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 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.