I am now in such a state of crossing-over.
Evening, the
The whole day I have been ill and I am in the worst mood. I cannot master myself and every-thing is disagreeable and burdensome. I did noth-ing. I read and talked. Dec. 75, Moscow. If I live.
To-day, December if.
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
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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: i) 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 n) 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. Mos-cow.
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 Mu-rad, 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
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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:
i ) They say usually that Christ’s teaching, the 186
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real Christ’s teaching . . . destroys all union, that it is a disuniting “ individualism.” How false this is I Christianity only therefore preaches personal salvation, “ individualism,” as they say, because this personal salvation is indispensable, accessible, joyous to all, and therefore inevitably unites peo-ple 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, be-cause 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 funda-mental 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 condi-tions that . . . No, the comparison is not good. The best of all : they are like a gambler in cards, a sharper. I will find one.
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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 neces-sary 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 re-member, that this is the Church dogma of saints, of their intercession and of prayers to them. Evgenie Ivanovich also said truly that as the Pash-kov Sect is a taking out of the dogma of the Re-demption 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
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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 ves-sel 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 de-stroyed. The same with the soul. The soul af-ter 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. so. Moscow. If I live.
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1898
Two days have passed. Jan. 1st.
I meet the new year very sad, depressed, unwell. I cannot work and my stomach aches all the time.
Received a letter from Verhkolensk from Phe-doseev about the Dukhobors, a very touching one. 279
Still another letter from the editor The Adult about free love. 280 If I had time, I would like to write about this subject. Probably I shall write. The most important is to show that the whole matter lies in appropriating to oneself possibili-ties of the greatest enjoyment without thinking of consequences. Besides, they preach something which already exists and is very bad. Why would the absence of outer restraint 281 improve the whole thing? I am, of course, against any regulation and for full freedom, but the ideal is chastity and not pleasure.
I have been thinking during this time only one thing and it seems an important thing, namely :
i ) We all think that our duty, our vocation, is to do various things: bring up children, make a
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fortune, write a book, discover a law in science, etc. But for all the work is only one thing: to carry out one’s own life to act so that life would be a harmonious, good, and rational mat-ter. And the work ought to be not before people, to leave behind one a memory of a good life, but the work is before God: to present to Him one-self, one’s soul, better than it was, nearer to Him, more submissive to Him, more in harmony with Him.
To think so and principally to feel so is very difficult : One always wanders off for human praise. But it is possible and ought to be done.
Help me, Lord. I sometimes feel this and do at this moment. Jan. 2. Moscow. If I live.
To-day, already the 4th.
I am a little better. I want to work. Yester-day Stasov and Repine, 282 coffee. . . . When will I remember that much talk is much bother?
I received a pamphlet uncensored.
Only one thing has to be noted down: that all life is senseless, except that which has for its end the service of God, the service of the fulfilment of the work of God, which is unattainable to us. I shall write that out later. Now I am in a hurry.
Dear Masha arrived, later Tania with Sasha. 283 Jan. 5. Moscow. If I live.
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To-day, Jan. 13.
It is more than a week that I haven’t written and I have done almost nothing. I have
