I have done quite a lot of things today that needed doing. I also managed to get to Mass, which was good.
I am up to page 1,164 of Tolstoy - less than 200 pages to go! I want to get to the end of the book by the end of this year. That would be good. But it will entail hard reading. I should probably not stay up all night on the 30th of December when I am going to a party on the 31st. I shall just have to manage my time judiciously. I am not very good at that. (Depression does not make it any easier, either.)
Here is a passage from Tolstoy (from Book XIV, chapter II); pages 1162-4:
Petra ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denísov's guerrilla band, a verst from the road, sitting on a wagon captured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under it Likhachëv was sitting sharpening a sabre for him, that the big dark blotch to the right was the watchman's hut, and the red blotch below to the left was the dying embers of a camp-fire, that the man who had come for the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither knew nor wanted to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the watchman's hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of the earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of an enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon, but it might very well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a terribly high tower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a whole day or a whole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it was just the Cossack, Likhachëv, who was sitting under the wagon, but it might be the kindest, the bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the world, whom no one knew of. It might really have been that an hussar came for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply vanished - disappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness.
Nothing Pétya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible.
He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could touch it with one's hand.
Pétya's eyes began to close and he swayed a little.
The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses neighed and jostled one another. Someone snored.
'Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg...' hissed the sabre against the whetstone, and suddenly Pétya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown, sweetly solemn hymn. Pétya was as musical as Natásha and more so than Nicholas, but had never learnt music or thought about it, and so the melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly fresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody grew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was a fugue - though Pétya had not the least conception of what a fugue is. Each instrument - now resembling a violin and now a horn, but better and clearer than violin or horn - played its own part, and before it had finished the melody merged with another instrument that began almost the same air, and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into one, and again became separate and again blended, now into solemn church music, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.
'Oh - why, that was in a dream!' Pétya said to himself as he lurched forward. 'It's in my ears. But perhaps it's music of my own. Well, go on, my music! Now!...'
He closed his eyes, and from all sides, as if from a distance, sounds fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all mingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. 'Oh, this is delightful! As much as I like and as I like!' said Pétya to himself. He tried to conduct that enormous orchestra.
'Now softly, softly die away!' and the sounds obeyed him. 'Now fuller, more joyful. Still more and more joyful!' And from an unknown depth rose increasingly triumphant sounds. 'Now voices ojin in!' ordered Pétya. And at first from afar he heard men's voices and then women's. The voices grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Pétya listened to their surpassing beauty in awe and joy.
With a solemn and triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from the trees, and the hissing of the sabre, 'Ozheg-zheg-zheg...' and again the horses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but joining in it.
Pétya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to share it. He was awakened by Likhachëv's kindly voice.
'It's ready , your Honour; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!'
Pétya woke up.
'It's getting light, it's really getting light!' he exclaimed.
The horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to their very tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare branches. Pétya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it to Likhachëv; then he flourished the sabre, tested it, and sheathed it. The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle-girths.
'And here's the commander,' said Likhachëv.
Denísov came out of the watchman's hut and, having called Pétya, gave orders to get ready.
Wednesday 30 December 2009
Tuesday 29 December 2009
Happy Feast of St Thomas Becket
Today is the Feast of St Thomas of Canterbury, that great English Saint of the Middle Ages. It is also the only day that I am aware of when King David is commemorated liturgically.
The Martyrologium Romanum, according to the online version of the 1911 Breviary, began its entry for today thus:
This morning was not particularly pleasant. Mais que faut-il faire?
The Martyrologium Romanum, according to the online version of the 1911 Breviary, began its entry for today thus:
Cantuáriæ, in Anglia, natális sancti Thomæ, Epíscopi et Mártyris, qui, ob defensiónem justítiæ et ecclesiásticæ immunitátis, in Basílica sua, ab impiórum hóminum factióne percússus gládio, Martyr migrávit ad Christum.
Hierosólymis [At Jerusalem] sancti David, Regis et Prophétæ.
This morning was not particularly pleasant. Mais que faut-il faire?
Monday 28 December 2009
From War and Peace, Book XII, Chapter II
On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostóv Princess Mary had found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvíntseva at Vorónezh. That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her father's illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with Rostóv, was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to her nephew's eductaion. She was sad. Now, after a month passed in quiet surroundings, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father, which was associated in her mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitated and incessantly tortured by the thought of the dangers to which her brother, the only intimate person now remaining to her, was exposed. She was worried too about her nephew's education, for which she had always felt herself incompetent, but in the depths of her soul she felt a peace - a peace arising from consciousness of having stifled those personal dreams and hopes that had been on the point of awaking within her and were related to her meeting with Rostóv.
The day after her party the governor's wife came to see Malvíntseva and, after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though under present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and could get to know one another. Malvíntseva expressed approval, and the governor's wife began to speak of Rostóv in Mary's presence, praising him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's name was mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful feeling - her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts, self-reproach and hopes re-awoke.
During the two days that elapsed before Rostóv died, Princess Mary continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided not to come to the drawing-room when he called to see her aunt - that it would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors; then she thought this would be rude, after what he had done for her; then it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor's wife had intentions concerning herself and Rostóv - their looks and words at times seemed to confirm this supposition; then she told herself that only she, with her sinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that situated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking would be an insult to her and to her father's memory. Assuming that she did go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say to her and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed undeservedly cold, and then to mean too much. More than anything she feared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as soon as she saw him.
But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing-room that Count Rostóv had called, the princess showed no confusion, only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new and radiant light.
"You have met him, Aunt?" said she in a calm voice, unable herself to understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.
When Rostóv entered the room the princess dropped her eyes for an instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then just as Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender delicate hand to him, and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing-room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a consummate coquette, she could not have manoeuvred better on meeting a man she wished to attract.
"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.
Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that had taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear, loved face, a new life-force took possession of her and compelled her to speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostóv entered, her face became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skilful, artistic work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless, was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first time all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had lived appeared on the surface. All her inward labour, her dissatisfaction with herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her meekness, love, and self-sacrifice - all this now shone in those radiant eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face.
Rostóv saw all this as clearly as if he had known her her whole life. He felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better than, any one he had met before, and above all, better than himself.
The day after her party the governor's wife came to see Malvíntseva and, after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though under present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and could get to know one another. Malvíntseva expressed approval, and the governor's wife began to speak of Rostóv in Mary's presence, praising him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's name was mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful feeling - her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts, self-reproach and hopes re-awoke.
During the two days that elapsed before Rostóv died, Princess Mary continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided not to come to the drawing-room when he called to see her aunt - that it would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors; then she thought this would be rude, after what he had done for her; then it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor's wife had intentions concerning herself and Rostóv - their looks and words at times seemed to confirm this supposition; then she told herself that only she, with her sinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that situated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking would be an insult to her and to her father's memory. Assuming that she did go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say to her and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed undeservedly cold, and then to mean too much. More than anything she feared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as soon as she saw him.
