4) When a man says an obvious untruth or an offence to you, then certainly he doesn’t do it from joy: and both are very difficult. If he does it then evidently he can’t do otherwise, and doing it, he suffers. And you, instead of pitying him, get angry at him. On the contrary, you ought to try to help him. 5) The tragedy of a man kindly disposed, wishing only the good, when in this state and for this state, which he cannot help but count as good, he meets hissing malice and the hatred of people. _Nov. 28. If I live. Y. P._ _To-day, Dec. 2. Y. P._ Agonising, sad, depressed state of body and spiritual force, but I know that I am alive and independent of this condition, yet I feel this “self” but little.... I was busied all this time with corrections and additions to _Art_. The principal thing during this time, was that Dushan was here whom I love very much and learned to love still more. Together with the Slavonian Posrednik, he is forming a center of a small, but I think divine work.[259] From Chertkov there is still no news. An anguish, a soft, mild, sweet anguish, but yet an anguish. If I were without the consciousness of life, then probably I would have had an embittered anguish. Have been thinking: 1) I was very depressed at the fear of vexation and severe conflicts, and I prayed God--prayed almost without expecting aid, but nevertheless I prayed: “Lord, help me to go away from this. Release me.” I prayed like this, then rose, walked to the end of the room and suddenly I asked myself: Have I not to yield? Yes, to yield. And God helped--God who is in me, and I felt light-hearted and firm. I entered that divine current which flows there alongside of us always and to which we can always give ourselves when things are bad.[260] 2) I had a talk with Dushan. He said that since he has become involuntarily my representative in Hungary, then how was he to act. I was glad for the opportunity to tell him and to clarify it to myself that to speak about Tolstoyanism, to seek my guidance, to ask my decision on problems, is a great and gross mistake. There is no Tolstoyanism and has never been, nor any teaching of mine; there is only one eternal, general, universal teaching of the truth, which for me, for us, is especially clearly expressed in the Gospels. This teaching calls man to the recognition of his filiality to God and therefore of his freedom or his slavery (call it what you want): of his freedom from the influence of the world, of his slavery to God, His will. And as soon as man understands this teaching, he enters freely into direct communication with God and he has nothing and no one to ask.