“I have only a short time left to live and I feel terribly like saying so much: I feel like saying what we can and must and cannot help believing--about the cruelty of deception which people impose upon themselves; the economic, political and religious deception, and about the seduction of stupefying oneself--wine, and tobacco considered so innocent; and about marriage and about education and about the horrors.... Everything has ripened and I want to speak about it. So that there is no time for performing those artistic stupidities which I was prepared to do in _Resurrection_. “But just now I asked myself: but can I write, knowing that no one will read? And I experienced something of disappointment; but only for a time; that means that there was some love of fame in it. But there was also the principal thing in it--the need before God. “Father, help me to follow the same path of love. And I thank Thee. From Thee flows everything.” [2] In the original, merely the initials of the phrase are used. Thus Tolstoi would often finish what he had written during the day with I. I L. (If I live), marking ahead in this fashion the date of the following day. [3] Countess Sophia Andreevna Tolstoi, born Behrs, 1844, wife of Tolstoi. In the Journal, Tolstoi calls her S., S. A., or Sonya. [4] “Catechism” Tolstoi called that systematic exposition of his philosophy in the form of questions and answers which he had begun about this time. In the text, he calls this work, The Declaration of Faith, or simply, The Declaration. (See entries December 23, ’95, and further.) In the following year, 1896, Tolstoi abandoning the catechism form, continued and finished the work, which, in 1898, was published under the title _Christian Doctrine_ by _The Free Press_ (_Swobodnoe Slovo_) issued by A. and V. Chertkov, England, and later in 1905, it appeared also in Russia. [5] Tolstoi never returned to the continuation and revision of the plot of the story _Who is Right?_ which had been begun by him about this time, and so it has remained unfinished. The beginning of the story as it was written by Tolstoi, is printed in his collected works (see the full collection of works by Tolstoi, edited by P. Biriukov, published by Sytin, 1913). [6] I.e., with Katiusha Maslov and not with Nekhliudov, as the first form of the novel was begun.