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

Yesterday was not the 6th, but the 8th. To-day, June 9, Y. P.

I have written little and not very well. It seems to me that it is getting clearer. In the morning I had a conversation with the workingmen who came for books. I remembered the woman who asked to write to John of Kronstad.[100 - The priest, John Ilich Sergiev (of Kronstadt) (1829–1908), who enjoyed great fame as “The supplicator for the sick.” In his preaching and his books he many times made sharp attacks against Tolstoi and his views.]

The religion of the people is this: there is a God and there are gods and saints. (Christ came on earth, as a peasant told me to-day, to teach people how and to whom to pray.) The gods and the saints perform miracles, have power over the flesh and perform heroic deeds and good works, and the people have only to pray, to know how and to whom to pray. But people can not perform good works, they can only pray. Here is their whole faith.

I bathed and don’t feel well.

June 19, Y. P.

Have been feeling weak all this time and sleep badly. Posha came yesterday. He spoke about the Khodinka accident well, but wrote it badly. Our very idle, luxurious life oppresses me. N. came. A stranger. He is young and he does not understand in the same way as I do, that which he understands, although he agrees with everything. Finished the first draft[101 - Declaration of Faith.] on the 13th of June. Now I am revising it, but am working very little.

… Struggled with myself twice and successfully. Oh, if it were always so!

Once I passed beyond Zakaz[102 - Zakaz, a piece of Yasnaya Polyana forest, not far from the house. Tolstoi was afterwards buried there.] at night and wept for joy, being grateful for life. The pictures of life in Samara stand out very clearly before me; the steppes, the fight of the nomadic, patriarchic principle with the agricultural civilised one.[103 - Tolstoi had the opportunity to closely observe the nomadic life of the Bashkirs in the province of Samara, where he went in the Sixties to drink kumyss, and in the Seventies and Eighties to his own estates (see The Biography of L. N. Tolstoi written by P. I. Biriukov (Moscow, 1913) published by Posrednik, Volume II, Chapter VIII; and also the Recollections in the Children’s Magazine, Mayak, 1913, by V. S. Morosov, a former pupil of the Yasnaya Polyana school in the beginning of the Sixties).] It draws me very much. Konefsky was not born in me; that is why it moves so awkwardly.

Have been thinking:

1) Something very important about art: what is beauty? Beauty is that which we love. “He is not dear because he is good, but good because he is dear.” Here is the problem; why dear? Why do we love? And to say that we love, because a thing is beautiful, is just the same as saying that we breathe because the air is pleasant. We find the air pleasant, because we have to breathe; and in the same way we discover beauty, because we have to love. And he who hasn’t the power to see spiritual beauty, sees at least a bodily one and loves it.

June 26, Y. P. Morning.

All night I did not sleep. My heart aches without stopping. I continue to suffer and can not subject myself to God… I have not mastered pride and rebellion and the pain in my heart does not stop. One thing consoles me; I am not alone but with God, and therefore no matter how painful it is, yet I feel that something is taking place within me. Help me, Father.

Yesterday I walked to Baburino[104 - A village within four versts from Yasnaya Polyana.] and unwillingly (I rather would have avoided than sought it), I met the 80-year-old Akime ploughing, the woman Yaremichov who hasn’t a coat to her household and only one jacket, then Maria whose husband was frozen and who has no one to gather her rye and who is starving her child, and Trophime and Khaliavka, and the husband and wife were dying as well as the children. And we study Beethoven. And I pray that He release me from this life. And again I pray and cry from pain. I am entrapped, sinking, I cannot alone, only I hate myself and my life.

June 30, Ysn. Pol.

Continued to suffer and struggle much, and have conquered neither one nor the other. But it is better. Mme. Annenkov[105 - Leonilla Fominishna Annenkov (1845–1914), an old friend of Tolstoi’s and an adherent of his philosophy, the wife of a Kursk landlord, the well-known scholarly lawyer, K. N. Annenkov (1842–1910). She made the acquaintance of Tolstoi in 1886 and from that time on corresponded very much with him. Completely sharing the opinions of Tolstoi, she applied them with a rare sequence to life and she was noted for her remarkable abundance of love which attracted every one who met her. Tolstoi valued her highly, considering that she had “a clear mind and a loving heart.”] was here and put it very well …[106 - Farther on one line is crossed out. A note of Princess M. L. Obolensky in the copy at the disposal of the editors.] They have spoiled for me even my diary which I write with the point of view of the possibility of its being read by the living[107 - It weighed upon him that certain persons to whom he did not want to show his Journal had read it nevertheless. In the last years of his life he was compelled to hide the current Journal somewhere in his rooms, and the finished note-books he gave away in safe keeping.] …

Just now upstairs they began to speak about the New Testament and N. en ricanant proved that Christ advised castration. I became angry, – shameful.

