The fourth day in Moscow. Dissatisfied with myself. No work. Got tangled up in the article on art and have not moved forward.
... There were here; the Gorbunovs,[149] Boulanger,[150] Dunaev. I called on Rusanov myself.[151] Received a very good impression.
Read Plato; embryos of idealism.
[I recalled two subjects which were very good:]
1) A wife’s deception of her passionate, jealous husband; his suffering, his struggle and the enjoyment of forgiveness, and
[2)] A description of the oppression of the serfs and later the very same kind of oppression by land property, or rather by being deprived of it.
Just now Goldenweiser[152] played. One thing—a fantasy fugue:[153] an artificiality; studied, cold, pretentious; another—“Bigarrure” by Arensky;[154] sensual, artificial; and a third—a ballad by Chopin; sickly, nervous, not one or the other or the third can be of any use to the people.
The devil who has been sent to me is still with me, and tortures me.
November 23. Moscow. If I live.