Sunday.—A day of horrible ennui and despair. I tried to read the Old Testament, of course in Russian, for Hebrew books I have none, and it is doubtful whether I could read them if I had. But the black cloud remained. It chokes me as I write. My limbs are as lead, my head aches. And yet I know the ailment is not of the body.
Monday.—The depression persists. I made a little expedition into the country. I rowed up the stream in a duscehubka. I tried to forget everything but the colours of the forest and the sparkle of the waters. The air was less cold than it has been for the last few days, but the russet of the pine-leaves spoke to me only of melancholy and decay. The sun set in blood behind the hills. Once I heard the howl of the wolves, but they were far away.
Monday.—So. Just a week. Nicholas Alexandrovitch says I must not write yet, but I must fill up the record, even if in a few lines. It is strange how every habit—even diary-keeping—enslaves you, till you think only of your neglected task. Ah, well! if I have been ill, I have been lucky in my period, for those frightful storms would have kept me indoors. Nicholas Alexandrovitch says it was a mild attack of influenza. God preserve me from a severe one! And yet would it not be better if it had carried me off altogether? But that is a cowardly thought. I must face the future bravely, for my own hands have forged my fate. How the writing trembles and contorts itself! I must remember Nicholas's caution. He is a frank, good-hearted fellow, is our village doctor, and I have had two or three talks with him from between the bedclothes. I don't think friend Nicholas is a very devout Christian, by the by; for he said one or two things which I should have taken seriously, had I been what he thinks I am; but which had an audacious, ironical sound to my sympathetic, sceptical ears. How funny was that story about the Archimandrite of Czernovitch!
Thursday Afternoon.—My haste to be out of bed precipitated me back again into it. But the actual pain has been small. I have grown very friendly with Nicholas Alexandrovitch, and he has promised to spend the evening with me. I am better now in body, though still troubled in mind. Paul's silence has brought a new anxiety. He has not written for twelve days. What can be the matter with him? I suppose he is overworking himself. And now to hunt up my best cigarettes for Monsieur le médecin. Strange that illness should perhaps have brought me a friend. Nothing, alas! can bring me a confidant.
11 p.m.—Astounding discovery! Nicholas Alexandrovitch is a Jew! I don't know how it was, but suddenly something was said; we looked at each other, and then a sort of light flashed across our faces; we read the mutual secret in each other's eyes; a magnetic impulse linked our hands together in a friendly clasp, and we felt that we were brothers. And yet Nicholas is a whole world apart from me in feeling and conviction. How strange and mysterious is this latent brotherhood which binds our race together through all differences of rank, country, and even faith! For Nicholas is an agnostic of agnostics; he is even further removed from sympathy with my new-found faith than the ordinary Christian, and yet my sympathy with him is not only warmer than, but different in kind from, that which I feel toward any Christian, even Caterina's brother. I have told him all. Yes, little book, him also have I told all. And he sneers at me. But there lurks more fraternity in his sneer than in a Christian's applause. We are knit below the surface like two ocean rocks, whose isolated crests rise above the waters. Nicholas laughs at there being any Judaism to survive, or anything in Judaism worth surviving. He declares that the chosen people have been chosen for the plaything of the fates, fed with illusions and windy conceit, and rewarded for their fidelity with torture and persecution. He pities them, as he would pity a dog that wanders round its master's grave, and will not eat for grief. In fact, save for this pity, he is even as I was until these new emotions rent me. He is outwardly a Christian, because he could not live comfortably otherwise, but he has nothing but contempt for the poor peasants whose fever-wrung brows he touches with a woman's hand. He looks upon them only as a superior variety of cattle, and upon the well-to-do people here as animals with all the vices of the muzhiks, and none of their virtues. For my Judaic cravings he has a good-natured mockery, and tells me I was but sickening for this influenza. He says all my symptoms are physical, not spiritual; that the loss of Caterina depressed me, that this depression drove me into solitude, and that this solitude in its turn reacted on my depression. He thinks that religion is a secretion of morbid minds, and that my Judaism will vanish again with the last traces of my influenza. And, indeed, there is much force in what he says, and much truth in his diagnosis and analysis of my condition. He advises me to take plenty of outdoor exercise, and to go back again to one of the great towns. To go back to Judaism, to ally one's self with an outcast race and a dying religion is, he thinks, an act of folly only paralleled by its inutility. The world will outgrow all these forms and prejudices in time is his confident assurance, as he puffs tranquilly at his cigarette and sips his Chartreuse. He points out, what is true enough, that I am not alone in my dissent from the religion I profess; for, as he epigrammatically puts it, the greatest Raskolniks[2] are the Orthodox. The religious statistics of the Procurator of the State Synod are, indeed, a poor index to the facts. Well, there is comfort in being damned in company. I do not agree with him on any other point, but he has done me good. The black cloud is partially lifted—perhaps the trouble was only physical, after all. I feel brighter and calmer than for months past. Anyhow, if I am to become a Jew again, I can think it out quietly. Even if I could bear Paul's contempt, there would always be, as Nicholas points out, great peril for me in renouncing the Orthodox faith. True, it would be easy enough to bribe the priest and the authorities, and to continue to receive my eucharistical certificate. But where is the sacrifice in that? It is hypocrisy exchanged for hypocrisy. And then what would become of Paul's prospects if it were known his father was a Zhit? But I cannot think of all this now. Paul's silence is beginning to fill me with a frightful uneasiness. A presentiment of evil weighs upon me. My dear dove, my dusha Paul!
Friday Afternoon.—Still no letter from Paul. Can anything have happened? I have written to him, briefly informing him that I have been unwell. I shall ride to Zlotow and telegraph, if I do not hear in a day or two.
Saturday Morning.—All petty and stupid thoughts of my own spiritual condition are swallowed up in the thought of Paul. Ever selfish, I have allowed him to dwell alone in a far-off city, exposed to all the vicissitudes of life. Perhaps he is ill, perhaps he is half-starved on his journalistic pittance.
Saturday Night.—A cruel disappointment! A letter came, but it was only from my man of business, advising investment in some South American loan. Have given him carte blanche. Of what use is my money to me? Even Paul couldn't spend it now, with the training I have given him. He is only fitted for the cowl. He may yet join the Black Clergy. Why does he not write, my poor St. Paul?
Sunday.—Obedient to the insistent clamour of the bells, I accompanied Nicholas Alexandrovitch to church, and mechanically asked help of the Virgin at the street corner. For I have gone back into my old indifference, as Nicholas predicted. I have given the necessary orders. The paracladnoi is ready. To-morrow I go to Zlotow; thence I take the train for Moscow. He will not tell me the truth if I wire.... The weather is bitterly cold, and the stoves here are so small.... I am shivering again, but a glass of vodka will put me right.... A knock.... Clara Petroffskovna has run to the door. Who can it be? Paul?
Monday Afternoon.—No, it was not Paul. Only Nicholas Alexandrovitch. He had heard in the village that I was making preparations for a journey, and came to inquire about it, and to reproach me for not telling him. He looked relieved when I told him it was only to Moscow to look after Paul. I fancy he thought I had had a fit of remorse for my morning's devotions, and was off to seek readmission into the fold. Except our innkeeper, there is not a Jew in this truly God-forsaken place. Of course, I don't reckon myself—or the doctor. I wonder if our pope is a Jew! I laugh—but who knows? Anyhow I am here, wrapped in my thickest fur cloak, while it is Nicholas who is on the road to Moscow. He spoke truly in saying I was too weak yet to undertake the journey—that springless paracladnoi alone is enough to knock a healthy man up; though whether he was equally veracious in professing to have business to transact in Moscow, I cannot say. Da, he is a good fellow, is my brother Nicholas. To-morrow I shall know if anything has happened to my son, to my only child.