Fimotchka has just made an interesting discovery. Just before the war, she says, red was very much in fashion. Women wore red dresses, and hats and ribbons and all the other little requisites peculiar to the sex. As far as I can remember, this seems to be true. I wonder if it was not some presentiment of the bloodshed that was to come? How blind the people were to have considered it an attractive colour! No one wears red now; as a colour it seems to have disappeared, washed out by wind and rain. In what darkness must man grope, when the choice of his garments is not left to his free will!
I am tired, and not drawn to my diary. I have so much to do and so little time. The confounded war simply eats up the money. No matter how hard you work, you cannot earn enough.
I don’t know whether I’ve grown indifferent to the wholesale murder going on, or that I take a saner view of things, but I can read about twenty thousand killed and calmly light a cigarette. I no longer devour the papers too, as in the early days, when I was always rushing round the corner for the new editions, in all weathers. It doesn’t do any good.
Sashenka is at the hospital as usual, and the house just as disorderly as before, but I’ve got used to that too, and hardly notice what food I eat. Mother is like a shadow in the house; you would hardly know she was there. To drive away my depression, I have taken to teaching Lidotchka, and to read fairy tales to her. She is a dear child! In our gloomiest moments she lights up our house like a sacred lamp.
I have another confession to make which will not meet with the approval of the serious-minded. I have no need of their approval, thank God. Fimotchka called one day when Sashenka was out, and seeing how depressed I was, taught me to play Patience. It’s a silly game for a grown man to play, but if you happen to be in the condition when you can neither take in what you read nor what’s being said to you, it’s very comforting, and gets so interesting sometimes that you forget about your sleep. I tried to teach Mother the game, but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t understand; she seemed to look upon it as an attempt on my part to interfere with her legitimate grief.
I came across a curious saying in the calendar: “If you don’t learn to play cards in your youth, you are storing up a sad old age.”
It’s not a question of playing cards. One would jump at anything at a time like this.
I’m tired.