Friday, 18 August 1876 (6 August)

Last evening I was about to go to bed, but Pietro's letter lying on the table held me spellbound; I took it and pressed it against my lips with violence.
I was very pale and exhausted.
It would have been better to have gone to bed earlier — that incident would not have occurred.
There was to have been a great gathering of neighbors, but the rain has been falling since morning, and these good lords and ladies think twice before undertaking a journey of ten to thirty kilometers in such weather — so in the event there was no one at all save Dina, who had not yet left, the two Hamalias (to speak in the Little Russian fashion), and toward evening Mme and Mlle Tarnovsky.
This evening I observed and took note.