But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing-room that Count Rostóv had called, the princess showed no confusion, only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new and radiant light.
"You have met him, Aunt?" said she in a calm voice, unable herself to understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.
When Rostóv entered the room the princess dropped her eyes for an instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then just as Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender delicate hand to him, and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing-room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a consummate coquette, she could not have manoeuvred better on meeting a man she wished to attract.
"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.
Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that had taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear, loved face, a new life-force took possession of her and compelled her to speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostóv entered, her face became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skilful, artistic work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless, was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first time all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had lived appeared on the surface. All her inward labour, her dissatisfaction with herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her meekness, love, and self-sacrifice - all this now shone in those radiant eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face.
Rostóv saw all this as clearly as if he had known her her whole life. He felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better than, any one he had met before, and above all, better than himself.
Sunday 27 December 2009
A Happy Feast of the Holy Family
I have begun to write an entry for today which shall now be published another day, since that entry is currently over four thousand words and far from complete, and I cannot finish it all tonight.
So I am going to translate some of St Alphonsus' Theologia Moralis. Here is the beginning of the section "On Sin":
TRACTATUS
DE PECCATIS
CAPUT I.
DE PECCATO IN GENERE
DUBIUM I.
1. Quid est peccatum?
RESP. 1. Est transgressio legis, ut sive (ut ait Tolet.) est voluntarius recessus a Regula Divina; per quam regulam intelligitur praeceptum tam naturale, et humanum, quam Divinum: per recessum intelligitur actus, vel ejus omissio, qui sit non tantum voluntarius, sed etiam liber, cum aliqua actuali advertentia malitiae, quod addo, quia, ut docet Sanch. 1. mor. c. 16. cum Vasq. Bon. d. 2. q. 1. p. 3. n. 3 et 12. etc. non sufficit ad actum peccaminosum libertas, et advertentia quaevis virtualis, vel interpretativa, qua scilicet quis advertere poterat, et debebat, nec quaecumque actualis, qua scilicet intellectus rationes commodi, et incommodi in objecto attendat: sed requiritur, ut advertat moralem malitiam objecti, aut saltem de ea dubium, vel scrupulum concipiat. Ratio est, tum quia sine ista advertentia non est voluntarium, cum non sit cognitum, quia quandiu talis cogitatio intellectui non occurrit, non est sufficiens, principium deliberandi de malitia, ideoque nec libertas, ac proinde de culpa; et censetur illa inadvertentia naturalis, et invincibilis oblivio. Addit tamen Tann. d. 4 de pecc. q. 5 d. 5. n. 106. non esse necesse, ut consideratio illa maneat actu, vel virtute maneat, ita ut cum ea vel actus peccati fuerit inchoatus, vel saltem causa data, ut fit in ebrio, qui peccat, non vi praesentis, sed praeteritae deliberationis. Vide Bald. l. 1. d. 37. Verum Recentiores communiter docent, talem, verb. gr. ebrium, non peccare formaliter, quando usu rationis caret; sed malitiam eorum, quae tunc fiunt, contraxisse ante, dum praevidens malum, quod commissurus erat, ejus causam dedit: aiuntque, dum quis actu peccat, semper esse, ac manere advertentiam aliquam malitiae tenuem, vel confusam, ut vide apud Scol., nam in ordine ad praxim, parum refert utrolibet modo loquaris.
My translation (since I have nothing better to do):
Sin is the transgression of a law, or a voluntary receding from the Divine Rule; by which Rule is understood not only a Divine precept, but also a natural and human one: by "a receding" is understood an act, or the omission of an act, which is not only voluntary, but also free, with some present advertence to the malice [of the act], which I add because it is not enough for an act to be sinful for there to be freedom and virtual or interpretative advertence, by which, that is to say, a man could was able to advert, and ought to have done so, but with no present [actualis] advertence, that is, by which the intellect pays attention to the object ... reasons convenient and inconvenient [I am lost by the grammar of this sentence] : but it is requisite that he advert to the moral malice of the object, or at least conceive a doubt or suspicion of a doubt concerning that malice. The reason is because without such advertence it is not voluntary, since it is not known, because as long as such a thought does not occur to the intellect, the beginning of deliberating about such malice is not sufficient, and therefore freedom is not present and so there is no fault [I feel sure this is mistranslated] ; and that inadvertence is reckoned as natural, and invincible forgetfulness. ... It is not necessary that that consideration should remain with [during?] the act, or ?power/virtue/???, such that with it after the action of the sin is begun, or at least after the cause is given, as occurs in a drunk man, who sins not with present, but past deliberation. ... Recent authors commonly teach that such a (for example) drunk person does not sin formally when he lacks the use of reason; but the malice of those things, when they occur then, has been contracted before, while foreseeing the evil which he was going to commit, he placed the cause of it; and they say, while he sins by an act, always to be, and some tenuous or confused advertence to the malice remains...for in practice, not enough refers you will speak either way.
Yes, my translation is gibberish. But it is 11 o'clock and time for me to say a rosary.
So I am going to translate some of St Alphonsus' Theologia Moralis. Here is the beginning of the section "On Sin":
TRACTATUS
DE PECCATIS
CAPUT I.
DE PECCATO IN GENERE
DUBIUM I.
1. Quid est peccatum?
RESP. 1. Est transgressio legis, ut sive (ut ait Tolet.) est voluntarius recessus a Regula Divina; per quam regulam intelligitur praeceptum tam naturale, et humanum, quam Divinum: per recessum intelligitur actus, vel ejus omissio, qui sit non tantum voluntarius, sed etiam liber, cum aliqua actuali advertentia malitiae, quod addo, quia, ut docet Sanch. 1. mor. c. 16. cum Vasq. Bon. d. 2. q. 1. p. 3. n. 3 et 12. etc. non sufficit ad actum peccaminosum libertas, et advertentia quaevis virtualis, vel interpretativa, qua scilicet quis advertere poterat, et debebat, nec quaecumque actualis, qua scilicet intellectus rationes commodi, et incommodi in objecto attendat: sed requiritur, ut advertat moralem malitiam objecti, aut saltem de ea dubium, vel scrupulum concipiat. Ratio est, tum quia sine ista advertentia non est voluntarium, cum non sit cognitum, quia quandiu talis cogitatio intellectui non occurrit, non est sufficiens, principium deliberandi de malitia, ideoque nec libertas, ac proinde de culpa; et censetur illa inadvertentia naturalis, et invincibilis oblivio. Addit tamen Tann. d. 4 de pecc. q. 5 d. 5. n. 106. non esse necesse, ut consideratio illa maneat actu, vel virtute maneat, ita ut cum ea vel actus peccati fuerit inchoatus, vel saltem causa data, ut fit in ebrio, qui peccat, non vi praesentis, sed praeteritae deliberationis. Vide Bald. l. 1. d. 37. Verum Recentiores communiter docent, talem, verb. gr. ebrium, non peccare formaliter, quando usu rationis caret; sed malitiam eorum, quae tunc fiunt, contraxisse ante, dum praevidens malum, quod commissurus erat, ejus causam dedit: aiuntque, dum quis actu peccat, semper esse, ac manere advertentiam aliquam malitiae tenuem, vel confusam, ut vide apud Scol., nam in ordine ad praxim, parum refert utrolibet modo loquaris.
