_April 23._--Shameful, disgusting. Terrible depression. I am all filled with weakness. I must as in a dream be on my guard so as not to spoil in the dream that which is needed for real life. I am drawn and drawn into the mire, and useless are my shudders. If only I am not drawn in without a protest! There has been no spite, little vanity, or none at all, but of weakness, mortal weakness, these days are full. Longing for real death. There is no despair. But I would like to live and not to be on guard on one's life. _April 24._--The same weakness and the same victorious mire sucking one in, drawing one down. _April 26._--Must be happy in an unhappy life, must ... make this the object of my life. And I can do it when I am strong in the spirit. _May 15._--I am miserable. I am an insignificant, useless creature, and am absorbed in myself besides. The one good thing is that I want to die. _May 16._--O Lord, save me from the hateful life which is crushing and destroying me. The one good thing is, I long to die. Better to die than live like this. _May 17._--I dreamed that my wife loved me. How light my heart was, everything grew bright. Nothing like it in reality. And that is destroying my life.... At home still the same general death. Only the little children are alive. A wearisome conversation at tea again. All one's life in terror. _May 26._--I am as in a dream ... when I know that a tiger is coming, and in a minute.... _June 1._--Dullness, deadness of soul--that one could bear, but with it insolence, self-confidence ... one must know how to bear that too, if not with love, with pity. I am irritable, gloomy all day. I am bad.... How to live here, how to break through pouring sand. I will try. _June 2._--Conversation at tea with my wife. Angry again. Tried to write, it wouldn't go.... How be a shining light when I am still full of weakness which I have not the strength to overcome? _June 4._--Thought a great deal about my wife. I must love her and not be angry with her, must make her love me; so I will do. _June 6._--After dinner misery ... in the evening revived a little. Could not be loving as I would. I am very bad. _June 7._--I am trying to be bright and happy, but it is very, very hard. Everything I do is wrong, and I suffer horribly from this wrongness. It is as though I alone were not mad in the house of the mad managed by the mad. _June 9._--Agonising struggle, and I do not control myself. I look for the reasons--tobacco, incontinence, absence of imaginative work. It is all nonsense. The only cause is the absence of a loved and loving wife. It began from that time fourteen years ago when the cord snapped and I realised my loneliness.[26] All that is not a reason. I must find a wife in her. I ought, and I can and I will: Lord, help me.