_June 10._--It is awful that the luxury, the corruption of life in which I live I have myself created, and I am myself corrupted and I cannot reform it. I can say that I shall reform myself, but so slowly. I cannot give up smoking, and I cannot find a way of treating my wife so as not to hurt her feelings and not to give in to her. I am seeking it, I am trying. _June 16._[27]--It was very painful, longed to go away at once. All that is weakness. Not for men's sake but for God's. Do as one knows best for oneself and not in order to prove something. But it is awfully painful. Of course I am to blame if it hurts me. I struggle, I put out the rising fire, but I feel that it has violently bent the scales. And indeed what use am I to them, what use are all my sufferings? And however hard (though they are easy) the conditions of a vagrant's life, there can be nothing in it like this heartache! _June 23._--I am calmer, stronger in spirit. In the evening a cruel conversation about the Samara revenues.[28] I am trying to act as though in the presence of God, and I cannot avoid anger. This must end. _July 6._--I was reading over the diary of those days when I was seeking the cause of temptation. All nonsense--it is the absence of hard physical labour.[29] I do not sufficiently prize the happiness of freedom from temptation after work. That happiness is cheaply bought at the price of fatigue and aching muscles. _July 5_ (isn't it the 8th?).--My wife is very serene and contented and does not see the gulf between us. I try to do what I ought, but what I ought I do not know. I must do as I ought every minute, and everything will turn out as it should. _July 19._--She came in to me and began a hysterical scene--the upshot of which is that nothing can be changed and she is unhappy and wants to run away somewhere. I was sorry for her, but at the same time I recognised that it was hopeless--to the day of my death she will be a millstone round my neck and my children's. I suppose it must be so. I must learn not to drown with a millstone round my neck. But the children? It seems it must be, and it only hurts me because I am short-sighted. I soothed her as though she were ill. _August 8._--I thought; we reproach God, we complain that we meet with obstacles in fulfilling the teaching of Christ. Well, but what if we were all free from families who disagree with us? We should come together and live happily and joyfully. But the others? The others would not know. We want to gather all the light together that it may burn better, but God has scattered the fire among the logs. They are being kindled while we fret that they are not burning. _August 12._--It is all right with my wife, but I am afraid and straining every nerve. _August 14._--Peace and friendliness with my wife, but I am afraid every minute.