My translation (since I have nothing better to do):
Sin is the transgression of a law, or a voluntary receding from the Divine Rule; by which Rule is understood not only a Divine precept, but also a natural and human one: by "a receding" is understood an act, or the omission of an act, which is not only voluntary, but also free, with some present advertence to the malice [of the act], which I add because it is not enough for an act to be sinful for there to be freedom and virtual or interpretative advertence, by which, that is to say, a man could was able to advert, and ought to have done so, but with no present [actualis] advertence, that is, by which the intellect pays attention to the object ... reasons convenient and inconvenient [I am lost by the grammar of this sentence] : but it is requisite that he advert to the moral malice of the object, or at least conceive a doubt or suspicion of a doubt concerning that malice. The reason is because without such advertence it is not voluntary, since it is not known, because as long as such a thought does not occur to the intellect, the beginning of deliberating about such malice is not sufficient, and therefore freedom is not present and so there is no fault [I feel sure this is mistranslated] ; and that inadvertence is reckoned as natural, and invincible forgetfulness. ... It is not necessary that that consideration should remain with [during?] the act, or ?power/virtue/???, such that with it after the action of the sin is begun, or at least after the cause is given, as occurs in a drunk man, who sins not with present, but past deliberation. ... Recent authors commonly teach that such a (for example) drunk person does not sin formally when he lacks the use of reason; but the malice of those things, when they occur then, has been contracted before, while foreseeing the evil which he was going to commit, he placed the cause of it; and they say, while he sins by an act, always to be, and some tenuous or confused advertence to the malice remains...for in practice, not enough refers you will speak either way.
Yes, my translation is gibberish. But it is 11 o'clock and time for me to say a rosary.
Saturday 26 December 2009
I am shattered
I only got up at 9, but I didn't really sleep the previous night. I looked at the clock, said to myself "it must be 4 or 5", and found it was a quarter to seven. I lay in bed in a state of semi-somnolence* for most of the night, I think. I sent a nice message to sanabituranima and she replied with what I believe is the nicest message I have ever received. (I shall not quote it here, obviously.)
This afternoon I tried to type, skeletally, all the significant events that have happened in my life between the 7th of October, i.e. the beginning of the last term, and the present. My skeleton reached six and a half thousand words. If it had been fleshed out fully, I do not know how long it would have been. Well, if I had included every conversation, and every letter, and every text message, of significance, it would probably have been the length of a Tolstoy novel. (I am on page 976, by the way. I shall not read any more tonight; I am exhausted.)
Tomorrow is Sunday. Now I WILL go to Mass tomorrow. I shall go to the 11 o'clock Mass, come hell or high water. I don't like missing Mass.
* You thought you could only be in a state of grace or a state of sin, didn't you? Well, you obviously never heard of the state of semi-somnolence.
This afternoon I tried to type, skeletally, all the significant events that have happened in my life between the 7th of October, i.e. the beginning of the last term, and the present. My skeleton reached six and a half thousand words. If it had been fleshed out fully, I do not know how long it would have been. Well, if I had included every conversation, and every letter, and every text message, of significance, it would probably have been the length of a Tolstoy novel. (I am on page 976, by the way. I shall not read any more tonight; I am exhausted.)
Tomorrow is Sunday. Now I WILL go to Mass tomorrow. I shall go to the 11 o'clock Mass, come hell or high water. I don't like missing Mass.
* You thought you could only be in a state of grace or a state of sin, didn't you? Well, you obviously never heard of the state of semi-somnolence.
Friday 25 December 2009
Merry Christmas
It has been a good day. I got lots of nice presents including books, socks, and whatnot. We have spent the day at Grandma's, and had a nice time. Somebody had a toy car in a cracker. I had a cracker with this joke in it:
What do you call a bad lion tamer?
Claude Bottom.
I thought that was the best of the cracker jokes. I had to explain it to someone sitting near by.
Some of us went for a walk in the afternoon.
Apologies for the brevity of this entry, but it is late in the day and there is not a great deal to record.
(And yes, I am lazy.)
Merry Christmas!
What do you call a bad lion tamer?
Claude Bottom.
I thought that was the best of the cracker jokes. I had to explain it to someone sitting near by.
Some of us went for a walk in the afternoon.
Apologies for the brevity of this entry, but it is late in the day and there is not a great deal to record.
(And yes, I am lazy.)
Merry Christmas!
Thursday 24 December 2009
Christmas Eve
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
That is as much as I can remember of that.
Today has been comparatively ordinary. I wrote some labels for some Christmas presents; read up to the bottom of page 871 of War and Peace (I really want to finish that book, I nearly wrote interminable, but the point of reading a book is not to get to the final full stop as quickly as possible). We watched a film (Frost/Nixon), which was enjoyable. I haven't been to Mass this evening; my intention is to go in the morning at 10. Hopefully that will not be too problematic.
Mass is not said at midnight here but at 10.30 p.m. I believe the reason for this is that our dear priest (that is not meant ironically, by the way) wants to go to bed.
The 10AM Mass tomorrow is for the repose of the soul of the late father of someone who teaches English at my old school.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
That is as much as I can remember of that.
Today has been comparatively ordinary. I wrote some labels for some Christmas presents; read up to the bottom of page 871 of War and Peace (I really want to finish that book, I nearly wrote interminable, but the point of reading a book is not to get to the final full stop as quickly as possible). We watched a film (Frost/Nixon), which was enjoyable. I haven't been to Mass this evening; my intention is to go in the morning at 10. Hopefully that will not be too problematic.
Mass is not said at midnight here but at 10.30 p.m. I believe the reason for this is that our dear priest (that is not meant ironically, by the way) wants to go to bed.
The 10AM Mass tomorrow is for the repose of the soul of the late father of someone who teaches English at my old school.
Wednesday 23 December 2009
Greetings, Gentle Reader
I am not very good at titles at the moment, it seems. I hope you have had a happy 23rd of December 2009. You are not going to have another 23rd of December 2009, so I hope you have made the best of this one. I am up to page 723 of War and Peace - so I have read fully a hundred pages. This is very pleasing. I have also had a pleasant telephone conversation with sanabituranima. And a woman from Kentucky came round to sing songs in French and Ukrainian. Apart from that, not a lot has happened today. But sometimes uneventful is good.
I am the only person in this house, and it feels so quiet. I am going to wrap a Christmas present up now.
