30) The error in which we find ourselves when we consider our separate beings as ourselves is the same as when a traveller counts only one stage as the whole road, or a man, one day as his whole life. 31) Read about ... and was horrified at the conscious deception of men ... 32) “An eraser.” I have forgotten. I shall recall it. Have written up to dinner. It is now 2 o’clock and I am going to dine. _May 28, Ysn. Pol. 12 o’c. noon._ It is already several days that I am struggling with my work[83] and am making no progress. I sleep. I wanted to scribble it somehow to the very end, but I can’t possibly do it. Am in a wretched mood, aggravated by the emptiness, by the poor, self-satisfied, cold emptiness of my surrounding life. In the meantime I have been to Pirogovo.[84] I have a most joyous impression; my brother Sergei[85] has undoubtedly had a spiritual transformation. He himself has formulated the essence of my faith (and he evidently recognises it as true for himself); to raise in oneself the spiritual essence and to subject to it the animal element. He has a miraculous ikon and he was tortured by his undefined attitude to it. The little girls[86] are very good and live seriously. Masha has been infected by them. Later there were at our house: Salamon,[87] Tanyee.[88]... A terrible event in Moscow--the death of three thousand[89]--I somehow can not express myself as I ought to. I am indisposed all the time, getting weaker. In Pirogovo, there was the harnessmaker, an intelligent man. Yesterday a working-man came from Tula, intelligent. I think a revolutionist. To-day a seminary student, a touching case. I am advancing very, very badly in my work. Rather boring letters because they demand polite answers. I have written to Bondarev,[90] Posha, and to some one else. O yes; Officer N. was here too. I think I was useful to him. Splendid notes by Shkarvan.[91] Yesterday there was a letter from poor N.[92], whom they have driven off to the Persian frontier, hoping to kill him. God help him. And don’t forget me. Give me life, life, i. e. a conscious, joyful serving of Thee. In the meantime, I thought, 1) It is remarkable how many people see some insoluble problem in evil. I have never seen any problem in it. For me it is now altogether clear that that which we call evil is that good, the action of which we don’t yet see. 2) The poetry of Mallarmé,[93] and others. We who don’t understand it, say boldly that it is humbug, that it is poetry striking an _impasse_. Why is it that when we hear music which we don’t understand and which is just as nonsensical, we don’t say that boldly, but say timidly: yes, perhaps one ought to understand it or prepare oneself for it, etc. That is silly. Every work of art is only a work of art when it is understandable, I do not say for all, but for people standing on a certain level of education, on the same level as the man who reads poetry and who judges it.