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One hot summer day, rowing on the Neva, we noticed grey patches on the azure surface; they turned out to be masses of dead midges—which abound in the neighbouring marshes. These came from Lake Ládoga. One of the oarsmen scooped up a hatful of them.

While listening to Loewenwold’s tales about the building of Petersburg I closed my eyes, and before me rose a vision of countless human bodies, very grey and small, like these masses of dead midges floating on the Neva, a mass without beginning or end, of persons whom nobody knows and nobody remembers.

On my return home I sat down to write this diary in my small room, a veritable bird’s cage, in the attic, just below the roof.

It felt close, I opened the window, in rushed the smell of spring, also of tar and pine shavings. On the banks of the Neva two carpenters, a young man and an old one, were repairing a boat. Nothing but the hammering was heard, and the monotonous melancholy song which the younger man was singing over and over again. Here are the few words I was able to catch: