Khortiza, September 20, 1919

I was on the island. The ferry is but half a mile away from our house up there behind the pear tree. A breach in the high rock bank makes an anchoring place for the ferryboat.

It was noiselessly quiet all around as the silent boatman rowed me over. I felt in the same mood as when looking on Boecklin’s “The Island of Death.” I got off on the bank of the island and plodded heavily through the deep sand, directing myself toward the pine woods. I then left the main road and found solid ground. At once I stood before old fortifications—the ramparts. That recalled to my mind the ancient school story of the Sietsh of those Saparogs who, two hundred years ago, had found their gathering place just here. That is why the island always was considered a historical spot. Gogol has in later times dipped the memory of that Sietsh in the rose-colored light of poetry. Since that time the Saporogs have figured in the description of the Sietsh as national heroes. The historian, however, knows that those heroes looked very much like the hard leaders of our days.

Is there not already now a legendary tale being woven about Makhno, as about Taras Bulba, the Saporog?—

It was a hot fall day yesterday, and the pines produced a strong resinous exhalation which so salutarily worked on my senses that it was not without effort and appeal to my will-power that I finally left the woods. That is the mysterious lure of the woods. And today again I feel the enticing call. It is delicious to rest on dry ground beneath the trees. I feel restored by nature. The treeless steppe is tiring, but here in the midst of the steppe I find woods, streams, and rocky banks. And then I am free to bathe in the clear water of the Dnieper. All that makes one feel in harmony with nature.

Such experience heals the sorrow and pain which my suffering with our times brings upon me. That also gives me joy in my work. When I, in such a mood, stand opening soul and mind before my students, then the hearts of my young listeners fly toward me like doves to which one strews golden grains. Then I am becoming humble and confine my work solely to a small circle.

I do not know the extent of the greatness the Russian Revolution will reach. We are in a wilderness and are unable to organize the world from this place, though we surmise that humanity must necessarily be a unit. That is how it should be.

Around us is peace. But who knows whether it is the stillness before a new storm or the beginning of a permanent development? I do not wish to prophesy, but I cannot help meditating upon the conditions around us. I feel that the Horoscope must indicate vibrations for the near future and that, no doubt, means that we are going into grave and weighty events.

Most of the colonists cheer the rule of General Denikin, but they overlook the growing displeasure of Russian peasants. Yet, Denikin is less dependent on these colonists than on the attitude of the Russian village inhabitants.

How I should like not to care about all those happenings! I would just do my everyday duty. But such turning away reminds me of the ostrich which, while in danger, hides his head in the sand.

Only, one sees that all is going the wrong way. Apparently nobody is able to change it in the least. It is in vain, just now, to preach common sense in our country. First, there must come presence of mind. People are drunk with that precious thing called liberty. They now endanger that freedom they deserved so much, after having been so long deprived of it. How it grieves those who spent their lives in helping to bring about freedom for their beloved people who see them misled and robbed of that costly, heavenly gift. Indeed, not too early they got it but too late. Now it will do much harm until they regain their equilibrium.