Since morning I have been writing Hadji Murad– and nothing has come of it. But it is becoming clear in my head and I feel like writing very much. I wrote a letter to Khilkov and to others, but I shall hardly send the one to Khilkov. Maria Alexandrovna was here. My health is entirely good.

November 12, Y. P. If I live.

November 12, Y. P.

To-day Peter Ossipov came:²⁴² “In our place they have begun to sell indulgences.” The Vladimir-ikon was there and it was ordered through the village elder, that the people be driven to the Church.²⁴³

N. found ore and considers it very natural that people shall live under the ground, in danger of their lives, and he will receive the income.

… The most important thing is that I have decided to write The Appeal; there is no time to postpone it. To-day I corrected On Science. It is evening now, have taken up two versions of The Appeal, and am going to work on it.

Nov. 14, Y. P.

… One thing I want: To do what is better before God. I don’t know how yet. I slept badly at night; bad thoughts, wicked ones. And I am apathetic, no desire to work. Corrected the preface On Science.

I made the following notes:

1) I read of the behavior of the English in Africa. It is all terrible. But the thought came to my head: Perhaps it was unavoidably necessary in order that enlightenment should penetrate these peoples. At first I was absorbed in the thought and it occurred to me that thus it had to be done. What nonsense! Why should not people, living a Christian life, go in simply like Miklukha-Maklai,²⁴⁴ live with them, but is it necessary to trade, make drunkards of them, kill? They say: “If people were to live as Christians, they would have no work.” Here is the work and it is an enormous work: while the Gospels are being preached to all creation.

2) Science, losing its religious basis, has begun to study trifles – in the main, it has ceased to study important things. From that time on was formed the theory of experimental science, Bacon.

3) I was thinking, pendant to Hadji Murad, of writing about another Russian brigand, Gregori Nicholaev. He should see the whole lawlessness of the life of the rich, he should live as a watchman of an apple-orchard on a rich estate with a lawn-tennis.²⁴⁵

4) To-day I am in a very bad mood, and it is very difficult for me to remember, to imagine to myself what I am when I am in a good mood. But it is absolutely necessary, so as not to despair and not do something bad when in a bad mood, to abstain from every activity. Is it not the same in life? One ought not to believe that I am this good-for-nothing which I feel myself to be, but to make an effort, remember what I am there, what I am in spirit, and live according to that remembered “self,” or do not live at all – abstain.

5) “Toute réunion d’hommes est toujours inférieure aux éléments qui la composent.”²⁴⁶ This is so because they are united by rules. In their own natural union, as God has united them, they are not only not lower, but many times higher.

I read Menshikov’s article. There is much that is good in it: about one-God and many Gods, and much that is very weak; the examples.²⁴⁷

Nov. 15, Y. P. If I live.

Nov. 15, Y. P.

I worked badly on the preface to Carpenter. After dinner, in the blizzard, I went to Yasenki. Took Tania’s letter. Returned – and here for the first time I knew prostration. Then drank tea – recovered. Read but did nothing. Wrote a letter only to Maude in answer to his remarks.²⁴⁸

I thought this trifle: that love is only good then when you are not conscious of it. It suffices to be conscious of the love, and moreover to rejoice in it – and there is an end to it.

Nov. 16, Y. P. If I live.

To-day, Nov. 17. Y. P.

For the second day, I have been thinking with special clearness about this:

1) My life, my consciousness of my personality, gets weaker and weaker all the time, will become still weaker and will end in coma, and in an absolute end of the consciousness of my personality. At the same time, absolutely simultaneously and in the same tempo with the destruction of my personality, that thing will begin to live, and will live ever stronger and stronger, that which my life made, the results of my thought, feelings; it is living in other people, even in animals, in dead matter. And so I feel like saying that this is what will live after me.

But all this lacks consciousness, and therefore I cannot say that it lives. But who said that it lacked consciousness? Why can I not suppose that all this will be united in a new consciousness which I can justly call my consciousness, because it is all made from my consciousness? Why cannot this other new being live among these things which live now? Why not suppose that all of us are particles of consciousness of other higher beings, such as we are going to be?

