_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.