The Journal of Leo Tolstoi First. Volume—1895-1899

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.256

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. Zakharnin257 about his operation, Mashenka258 about her audience with Father Ambrose259 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.260 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.261

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.262 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.263 Kasatkin was here264 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 Chertkov265 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.266

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.267

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).268

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.269 Telegraphed to England. No answer as yet.270

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,271 11) Nicholaev in Kazan, and 12) —272

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.273

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.274

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.275 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,”276 took shape. I am still unwell. Yesterday I was at Behrs’.277

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,278 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.279

Dec. 30. Moscow. If I live.

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 Verkholensk from Phedoseev about the Dukhobors, a very touching one.280

Still another letter from the editor The Adult about free love.281 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 possibilities 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 restraint282 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:

1) We all think that our duty, our vocation, is to do various things: bring up children, make a 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 matter. 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 oneself, 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. Yesterday Stasov and Repine,283 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.284

Jan. 5. Moscow. If I live.

To-day, Jan. 13.

It is more than a week that I haven’t written and I have done almost nothing. I have been ill all the time, and depressed. At times, I am good and calm, and at times uneasy and not good. The day before yesterday was difficult. Then the peasants arrived: Bulakhov, with St., Pet., and two from Tula. I felt so light-hearted and energetic. One need not yield to one’s own circle, one can always enter the circle of God and His people.

It is long since I have been so depressed. A letter from Posha. Wrote to Posha, Ivan Michailovich, Chertkov, Maude and Boulanger.

I am still endeavouring to find a satisfactory form for Hadji Murad and I still haven’t it, although it seems I am nearing it.

… To-day a telegram about the work, “What is Art?”

Have made some notes and I think important ones.

1) Something of enormous importance and ought to be expounded well. Organisation, every kind of organisation, which frees from any kind of human, personal, moral duties. All the evil in the world comes from this. They flog people to death, they debauch, they becloud their minds and no one is to blame. In the tale of the resurrection of hell, this is the most important and new means.285

2) Each one of us is that light, that divine essence, love, the Son of God, enclosed in a body, in limits, in the coloured lantern which we have painted with our passions and habits – so that everything we see, we see only through this lantern. To raise oneself so as to see above it, is impossible; on top there is the same kind of glass through which we see even God, through the glass which we ourselves have painted. The only thing which we can do is not to look through the glasses, but to concentrate in ourselves, recognise our light and kindle it. And this is the one salvation from the delusions of life, from its suffering, from its temptations. And this is joyful and always possible.

I do this, and it is good.

3) Dreams – they are nothing else than the looking on the world not through the glasses, but only on the glasses, and on the interweaving of various designs interwoven on the glasses. In sleep you only see the glasses; when awake, the world, through the glasses.

4) A woman can, when she loves a man, see merits in him which he has not, but when she is indifferent, she is unable to see a man’s merits other than through the opinion of others. (However, I think it is untrue.)

5) The following when I wrote it, seemed to me very important:

Christians strive to a union, and unite among themselves and with other people by the Christian tool – by unity, humility, love. But there are people who do not know this means of union, do not believe in it and who endeavour to unite (all people endeavour to unite) with other means, outer ones, with force, threats. It is impossible to demand of these people who do not know, who cannot understand the Christian means of union, that they do not make use of their means; but it is absolutely unjust and unreasonable when these un-Christian people impose their own lower means of union upon people knowing and using a higher means. They say, “You Christians, you profit by our means; if you have not been robbed and killed, it is thanks to us.” To this the Christians answer, that they don’t need anything which force gives them (as is really the fact for a Christian).

And that is why, though it is legitimate for people not knowing a higher means of union, to use a lower, it is illegitimate, that they look upon their own lower means as a general and unique one, and want to compel those for whom it cannot be necessary to use it. The principal step before humanity now consists in this, that people should not only recognise and admit the means of Christian union, but that they should recognise that it is the highest, the one to which all humanity is striving and to which it will inevitably reach.