more separate consciousnesses, into a more com-mon, higher one? For what that is a mys-tery 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 unex-pectedly, about the charm exactly the charm of awakening love, when against the back-ground 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 nec-essary to have ignorance and cultivation of cred-ulence.
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To-day I corrected the preface to Carpenter. Received a telegram from Grot. I want to send off the loth chapter. A sad letter from Bou-langer. 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 Mos-cow. 250
Last night I thought about my old triple rem-edy 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 re-member 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
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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 ful-fil Thy Will. To remember that when it is dif-ficult, it is just this very thing which has been as-signed to you, it is the very instance which will not be repeated, in which you may have the happi-ness 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 weak-ness. 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 evi-dently tired, a poor girl and nice. 252
I thought and noted down:
i ) 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
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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 do-ing 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., 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
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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.
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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 be-cause 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 mis-erable, 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 “Lob-sters 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
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our friends. I went to Yasenki: a letter from Maude, a good one, and from Grot not a good
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one.
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 ex-pression, and he begins to speak to you in such a way that you think he is going to tell you some-thing most joyful, but it turns out he is speak-ing about himself. Zakharnin 256 about his oper-ation, 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 along-side 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 some-thing for yourself, to save yourself, to secure your-self then drop all your own courses, throw yourself into that current and it will carry you
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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
