November 22. Moscow.
The fourth day in Moscow. Dissatisfied with myself. No work. Got tangled up in the article on art and have not moved forward.
. . . There were here; the Gorbunovs, 149 Boul-anger, 150 Dunaev. I called on Rusanov myself. 151 Received a very good impression.
Read Plato; embryos of idealism.
I recalled two subjects which were very good: 95
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1 ) A wife’s deception of her passionate, jealous husband; his suffering, his struggle and the en-joyment of forgiveness, and
2) A description of the oppression of the serfs and later the very same kind of oppression by land property, or rather by being deprived of it.
Just now Goldenweiser 152 played. One thing a fantasy fugue : 153 an artificiality; studied, cold, pretentious; another “ Bigarrure “ by Arensky; 154 sensual, artificial; and a third a ballad by Chopin; sickly, nervous, not one or the other or the third can be of any use to the people.
The devil who has been sent to me is still with me, and tortures me. November 23. Moscow. If I live.
To-day November 25. Moscow.
Am very weak. My stomach isn’t working. I am trying to write on art but it doesn’t go. One thing is good; have found myself, my heart. . . . A letter from Zanini with an offer of 31,500 francs. 155 Tischenko, a good novel on pov-erty. 166 It is now past two, am going for a walk.
To-day November 27. Moscow.
Very weak, poor in all respects. And feel as if I had only just now awakened. Have been thinking :
i ) We are all in this life workers placed at 96
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the work of saving our souls. It can be com-pared to keeping up the fire given from heaven and lighted on the hearth of my body. My work lies in this, to keep up and feed this fire in myself (not to spend the material of this fire as I have done lately, except in burning it) and not to think how and what gets lighted from this fire. It is not a difficult matter to thresh with several flails, but to keep in order, not to get confused (and not only to thresh, but not to interfere with the oth-ers), one has only to remember oneself, one’s own tempo while beating. But as soon as you have begun to think of others, to look at them, you get confused.
The same thing happens in life. Remember only yourself, your own work and this work is one : to love, to enlarge love in yourself not to think of others, of the consequences of your labour and the work of life will go on fruitfully, joyously. Just as soon as you begin to think of that which you are producing, about the results of your labour, just as soon as you begin to modify it in accordance with its results your work be-comes confused and ceases, and there comes the consciousness of the vanity of life. The master of life gave to each one of us separately such a labour, that the fulfilment of that labour is the most fruitful work. And He himself will use and guide this work, give it a place and a meaning.
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But as soon as I try to find and fix a place for it, and in accordance with this, to modify it then I become confused, see the vanity of labour and I despair. My task is to work and He already knows for what it is needed and will make use of it. “ Man walks, God leads.” And the work is one; to enlarge love in oneself.
I am a self-moving saw or a living spade and its life consists in this, to keep its edge clean and sharp. And it will work well enough, and its work will be useful. To keep it sharp, and to sharpen and sharpen it all the time, that is to make oneself always kinder and kinder.
2) Once more I wrote to N that she is wrong in thinking that it is possible for one to renounce oneself from the exploit of living. Life is an ex-ploit. And the principal thing is, that that very thing that pains us and seems to us to hinder us from fulfilling our work in life is our very work in life. There is some circumstance, a condi-tion in life which tortures you; poverty, illness, faithlessness of a husband, calumny, humiliation, it suffices only to pity yourself and you become the unhappiest among the unhappy. And it suf-fices only to understand that this is the very work of life which you are called to do; to live in pov-erty, in illness, to forgive faithlessness, calumny, humiliation and instead of depression and pain there is energy and joy.
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3) Art becoming all the time more and more exclusive, satisfying continually a smaller and smaller circle of people, becoming more and more selfish, has gone crazy, since insanity is only self-ishness reaching to its last degree. Art has reached the last degree of selfishness and has gone out of its mind.
I have felt very badly and depressed these days. Father, help me to live with Thee, not to wander from Thy will. November 28. Moscow. If I live.
To-day December 2. Moscow.
Five days have passed and very torturing ones. Everything is still the same.
. . . My feeling; I have discovered on myself a terrible putrefying sore. They had promised me to heal it and have bound it. The sore was so disgusting to me, it was so depressing for me to think that it was there, that I tried to forget it, to convince myself that it was not there. But some time has passed they unbound the sore and though it was healing, nevertheless it was there. And it was torturingly painful to me and I began to reproach the doctor and unjustly. That is my condition. The principal thing is the devil that has been sent me. Oh, this luxury, this richness, this absence of care about the material life 1 Like an over-fertilised soil. If they do not cultivate
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good plants on it, weeding it, cleaning everything around them, it will become overgrown with horrible ugliness and will become terrible. But it is difficult I am old and am almost unable to do it. Yesterday I walked, thought, suffered and prayed and it seems to me not in vain.
Yesterday I went to Princess Helen Ser-geievna. 157 It was very pleasant. I still cannot work. I shall try to in a minute. I have written nothing in the note book. Letters from Koni, 158 from Mme. Kudriavtsev. 159 Yesterday the fac-tory hands came and a new one, Medusov, I think.
Dec. 12. Moscow.
I have suffered much during these days and it seems I have advanced towards peace, towards the good towards God. Am reading much on art. It is becoming clear. I am not even sit-ting down to write. Masha went away. The Chertkovs came.
To-day I wrote the appendix to The Appeal.
Dec. 75. Moscow.
Now 2 o’clock in the morning. Have done nothing. My stomach ached. Am calm; have no desire to write.
… I have made some notes. I don’t write
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out everything. Something struck me forcibly it is my clear consciousness of the weight of the oppressiveness from my personality, from the fact that I am I. This gives me joy because it means that I understood, that I recognised as myself, at least partly, a “ self “ that was not per-sonal. December 16, Moscow. If I live.
To-day December ig or 20.
Five days have passed and I feel the oppressive-ness, the weight of my body and therefore the consciousness of the existence of that which is not the body has strengthened terribly. I want to throw off this weight, free myself from these chains and nevertheless I feel them. I am sick of my body.
All this time I have not worked at all and I feel heavy melancholy. I am fighting against it by seeking in my life a task which is beyond this life. There is only one such: an approach to the per-fection of God, to love. Yesterday it became so clear to me that life here is nothing else than a manifestation in these forms of the greatest per-fection of God. “ To live an age and unto the night “ that is in terms of time. To live for a universal life and for this one that is in terms of space.
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I have done nothing during this time and am unable to. I am living badly. I have noted a few trifles on Art :
1 ) They bring as a proof that art is good, the fact that it produces a great impression on you. Yes, but who are you? On the decadents, their works produce a great impression on them. You say that they are spoilt. But Beethoven, who does not produce an impression on the working man, produces such an impression on you, only because you are spoilt. Who then is right ?
