23rd of February [1923] . . . .It is also possible that there is no other love than animal love, or that horribly peaceful brotherly love. If only it were simpler. Romanticism will never fade away. And so I plod along, to put it simply. But my nerves are scattered across the sky in a fruitless fever. Good Lord, the burden! Pull my life together. I despair of doing so myself. If only I had lived without biography, in work and my essays. That would have been better (biography destroys). Does a Nekrasov-Mayakovsky still reside in each of us? An. [Anna Akhmatova], I love you nevertheless. I simply love you. I love you like Galya [Punin's wife], and you too will be mistress of my house, a little more original than Galya, but therefore also unfaithful...Only you are not to blame. You covered everything with your sufferings long ago. Go, Warm Intercessor, and give her peace, bless her from your height (cold and empty, like the sky between the stars), bless her head, which I so loved to hold in my hands, which I would have held in my hands forever. If there were such a thing as forever. Be gentle with her, Lord, as we cannot. Why is it so painful, because of what?