The true essence and meaning of culture lies in an organic aversion to everything that is dirty, base, false, or rude, that humiliates people and causes them to suffer. We must teach ourselves to hate suffering; only then will we annihilate it. We must teach ourselves at least a bit to love people the way they are, and we must passionately love people the way they will be.
Sunday. Finally, the first warm day of the year. Something like spring. 29 rubles have been collected to support the army and the new government.
It was in different surroundings that we celebrated the 21st anniversary of my coronation! The weather was 15 degrees in the shade. Until Mass I took a walk with Alexis. During the day from 2:00 until 4:30 we spent the time out in the garden; I went for a ride in the canoe, and in the boat; and I worked for a while in the vegetable garden, where I prepared the new beds, and later we were on the island. After tea and during the evening I read.
The times are such, the situation is such, that you don’t know what will happen tomorrow; everything is charged with electricity, and so am I.
The endemic desire I have observed lately to be sent to the infirmary leads me to an extremely sorrowful line of thought: isn’t this a hidden kind of desertion? If open desertion amounts to a crime, then hidden, deceptive desertion, such the simulation of an illness, must amount to a disgrace.
Attention all citizens!
In recent days, both in Petrograd and in many other places in Russia, a rise in drunkenness has been observed. Drunkards have been appearing on the streets, in street wagons, in factories, and in the barracks. Vodka has appeared in the cities and in the countryside, on the home front and on the battlefront. Drunkenness has become a foundation for atrocities: fights, violence, pogroms. See more