“My Father has many dwellings.”²⁴⁹ Not in the sense that there are various places, but that the various consciousnesses, personality, are inter-enclosed and interwoven one into the other. In fact, the whole world as I know it, with its space and time, is a product of my personality, my consciousness. As soon as there is another personality, another consciousness, then there is an entirely different world, the elements of which are formed by our personalities. Just as when I was a child, my consciousness awoke little by little (which made it so that even when a child, an embryo, I saw myself as a separate being), so it will awake and is awakening now – in the consequences of my life, in my future “self” after my death.

“The Church is the body of Christ.”²⁵⁰ Yes, Christ, in his new consciousness, lives now through the life of all the living and dead and all the future members of the Church. And in the same way each one of us will live through his own church. And even the most valueless man will have his own valueless and perhaps bad church, but a church which will create his new body. But how? This is what we cannot imagine, because we cannot imagine anything which is beyond our consciousness. And there are not many dwellings, but many consciousnesses.

But here is the last, most terrible, insoluble problem: What is it for? For what is this movement, this passing over from some lower, more separate consciousnesses, into a more common, higher one? For what – that is a mystery 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 unexpectedly, about the charm – exactly the charm – of awakening love, when against the background 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 necessary to have ignorance and cultivation of credulence.

To-day I corrected the preface to Carpenter. Received a telegram from Grot. I want to send off the 10th chapter. A sad letter from Boulanger.

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 Moscow.²⁵¹

Last night I thought about my old triple remedy 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 remember 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 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 fulfil Thy Will. To remember that when it is difficult, it is just this very thing which has been assigned to you, it is the very instance which will not be repeated, in which you may have the happiness 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 weakness.

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.²⁵² Received nothing.

Maria Alexandrovna was here. She is evidently tired, a poor girl and nice.²⁵³

I thought and noted down:

1) 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 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 doing 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.²⁵⁴ 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. 24, Y. P.

… Yesterday and to-day I prepared some chapters to send them off to Maude²⁵⁵ and to Grot. There have been no letters for a long time either from Maude, or from Chertkov. To-day 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.

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.

242. A peasant from Yasnaya Polyana, now dead, who was well-lettered and loved to read.

243. The clergy who came carried the icon to the churches, in the parish of which stood Yasnaya Polyana. According to the order of the clergy, the elder of Yasnaya Polyana called a village meeting and ordered every one to go to church and meet the icon which was afterwards carried from house to house in all the households of the village. Concerning Tolstoi and the icon, see his letter to Countess S. A. Tolstoi, which evidently by mistake is dated 1898 (Letters of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, Moscow, 1913, page 558).

244. N. N. Miklukha-Maklai (1847–1887), a well-known Russian traveller, living many years among the Tuzemts of New Guinea and other islands. In his letter to Miklukha-Maklai in the middle of the eighties, Tolstoi wrote that he considered him remarkable, not for what every one else considered him remarkable, but that “he could find manifestations of humanity among the wildest men on the globe.”

245. Such a type was afterwards portrayed by Tolstoi in his story The Forged Coupon, under the name of the housekeeper, Vasili. (See Posthumous Literary Works of L. N. Tolstoi, issued by A. L. Tolstoi, Volume I.)

246. Every group of people is always inferior to the elements which compose it.

247. The work by M. O. Menshikov, Concerning Holy Love and Sex Love, was printed in Knizhki Nedieli in 1897, No. 11. In Chapters IV and V of this work, Menshikov wrote about the struggle of the two principles: The many-gods and the One-God; Tolstoi was probably pleased with the following lines: “The great teaching about One-God wiped out, together with the idols, the very conception of separate gods; the gods disappeared but their elements – the passions – remained, until now the overwhelming majority of Christians who profess by word in the One-God, in reality bow to a plurality… (Italics made by the author.) Notwithstanding the thousand year rule of the Gospels, we, in an overwhelming majority are more sincerely idolaters than Christians – of course without suspecting it… Nihilist, Godless, paganized, the contemporary generation accepts as an undoubted law, that the development of man consists in enlarging the number of needs and refining them to the point of a cult. Is this not a new plurality of gods, an idolatry?”

