"This book is the first half of my Diary, the "Modern Record," which was conducted in St. Petersburg during the war and revolution... The diary is not a slender "story about life," when the one describing today already knows tomorrow, knows how it will end. The diary is the very flow of life. This is the difference between the "Modern Record" and any "Memories," and this is its special advantages: it resurrects the atmosphere, resurrecting the disappearances from the memory of little things. "Memories" can provide an image of time. But only the Diary gives time in its duration."