Two days ago I went to those who had been burned out; had not dined, was tired and felt well… Yesterday I visited the lawyer who wanted to snatch a hundred rubles from a beggar-woman to decorate his own house with. It is the same everywhere.

During this time I have been in Pirogovo. My brother Serezha has entirely come over to us. The journey with Tania and Chertkov was joyous. To-day in Demenka[108 - A village four versts from Yasnaya Polyana, where the Chertkovs lived in summer.] I gave the last words for his journey to a dying peasant.

I am advancing much on the work.[109 - Declaration of Faith.] I will try to write out now what I have jotted down in the book.

To-day, July 19.[110 - The note of July 19, 1896, he evidently originally inserted in a note-book from which he later wrote it out in his Journal.]

I am in Pirogovo. I arrived the day before yesterday with Tania and Chertkov. In Serezha[111 - Tolstoi’s brother, Count S. N. Tolstoi.] there has certainly taken place a spiritual change; he admits it himself saying that he was born several months ago. I am very happy with him.

At home, during this time, I lived through much difficulty. Lord, Father, release me from my base body. Cleanse me and do not let your spirit perish in me and become overgrown. I prayed twice beseechingly; once that He let me be His tool; and second that He save me from my animal “self.”

During this time I progressed on the Declaration of Faith. It is far from what has to be said and from what I want to say. It is entirely inaccessible to the plain man and the child, but, nevertheless I have said all that I know coherently and logically.

In this time also I wrote the preface to the reading of the Gospels[112 - This article under the title of “How to Read The Gospels and What Is Its Essence” was printed at first in the edition of The Free Press, 1898, and after in 1905 in Russia. (See the complete works of Tolstoi published by Sytin, Popular Edition, Volume XV.) The central thought of this article is that in order to understand the true meaning of the Gospels, one has to penetrate those passages which are completely simple, clear and understandable. Tolstoi advises all those who wish to understand the true meaning of the Gospels to mark everything which is for them completely clear and understandable with a blue pencil and marking at the same time with a red one, around the words marked in blue, the words of Christ Himself as differing from the words of the Apostles. It is those places marked by the red pencil which will give the reader the essence of the teaching of Christ. Tolstoi in his own copy of the Gospels made such marks which he mentions later in the Journal with the words: “Marked the Gospels.”] and annotated the Gospels. Had visitors. Englishmen, Americans – no one of importance.

I will write out all that I jotted down:

1) Yesterday I walked through a twice ploughed, black-earth fallow field. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but black earth – not one green blade of grass, and there on the edge of the dusty grey road there grew a bush of burdock. There were three off-shoots. One was broken and its white soiled flower hung; the other also broken, was bespattered with black dirt, its stem bent and soiled; the third shoot stuck out to the side, also black from dust, but still alive and red in the centre. It reminded me of Hadji-Murad.[113 - Hadji Murad, one of the boldest and most remarkable leaders of the Caucasian mountaineers who played a big rôle in the struggle of the mountaineers with the Russians in the Forties of the Nineteenth Century. In 1852 he was killed in a skirmish with the Cossacks. Tolstoi heard much about him as early as the beginning of the Fifties, when he himself took part in the fight with the mountaineers. A month after the above-mentioned note in the Journal, Tolstoi made a rough sketch of his story, Hadji Murad, on which he worked with interruptions until 1904. This story was printed for the first time in his Posthumous Literary Works (published by A. L. Tolstoi, Volume III, 1912.) It is interesting to compare the introduction to it with the above note of Tolstoi’s in his Journal.] It makes me want to write. It asserts life to the end, and alone in the midst of the whole field, somehow or other has asserted it.

2) He has a capacity for languages, for mathematics, is quick to comprehend and to answer, can sing, draw correctly, beautifully, and can write in the same way; but he has no moral or artistic feeling and therefore nothing of his own.

3) Love towards enemies. It is difficult, seldom does it succeed – as with everything absolutely beautiful. But then what happiness when you attain it! There is an exquisite sweetness in this love, even in the foretaste of it. And this sweetness is just in the inverse ratio to the attractiveness of the object of love. Yes, the spiritual voluptuousness of love towards enemies.

4) Some one makes me suffer. As soon as I think about myself, about my own suffering, the suffering continues to grow and grow and terror overcomes me at the thought to where it might lead. It suffices to think of the man on account of whom you are suffering, to think about his suffering – and instantly you are healed. Sometimes it is easy when you already love your torturer; but even when it is difficult, it is always possible.

5) Yesterday in walking I thought what are those boundaries which separate us, one being from another? And it occurred to me. Are not space and time the conditions of these divisions, or rather, the consequences of these divisions? If I were not a separated part, there would be neither space nor time for me, as there is not for God. But since I am not the whole, I can understand myself and other beings through space and time only.

(I feel that there is something in this, but I can not yet express it clearly.)

