Chapter 31: August 4th: My Beloved Barbara Alexievna

August 4th: My Beloved Barbara Alexievna August 4th. My beloved Barbara Alexievna—These unlooked-for blows have shaken me terribly, and these strange calamities have quite broken my spirit. Not content with trying to bring you to a bed of sickness, these lickspittles and pestilent old men are trying to bring me to the same. And I assure you that they are succeeding—I assure you that they are. Yet I would rather die than not help you. If I cannot help you I shall die; but, to enable me t…