7–13 November 1853

Have given Akrshevski almost half of Boyhood to copy out. Have lost 42 rubles to Sokovnin, and have left Khasav-Urt ten rubles in debt. Visitors did not give me a moment’s rest there, so that I have been completely upset. I liked the fourteen-year-old girl who was working for the landlady very much. I have done hardly anything all these days. On arriving in Staro- gladovsk I went shooting once . . . chatted with Epfshka and Clifer, whom I dislike very much. I borrowed 25 rubles of him. This morning I did so nasty a thing that it compelled me to come to myself. Have received a kind letter from K. V. Gorchakov, and a notice that my docu- ments have been detained at the Herald’s Office. I do not like Arago’s travels at all. He is filled with French self- confidence both as to scientific and moral matters. Besides that, he says too much about why he is writing and how one ought to write, instead of showing it in practice. “ Tripe ” means bowels. “ To drag one’s cloak by the sleeves ” is a sign, accepted by the soldiers, of being drunk. It is often done only because a Russian who has drunk a glass of vddka is inclined to pretend that he is drunk. Gibraltar was taken by the English from the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Teneriffe is a mountain on an island situated off the north-west coast of Africa. Rio de Janeiro is the capital of the independent Spanish colony of Brazil. The Cape of Good Hope is a small English colony on the very coast, inhabited by free savage races. Table Mountain is near the colony. The laughter of two people talking alone together is quite different from and has a more sincere and attractive character than laughter in a large company. To take the decisions of one’s will as rules for oneself about everything is an excess, but in some cases such decisions are necessary. Must not take cards in hand, or ever look on at gambling. There are thoughts the application of which is end- lessly varied. Therefore the more general the expression of sQch thoughts, the more food they afford for the mind and heart, and the more profoundly can they be felt. I am replacing all the prayers I have composed by the Lord’s Prayer alone. Any petition I can make to God is expressed more loftily, and in a way more worthy of Him, by the words, “ Thy will be done on earth as in Heaven ”. Abstract thoughts are nothing but man’s capacity in certain conditions of mental activity — without interrupting that activity — to fix his attention on it and transmit that state of mind to memory. There are thoughts which pass through one’s mind unnoticed ; there are others which seem to leave profounder traces, so that one involuntarily tries to seize them (such are these I am writing down). Apparently a slip of the pen for eighteenth century. Sometimes I forget the thought itself but the trace it has made remains, and I feel that a remarkable thought has passed here. In the intercourse one may have with people, to try to do as much that is pleasant as possible is a rule of politeness. Borisl&v, a district town of Khersdn province, was the capital of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. I have never made a declaration of love, but remember- ing the terrible nonsense which with a smile of subtle meaning I have talked to people who attracted me, I blush at the very remembrance. The conversations one reads in our fashionable novels pour tout de bon are as like as two peas to what I said. I must realise that idleness and a disorderly life (that is, a life lacking order) is not merely harmful in practical affairs, but may cause most terrible vices and actions on my part, as I have experienced to-day. I am so weak. Must fear idleness and lack of order as I do cards. In my talks with Epfshka I was struck by the following : How Mfnka, the one-eyed wizard, killed the sweating beasts which the devils drove towards him from the mountains. How when meeting some Chech^nians he turned himself and Ivan Ivanych into two alder bushes, and how he was afterwards made to sit in the front corner surrounded by the old folk, who began to reprove him say- ing, “ That is bad, Mfnka, leave it alone”, etc. Also by an exclamation in the genitive case “ Kakovd gdrya / ” (Of what a grief !). Also two stories of how hfe (Epfshka) rode from Aksay with his kunak to keep holiday at a Chechen wedding and was frightened despite the protection of his brother-in-law, and how the sight of him surprised them all, and they cried : “ He, he, he ! — little Cossack, little Cossack ” ; also how at night, out hunting, he killed Ilfn’s servant, how he ran after his companions and called them back to witness how he asked the servant’s pardon, how the latter died on the road, on a Tartar cart on which they laid him with difficulty, and In all seriousness. how afterwards, reversing his gun, he handed it to Ilfn and fell at his feet, and later on, on reaching home, found that his wife had a dance on, and how as soon as he had told of his trouble all the women ran away.