Such wonderful, divine things have happened that I must set them down all in order to avoid confusion. + 

Three days have now passed. The day I decided to kill myself I spent with the children whom I took for a walk in the Alexandrov Garden. I bought them some sweets, and tried to let them have as pleasant a time as I could. I took home some special delicacy for mother’s dinner. I wrote a letter to her son, Nikolai, by the way, but fortunately I didn’t post it. + 

When the children went to bed I made them say their prayers in my presence, then I settled up all my small cash affairs⁠—it was fortunate that I had no debts⁠—and wrote a letter to the police and another to Sashenka. At about one in the morning I set out for the Troitsky Bridge, from whence I had decided to jump into the river; it was quiet and deserted at that hour. For greater certainty, and to spare myself all the suffering possible, I put two heavy lead weights from the old broken cuckoo clock in the nursery into my greatcoat pockets, hoping to add stones and other heavy objects on the way. I may say with perfect truthfulness that I felt no fear at the prospect of death, nor any particular regrets at parting with life. The few tears I shed when writing to Sashenka were merely formal ones. + 

I wondered mostly as I went along what my dear ones would do when I was gone, and how they would live. I saw that they might be better off without me, perhaps⁠—fatherless children have more right to expect help. I counted, too, on Sashenka’s brother, Nikolai, to whom I could not have appealed personally. With these thoughts I passed Moshkov Street, and was brought face to face with the dark, lonely river. The night was dark and clouded; the Peter-Paul Fortress, on the other side, was hardly discernible; a faint light glimmered dimly, the lantern at the Fortress gates, no doubt, and near there, in the darkness, the river seemed as broad as the sea. Suspended over the river, to the right, were the steady lights of the Troitsky Bridge, close by; it was still and deserted. “At last!” I thought, hugging the cold weights in my pocket, and my face was bathed by the fresh moistness of the water whirling silently round the stone parapets. “There is no need to hurry; I will stay here for a while.” + 

It was then that the extraordinary thing happened to me. I can hardly explain it in words. I’m not a fool; on the contrary, I have a good deal of common sense. There are some things I do not see, others I do not know, still others I do not understand; there is so little time for the understanding, busy as one usually is, but never in the whole of my experience, have I ever gone in for prolonged, concentrated thought. At that moment, however, a change took place; I seemed to be transformed, as in a fairy tale; a thousand eyes and ears seemed to have opened in me, and prolonged concentrated thoughts filled my brain. Motion was impossible. I had to sit or stand, but I couldn’t walk. I forgot all words, I forgot the very names of things; thoughts so big and vast took possession of me that each seemed large enough to have embraced the whole world. I cannot describe the condition. My first realisation was the sense of my manhood. I was the inner meaning of the words, people, mankind, man, such as I stood there with my greatcoat, lead weights in my pockets, thinking those thoughts by the flowing river, in the silence of the night. And the other people, where were they? I thought, and a vision of all the people in the world floated before me. What difference was there between the living and the dead? Where do the dead go to? Where do the living come from? And again my thoughts seemed immense, never-ending; and I saw all the living and the dead, and all the people who were to come, and there were numbers and numbers of them; they were floating with the clouds beneath the moon, they came flying through the rays of the sun, they were in the rain and the wind and the river. And then I understood, without knowing how the understanding reached me, that I was immortal, absurdly immortal, and that Petrograd might perish a thousand times, and I should still exist. + 

I was on the Troitsky Bridge by that time, at the very spot I had chosen for my leap into the water, when the absurdity of suicide struck me so forcibly, that instead of leaping in, I threw the lead weights into the water, so violently that the water never even splashed as they fell. And again I became absorbed in deep, prolonged thought as I gazed on the water flowing down the river in the light of the lamps. I looked up at the dark, infinite sky, and still vast thoughts came to me, and they were as clear as though I had been a sage who understood the meaning of the whole universe. A few motorcars passed over the bridge, recalling me to myself; I turned and waited expectantly for others to come, rejoicing when two bright electric lamps appeared at the bend of the bridge. The car hooted as it passed. + 

I had been humbled. Humility is the only word that describes the sensation that came to me as I stood shivering with cold by the river. Suddenly, I don’t know why, I shuddered, and was hurled from the heights of wisdom and understanding to the depths of littleness and fear. My hands in my pockets clenched convulsively. It seemed as if my fingers had grown dry and drawn as a bird’s claws. “Coward!” I thought, and such a feeling of terror for the death I had planned came upon me, that I forgot I had thrown away the weights, and that I had decided not to kill myself before this terror came. I know now that it was real cowardice I experienced⁠—cowardice pure and simple, and that there was no very great harm in it, but at the time my terror was truly awful. Where had my wisdom gone? Where my big thoughts? I stood on the bridge, not daring to look at the water, trembling so violently that my teeth chattered. However, desperate as I was, I still kept on making some attempts, measuring the height of the rail, and clutching it with my hands. “Now!” I thought in despair, feeling the freedom of my toes; they were in no way fixed to the pavement, and might leave go any moment, now.⁠ ⁠… + 