I am the only person in this house, and it feels so quiet. I am going to wrap a Christmas present up now.
Tuesday 22 December 2009
Hello again
First, an apology. I did not update Soul's Journey On yesterday; this was because (side-drum roll)...
I FORGOT.
Yes, I forgot. I know it's not a very good or very original excuse, but it is true.
I am up to the bottom of page 619 of War and Peace. It is extremely good. I did not expect it to be quite this good. I do not know how a novel can be more real than reality itself; but Tolstoy seems to have managed that, almost.
I don't do things by halves.
I FORGOT.
Yes, I forgot. I know it's not a very good or very original excuse, but it is true.
I am up to the bottom of page 619 of War and Peace. It is extremely good. I did not expect it to be quite this good. I do not know how a novel can be more real than reality itself; but Tolstoy seems to have managed that, almost.
I don't do things by halves.
Sunday 20 December 2009
I'm 21 today!
Today is my 21st birthday. I was feeling quite old earlier - twenty-one years is a long time. I am rather tired now. I had a very nice meal with my family and saw lots of nice people. I had a nice chat with sanabituranima. I had lots of nice presents. I am going to sleep in a bit.
Saturday 19 December 2009
War and Peace Book V Chapter IX. Pierre visits Prince Andrew
Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his friend Bolkónski, whom he had not seen for two years.
Boguchárovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The house lay behind a newly-dug pond filled with water to the brink and with banks still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that stretched along the high road in the midst of a young corpse in which were a few fir trees,
The homestead consisted of a threshing-floor, out-houses, stables, a bath-house, a lodge, and a large brick house with semi-circular façade still in course of constructionb. Round the house was a garden newly laid out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire-pumps and a water-cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the bridges were strong and hand-rails. Everything bore an impress of tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly-built lodge close to the pond. Antón, a man who had looked after Prince Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little ante-room.
Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in Petersburg.
He quickly entered the small reception-room with its still unplasatered wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Antón ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
"A visitor," answered Antón.
"Ask him to wait," and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed back.
Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to face with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre embraced him, and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek and looked at him closely.
"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad," said Prince Andrew.
Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more manly-looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it was his intertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged concentration on some one thought.
As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation, it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They put questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to be talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans for the future, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the war, and so on. The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his friend's look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile with which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince Andrew's presence. He was ashamed to express his new masonic views, which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour. He checked himself, fearing to seem naïce, yet he felt an irresistible desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.
"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly know myself again."
"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then," said Prince Andrew.
"Well, and you? What are your plans?"
"Plans!" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. "My plans?" he said, as if astonished at the word. "Well, you see, I'm building. I mean to settle here altogether next year..."
Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's face, which had grown much older.
"No, I meant to ask..." Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted him.
"But why talk of me?...Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels and all you have been doing on your estates."
Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's story of what he had been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened not only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was telling him.
Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's company and at last became silent.
"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said Prince Andrew, who evidently also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, "I am only bivouacking here, and have just come to look round. I am going back to my sister to-day. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know her already," he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he now found nothing in common. "We will go after dinner. And would you now like to look round my place?"
They went out and walked about till dinner-time, talking of the political news and common acquaintances, like people who do not know each other intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here, while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:
"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then we'll set off."
At dinner conversation turned on Pierre's marriage.
"I was very much surprised when I heard of it," said Prince Andrew.
Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said hurriedly:
"I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know it is all over, and for ever."
"For ever?" said Prince Andrew. "Nothing's for ever."
"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard of the duel?"
"And so you had to go through that too!"
"One thing I thank God for, is that I did not kill that man," said Pierre.
"Why so?" asked Prince Andrew. "To kill a vicious dog is a very good thing really."
"No, to kill a man is bad — wrong."
"Why is it wrong?" urged Prince Andrew. "It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong."
"What does harm to another is wrong," said Pierre, feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present state.
"And who has told you what is bad for another man?" he asked.
"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know what is bad for ourselves."
"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is something I cannot inflict on others," said Prince Andrew, growing more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to Pierre. He spoke in French. "I only know two very real evils in life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now."
"And love of one's neighbour, and self-sacrifice?" began Pierre. "No, I can't agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have to repent, is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying" (Pierre's modesty made him correct himself) "to live for others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree with you, and you do not really believe what you are saying."
Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.
"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on with her," he said. "Perhaps you are right for yourself," he added after a short pause, "but every one lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.—And after all, what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do something for them, a desire for their approval.—So I lived for others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer since I began to live only for myself."
"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?" asked Pierre, growing excited. "What about your son, your sister, and your father?"
"But that's just the same as myself — they are not others," explained Prince Andrew. "The others, one's neighbours, le prochain, as you and Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le prochain — your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good."
And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He evidently wished to draw him on.
"You are joking," replied Pierre, growing more and more excited. "What error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even doing a little — though I did very little and did it very badly? — What evil can there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves, were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers, and are now instructed in a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and consolation? What evil and error is there in it, if people were dying of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night, and I give them rest and leisure?" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. "And I have done that, though badly and to a small extent, but I have done something towards it, and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and more than that, you can't make me believe that you do not think so yourself. And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure happiness in life."
"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different matter," said Prince Andrew. "I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what's right and what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by us. Well, you want an argument," he added, "come on then."
They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served as a verandah.
"Come, let's argue then," said Prince Andrew. "You talk of schools," he went on, crooking a finger, "education and so forth; that is, you want to raise him" (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his cap) "from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but you want to make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then you say, 'lighten his toil'. But as I see it, physical labour is as essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as mental activity is to you or me. You can't help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning, thoughts come and I can't sleep but toss about till dawn, because I think and can't help thinking, just as he can't help ploughing and mowing; if he didn't he would go into the drink-shop or fall ill. Just as I could not stand his terrible physical labour but should die of it in a week, so he could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die. The third thing — what else was it you talked about?" and Prince Andrew crooked a third finger. "Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another ten years. It would be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are being born and there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if you grudged losing a labourer — that's how I regard him — but you want to cure him from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a notion that medicine never cured any one! Killed them, yes!" said he, frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre.
Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.
"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!" said Pierre. "I don't understand how one can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago, in Moscow and when travelling, but at such times I collapse so that I don't live at all — everything seems hateful to me...myself most of all. Then I don't eat, don't wash...and how is it with you?..."
"Why not wash? That is not cleanly," said Prince Andrew; "on the contrary, one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can, without hurting others."
"But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit without moving, undertaking nothing..."
"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do thing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honour to choose me to be their marshal;[1] it was all I could do to get out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications for it — the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the position. Then there's this hosue, which must be built in order to have a nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's this recruiting."
"Why aren't you serving in the army?"
