NOTES TO THE TEXT
By V. G. Chertkov
1. With the words, "I continue," Tolstoi begins a new note-book of the Journal; this note-book presupposes another which the editors have only in separate fragments. The previous note-book ended with the following note:
"October 8, 1895, Y. P.
"(I am beginning an entry to-day with just what I finished two days ago.)
"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.
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