"Evidently
that man will soon die."

I still, as in the past, lecture fairly well; I can still, as in the
past, hold the attention of my listeners for a couple of hours. My
fervour, the literary skill of my exposition, and my humour, almost
efface the defects of my voice, though it is harsh, dry, and monotonous
as a praying beggar's. I write poorly. That bit of my brain which
presides over the faculty of authorship refuses to work. My memory has
grown weak; there is a lack of sequence in my ideas, and when I put them
on paper it always seems to me that I have lost the instinct for their
organic connection; my construction is monotonous; my language is
poor and timid. Often I write what I do not mean; I have forgotten the
beginning when I am writing the end. Often I forget ordinary words, and
I always have to waste a great deal of energy in avoiding superfluous
phrases and unnecessary parentheses in my letters, both unmistakable
proofs of a decline in mental activity. And it is noteworthy that
the simpler the letter the more painful the effort to write it. At a
scientific article I feel far more intelligent and at ease than at a
letter of congratulation or a minute of proceedings. Another point: I
find it easier to write German or English than to write Russian.

As regards my present manner of life, I must give a foremost place to
the insomnia from which I have suffered of late. If I were asked what
constituted the chief and fundamental feature of my existence now, I
should answer, Insomnia. As in the past, from habit I undress and go to
bed exactly at midnight. I fall asleep quickly, but before two o'clock
I wake up and feel as though I had not slept at all. Sometimes I get out
of bed and light a lamp. For an hour or two I walk up and down the room
looking at the familiar photographs and pictures. When I am weary of
walking about, I sit down to my table. I sit motionless, thinking of
nothing, conscious of no inclination; if a book is lying before me, I
mechanically move it closer and read it without any interest--in that
way not long ago I mechanically read through in one night a whole novel,
with the strange title "The Song the Lark was Singing"; or to occupy my
attention I force myself to count to a thousand; or I imagine the face
of one of my colleagues and begin trying to remember in what year and
under what circumstances he entered the service. I like listening to
sounds. Two rooms away from me my daughter Liza s