"After Austerlitz!" said Prince Andrew gloomily. "No, thank you very much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active Russian army. And I won't — not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolénsk threatening Bald Hills — even then I wouldn't serve in the Russian army! Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his composure, "now there's this recruiting. My father is chief in command of the 3rd District, and my only way of avoiding active service is to serve under him."
"Then you are serving?"
"I am."
He paused a little while.
"And why do you serve?"
"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel, he has too energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander-in-chief of the recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster's clerk at Yúkhnova hanged," said Prince Andrew with a smile. "So I am serving because I alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him from actions which would torment him afterwards."
"Well, there you see!"
"Yes, but it is not as you imagine," Prince Andrew continued. "I did not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who had stolen some boots from the recruits, I should even have been very glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father — that again is for myself."
Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no desire to do good to his neighbour.
"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs," he continued; "that is a very good thing, but not for you — I don't suppose you ever had any one flogged or sent to Siberia — and still less for your serfs. If they are beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more and more miserable."
Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his father's case.
He did not reply.
"So that's what I am sorry for — human dignity, peace of mind, purity, and not the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave[2] as you may, always remain the same backs and foreheads."
"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you," said Pierre.
[1. Marshal of the nobility, Maréchal de la Noblesse; the official representative of the nobility and landed gentry of a district.]
[2. A proprietor could send any of his serfs as exiles to Siberia, and when going there one side of the head was shaved, that the man might more easily be recaptured should he run away.]
Boguchárovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The house lay behind a newly-dug pond filled with water to the brink and with banks still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that stretched along the high road in the midst of a young corpse in which were a few fir trees,
The homestead consisted of a threshing-floor, out-houses, stables, a bath-house, a lodge, and a large brick house with semi-circular façade still in course of constructionb. Round the house was a garden newly laid out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire-pumps and a water-cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the bridges were strong and hand-rails. Everything bore an impress of tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly-built lodge close to the pond. Antón, a man who had looked after Prince Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little ante-room.
Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in Petersburg.
He quickly entered the small reception-room with its still unplasatered wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Antón ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.
"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant voice.
"A visitor," answered Antón.
"Ask him to wait," and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed back.
Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to face with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre embraced him, and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek and looked at him closely.
"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad," said Prince Andrew.
Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more manly-looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it was his intertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged concentration on some one thought.
As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation, it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They put questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to be talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans for the future, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the war, and so on. The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his friend's look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile with which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince Andrew's presence. He was ashamed to express his new masonic views, which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour. He checked himself, fearing to seem naïce, yet he felt an irresistible desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.
"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly know myself again."
"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then," said Prince Andrew.
"Well, and you? What are your plans?"
"Plans!" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. "My plans?" he said, as if astonished at the word. "Well, you see, I'm building. I mean to settle here altogether next year..."
Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's face, which had grown much older.
"No, I meant to ask..." Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted him.
"But why talk of me?...Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels and all you have been doing on your estates."
Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's story of what he had been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened not only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was telling him.
Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's company and at last became silent.
"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said Prince Andrew, who evidently also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, "I am only bivouacking here, and have just come to look round. I am going back to my sister to-day. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know her already," he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he now found nothing in common. "We will go after dinner. And would you now like to look round my place?"
They went out and walked about till dinner-time, talking of the political news and common acquaintances, like people who do not know each other intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here, while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:
"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then we'll set off."
At dinner conversation turned on Pierre's marriage.
"I was very much surprised when I heard of it," said Prince Andrew.
Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said hurriedly:
"I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know it is all over, and for ever."
"For ever?" said Prince Andrew. "Nothing's for ever."
"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard of the duel?"
"And so you had to go through that too!"
"One thing I thank God for, is that I did not kill that man," said Pierre.
"Why so?" asked Prince Andrew. "To kill a vicious dog is a very good thing really."
"No, to kill a man is bad — wrong."
"Why is it wrong?" urged Prince Andrew. "It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong."
"What does harm to another is wrong," said Pierre, feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present state.
"And who has told you what is bad for another man?" he asked.
"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know what is bad for ourselves."
"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is something I cannot inflict on others," said Prince Andrew, growing more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to Pierre. He spoke in French. "I only know two very real evils in life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now."
"And love of one's neighbour, and self-sacrifice?" began Pierre. "No, I can't agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have to repent, is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying" (Pierre's modesty made him correct himself) "to live for others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree with you, and you do not really believe what you are saying."
Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.
"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on with her," he said. "Perhaps you are right for yourself," he added after a short pause, "but every one lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.—And after all, what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do something for them, a desire for their approval.—So I lived for others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer since I began to live only for myself."
"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?" asked Pierre, growing excited. "What about your son, your sister, and your father?"
"But that's just the same as myself — they are not others," explained Prince Andrew. "The others, one's neighbours, le prochain, as you and Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le prochain — your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good."
And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He evidently wished to draw him on.
"You are joking," replied Pierre, growing more and more excited. "What error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even doing a little — though I did very little and did it very badly? — What evil can there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves, were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers, and are now instructed in a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and consolation? What evil and error is there in it, if people were dying of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night, and I give them rest and leisure?" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. "And I have done that, though badly and to a small extent, but I have done something towards it, and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and more than that, you can't make me believe that you do not think so yourself. And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure happiness in life."
"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different matter," said Prince Andrew. "I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what's right and what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by us. Well, you want an argument," he added, "come on then."
They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served as a verandah.
"Come, let's argue then," said Prince Andrew. "You talk of schools," he went on, crooking a finger, "education and so forth; that is, you want to raise him" (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his cap) "from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but you want to make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then you say, 'lighten his toil'. But as I see it, physical labour is as essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as mental activity is to you or me. You can't help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning, thoughts come and I can't sleep but toss about till dawn, because I think and can't help thinking, just as he can't help ploughing and mowing; if he didn't he would go into the drink-shop or fall ill. Just as I could not stand his terrible physical labour but should die of it in a week, so he could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die. The third thing — what else was it you talked about?" and Prince Andrew crooked a third finger. "Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another ten years. It would be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are being born and there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if you grudged losing a labourer — that's how I regard him — but you want to cure him from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a notion that medicine never cured any one! Killed them, yes!" said he, frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre.
Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.
"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!" said Pierre. "I don't understand how one can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago, in Moscow and when travelling, but at such times I collapse so that I don't live at all — everything seems hateful to me...myself most of all. Then I don't eat, don't wash...and how is it with you?..."
"Why not wash? That is not cleanly," said Prince Andrew; "on the contrary, one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can, without hurting others."
"But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit without moving, undertaking nothing..."
"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do thing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honour to choose me to be their marshal;[1] it was all I could do to get out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications for it — the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the position. Then there's this hosue, which must be built in order to have a nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's this recruiting."
"Why aren't you serving in the army?"
"After Austerlitz!" said Prince Andrew gloomily. "No, thank you very much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active Russian army. And I won't — not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolénsk threatening Bald Hills — even then I wouldn't serve in the Russian army! Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his composure, "now there's this recruiting. My father is chief in command of the 3rd District, and my only way of avoiding active service is to serve under him."