248. In his book, What Is Art?

249. St. John, Chapter XIV, Verse 2.

250. Chapter I, Verse 24, St. Paul to the Colossians.

251. See letter of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, March, 1913, page 535 (No. 583) and page 537 (No. 585).

252. See letter of Count L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, March, 1913, pages 536–537.

253. About this time Tolstoi wrote to an acquaintance of his: “You know Mme. M. A. Schmidt. She lives near us, straining every effort, notwithstanding her weak health and her age (about 50), to work to support herself. (She constantly helps people) and it is impossible to see her without a softening of the heart and … envy. She is always joyous, calm and graceful.”

254. In the Novoe Vremia (November 19, 1897, No. 7,806) there appeared an article by V. V. Rozanov: “Graceful Demonism” in which, in an ironical tone, he criticised Menshikov’s article, “On Sex Love,” which was printed in Knizhki Nedieli (1897, Nos. 9–11). In his words later on, Tolstoi speaks of his deeply loved brother, Nickolai Nickolaievich (1823–1860). In his Recollections, Tolstoi relates the incident as follows: “I remember how once, a very stupid and bad man, an Adjutant General, who was hunting with him, laughed at him and how my brother, glancing at me, smiled kindly,” evidently finding great satisfaction in this. (Biriukov, Biography of L. N. Tolstoi, Vol. I, Moscow, 1911, pages 43–44).

255. A. Maude translated What Is Art? into English.

256. The letter of N. Y. Grot is printed, I think, in Tolstoi’s book, What Is Art?

257. Grigori Antonovich Zakharlin (1829–1895), a well-known professor in the Moscow University, in his day, one of the most popular Moscow physicians.

258. Countess Maria Nicholaievna Tolstoi (1830–1912), Tolstoi’s only sister. As a young girl, she married her second cousin, Count V. P. Tolstoi; some time later she separated from him and soon after she became a widow. When her daughters were married (Mme. V. V. Nagornov, Princess E. V. Obolensky and Mme. E. S. Denisenko) Countess Tolstoi, under the influence of the well-known Father Ambrose, of the Optina Desert, entered the convent of Shamordino (in the province of Kaluga) and later took the veil. In this convent she spent the rest of her life.

259. Monk Ambrose, the celebrated holy man of the Optina Desert, died in 1891, at the age of 80. About Tolstoi’s visits to the Optina Desert see fragment of notes made by S. A. Tolstoi under the title My Life (Tolstoi Annual, 1913, Petrograd, 1914).

260. Dushan Petrovich Makovitsky, then editor in Hungary (in Ruzhomberg), of the Slavic publication which corresponded to the publication Posrednik issued in Moscow, in which Tolstoi and some of his friends took a most active interest.

261. In this place, in the original Journal, a page had been entered in Tolstoi’s hand; evidently the beginning of a letter. This was its contents: “You ask me a question which I now for twenty years have been trying to solve. “It always seems to us – when the simple truth is that we ought to lead a Christian life, and when it is disclosed to us how terribly far from that life is the life we lead – it always seems to us that we for the moment find ourselves in an exceptionally disadvantageous condition for beginning that new life, which opens itself to us: To one, it is a mother, to another a wife, to a third, children, to a fourth, business; this one bought a bull, or the other has a wedding which interferes from his going to the feast. And we usually say to ourselves, ‘Oh, if it were not so,’ – looking at it as on an accidental hindrance and not as on the unavoidable conditions of Christian life, as on the law of gravitation in problems of activity. “Beauty which discloses to us the kingdom of God blinds us so, that we immediately want to enter it and we forget that this is not the programme of life, but the ideal; and that the programme of life consists in struggle and in effort to attain the kingdom of God, to approach it. “And when you understand this, then the attitude towards activity is changed…”

262. The village of Dolgoe, province of Tula, district of Krapevensk, nineteen versts from Yasnaya Polyana. The Yasnaya Polyana house in which Tolstoi was born stands there. In the fifties this house was sold to a neighbouring landlord, Gorobov, who took it from Yasnaya Polyana to Dolgoe, where it remained until 1913, when it was destroyed.

263. Nicholai Ilich Storozhenko (1836–1906), professor in the Moscow University, author of numerous books and articles on Russian history and general literature.

