Khortiza, February 2, 1920

I am here in another house. The disease is overcome. I am still weak, it is true, but I can sit! up in bed and continue my diary.

Oh, how far back is that time when I became ill. It seems to me almost like an eternity.

Memory has remained, and so I shall write down what I can recall.

That unforgettable night when the Anarchists left our house there on the top of the slope, we locked our door for the first time after a long reign of licentiousness. We were now alone in the house and felt, somehow, sheltered from danger.

The malady, more and more, had taken possession of me. I had taken my temperature; it was over 100 degrees. I was lying again, as the night before, on the floor, and was not able to stretch out my feet because of lack of space. In the adjoining room, however, I did not want to be, for it was full of lice. The evil spirits of those villains still haunted the now empty rooms. The objects used by them provoked our memories of their sojourn too strongly and oppressively. The rest of the rooms were in wild disorder and could not be heated because of lack of fuel. Besides, my presence in the sick-room was constantly needed.

After midnight Marguerite became unable to get up when one of the children was calling. We were all ill now; my friend, his wife, both daughters, the grandmother, and a girl, fifteen years of age, whose parents were living beyond the Dnieper, too far away to reach her at this time.

Very naturally the room was getting cold since no one took care of the stove.

My fever was increasing. I had the sensation that everything in my head was dissolving into minute molecules, which whirled around at a wild, raging, and always increasing speed. That it might not burst my skull I put cold compresses on my forehead. The heat I felt was terrible. With all effort possible I tried to keep conscious, because I felt the responsibility of caring for the sick. How much more agreeable it might have been to give way to the dolce far niente. The spotted fever usually takes away consciousness very soon. And thus one may call it a humane malady.

A few things far back came to memory. Some poetry of Koltzov and Pushkin and other Russian master poets came to my mind in very lively remembrance. Very probably I recited them, being delirious.

This was one of the most terrible nights in my life. And I have had a good many bad ones. Marguerite moaned. My friend did not recover consciousness for a single time and always threw off the covers, not knowing, of course, what he was doing. How much effort did it take to get up and cover him again and again! The older girl wished to have her bed remade, and the other school girl was always asking for water, and the little girl, who was recovering, was crying for bread. After the typhus, people have an unappeasable hunger.

The sufferings and needs of the others made me forget, to a certain extent, my own condition.

As the day was dawning, fatigue so got hold of me that I had an almost unsurmountable desire to surrender to sweet unconsciousness. But there again stood before my soul such a responsibility that I was terribly frightened over my weakness. It seemed as though I was the captain of a sinking boat, and had to stay on duty to the last….

I cannot write any further, I am still too weak.