confidence; no, it was just for the sake of variety. I often helped out of a feeling of friendship, but chiefly out of curiosity—what now?

It has been said that there is a certain crystal in the eye and that it is that crystal which actually regulates the sight. One ought to insert such a crystal into the soul of a man. But it is lacking there. It is lacking, that is what is wrong about it all.

The habit of living honestly? It is the habit of feeling truthfully, and that is possible only on condition that there be complete freedom to reveal such feelings, but this freedom in its turn makes a scoundrel or a beast out of a man, if he has not arranged before to be born a saint. Or with a blind soul. Maybe blindness is saintliness itself?

I have not written everything and what I have written is not all it should be. But I do not want to write any more.

The prisoners are singing the “Internationale,” the guard in the passage is humming the tune softly in accompaniment. We used to have a propagandist in the committee, comrade Tassya Mironova, a remarkable girl. What a tender and at the same time what a resolute heart she had. I would not say that she was beautiful, but I have never seen anyone sweeter. Why did I suddenly remember her? I never gave her away to the police. The stream of thought. The uninterrupted stream of thought.

And what if I really am that urchin, alone capable of seeing the truth?

The emperor is naked—can’t you see it?

There they come again. I’m fed up with them.

1924.