264. Tolstoi probably asked N. A. Kasatkin for examples of true art in painting.

265. N’s stories seemed to be about some of the Chertkovs’ difficult experiences in England.

266. Prince S. N. Troubetskoi (1862–1905), professor of philosophy in the Moscow University, took an active part in the magazine, Problems of Philosophy and Psychology, and became after N. Y. Grot’s death, the editor of it. Tolstoi, as was said above, gave his work, What Is Art? to this magazine.

267. Of these subjects Tolstoi, as much as can be judged, made use of the following: the first, Father Sergius, 1898; the second, The Posthumous Memoirs of the Monk, Fedor Kuzmich, 1905; the fourth, Korni Vasiliev, 1905; fifth, The Resurrection of Hell and Its Destruction, 1902; sixth, The Forged Coupon, 1902–1904; seventh, Hadji Murad, 1898, 1902–1904; the tenth, Resurrection, 1898–1899; and the thirteenth, The Divine and the Human, 1903–1904; the twelfth subject, Mother, was begun by Tolstoi in the beginning of the nineties (Introduction to The Story of a Mother, or A Mother’s Notes).

268. It was disagreeable to Tolstoi that the foreign publishers, who wished to print the first edition of his book, What Is Art? made the condition that it should appear everywhere simultaneously and that it should not be published anywhere first, not even in Russia. Tolstoi, being little acquainted with the conditions of foreign publication, did not understand at first how unavoidable these demands were for a simultaneous publication of books in various countries, and he was disagreeably embarrassed that he had to absolutely forbid the appearance of the book in Russia before the day arranged for foreign publication. Later, realising the affair more closely, Tolstoi saw the necessity of these conditions of the publishers.

269. I.e., he entirely finished the work What Is Art? and gave it to Problems of Philosophy and Psychology.

270. V. G. Chertkov, being exiled from Russia, settled in England, where he founded the publication, The Free Press, in which the works of Tolstoi were printed, as well as of authors near to him in point of view which could not be printed in the Russian papers. He also arranged for the translations of the new works of Tolstoi into the important European tongues. The telegram which Tolstoi mentions must have been about the English translation of What is Art?

271. Sofron Pavlovich Chizhov, a peasant from the district of Umansk, in the province of Kiev, because of his spreading of views adverse to the orthodox religion, was exiled by administrative order, first to Poland and then to eastern Siberia. His Memoirs were printed in The Free Press, No. 10, 1904. Tolstoi often wrote to Chizhov in exile, expressing his joy that he bears all oppression “like a man, with patience and with love.” Chizhov has remained in Siberia for life and at present is living near Yakutsk.

272. As in the copy in possession of the editors.

273. See .

274. In a letter to Chertkov, January 18, 1898, Tolstoi wrote: “Letters with threats have, of course, no effect, but they are unpleasant, in this sense, that there should be people who hate futilely. I am always ready to die and that is the thing. I thought a little while ago: … that when one is healthy one ought to try to live better on the outside, but when one is ill then learn to die better. Besides, these letters haven’t even this merit: they are so stupidly written that they have been conceived evidently only to frighten.”

275. Concerning this illness, Tolstoi, mentioning it in his letter to the Chertkovs, December 28, 1897, said: “The illness was the usual one, biliousness, and has now passed away.”

276. Tolstoi began and finished this drama only in 1900.

277. Tolstoi’s brother-in-law, A. A. Behrs.

278. Sergei Mickailovich Soloviev (1820–1879), the Russian historian, the father of the philosopher, Vladimir Sergeevich, and the novelist, Vsevolod Sergeevich Soloviev.

279. The preface to the English edition, What Is Art? In his letter to Chertkov, December 27, 1897, Tolstoi wrote: “Wouldn’t such a preface be suitable? “The book which is about to appear cannot be published in its entirety in Russia on account of the censor, and therefore it is being published in England in translation, the correctness of which I have not the least doubt of. The five chapters printed in Russia in the magazine Problems of Philosophy and Psychology have already suffered several deletions and changes; the following chapters, especially those which explain the essence of my point of view on art, will surely not be permitted in Russia and therefore I ask all those who are interested in this book to judge it only by this present edition.”