"Then you are serving?"
"I am."
He paused a little while.
"And why do you serve?"
"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel, he has too energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander-in-chief of the recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster's clerk at Yúkhnova hanged," said Prince Andrew with a smile. "So I am serving because I alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him from actions which would torment him afterwards."
"Well, there you see!"
"Yes, but it is not as you imagine," Prince Andrew continued. "I did not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who had stolen some boots from the recruits, I should even have been very glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father — that again is for myself."
Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no desire to do good to his neighbour.
"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs," he continued; "that is a very good thing, but not for you — I don't suppose you ever had any one flogged or sent to Siberia — and still less for your serfs. If they are beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more and more miserable."
Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his father's case.
He did not reply.
"So that's what I am sorry for — human dignity, peace of mind, purity, and not the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave[2] as you may, always remain the same backs and foreheads."
"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you," said Pierre.
[1. Marshal of the nobility, Maréchal de la Noblesse; the official representative of the nobility and landed gentry of a district.]
[2. A proprietor could send any of his serfs as exiles to Siberia, and when going there one side of the head was shaved, that the man might more easily be recaptured should he run away.]
Friday 18 December 2009
I'm home!
I am back in Colchester, the land where the sun never sets, except in the evening. After four trains and a lot of snow, it must be said. I am feeling rather bezonked now. (I thought I invented that word, but apparently I didn't.)
Good night.
Good night.
Wednesday 16 December 2009
An Apology
I implore the Gentle Reader's pardon for having not updated for the last couple of days. Truth is a great deal stranger than fiction; and I wish I had time to say more but it is 1.15 a.m. and I really must sleep.
Sunday 13 December 2009
Gaudete!
Today was Gaudete Sunday. It is now 2.19 a.m. on Monday morning. I did not feel particularly joyful; but we have good cause to rejoice.
"Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel."
I wrote a Facebook message to a priest this morning; the message was four thousand words long. I then had a Skype conversation with him which lasted an hour and a half.
There have been so many events in recent times that it is all rather overwhelming.
Still, God has a purpose in everything that happens.
For the most part my life has been good.
Sometimes there are bad times as well as good. But God has His reasons, even if we cannot know them.
I am wondering about things.
I have a feeling that the next three or four days are not going to be any less eventful than the previous seven.
I want to sit and think.
But now I have been up for nineteen and a half hours and I am going to bed.
Good night.
"Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel."
I wrote a Facebook message to a priest this morning; the message was four thousand words long. I then had a Skype conversation with him which lasted an hour and a half.
There have been so many events in recent times that it is all rather overwhelming.
Still, God has a purpose in everything that happens.
For the most part my life has been good.
Sometimes there are bad times as well as good. But God has His reasons, even if we cannot know them.
I am wondering about things.
I have a feeling that the next three or four days are not going to be any less eventful than the previous seven.
I want to sit and think.
But now I have been up for nineteen and a half hours and I am going to bed.
Good night.
Saturday 12 December 2009
Another Exciting Day
I promised the Gentle Reader that I would update every day; it is now 12.25 a.m. on Sunday morning, but I think we can get away with calling it Saturday, so this is Saturday's update. Again I woke early, and got up I think just before 7. I had breakfast just before 8, and then it was Citalopram Tablet Number 2. I still wonder whether citalopram ought to be illegal, but the side-effects should only last a fortnight or thereabouts. The extreme highs are nice; but I am inclined to think that the extreme low of this evening was not caused merely by external circumstances, though it is doubtful whether being stabbed in the heart by a cutting comment can have helped me very much. But never mind that.
Anyway, the day before the evening was extremely pleasant, and the extremely low spirits I was in this evening were not too much of a price to pay for such a wonderful day before that. I say wonderful, though setting the alarm off in Father Tony's toilet instead of putting the light on was perhaps not one of my finest moments. But it is dark in that room without a light on, and the first thing you find is the cord. Hearing Mass was quite a consolation this morning as in my experience so far it always has been.
I went to Newcastle with CathSoc, or some of CathSoc, and we went to the cathedral bookshop, where I bought a selection of things by Cardinal Newman, who has been a tremendous influence on my life. I shall quote a poem that is in that book at the end of this entry. We went to the Baltic; George did a lot of photographing and videoing, and no doubt this will all appear on the Internet at some point, so you can see Extremely Happy David. (My medication seems to have been giving me tremendous highs as well as an unfortunate extreme low this evening, which I have to attribute in part to the medication. I would not ordinarily be as miserable as I was this evening, though I suppose the circumstances are not ordinary. I can attribute everything, good or bad, to the citalopram, and so absolve myself from all responsibility for any and every action whatsoever. It is wonderful.
We also went to the Catholic Chaplaincy of Newcastle University, where we met Father Downie, the Catholic Chaplain. I played the piano unusually well for myself. I played the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata, Liebestraum Number 3, and "the Entertainer." Actually one person began "The Entertainer," another continued it, and I finished it.
We saw "A Muppet's Christmas Carol" this evening at the Chaplaincy. I was feeling rather miserable at first, but managed eventually to get into the film in spite of the agony that I was experiencing, not only mental but also in my stomach. (I don't think cutting comments cause stomach pains in the ordinary course of human experience.) I really enjoyed the songs which managed to lessen the pain somewhat. Therapeutic effect of music and all that. Ah, but that reminds me of my music therapy essay, which is due in on WEDNESDAY. Oh, let us not think of such things. One moment at a time. That is the only way to live.
Unfortunately towards the end of the evening, I began to feel rather dejected, and I returned back to Collingwood with my excellent friend Tom Carson, who has been very kind and complimentary. I am very grateful to God for all my friends. I make no apology for quoting this:
For no one, in our long decline,
So dusty, spiteful, and divided,
Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,
Or loved them half as much as I did.
Since Saturday is now over, so is this extraordinary and frankly difficult week. I said I conclude with a poem from the book, and so here it is:
DESOLATION.
O, SAY not thou art left of God,
Because His tokens in the sky
Thou canst not read; this earth He trod
To teach thee He was ever nigh.
He sees, beneath the fig tree green,
Nathaniel con his sacred lore;
Shouldst thou thy chamber seek, unseen
He enters through the unopen'd door.
And when thou liest, by slumber bound,
Outwearied in the Christian fight,
In glory, girt with Saints around,
He stands above thee through the night.
When friends to Emmaus bend their course,
He joins, although He holds their eyes;
Or, shouldst thou feel some fever's force,
He takes thy hand, He bids thee rise.
Or on a voyage, when calms prevail,
And prison thee upon the sea,
He walks the wave, He wings the sail,
The shore is gain'd, and thou art free.
(Cardinal Newman, 18th June, 1833.)
