Yesterday Dunaev[15] came. Chopped much yesterday, overtired myself. To-day I walked. I went to Constantine Bieli’s.[16] He is very much to be pitied. Then I walked in the village. It is good with them, but with us it is shameful. Wrote letters. Wrote to Bazhenov[17] and three others. Thought:
1) The confirmation of the fact, that reason liberates the latent love in man for justice is the proverb, “Comprendre c’est tout pardoner.” If you forgive a man, you will love him. To forgive means to cease to condemn and to hate.
2) If a man believes something at the word of another, he will lose his belief in that which he would have inevitably believed in, had he not trusted the other one. He who believes in ... etc., ceases to believe in reason. They even say straight out, one ought not to believe in reason.
3) ...
A very interesting letter from Holland, about what a youth is to do who is called to military service, when he is the sole supporter of his mother.[18]
November 10. Y. P.
Slept with difficulty. Weakness both physical and intellectual and—for which I am at fault—also moral. Rode horseback. Posha[19] arrived.... A wonderful French pamphlet about war.[20] Yes, 20 years are needed for that thought to become a general one. My head aches and seems to crackle and rumble. Father, help me when I am most weak that I may not fall morally. It is possible.
Nov. 11. Y. P. If I live.
I write and think: it is possible that I won’t be. Every day I make attempts, and I get more accustomed to it.
To-day November 15.