«… After resting, Karsavin found time when he could work. After breakfast he settled down half-sitting in bed. His legs bent at the knees and a piece of plywood on them served him as a music stand. With a shard of glass, he sharpened a pencil, leisurely drew lines on a sheet of paper and wrote in a straight, thin, slightly trembling handwriting. He wrote almost without corrections, interrupting work only to sharpen a pencil or line another sheet. First of all, the Wreath of Sonnets, composed as a souvenir in the remand prison, was written down... Having finished work on the Sonnets, Karsavin continued the poetic expression of his ideas in the Terzines, after which he wrote a Commentary on his poems... The favorable time for work was short. At about 11 o'clock the doctor's rounds began. Then Karsavin put away everything related to written work in the bedside table, read, if there was something to read, talked... And in general, he spent the rest of the day in the same way as everyone else did. People around him saw in him an eccentric old man, who wrote out of idleness or out of habit."

"In everything that Karsavin said, I was attracted by a certain special, hitherto unknown essentiality of understanding. Karsavin knew how to speak without imposing himself in the least. Of the things that were most serious to him, he spoke as if he were a little joking. And as he spoke, the restrained, affectionate half-smile on his face and the diamond gleam in the warm blackness of his eyes seemed to remove the distance between him and the interlocutor. When he went deep into himself, his gaze acquired concentration, did not withdraw into itself, but passed through the surroundings, as if beyond the limits of the visible. The same is true of what he wrote... Our "here" became transparent to him, but never illusory. This is the method of Karsavin's spiritual work. In his speculations, the world remains itself and loses nothing, but undergoes a new comprehension."

But the philosopher's days were already numbered. His tuberculosis is progressing rapidly, and the names of the parts in the Memoirs are the stages of his descent through the steps of the camp medical system: Inpatient — Semi-Inpatient — Isolation Ward for the Hopeless. The last hours were approaching.

"When I came the next day, Karsavin said to me in a cheerful voice:

"A priest, a Lithuanian, came to me. I confessed to him in Lithuanian. You see how God came up with the idea of arranging through you.

Karsavin was lying on his back, his hands on top of the blanket. In the slit of his unbuttoned shirt I saw that on his chest lay two crosses, one mine, made of lead, and the other black, gleaming with a miniature crucifix. I was surprised and asked:

"Why are you wearing two crosses?"

He looked at me a little guilty.

"It's Sventonis," he said, "who came after confession." He congratulated me and wanted to give me a cross. I did not mind so as not to upset him. Let there be two.

With regard to Karsavin, the East and the West seemed to be ready to remove their differences."

Karsavin died on July 20, 1952. In his last days, two relatives were with him: in addition to A. A. Vaneyev, Vladas Šimkūnas, a Lithuanian doctor who worked as a pathologist in the camp hospital. A striking episode is connected with this last detail, with which we will conclude our story.

"Šimkūnas came because he had a business in mind and wanted me to help him. The point was this. As Šimkūnas said, those who died in the camp are buried in unmarked graves, each with only a peg with a conventional number is placed. Such identification marks are short-lived, and it is impossible to determine later who is buried where. And sooner or later, the time will come when Karsavin will be remembered and, perhaps, they will want to find his remains. There is a simple way for Karsavin's ashes to be identified. When Karsavin's body is autopsied, it is necessary to put a hermetically sealed vial with a note in the insides, which would say who Karsavin is. Šimkūnas wanted me to write this note."

"I did not immediately respond to Šimkūnas, because my feelings seemed to be divided by his words. There was something monstrous in his proposal, in all this thoughtfulness. On the other hand, there was something touching about the same thing. The situation did not allow a monument with a proper inscription to be erected on Karsavin's grave, as we would have liked. Instead of a monument, Šimkūnas proposed that a secret epitaph be written, intended to lie buried with the person to whom it is dedicated... I accepted Šimkūnas' idea and agreed to his proposal.

"I'll write," I said, "but I've got to collect my thoughts." Whether they ever find this note or not, I am responsible for every word at all times."