It is just as gloomy. I do not pray enough, hourly. _February 5, Nicholskoe. If I live._ _February 5, Nicholskoe._ Still the same intellectual, creative, weakness. But I think it is almost hopeless. There was a search at Chertkov’s. S. arrived. I thought: I, a worker, am I doing the work commanded? In this is everything. Lord, help me. _Feb. 6. Nicholskoe._ In the morning Gorbunov arrived; in the evening a telegram that the Chertkovs are leaving on Thursday.[173] I prepared to go with Sonya.[174] Am just going. Health better. _Feb. 7. Petersburg._ Went to Chertkov. It is joyous there. Then to Yaroshenko.[175] ... I pray that I do not abandon here or anywhere the consciousness of my mission, to be fulfilled by kindness. _Feb. 8. Petersburg. If I live._ I was alive, but made no entries the two days. _To-day, Feb. 10._ It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, silence. I was at Stasov’s and Tolstoi’s.[176] Did nothing bad, but nothing good either. Rather some good. Lord keep me from a spell, but I am better. Have thought nothing. _Again at the Olsuphievs in Nicholskoe, Feb. 16._ I returned on the morning of the day before yesterday, and fell ill. Yesterday I was better, wrote on art. Good. ... Women do not consider the demands of reason binding upon themselves and cannot progress according to them. They haven’t got this sail spread. They row without a rudder.[177] I am again feeling unwell and very sweetly sad. Wrote a letter to the Chertkovs and to Posha. Am not working. _Feb. 17. Nicholskoe._ I do not feel well. I tried to write on art.... ... Received letters; an adaptation of _On Life_ from the American.[178] Wrote two letters to Sonya yesterday and sent them to-day.[179] Having been thinking even before Petersburg: 1) (For _The Appeal_): To describe the condition of the factory workers, the servants, soldiers, agricultural labourers in comparison with the rich, and show that it all comes from.... 2) In the Middle Ages, in the XIth Century, poetry was general--the people and the masters, _les courtois et les vilains_; then they separated and _les vilains_ began to mimic the masters’ and the masters the people’s. A union ought to take place again. 3) A hundred times I have said it to myself and have written it down: the real and only salvation from all sorrow is the knowledge of one’s mission, the anxiety whether you have done that for which you were sent. 4) Nearly every husband and wife reproach each other for things for which they do not consider themselves guilty. But on the one side there is no ceasing to accuse, nor on the other to vindicate. 5) They do not run after a poet or a painter so much, as after an actor, and especially after a musician. Music calls forth a direct physical effect, sometimes acute, sometimes chronic. 6) We absolutely falsely ascribe intelligence and goodness to talent, and the same to beauty. In this lies great self-delusion.