There is an alarming rumour that Warsaw has been taken by the Germans. All the men in our office are deeply depressed, and as for Zvoliansky, the Pole, it makes my heart ache to look at him.
There has been a lot of unpleasantness at home, too. Mother has come to live with us for good, owing to a fearful scandal in Nikolai’s family about Nikolai’s wife and Kindiakov, the lawyer. Husband and wife have separated. Sasha tells me that Nikolai tried to shoot Kindiakov, but missed aim, fortunately, and the matter was hushed up. Mother happened to spend that night with us, and was consequently spared the disgraceful scene. How people can busy themselves with love and jealousy at a time like the present is more than I can understand. A most disgraceful business! Nikolai has departed for the Caucasus, his wife has gone off with Kindiakov, and we hear that she wants to go on the stage, or something.
We’ve had no news of Pavel for three weeks, so one can easily imagine the family’s mood. Three weeks is not a long time, when one takes into consideration the slowness and uncertainty of the army posts, but mother refuses to consider these things, and depresses us all by her terrible anxiety. Added to her other misfortunes, the poor old lady is ill at ease and rather afraid of me. The thought of her dependence on us is wounding to her pride. She seems to think she has no right to live with us. When I try to reassure her on Pavel’s account by pointing out the uncertainty of the posts, she is over eager to agree with me, yet looking so scared, as though, in some subtle way, I had asked her to leave the house. I rebuked her on one occasion, unable to contain myself. “You really ought to be ashamed to think of me as you do, Mother; you put me in a very awkward position. I am only thinking of your good, and you look upon me as no better than a German straight from Berlin.” This only made her more nervous than ever. How ridiculous it is! When I am absent she does nothing but cry, I am told, but when I am at home, she tries to appear cheerful, and by the way she confuses her words when she is making some joke, one can see what she is really feeling. She has just brought me some coffee, for example, and forgotten the sugar. I hate the old lady’s having to wait on me; she can hardly keep up as it is!
The thing, however, that causes me the greatest anxiety, is my dear Sashenka. I don’t know what to do with her. This is a subject one can only speak of in a diary. I have mentioned before, I think, that a small hospital has been opened in our block of flats, to be supported by the various inhabitants. It is not the money I grudge, though there is little enough of it, God knows, but with the arrival of the first batch of wounded, Sashenka can’t be got away from the place, in her womanly kindness; she is there day and night. She is a staff nurse now, or a probationer, perhaps, since she has not been through the training, but I think it must be a nurse, though.
It seems that one could raise little objection to such a truly Christian spirit. All our friends admire Sashenka for what she is doing, the soldiers adore her, and she herself finds satisfaction in her work. What objections could there be to raise in such a splendid arrangement? I can do nothing but keep them to myself, for no matter how right I might be, no one would give me the credit of it. I should only be censured by people and annoyed by their distrust. I should gain the reputation of being a hopeless egoist, and a tyrant, who wouldn’t allow his wife to work in a hospital. It is certainly difficult for a man to prove his case when people find it to their advantage that a woman should neglect her family to work for others and help mend the damage that they have caused.
My conscience, however, compels me to say that Sashenka’s devotion to the hospital is selfish and wicked to the extreme. It isn’t right to give yourself up entirely to charity at the expense of your own home! There is not much virtue in a compassion that devotes itself to some people and neglect others equally as helpless.
Some things a man doesn’t like to mention even in a diary. I am unlucky enough to have a bad digestion. It is only by the most careful diet that I can keep well enough to support my family, and Annisia, our cook, gives me such horrible food as to make me quite ill. The digestion of an Ilya Petrovitch is a small matter in face of the horrors of the war, the suffering of the wounded, the destitute and fatherless; it’s hardly decent to mention it. Doctors, I know, look with contempt on such complaints nowadays, yet Ilya Petrovitch is just as much a human being as the rest; he has worked honestly all his life to keep his wife and little ones, and I maintain that his digestion has every claim to attention and care.
I might manage with my scorned digestion somehow or other by starving myself a little, but what can I do with the children? We have three little ones, of whom Lidotchka, the eldest, is only six and a half. (I married late in life.) Our nurse, who acts as housemaid as well, is a most ignorant creature, and is able in good faith to poison or kill a child. She allowed Peter to get his feet wet the other day, and the poor boy had to stay in bed for some time with a high temperature. The youngest child, Jena, too, is not very well; he has lost all appetite and grown pale and thin. I haven’t the remotest idea how to look after children. When I point out their pitiable condition to Sashenka, she tells me to get mother to look after them. As if mother could! She has no more resistance than a feather, and can think of nothing, awake or sleeping, but her Pavel in the trenches. Of course, she could have done it at one time, I admit, but not now; she is too weak. It’s not fair to put so much responsibility on the old lady’s shoulders. Her efforts are pitiful to see. I don’t know whether it was she who started a game with the children the other day, or whether they began it, but they knocked her down (not meaning any harm, of course) and nearly suffocated her like a kitten. When I dragged her out she burst into tears. I, too, was upset at sight of her trembling head and ruffled hair.
Dear, dear! Sashenka is behaving very, very badly! We are not responsible that there is a war. The war has no right to thrust itself among us like a brigand, and lay waste our home. We bear enough trials and sacrifices we have done nothing to deserve. There is no need for us to throw ourselves down for the war to walk over us as the Hindus throw themselves beneath the chariot wheels of their evil god Juggernaut. I refuse to accept evil gods, I refuse to accept the war for all its “significance.” I fail to see the good of it around me, least of all in my own home!
Or must I see good in the fact that the face of my darling Lidotchka is beginning to show signs of sadness? The poor little thing is already trying to exert her little mind in attempts to cheer me when she sees me dull and depressed. Her little hands, too, are trying to be useful by helping to wash up the glasses and to nurse Jena. She herself is badly in need of a nurse.
The cost of living is rising in the most appalling manner. The luxury of a cab or a theatre is not to be thought of. Even a tram fare needs consideration nowadays; one’s legs have to serve one in good stead. I am glad of the extra work from the office in real earnest now, and thankful that there is still such work to take home. We were compelled to give up the piano. And the cursed war is only at its beginning; it is only getting into the way of it, so to speak. What horrible deeds men are perpetrating over there! To leave the lower orders out of the question, men of the higher professions, such as scholars, professors, lawyers, are devouring each other like wild beasts; they have grown so fiendish as to lose every spark of human feeling. What is science and religion worth after that? There was a time when you could rely upon a professor as on a stone wall; you might feel sure that he would not betray nor hurt, nor kill, because he knew and understood things, now he is just as vicious as the rest, and there is no one left to rely on.
I protest against the popular assertion that we are all (myself included) responsible for the war. It’s too absurd for argument. I know that some people think that with my ideas I ought to march continually about the streets, neither eating nor drinking, shouting “Stop the war,” and snatching rifles from the hands of the soldiers. But I wonder who would listen to me, except the policeman, or where I should find myself, if I carried out their wishes, if not in prison or in a lunatic asylum? I deny all responsibility for the war, and my suffering is needless and senseless.
I have a small piece of news. Andrei Vasilevitch, the man who is to read my diary, has been decorated with two St. George Crosses. Being a friend of Sashenka’s she is very proud and pleased, but I wonder if Andrei Vasilevitch himself is proud and pleased?