And in that awful moment I suddenly recalled our flight from Shuvalov at the beginning of the war, and my Lidotchka, and the flower I had picked for her on the road, and the inexpressible terror I had felt then.⁠ ⁠… So this was what I had feared! This that my heart had foreboded! This, then, explained the flower and the haste, and the dread of looking behind, and the straining to go ahead, to hide, to seek out a refuge for oneself on earth! The soul had known what threatened it and quaked in the frail human frame! + 

“My God! It’s all the war, the war!” I thought, and a vision of the war and its horrors appeared before me. I forgot that I was in Petrograd, forgot that I was standing on the bridge, forgot everything surrounding me. My consciousness was filled only with the war, and the war was all about me. I can’t describe this sensation, this new terror, nor the tears that gushed from my eyes⁠—I could cry now at the very thought of it. Some man passing, fortunately, happened to notice me. He had gone by, but turned back and addressed me. Close as in a mirror could I see his unfamiliar face and eyes that, for some reason, seemed awful to me. I backed away from him with a cry, and fled over the bridge to Sashenka. + 

I can’t remember where I got into a cab, nor how much I paid for my fare, nor how I got to the hospital, I only remember falling on my knees before Sashenka, and trembling in every limb, and swallowing my tears, I blurted out my wild, disjointed confession.⁠ ⁠… + 

My Sashenka is a saint. I have no right to call her mine. She belongs to God, to all men. I am unworthy to touch her hand; all my life I must weep at her feet and praise God for having created her. Sashenka, my heart of gold, my pure soul, blessed be the day when you were born! + 

Like a fool, I had expected reproaches, but this is what I heard when I could distinguish her divine words through my sobs and tears, “Never mind about your work, dear; it doesn’t matter. I was offered a salary here, but I refused to take it. I will take it now, and we can get along quite well with the children. We shall be together; we must do the best we can. I must take you home now, as though you had been badly wounded. It will do you good to look at the sleeping children and to kiss mother. You must rest your soul, my poor, dear Ilenka.⁠ ⁠…” + 

She had it in her heart to call me her “dear Ilenka!” She wept over me, and kissed my grey hair. + 

“Don’t kiss my hair,” I muttered, “I haven’t been to the baths for a month.” + 

What did that matter to her! Wonderful woman! I can’t remember her exact words; they were not at all as I have them here, but I was so weak and faint at the time that I had to lean against the wall to keep myself from falling. She left me for a while to make some arrangement, and, grown calmer, I cast about the room where it had all taken place, wiping away my tears. My eyes fell upon a white overall with a red cross hanging on the wall, and again my tears gushed forth. Henceforth the red cross will be as sacred to me as my Sashenka. + 

In that condition Sashenka took me home. I turned my face away from the porter as he opened the door⁠—we live up a different staircase. I tried to speak, but my words were unintelligible, and Sashenka stopped me. “Don’t talk now,” she said, “wait till you are calmer. We can talk tomorrow.” She had asked for a few days’ leave. + 

I have no clear recollection, too, of what happened when we got home. The rooms seemed very bright and festive; they might have been prepared for a party. I kissed the sleeping children, each in turn, I kissed mother, whom Sashenka had roused, and we all cried together, smiling happily and foolishly. Then the samovar was prepared, and as I drank the hot tea, the tears fell into my cup. I couldn’t stop crying for joy and pity. + 

Sashenka made me a bed in my study, thinking I should be quieter there. She put on clean sheets and gave me clean night things, and when I got into the fragrant fresh bed, and lay down on my back with my hands on the coverlet, and Sashenka put a green reading-lamp on a little table by my side, and opened a book to read to me, I did indeed feel as if I had been badly wounded, and was now recovering. How pleasant was the very weakness with which I raised my eyes to the bright patch of light cast by the lamp on the ceiling, to the lamp itself, to Sashenka’s chin, which was all I could see of her face! + 

She was reading something from Gogol, and though I only caught fragments of the story, it was as sweet and soothing as a pleasant dream about strange people, fields, country roads. “Selefan, Petrushka, the trap.” I heard the words, I could see the people, yet there was the dark river, the motorcars, the man seizing my hand on the bridge, then again came the trap and bells, and a long, winding country road. I fell asleep, but started up with a shudder, and when I saw the patch of light and heard Sashenka’s reassuring voice, I dropped into a sound, peaceful sleep at last. + 

When I awoke in the morning Sashenka was sitting by the little table with tears in her eyes. She had just finished reading this stupid diary, and looked so sweet after her sleepless night spent by my side. Dear, divine Sashenka! + 