6) There was an argument about whether being in love was good. For me the conclusion was clear; if a man already lives a human, spiritual life, then being in love – love, marriage – would be a downfall for him, he would have to give a part of his strength to his wife, to his family, or even at least to the object of his love. But if he is on the animal plane, if he eats, drinks, labours, holds a post, writes, plays – then to be in love would be an uplift for him as for animals, for insects, in the time of …[114 - As in the copy at the disposal of the editors.]

7) To pray? They say that prayer is necessary, that it is necessary to have the sweet feeling of prayer which is called forth by service, singing, reading, exclamations, ikons. But what is prayer? A communion with God, a recognition of one’s relation to God, the highest state of the soul. Is it possible that this state of the soul can be attained by an action upon the outer senses… Is it not more probable that the prayerful state might be reached only in rare exceptional moments and necessarily in isolation, as even Christ said and as Elijah saw God, not in a storm but in a tender breeze?

8) Yesterday I looked through the romances, novels, and poems of Fet.[115 - Afanasie Afanasevich Fet (Shenshin) (1820–1892), a Russian lyric poet and translator and friend of the Tolstoi family. Concerning the relations of Tolstoi with him, see My Recollections, by Fet (Volume II, 1890) and The Biography of L. N. Tolstoi by Biriukov. In the letter of November 7, 1866, Tolstoi wrote to Fet: “You are a man whose mind, not to speak of anything else, I value higher than any one of my acquaintances’ and who in personal intercourse is the only one who gives me that bread by which it is not alone that man lives.” Later Tolstoi and Fet became estranged from each other.] I recalled our incessant music on 4 grand-pianos in Yasnaya Polyana and it became clear to me that all this – the romances, the poems, the music – was not art, something important and necessary to people in general, but a self-indulgence of robbers, parasites, who have nothing in common with life; romances, novels about how one falls in love disgustingly, poetry about this or about how one languishes from boredom. And music about the same theme. But life, all life, seethes with its own problems of food, distribution, labour, about faith, about the relations of men … It is shameful, nasty. Help me, Father, to serve Thee by showing up this lie.

9) I was going from the Chertkovs on the 5th of July. It was evening, and beauty, happiness, blessedness, lay on everything. But in the world of men? There was greed, malice, envy, cruelty, lust, debauchery. When will it be among men as it is in Nature? Here there is a struggle, but it is honest, simple, beautiful. But there it is base. I know it and I hate it, because I myself am a man.

(I have not succeeded.)

10) When I suffered in my soul, I tried to calm myself with the consciousness of serving. And that used to calm me, but only then when there happened to be an obvious instance of serving, i. e. when it was unquestionably required and I was drawn to it. But what is to be done when it happens neither one way nor the other? Give myself to God, negate myself. Do as Thou wilt, I consent.

(Again, not what I want to say.)

I am going to dinner.

11) Kant,[116 - Kant, the German philosopher (1724–1804). For the opinions of Tolstoi about him see the Journal, February 19, and September 22, 1904, and September 2, 1906; August 8th, 1907; March 26, 1909. Kant’s Thoughts, selected by Tolstoi, were published by Posrednik, Moscow, 1906.] they tell us, made a revolution in the thought of men. He was the first to show that a thing in itself is inaccessible to knowledge, that the source of knowledge and life is spiritual. But is not that the same which Christ said two thousand years ago, only in a way understandable to men? Bow in spirit and in truth; the spirit is life creating, the letter, the flesh, is beneficial in no way.

12) Balls, feasts, spectacles, parades, pleasure-gardens, etc., are a dreadful tool in the hands of the organisers. They can have a terrible influence. And if anything has to be subjected to control, it is this.

13) I walked along the road and thought, looking at the forests, the earth, the grass, what a funny mistake it is to think that the world is such as it appears to me. To think that the world is such as it appears to me, means to think that there can be no other being capable of knowledge except myself with my six senses.[117 - As a sixth sense, Tolstoi recognised the muscular sense. See the note of October 10, 1896 (#October_10_1896_note).] I stopped and was writing that down. Sergei Ivanovich[118 - S. I. Tanyeev.] approached me. I told him what I was thinking. He said:

“Yes, one thing is true, that the world is not such as we see it and we don’t know anything as it is.”

I said:

“Yes, we know something exactly as it is.”

“What is it?”

“That which knows. It is exactly such as we know it.”

14) One is often surprised that people are ungrateful. One ought to be surprised at how they could be grateful for good done them. However little good people do, they know with certainty that the doing of good is the greatest happiness. How then can people be grateful to others that these others have drunk themselves full, when that is the greatest enjoyment?

15) Only he is free whom nothing and nobody can hinder from doing what he wants. There is only one such work to do – to love.

16) Prayer is directed to a personal God, not because God is personal (I even know as a matter of fact that He is not personal, because the personal is finite and God is infinite), but because I am a personal being. I have a little green glass in my eye and I see everything green. I can not help but see the world green, although I know that it is not like that.