My heart is yearning for love! How is it that I can love no one?

I have tried and I cannot. My father--Ivan Ivanovitch--he is so
big and so kind, and yet I cannot love him; and my mother, Katoosha
Katooshavitch, she is just as big, and yet I cannot love her. And my
brother, Dimitri Dimitrivitch, I cannot love him.

And Alexis Alexovitch!

I cannot love him. And yet I am to marry him. They have set the day.
It is a month from to-day. One month. Thirty days. Why cannot I
love Alexis? He is tall and strong. He is a soldier. He is in the
Guard of the Czar, Nicholas Romanoff, and yet I cannot love him.

* * *

Next Day but one.

How they cramp and confine me here--Ivan Ivanovitch my father,
and my mother (I forget her name for the minute), and all the rest.

I cannot breathe.

They will not let me.

Every time I try to commit suicide they hinder me.

Last night I tried again.