Patriotic parade. Speech by the mayor. Disappears, then reappears, and a shout in German: “Long live our beloved monarch, hurrah!” I stand there with my malignant
look. These parades are one of the most disgusting accompaniments of the war. Originated by Jewish businessmen who are German one day, Czech the next; admit
this to themselves, it is true, but were never permitted to shout it out as loudly as they do now. Naturally they carry many others along with them. It was well
organized. It is supposed to be repeated every evening, twice tomorrow and Sunday.
7 August. Even if you have not the slightest sensitivity to individual differences, you still treat everyone in his own way. L. of Binz, in order to attract attention, poked
his stick at me and frightened me.
Yesterday and today wrote four pages, trivialities difficult to surpass.
Strindberg is tremendous. This rage, these pages won by fistfighting.
Chorus from the tavern across the way. I just went to the window. Sleep seems impossible. The song is coming through the open door of the tavern. A girl’s voice is
leading them. They are singing simple love songs. I hope a policeman comes along. There he comes. He stops in front of the door for a moment and listens. Then
calls out: “Landlord!” The girl’s voice: “Vojtíšku.” A man in trousers and shirt jumps forward out of a corner. “Close the door! You’re making too much noise.” “Oh
sorry, sorry,” says the landlord, and with delicate and obliging gestures, as if he were dealing with a lady, first closes the door behind him, then opens it to slip out, and
closes it again. The policeman (whose behavior, especially his anger, is incomprehensible, for the singing can’t disturb him but must rather sweeten his monotonous
round) marches off; the singers have lost all desire to sing.
11 August. I imagine that I have remained in Paris, walk through it arm in arm with my uncle, pressed close to his side.
12 August. Didn’t sleep at all. Lay three hours in the afternoon on the sofa, sleepless and apathetic; the same at night. But it mustn’t thwart me.
15 August. I have been writing these past few days, may it continue. Today I am not so completely protected by and enclosed in my work as I was two years ago,
nevertheless have the feeling that my monotonous, empty, mad bachelor’s life has some justification. I can once more carry on a conversation with myself, and don’t
stare so into complete emptiness. Only in this way is there any possibility of improvement for me.
MEMOIRS OF THE KALDA RAILWAY
During one period of my life—it is many years ago now—I had a post with a small railway in the interior of Russia. I have never been so forsaken as I was there. For
various reasons that do not matter now, I had been looking for just such a place at the time; the more solitude ringing in my ears the better I liked it, and I don’t mean
now to make any complaint. At first I had only missed a little activity. The little railway may originally have been built with some commercial purpose in view, but the
capital had been insufficient, construction came to a halt, and instead of terminating at Kalda, the nearest village of any size, a five-day journey from us by wagon, the
railway came to an end at a small settlement right in the wilderness, still a full day’s journey from Kalda.
Now even if the railway had extended to Kalda it would perforce have remained an unprofitable venture for an indefinite period, for the whole notion of it was wrong;
the country needed roads, not railways, nor could the railway manage at all in its present state; the two trains running daily carried freight a light wagon could have
hauled, and its only passengers were a few farm hands during the summer. But still they did not want to shut down the railway altogether, for they went on hoping that
if it were kept in operation they could attract the necessary capital for furthering the construction work. Even this hope was, in my opinion, not so much hope as despair