Anyway, the day before the evening was extremely pleasant, and the extremely low spirits I was in this evening were not too much of a price to pay for such a wonderful day before that. I say wonderful, though setting the alarm off in Father Tony's toilet instead of putting the light on was perhaps not one of my finest moments. But it is dark in that room without a light on, and the first thing you find is the cord. Hearing Mass was quite a consolation this morning as in my experience so far it always has been.
I went to Newcastle with CathSoc, or some of CathSoc, and we went to the cathedral bookshop, where I bought a selection of things by Cardinal Newman, who has been a tremendous influence on my life. I shall quote a poem that is in that book at the end of this entry. We went to the Baltic; George did a lot of photographing and videoing, and no doubt this will all appear on the Internet at some point, so you can see Extremely Happy David. (My medication seems to have been giving me tremendous highs as well as an unfortunate extreme low this evening, which I have to attribute in part to the medication. I would not ordinarily be as miserable as I was this evening, though I suppose the circumstances are not ordinary. I can attribute everything, good or bad, to the citalopram, and so absolve myself from all responsibility for any and every action whatsoever. It is wonderful.
We also went to the Catholic Chaplaincy of Newcastle University, where we met Father Downie, the Catholic Chaplain. I played the piano unusually well for myself. I played the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata, Liebestraum Number 3, and "the Entertainer." Actually one person began "The Entertainer," another continued it, and I finished it.
We saw "A Muppet's Christmas Carol" this evening at the Chaplaincy. I was feeling rather miserable at first, but managed eventually to get into the film in spite of the agony that I was experiencing, not only mental but also in my stomach. (I don't think cutting comments cause stomach pains in the ordinary course of human experience.) I really enjoyed the songs which managed to lessen the pain somewhat. Therapeutic effect of music and all that. Ah, but that reminds me of my music therapy essay, which is due in on WEDNESDAY. Oh, let us not think of such things. One moment at a time. That is the only way to live.
Unfortunately towards the end of the evening, I began to feel rather dejected, and I returned back to Collingwood with my excellent friend Tom Carson, who has been very kind and complimentary. I am very grateful to God for all my friends. I make no apology for quoting this:
For no one, in our long decline,
So dusty, spiteful, and divided,
Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,
Or loved them half as much as I did.
Since Saturday is now over, so is this extraordinary and frankly difficult week. I said I conclude with a poem from the book, and so here it is:
DESOLATION.
O, SAY not thou art left of God,
Because His tokens in the sky
Thou canst not read; this earth He trod
To teach thee He was ever nigh.
He sees, beneath the fig tree green,
Nathaniel con his sacred lore;
Shouldst thou thy chamber seek, unseen
He enters through the unopen'd door.
And when thou liest, by slumber bound,
Outwearied in the Christian fight,
In glory, girt with Saints around,
He stands above thee through the night.
When friends to Emmaus bend their course,
He joins, although He holds their eyes;
Or, shouldst thou feel some fever's force,
He takes thy hand, He bids thee rise.
Or on a voyage, when calms prevail,
And prison thee upon the sea,
He walks the wave, He wings the sail,
The shore is gain'd, and thou art free.
(Cardinal Newman, 18th June, 1833.)
Friday 11 December 2009
Hello again
Well, I have managed to survive until 5.15 without manically updating my blog every three hours. (Does anybody else find that they automatically type "horus" every time they want to type "hours," or is it just me? I once Googled "Liturgy of the Horus" by accident; I tried to do so just now and typed "liturgy of the hrosu," but never mind that. I tend to type very quickly and backspace when necessary.)
I have not, alas, done an awful lot of work today, though I have not totally wasted it. An awful lot has happened in the last few days; it would, I suppose, be too much to say that enough has happened to make up for the preceding twenty years, but it does rather feel like that.
I woke at 6, rose at 7, and had breakfast at 8, immediately after which I took my first ever tablet of citalopram. (Wham!)
I see why sanabituranima advised me against reading the list of side effects on the leaflet that came with it. The list of symptoms reminds me of the Tale of Brave Sir Robin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SJ0xR2_bQ
Here it is:
Side effects which can occur after taking citalopram include:
Very common: feeling sick, dry mouth, sleepiness, shakiness of the arms and legs, diarrhoea, headache, dizziness, visual disturbances, difficulty in sleeping, constipation, weakness, increased sweating, palpitations, agitations, nervousness.
Common:
General effects and effects on the central nervous system: tingling (pins and needles), anxiety, problems with concentration, confusion, suicide attempts, problems sleeping, abnormal dreams, tiredness, yawning, abnormalities of vision, migraine, loss of memory, listlessness.
Effects on the cardiovascular system: feeling faint after standing, fast heart rate.
Effects on the digestive system: loss of appetite or aversion to food, increase in appetite, loss of or increase in weight, indigestion, stomach pain, wind, vomiting, abnormalities of taste, increased salivation.
Effects on the respiratory system: runny nose, sinusitis.
Effects on the genito-urinary system: impotence and problems with ejaculation, reduced libido, problems in reaching orgasm (women), problems with passing water, passing water frequently, period pains.
Effects on the skin: rash, itching.
Uncommon: muscle pain, jerky movements, fits, ringing in the ears, false sense of wellbeing, increased desire for sex, coughing, malaise (generally feeling unwell), sensitivity to sunlight, changes in liver function, slow heart rate, fainting, allergic reactions
Rare: bleeding (in the skin, bruising stomach and from the vagina), an increased bleeding time and changes in the salt balance in your body.
Another rare effect is the serotonin syndrome. This is a serious condition that can cause fever, confusion, abnormal movements, shivering, muscle spasms, agitation and progress to coma or loss of consciousness.
Then it goes on to "Other invents reported include" and "Withdrawal symptoms."
But I think that is quite enough for now.
I found, bizarrely, that the citalopram gave me a tremendous high (no you can NOT have my citalopram), made me dizzy and weak, and shake briefly a bit; I needed to sit down and had a fast heart rate; and my mind seemed rather hyper; and I felt as though I had had about six pints of beer (I am slightly getrunken after one pint of beer). And I started babbling gibberish.
"I think I'll read a book now. Yes, I know, that's what I'll do, I'll read a book. I'll read a book for an hour. For an hour I'll read a book. ... [reads one sentence]... Oh really? How interesting!"
That kind of gibberish, not "Barack Obama appeared in my room and said he was the Second Coming" kind of gibberish.
And I also giggled for quite a while. In fact, I seem to have been giggling rather a lot. There were also brief stomach pains.
But side-effects are normal when you start taking citalopram; they normally last a couple of weeks.
Sanabituranima says: "The side-effects should not last long. But there is a foul period with any anti-depressant where you get all the side-effects and none of the benefits. Nothing can be done except following the advice in your profile picture and praying a lot."
That is, my Facebook profile picture, which is a wartime poster, "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON."
