The most intriguing problem is to place the human being in this scheme. Is he just a transitional step on the way to something else (for example, Nietzsche’s Übermensch), or does he occupy a place on the tip of the branch, which would account for his relative youth as a species?
Just now an answer to this problem has occurred to me. If we breed some animal that reproduces very quickly—for example, one of the lower organisms or protozoa, or bacteria—then, after a time, we may have hundreds of generations, and according to the law of evolution, the last ones may differ radically from the first. Observing how many generations must pass to produce a distinction, knowing how much time is necessary for one generation to become extinct and succeed in passing on its life to another, we might deduce the relationship between the origins of life and the stage when distinctions will emerge.
This relationship may be applied to humans, to discover when such distinctions could have emerged, or might do so in the future, thus making it possible to determine a person’s place in the taxonomy of existing and previously existing species.
This little theory of mine follows from the fact that I presuppose a direct correlation between the age of the human species and the culmination of a phase after which he can pass on life to something else.
Now, having written this, I am already questioning it. Even as I was writing the last page, I already knew that when I finished the “theory” I would have to refute it. Darwin proved only the law of evolution of organic life, attaching to it an explanation: natural selection. Darwin stopped short of including humans in this process. It was Thomas Huxley who did that, acknowledging that the closest relative of the human being is the ape.
As a matter of fact, this isn’t true. Darwin often repeats: “The origin of humans from some species of lower animal is irrefutable. The monkey evolved from the same ancestor.”
The biogenetic law of Ernst Haeckel states that the “ontogeny, or the growth of the embryo, schematically recapitulates phylogeny, or the history of development of the species.”
Asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, or reproduction without participation of males and their spermatozoa, is widespread in nature (drones, for example).
If the spermatozoa could be artificially emulated, their role, most likely, would come down to a shove, a push, given to the female egg. Both artificial coercion and chemical manipulation work in this way.
On the other hand, we also know of several cases of so-called merogony, or the independent development and reproduction of the spermatozoid. Thus, the process of fertilization turns out to be only one of the ways nature achieves the goal of reproduction, including in higher animals. If I didn’t want to study music, I would study biology. It’s the most fascinating branch of science I’ve read for a long time.
But music is more important to me!
JANUARY 15
By now, I’ve already started to love my journal and the pleasure of writing.
I’m already finishing my first volume of the Complete Works of J. Ossetsky.
I’ll begin the second volume with even greater enthusiasm than the first.
It’s quiet around me …
I opened the window a crack—the sparrows are chittering away, and my heart feels calm, a bit sad—I have a feeling of satisfaction after making notes in my journal. And, somehow, sadness about the unknown future …
Today I went outside for the first time since my recovery.
FEBRUARY 1
How weak man is! I have, it would seem, principles, my own worldview, and some notion of freedom, and of sexual morality. But it only takes a single glance at the décolleté of a washerwoman and I feel a rush of blood to my heart (yes, my heart), I can’t see or think straight, and something draws me to her …
When she disappears, I am well again, except that my hands tremble slightly. It is outrageous that I can’t keep myself under control. I’m sure that a woman would just have to wink at me and I’d run after her like a puppy; I’d forget Ellen Key, and Tolstoy, and Jules Payot.
What contrasts! After this, I sit and read Ellen Key. To fortify my nature—most likely that same nature that tomorrow will start chasing after a washerwoman.
FEBRUARY 15
Today I decided to speak to Papa about my further studies. I’ll graduate from the Commercial High School in the spring, and want to study music. I was too impassioned about it last time; I understand that now. Papa listened to me with complete indifference, as though he had made up his mind long before, and it was final. He said I had to enter the Commercial Institute, and agreed to pay for my further musical studies only if I enrolled in the university. This conversation was very unpleasant to me. Precisely because of the money. Whatever he talks about, it all comes down to materialism, to money.
APRIL 7
I read The Chronicle of My Musical Life by Rimsky-Korsakov. It made a strong impression. Now I desperately want to perform with real talent, to go to Petersburg to be around talented people. I want to be a talent myself. While I was reading, I started believing I could embark on that path. Maybe in five or six years I’ll laugh at these dreams of mine …
APRIL 11
Music lessons. A new teacher, Mr. Bylinkin. It feels as though I didn’t know anything before. It’s ANOTHER kind of music altogether! I began to hear it completely afresh. Up until now I’ve been playing all WRONG!
APRIL 19
Beardsley has an illustration for Chopin’s Ballade (op. 47).
APRIL 20
Today I discovered something that I have already managed to disprove.
Because of how a piano is tempered, the same notes in the higher and lower registers are not in unison. Thus, for the C in the contra-octave, C-sharp will be in unison in the four-line octave, not C. Just now I hit upon the following idea: continuous C octaves played in the contra-octave.
On top of it, a short melodic pattern played around the C in the four-line octave—a consonantly sounding chord. Then the pattern—without change—moves downward toward the three-, two-, one-line octaves. Then it continues down to the small, great, and finally the contra-octave.
The small error grows, and in the contra-octave already turns into dissonance.
One might call it “the gradual transition of consonance into dissonance.” Very interesting idea!
You can actually do all kinds of “tricks” with piano temperament.
APRIL 24
I could never live alone. I love company. Only in company do I feel alive, happy, witty.
I cannot imagine myself without society around me. I dream about a group of people, a society, where I am at the very center.
In my heart of hearts, I dream of being raised up on a stage, to the people’s cries and applause. All around there are frock coats, ribbons, bare shoulders … seas of flowers … But without society?
“Gentlemen, you cannot imagine how hard it is when a man has nowhere to go. A man needs to have someplace to go to.” Even Dostoevsky, the gloomiest, darkest of writers, speaks about the pain of loneliness, through the words of Marmeladov. Even such a giant among men as Dostoevsky feared the horror of loneliness!
I become afraid. The picture of a man sitting alone in a dark room—this is what fills me with fear. Now I’m writing in a comfortable room after my lessons. I’m thinking about how I’m going to visit some girl students from the women’s college. My heart warms at the thought. Yet someone else might be sitting in a room, alone with his thoughts …
I’d like to go to him, to take him gently by the arm and lead him into society, to make him start talking. I would tell him how he makes his own life difficult and absurd … but I have no skill, no dexterity, no strength to accomplish this …