wagon.
I was not at all surprised that the wagon stopped in front of my house.
31 July. I have no time. General mobilization. K. and P. have been called up. Now I receive the reward for living alone. But it is hardly a reward; living alone ends
only with punishment. Still, as a consequence, I am little affected by all the misery and am firmer in my resolve than ever. I shall have to spend my afternoons in the
factory; I won’t live at home, for Elli and the two children are moving in with us. But I will write in spite of everything, absolutely; it is my struggle for self-preservation.
1 August. Went to the train to see K. off. Relatives everywhere in the office. Would like to go to Valli’s.
2 August. Germany has declared war on Russia—Swimming in the afternoon.
3 August. Alone in my sister’s apartment. It is lower down than my room, it is also on a side street, hence the neighbors’ loud talking below, in front of their doors.
Whistling too. Otherwise complete solitude. No longed-for wife to open the door. In one month I was to have been married. The saying hurts: You’ve made your bed,
now lie in it. You find yourself painfully pushed against the wall, apprehensively lower your eyes to see whose hand it is that pushes you, and, with a new pain in which
the old is forgotten, recognize your own contorted hand holding you with a strength it never had for good work. You raise your head, again feel the first pain, again
lower your gaze; this up-and-down motion of your head goes on without pause.
4 August. When I rented the place for myself I probably signed something for the landlord by which I bound myself to a two- or even six-year lease. Now he is basing
his demand on this agreement. My stupidity, or rather, my general and utter helplessness. Drop quietly into the river. Dropping probably seems so desirable to me
because it reminds me of “being pushed.”
5 August. The business almost settled, by the expenditure of the last of my strength. Was there twice with Malek as witness, at Felix’s to draft the lease, at the
lawyers’ (6 kr), and all of it unnecessary; I could and should have done it all myself.
6 August. The artillery that marched across the Graben. Flowers, shouts of hurrah! and nazdar! The rigidly silent, astonished, attentive black face with black eyes.
I am more broken down than recovered. An empty vessel, still intact yet already in the dust among the broken fragments; or already in fragments yet still ranged among
those that are intact. Full of lies, hate, and envy. Full of incompetence, stupidity, thickheadedness. Full of laziness, weakness, and helplessness. Thirty-one years old. I
saw the two agriculturists in Ottla’s picture. Young, fresh people possessed of some knowledge and strong enough to put it to use among people who in the nature of
things resist their efforts somewhat. One of them leading beautiful horses; the other lies in the grass, the tip of his tongue playing between his lips in his otherwise
unmoving and absolutely trustworthy face.
I discover in myself nothing but pettiness, indecision, envy, and hatred against those who are fighting and whom I passionately wish everything evil.
What will be my fate as a writer is very simple. My talent for portraying my dreamlike inner life has thrust all other matters into the background; my life has dwindled
dreadfully, nor will it cease to dwindle. Nothing else will ever satisfy me. But the strength I can muster for that portrayal is not to be counted upon: perhaps it has
already vanished forever, perhaps it will come back to me again, although the circumstances of my life don’t favor its return. Thus I waver, continually fly to the summit
of the mountain, but then fall back in a moment. Others waver too, but in lower regions, with greater strength; if they are in danger of falling, they are caught up by the
kinsman who walks beside them for that very purpose. But I waver on the heights; it is not death, alas, but the eternal torments of dying.