To-day May 19. Grinevka.
Sonya was here. She arrived the 17th. This morning she went away. I have been trying to write these two days. Can’t do anything. An exceptional weakness and pain in my spinal column.
To-day May 20. Evening. Grinevka.
This morning I wrote rather much on The Appeal. In the evening I wrote 13 letters. Went nowhere. My back is better. The main thing, is that my brain is working and I am happy.
Received 500 roubles, and 1000 roubles are lying in Cherni.[320]
I am not going to write any more, although I have many notes.
To-day May 27. Grinevka. In the morning.
During this time I wrote The Appeal and finished the article on the condition of the people.[321]
Just now I am writing to write out my notes—there is much that has to be written out—that everything which is said in Paul (Corinthians xiii) about love has to be said, and even more—about the renunciation of oneself. It is impossible to lay up love within oneself—but the renunciation of oneself is possible. It suffices to renounce oneself and love will arise.
I thought this, because just now in the morning, I began to remember all the difficulties which might arise from the distribution of the contributions, about everything which had to be done for the Dukhobors, for my own writing, and of which I had done nothing, and about all my weaknesses, errors, about my joyless life with the children, and such as I had not wanted it to be, and my lack of consequence—and it sufficed only to negate myself, my own desires, and immediately all wrong passed away, both of the past and the future, and one thing remained, the need of service in the present. How time vanishes remarkably in the consciousness of one’s mission.