I don’t sleep at all. For the second night in a row am reading Stendhal’s “The Red and the Black,” a ravishing, thick, two-volume novel. It stole the whole morning from me. In annoyance that it took me away from work, I threw it aside. Otherwise you cannot tear yourself away from it—you need to make a heroic gesture. See more
To Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov in memory of our first meeting in Paris. God protect you, like a gardener a rose bush in the garden.
The weather was comparatively cool. The day went as usual. Before dinner itself came a good piece of news about the beginning of the assault on the southwestern front. After two days of artillery fire, our army took the hostile position and took into captivity about 170 officers and 10,000 troops, six vehicles and 24 machine guns.
Leave Petrograd—it is a rather pleasant dream, and I am ready to go to Kamchatka, to Solovky, to the devil! In general, I live in a spiritual contradiction with myself and don’t see any other outlet but cultural work.
They’re no longer giving the milk out in the promised quantities. In the “bar house” there are six jewish families who consume an immense amount of milk, and as a result are being threatened by the police – it is, in a word, an uproar. See more
What right do we (the brains of the country) have, with our lousy bourgeois distrust, to insult the intelligent, calm and knowledgeable revolutionaries? Nerves are highly strung. Again, I would not be surprised if they slaughter us in the name of the order.
Finally, I’ve been given a passport on behalf of the Provisional Government; but I still had to obtain a visa. It was the first time I’d heard that word, before the war there were no visas. The day came where I had all three visas – English, Norwegian and Swedish. See more
The cynically naïve egoism and dull ignorance (“I’m young, I want to live, I don’t want to go to war”) of deserters is caused by the Bolsheviks preaching, which is of course worse than any bellicose sentiments incited by the Tsar’s club. I’ll say it openly – it’s worse. The animal reveals a lack of conscience.