overpowered by uncontrollable twitchings, the pulsing of my arteries sprang along my body like little flames; if I sat down, my knees trembled under the table and I had
to press my hands together. I shall, of course, give a good lecture, that is certain, besides, the restlessness itself, heightened to an extreme on that evening, will pull me
together in such a way that there will not be room for restlessness and the talk will come straight out of me as though out of a gun barrel. But it is possible that I shall
collapse after it, in any event I shall not be able to get over it for a long time. So little physical strength! Even these few words are written under the influence of
weakness.
Yesterday evening with Löwy at Baum’s. My liveliness. Recently Löwy translated a bad Hebrew story, “The Eye,” at Baum’s.
13 February. I am beginning to write the lecture for Löwy’s performance. It is on Sunday, the 18th. I shall not have much time to prepare and am really striking up a
kind of recitative here as though in an opera. The reason is only that an incessant excitement has been oppressing me for days and that, somewhat hesitant in the face
of the actual beginning of the lecture, I want to write down a few words only for myself; in that way, given a little momentum, I shall be able to stand up before the
audience. Cold and heat alternate in me with the successive words of the sentence, I dream melodic rises and falls, I read sentences of Goethe’s as though my whole
body were running down the stresses.
25 February. Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don’t surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment. I
spent this evening at the family table in complete indifference, my right hand on the arm of the chair in which my sister sat playing cards, my left hand weak in my lap.
From time to time I tried to realize my unhappiness, I barely succeeded.
I have written nothing for so long because of having arranged an evening for Löwy in the banquet room of the Jewish Town Hall on 18 February, at which I delivered a
little introductory lecture on Yiddish. For two weeks I worried for fear that I could not produce the lecture. On the evening before the lecture I suddenly succeeded.
Preparations for the lecture: Conferences with the Bar Kokhba Society, getting up the program, tickets, hall, numbering the seats, key to the piano (Toynbee Hall),
setting up the stage, pianist, costumes, selling tickets, newspaper notices, censorship by the police and the religious community.
Places in which I was and people with whom I spoke or to whom I wrote. In general: with Max, with Schmerler, who visited me, with Baum, who at first assumed the
responsibility for the lecture but then refused it, whose mind I changed again in the course of an evening devoted to that purpose and who the next day again notified me
of his refusal by special delivery, with Dr. Hugo Hermann and Leo Hermann in the Café Arco, often with Robert Weltsch at his home; about selling tickets with Dr. Bl.
(in vain), Dr. H. Dr. Fl., visit to Miss T., lecture at Afike Jehuda (by Rabb. Ehrentreu on Jeremiah and his time, during the social part of the evening that followed, a
short, abortive talk about Löwy), at the teacher W.’s place (then in the Cafe, then for a walk, from twelve to one he stood in front of my door as large as life and would
not let me go in). About the hall, at Dr. Karl B.’s, twice at L.’s house on Heuwagsplatz, several times at Otto Pick’s, in the bank; about the key to the piano for the
Toynbee lecture, with Mr. R. and the teacher S., then to the latter’s home to get the key and to return it; about the stage, with the custodian and the porter of the town
hall; about payment, in the town hall office (twice); about the sale, with Mrs. Fr. at the exposition, “The Set Table.” Wrote to Miss T., to one Otto Kl. (in vain), for the