The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (First Volume — 1895–1899) · 50

20) It is impossible to demand from woman that she valuate the feeling of her exclusive love, on the basis of moral feeling. She cannot do it, because she hasn’t got a real moral feeling, i.e., one that stands higher than everything.

To-day I plan to go home.

Aug. 4. Y. P. If I live.

Why does the 4th of August come to my mind as if it were important? Nothing important has happened.

To-day, August 24. Y. P.

During this time I received no letters from Chertkov and am very perplexed.[356] I think that during this time the Dukhobors were here. Letters from Khilkov, from Ivan Michailovich. I answered them all. To-day Sullerzhitsky arrived.[357] I am working all the time on Resurrection and am pleased, even very much so. I am afraid of shocks.

... And I feel well. A full house of people: Mashenka,[358] Stakhovich, Vera Kuzminsky,[359] Vera Tolstoi.[360]

I am copying:

1) People were sent into the world to do the work of God, but they quarrelled, fought and established things in such a way that for some, there is no time to do the work, because they have to[254] feed themselves, and for others there is no time, because they have to guard that which they took away. What a waste of strength! It is just as if workers had been sent to work and given food; some have taken the food away and they have to guard it and the others have to get food, and the work stands still.

2) People live in the world not fulfilling their mission—it is the same way as if factory workers were only busied with how to lodge themselves, feed themselves and amuse themselves.

3) One of the most important tasks of humanity consists in the bringing up of a chaste woman.

4) I often think that the world is such as it is, only because I am so separated from all the rest. As soon as my separateness from Everything will end, then the limits will be torn away and other limits will be established—and then the world will become altogether different for me.

5) You wish to serve humanity? Very well. That which you wish to do, another will do. Are you satisfied? No, dissatisfied, because the important thing for me is not what will be done, but what I will do; that I do my work. This is the best proof that the matter is not in the doing, but in the advancement towards the good.

Is it possible that I am advancing? Help, Lord.

[255]

6) How difficult it is to please people: some need one thing, others another. They need both my past and my future. God is one, and His Will in respect to me is one, and He wants only my present, what I am doing this minute is what He wants. And what was, has been, and what will be, isn’t my business.

7) Egoism, the whole egoistic life, is legitimate only as long as reason has not awakened. As soon as it has awakened, then egoism is lawful, only to that degree in which one has to sustain oneself as a tool necessary for the service of people. The purpose of reason—is the service to people. All the horror lies in its being used for service to oneself.

8) Man gives himself to the illusion of egoism, lives for himself—and he suffers. It suffices that he begin to live for others, and the suffering becomes lighter and there is obtained the highest good in the world: love of people.

9) As one disaccustoms oneself from smoking or other habits, so one can and must disaccustom oneself from egoism. When you wish to enlarge your pleasure, when you wish to exhibit yourself, when you call forth love in others, stop. If you have nothing to do for others, or you have no desire to do anything, then do nothing—only don’t do anything for yourself.

10) The Bavarian told about their life. He[256] boasts about the high degree of freedom, but at the same time they have compulsory religious teaching, a crude Catholic one. That is the most horrible despotism. Worse than ours.

Aug. 25. Y. P. If I live.

Nov. 2. Y. P.

It is horrible to see for what a long time I have made no entries: more than two months. And not only has there been nothing bad, but rather everything was good. The Jubilee was not as repulsive and as depressing as I expected.[361] The sale of the novel and the receipt of the 12,000 roubles which I gave to the Dukhobors was well arranged.[362] I was displeased with Chertkov[363] and I saw that I was at fault. A Dukhobor arrived from the province of Yakutsk. I liked him very much[364]...

Masha is pitiable in her weakness, but she is just as near in spirit....

But glory to God and thanks be to Him that he has awakened it in me and has kept it burning so that it is natural for me either to love and rejoice, or to love and to pity. And what happiness!

Archer was here yesterday, arriving from Chertkov—I liked him.[365] There is much to do, but I am all absorbed in Resurrection, being sparing with the water and using it only for Resurrection.[257] It seems to me it won’t be bad. People praise it, but I don’t believe.

Everything that I noted—it was all very important—I will write out later, but now I want to write that which I just now, walking on the path, in the evening, not only thought but felt clearly:

1) Under my feet there is the frozen, hard earth; around, enormous trees; overhead a cloudy sky; I fed my body, I feel pain in the head; I am occupied with thoughts on Resurrection; and yet I know, I feel in all my being, that both the firm and frozen earth and the trees and the sky and my body and my thoughts—all this is only a product of my five senses, my image, the world, made by me because such is my partition from the world. And that it will be sufficient for me to die—and all this will not disappear but will become transformed, as they make transformations in the theatres: from bushes and stones, they make castles, towers, etc. Death is nothing else than such a transformation, dependent from another partition from the world, another personality: Here I consider as myself, my body with my senses, and then something else will detach itself to be myself. And then the whole world will become something else. But the world is such and not something else, only because I consider myself as this and not as something else. But there can be[258] an innumerable quantity of divisions of the world. (This is not entirely clear for others, but for me—very.)[366]

Nov. 3. If I live.

Nov. 14. Y. P.