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 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, wish-ing 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 in-dependent of this condition, yet I feel this “ self “ but little. . . .
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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 em-bittered anguish.
Have been thinking:
1) I was very depressed at the fear of vexa-tion and severe conflicts, and I prayed God prayed almost without expecting aid, but never-theless 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 sud-denly 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 en-tered that divine current which flows there along-side 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 represen-tative in Hungary, then how was he to act. I was glad for the opportunity to tell
