My will is approximately as follows.

(Until I have written another this holds good.)

(1). To bury me where I die, in the cheapest cemetery, if I die in a town, and in the cheapest coffin, as paupers are buried. Flowers and wreaths are not to be sent, speeches are not to be made. If possible, bury me without priests or burial service. But if those who bury me dislike this, let them bury me in the ordinary way with a funeral service, but as cheaply and simply as possible.

(2.) My death is not to be announced in the newspapers, nor are obituary notices to be written.

(3.) All my papers are to be given to my wife, V. G. Chertkov, Strakhov, and to my daughters Tanya and Masha,[P] for them, or for such of them as survive, to sort and examine. (I have myself struck out my daughter's names. They ought not to be bothered with this.)

I exclude my sons from this bequest not because I did not love them (I have come of late to love them better and better, thank God) and I know that they love me; but they do not altogether understand my ideas; they did not follow their development; and they may have views of their own which may lead them to keep what ought not to be kept and to reject what ought to be kept. I have taken out of the diaries of my bachelor life what is worth keeping. I wish them to be destroyed. Also in the diaries of my married life I wish to be destroyed everything which might hurt anyone if published. Chertkov has promised me to do this even during my lifetime, and knowing the great and undeserved love that he has for me and his moral sensibility I am sure that he will do it splendidly. I wish the diaries of my bachelor life to be destroyed not because I wish to conceal the wickedness of my life—my life was the usual unclean life of an unprincipled young man—but because the diaries in which I recorded only the torments which arise from the consciousness of sin produce a false and one-sided impression and represent.... Well, let my diaries remain as they are. In them at least is seen how in spite of all the frivolity and immorality of my youth I yet was not deserted by God and though it was only in old age, I began, though only a little, to understand and love Him.

I write this not that I attribute great or even any importance to my papers, but because I know beforehand that after my death my books will be published, and will be talked about, and will be thought to be important. If that is so, it is better that my writings should not harm people.

As for the remainder of my papers I ask those who will have the arrangement of them not to publish everything, but only that which may be of use to people.

(4). With regard to the publishing rights of my former works—the ten volumes and the A. B. C.—I ask my heirs to give these to the public, i. e. to renounce the copyrights. But I only ask this, in no sense order it. It would be a good thing to do it. It would be good for you also. But if you do not wish to do it, that is your business. It means that you are not ready to do it. That my books for the last ten years have been sold was to me the most painful thing in my life.

(5). There is one more request, and it is the most important. I ask all, relations and strangers alike, not to praise me (I know that this must happen, because it has happened during my life time and in the worst way possible). Also if people are going to occupy themselves with my writings, let them dwell upon those passages in which I knew that the Divine power spoke through me; and let them make use of them in their lives. There were times when I felt that I had become the agent of the Divine will. Often I was so impure, so filled with personal passions, that the light of this truth was obscured by my darkness; but at times the truth passed through me, and these were the happiest moments of my life. God grant that their passage through me did not profane those truths, and that people, notwithstanding the petty and impure character which they received from me, may feed on them. The value of my writings lies in this alone. And therefore I am to be blamed for them, but not praised.

That is all.

L. N. T.