Rusanov has the head of Hadji Murad. This morning I wanted to write _Hadji Murad_--I lost the outline. I wrote down something. I now want to write out the themes which are worth while and which can be treated as they ought to be: 1) Sergius, 2) Alexander I, 3) Persianninov, 4) the tale of Petrovich--the husband, who died a pilgrim. The following are worse: 5) the legend of the descent of Christ into hell and the reconstruction of hell, 6) a forged coupon, 7) Hadji Murad, 8) the substituted child, 9) the drama of the Christian resurrection and perhaps 10) Resurrection--the trial of a prostitute, 11) (excellent) a brigand killing the defenceless, 12) a mother, 13) an execution in Odessa.[266] It is depressing in the house, but I want to be and will be joyous. I am going to write out only two things: 1) That the physical union with an accidental husband is one of the means established by God for the spread of His truth: for the testing and the strengthening of the stronger and for the enlightenment of the weaker. 2) For people professing filiality to God, not to rejoice in life, to yearn, is a dreadful sin, an error. If you understood that the end of life is the activity for God for no personal ends, then nothing could hinder this activity, could hold it back. The main thing is that life willy-nilly goes forward to the better: one’s own life and the life of the world. How not rejoice at this movement? One has only to remember that life is movement. I write and I sleep and therefore express myself badly. Until evening, if I live. _To-day, December 14, Moscow. Morning._ Yesterday I received an unpleasant letter from Chertkov and sent him an answer (about the publications).[267] The day before yesterday, I read the correspondence of Z about sex relations and became vexed and went to the Rusanovs’ and met Z there and showed my condemnation of him sharply. That tortured me and I wrote him a note yesterday apologising and I received a nice answer which touched me. I feel very ill. I am in the worst mood and therefore am dissatisfied with everything and cannot love. And just now am thinking: We find sickness a burden; but sickness is a necessary good condition of life. Only it alone (perhaps not alone, but one of the most important and generally common conditions) prepares us for death, i.e., for our crossing over into another life. Therefore indeed it was sent to every one: to children, to adults, to old people, because all, at all ages, die. And we find it burdensome. The fact that we find sickness burdensome shows only that we do not live as we ought to: both a temporary and at the same time an eternal life--but we live only a temporary life.