November 20.--I have made a mistake, but it was inevitable. I have put back my shoulders under the yoke, and all the peace is over. I have had just time enough to rest, and to get ready for the old labour, and now I am troubled with all a woman's ingenuity of trouble: her nerves, her cares, her affections, her solicitudes, her whole minute and never-ceasing possession. How am I to explain myself? There was no choice; it is useless to regret what could but have been accepted. She has a calm will to love, she is like some force of nature against which it is useless to struggle. * * * * * November 22.--I do not know why it is, but all my old nervous uneasiness is coming back on me again, against all sense or reason. I have that curious feeling that something is going to happen; I find myself listening to noises, unable to sit quiet, watching my own brain. All the restlessness has come back, and some of the fear. I am afraid of this woman's love. I could not leave her, but I am afraid of what will happen to me. * * * * * December 3.--No, I shall never get accustomed to it; the same physical horror will always be there; it has been there when the attraction was strongest; it has never been out of my mind, or away from the eyes of my senses. She is aware of it, and suffers; and I am helpless before her suffering. And it is this, nothing but this, which turns my thoughts morbid, whenever I think over a situation which might otherwise have had nothing unusual in it. The husband studies me with a kind of curious and mocking interest, which he allows to remain on his face when he sees us together. Does he suspect, know, approve, or disapprove? Do I seem to him ... But in any case all that is beside the question: I once thought that it would be a generous revenge to make him suffer; now I am conscious how idle the thought was. Is it not all idle, is not everything more or less beside the question? I am tired of writing in my journal, always the same things. I will shut the book, and perhaps not open it again. * * * * *