interests me little and it doesn’t disturb me at all.

Have jotted down something.

A conversation with N: what a pitiable youth: understanding everything and at the same time not having the capacity to put anything in the right place and therefore he is living in unimaginable confusion.

Have been thinking:

1) They say usually that Christ’s teaching, the real Christ’s teaching ... destroys all union, that it is a disuniting “individualism.” How false this is! Christianity only therefore preaches personal salvation, “individualism,” as they say, because this personal salvation is indispensable, accessible, joyous to all, and therefore inevitably unites people—not mechanically by the pressure of force from without or by stirring with “culture,” but chemically by an inner, indissoluble union.

2) Sometimes you complain that they do not love your soul, but love or do not love your body, and you are angry at them, condemning them, but you do not see that they cannot do otherwise: for them your soul, the holy of holies of your soul, that which—as you know—is the only real thing, the only thing that acts—is nothing, because it is invisible, like the chemical rays of the spectrum.

3) There are people, mainly women, for whom the word is only the means for an attainment of an end, and it is entirely devoid of its fundamental significance which is to be an expression of reality. These people are sometimes terribly strong. Their advantage is like that which a man would have who in fencing took off the cork from the rapier. His adversaries are bound by conditions that ... No, the comparison is not good. The best of all: they are like a gambler in cards, a sharper. I will find one.

The examples of this are such: a man wants, for instance, to steal; he takes other people’s money; he says that he was charged to do it, they asked him to, and he believes that he was asked to. And the proof of the untruth of his evidence he refutes with a new lie. He kills: the murdered one suffered so, that he begged him to kill him. He wants to do something nasty or something foolish. Well, to turn all the furniture upside down or to debauch—and he explains in detail, how it was recognised by doctors, that it was necessary to do this periodically, etc. And he convinces himself that it is so. But when this proves to be not so, he does not hear, he brings forth his own arguments and then at once forgets both his own arguments and other people’s. These people are terrible, horrible.

4) The spiritualists say that after death the soul of people lives on and communicates with them. Soloviev, the father,[277] said truly, I remember, that this is the Church dogma of saints, of their intercession and of prayers to them. Evgenie Ivanovich also said truly that as the Pashkov Sect is a taking out of the dogma of the Redemption alone and the adaptation of everything to it, so spiritualism is the taking out of the dogma of saints, and the adaptation of everything to it.

5) But I say the following in regard to this dogma of the soul: What we call the soul, is the divine, spiritual, limited in us in our bodies. Only the body limits this divine, this spiritual. And it is this limiting which gives it a form like a vessel gives form to a liquid or a gas which is enclosed in it. But we only know this form. Break the vessel and that which is enclosed in it will cease to have that form which it has and will spread out, be carried off. Whether it combines with other matter, whether it receives a new form—we know nothing about this, but we know for a fact that it loses that form which it had when it was limited, because that which limited it was destroyed. The same with the soul. The soul after death ceases to be the soul and remaining a spirit, a divine essence, becomes something other, such that we cannot judge.

I wrote the preface to Chertkov.[278]

Dec. 30. Moscow. If I live.