I have not, alas, done an awful lot of work today, though I have not totally wasted it. An awful lot has happened in the last few days; it would, I suppose, be too much to say that enough has happened to make up for the preceding twenty years, but it does rather feel like that.
I woke at 6, rose at 7, and had breakfast at 8, immediately after which I took my first ever tablet of citalopram. (Wham!)
I see why sanabituranima advised me against reading the list of side effects on the leaflet that came with it. The list of symptoms reminds me of the Tale of Brave Sir Robin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SJ0xR2_bQ
Here it is:
Side effects which can occur after taking citalopram include:
Very common: feeling sick, dry mouth, sleepiness, shakiness of the arms and legs, diarrhoea, headache, dizziness, visual disturbances, difficulty in sleeping, constipation, weakness, increased sweating, palpitations, agitations, nervousness.
Common:
General effects and effects on the central nervous system: tingling (pins and needles), anxiety, problems with concentration, confusion, suicide attempts, problems sleeping, abnormal dreams, tiredness, yawning, abnormalities of vision, migraine, loss of memory, listlessness.
Effects on the cardiovascular system: feeling faint after standing, fast heart rate.
Effects on the digestive system: loss of appetite or aversion to food, increase in appetite, loss of or increase in weight, indigestion, stomach pain, wind, vomiting, abnormalities of taste, increased salivation.
Effects on the respiratory system: runny nose, sinusitis.
Effects on the genito-urinary system: impotence and problems with ejaculation, reduced libido, problems in reaching orgasm (women), problems with passing water, passing water frequently, period pains.
Effects on the skin: rash, itching.
Uncommon: muscle pain, jerky movements, fits, ringing in the ears, false sense of wellbeing, increased desire for sex, coughing, malaise (generally feeling unwell), sensitivity to sunlight, changes in liver function, slow heart rate, fainting, allergic reactions
Rare: bleeding (in the skin, bruising stomach and from the vagina), an increased bleeding time and changes in the salt balance in your body.
Another rare effect is the serotonin syndrome. This is a serious condition that can cause fever, confusion, abnormal movements, shivering, muscle spasms, agitation and progress to coma or loss of consciousness.
Then it goes on to "Other invents reported include" and "Withdrawal symptoms."
But I think that is quite enough for now.
I found, bizarrely, that the citalopram gave me a tremendous high (no you can NOT have my citalopram), made me dizzy and weak, and shake briefly a bit; I needed to sit down and had a fast heart rate; and my mind seemed rather hyper; and I felt as though I had had about six pints of beer (I am slightly getrunken after one pint of beer). And I started babbling gibberish.
"I think I'll read a book now. Yes, I know, that's what I'll do, I'll read a book. I'll read a book for an hour. For an hour I'll read a book. ... [reads one sentence]... Oh really? How interesting!"
That kind of gibberish, not "Barack Obama appeared in my room and said he was the Second Coming" kind of gibberish.
And I also giggled for quite a while. In fact, I seem to have been giggling rather a lot. There were also brief stomach pains.
But side-effects are normal when you start taking citalopram; they normally last a couple of weeks.
Sanabituranima says: "The side-effects should not last long. But there is a foul period with any anti-depressant where you get all the side-effects and none of the benefits. Nothing can be done except following the advice in your profile picture and praying a lot."
That is, my Facebook profile picture, which is a wartime poster, "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON."
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Post #1
I am David, a sinner. Welcome to my blog, "Soul's Journey On." My first blog of any substance was called "Soul's Journey Home," which lasted from Tuesday, 3rd April, 2007, to the 15th of September 2008, by which time it was rather bleak. I suppose that should really have ended with the description of my reception into the Church; but no matter. I was never particularly satisfied with the name "Soul's Journey Home," but once I had it I was stuck with it. Anyhow, here is my new blog.
I should begin by introducing myself.
I am David, a sinner. I am in the third year of a degree in music at Durham. I am a Catholic; I became a Catholic in 2008, and, so far, I have not lapsed. I am a musician, as is perhaps obvious, and I play the piano and attempt to play the organ, I sing, and I pretend to play the cello. I can speak French to some extent, and also some German, and a little Italian, and I can read Latin.
I am very grateful to God, who is infinitely perfect, and to my friends, who are the most wonderful people in the world.
I began this post yesterday, Wednesday. I am going through a very tumultuous time at the moment, and this morning I saw a doctor, who said I seemed to have developed depression: and he was right. He gave me a choice of (a) medication, (b) psychotherapy (which he seemed to think would be better), or (c) a combination of both. I opted for (c). I am not looking forward to psychotherapy, and I am in low spirits now. I was happy earlier because I was relieved; but during my tutorial this afernoon I became rather bored and lost interest in the subject. My room is much tidier than it was earlier, which suggests to me that somebody has cleaned it. This pleases me considerably, since now that the room seems to have mostly tidied itself I feel able to (a) do the laundry and (b) tidy what of my room is not yet tidied. I shall do that this evening, I think. I may go for a walk later to raise my spirits.
I am going to make the Gentle Reader (I do not venture the use of the plural, and perhaps even the singular is expecting too much) one promise: and that is that I shall update this, as far as I can, every day. I expect it will usually be in the evening. In fact I may have to compel myself not to update it during the day, when I ought to be doing Useful Things.
I am frightened.
- Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1833
I should begin by introducing myself.
I am David, a sinner. I am in the third year of a degree in music at Durham. I am a Catholic; I became a Catholic in 2008, and, so far, I have not lapsed. I am a musician, as is perhaps obvious, and I play the piano and attempt to play the organ, I sing, and I pretend to play the cello. I can speak French to some extent, and also some German, and a little Italian, and I can read Latin.
I am very grateful to God, who is infinitely perfect, and to my friends, who are the most wonderful people in the world.
I began this post yesterday, Wednesday. I am going through a very tumultuous time at the moment, and this morning I saw a doctor, who said I seemed to have developed depression: and he was right. He gave me a choice of (a) medication, (b) psychotherapy (which he seemed to think would be better), or (c) a combination of both. I opted for (c). I am not looking forward to psychotherapy, and I am in low spirits now. I was happy earlier because I was relieved; but during my tutorial this afernoon I became rather bored and lost interest in the subject. My room is much tidier than it was earlier, which suggests to me that somebody has cleaned it. This pleases me considerably, since now that the room seems to have mostly tidied itself I feel able to (a) do the laundry and (b) tidy what of my room is not yet tidied. I shall do that this evening, I think. I may go for a walk later to raise my spirits.
I am going to make the Gentle Reader (I do not venture the use of the plural, and perhaps even the singular is expecting too much) one promise: and that is that I shall update this, as far as I can, every day. I expect it will usually be in the evening. In fact I may have to compel myself not to update it during the day, when I ought to be doing Useful Things.
I am frightened.
Lead, kindly Light, amid th'encircling gloom,
lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
the distant scene; one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
pride ruled my will: remember not past years!
So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
- Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1833
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