one recognises as one's duty to one's conscience and to God. I will try.
September 18, 1910 (from the letters).—I understand now from experience that all that we call suffering is for our good.
October 6, 1910 (from the letters).—She is ill and all the rest of it, but it is impossible not to pity her and not to be indulgent to her.
October 17, 1910 (from the letters).—Yesterday was a very serious day. Others will describe the physical details to you, but I want to give you my own account from the inside. I pity and pity her, and rejoice that at times I love her without effort. It was so last night when she came in penitent and began seeing about warming my room, and in spite of her exhaustion and weakness pushed the shutters and screened the windows, taking pains and trouble about my ... bodily comfort. What's to be done if there are people for whom, and I believe only for a time, the reality of spiritual life is unattainable. Yesterday evening I was almost on the point of going away to Kotchety, but now I am glad I did not go. To-day I feel physically weak, but serene in spirit.
October 26, 1910 (from a diary).—It is very oppressive for me in this house of lunatics.
October 26, 1910 (from the letters).—The third thing is not so much a thought as a feeling, and a bad feeling—the desire to change my position. I feel something unbefitting, rather shameful, in my position. Sometimes I look upon it as I ought, as a blessing but sometimes I struggle against it and am revolted....
October 27, 1910 (from a diary).—It seems bad but is really good; the oppressiveness of our relations keeps increasing.
October 29, 1910 (from the letters).—I am waiting to see what will come of the family deliberation—I think, good. In any case, however, my return to my former life has become still more difficult—almost impossible, owing to the reproaches which will now be showered upon me, and the still smaller share of kindness which will be shown me. I cannot and will not enter into any sort of negotiations—what will be will be—only to sin as little as possible.... I cannot boast of my physical and spiritual condition, they are both weak and shattered. I feel most of all sorry for her. If only that pity were quite free from an admixture of rancune (resentment), and that I cannot boast of.
October 29, 1910; Optin Monastery. (From a diary.)—I have been much depressed all
day and physically weak.... As I came here I was thinking all the time on the road, of the way out of my and her position, and could not think of any way out of it, but yet there will be one whether one likes it or not; it will come, and not be what one foresees. Yes, think only of how to avoid sin, and let come what will come. That is not my affair. I have taken up ... the Circle of Reading, and, just now, reading Number Twenty-eight was struck by the direct answer to my position: trial is what I need, it is beneficial for me. I am going to bed at once. Help me, O Lord.