more skilful of the two. He, however, has more endurance.
28 May. Day after tomorrow I leave for Berlin. In spite of insomnia, headaches, and worries, perhaps in a better state than ever before.
Once he brought a girl along. While I say hello to her, not watching him, he springs upon me and jerks me into the air. “I protest,” I cried, and raised my hand.
“Keep quiet,” he whispered in my ear. I saw that he was determined to win at all costs, even by resorting to unfair holds, so that he might shine before the girl.
“He said ‘Keep quiet’ to me,” I cried, turning my head to the girl.
“Wretch!” the man gasped in a low voice, exerting all his strength against me. In spite of everything he was able to drag me to the sofa, put me down on it, knelt on my
back, paused to regain his breath, and said: “Well, there he lies.”
“Just let him try it again,” I intended to say, but after the very first word he pressed my face so hard into the upholstery that I was forced to be silent.
“Well then,” said the girl, who had sat down at my table and was reading a half-finished letter lying there, “shouldn’t we leave now? He has just begun to write a letter.”
“He won’t go on with it if we leave. Come over here, will you? Touch him, here on his thigh, for instance; he’s trembling just like a sick animal.”
“I say leave him alone and come along.” Very reluctantly the man crawled off me. I could have thrashed him soundly then, for I was rested while all his muscles had
been tensed in the effort to hold me down. He was the one who had been trembling and had thought that it was me. I was still trembling even now. But I let him alone
because the girl was present.
“You will probably have drawn your own conclusions as to this battle,” I said to the girl, walked by him with a bow and sat down at the table to go on with the letter.
“And who is trembling?” I asked, before beginning to write, and held the penholder rigid in the air in proof that it was not me. I was already in the midst of my writing
when I called out a short adieu to them in the distance, but kicked out my foot a little to indicate, at least to myself, the farewell that they both probably deserved.
29 May. Tomorrow to Berlin. Is it a nervous or a real, trustworthy security that I feel? How is that possible? Is it true that if one once acquires a confidence in one’s
ability to write, nothing can miscarry, nothing is wholly lost, while at the same time only seldom will something rise up to a more than ordinary height? Is this because of
my approaching marriage to F.? Strange condition, though not entirely unknown to me when I think back.
Stood a long time before the gate with Pick. Thought only of how I might quickly make my escape, for my supper of strawberries was ready for me upstairs.
Everything that I shall now note down about him is simply a piece of shabbiness on my part, for I won’t let him see any of it, or am content that he won’t see it. But I am
really an accessory to his behavior so long as I go about in his company, and therefore what I say of him applies as well to me, even if one discounts the pretended
subtlety that lies in such a remark.
I make plans. I stare rigidly ahead lest my eyes lose the imaginary peepholes of the imaginary kaleidoscope into which I am looking. I mix noble and selfish intentions in
confusion; the color of the noble ones is washed away, in recompense passing off on to the merely selfish ones. I invite heaven and earth to take part in my schemes, at
the same time I am careful not to forget the insignificant little people one can draw out of every side street and who for the time being are more useful to my schemes.