reply from Bl.; tomorrow is the last possible day.
25 October. My work almost completely at a standstill. What I write seems to lack independence, seems only the pale reflection of earlier work. Reply from Bl.
arrived; I am completely undecided as to how to answer it. Thoughts so base that I cannot even write them down. Yesterday’s sadness . . .
1 November. Yesterday, after a long time, made a great deal of progress; today again virtually nothing; the two weeks since my holiday have been almost a complete
loss—Part of the day—it’s Sunday—has been beautiful. In Chotek Park read Dostoyevsky’s pamphlet in his own defense. The guard at the castle and the corps
headquarters. The fountain in the Thun palace—Much self-satisfaction all day. And now I completely balk at any work. Yet it isn’t balking; I see the task and the way
to it, I simply have to push past small obstacles but cannot do it—Toying with thoughts of F.
3 November. In the afternoon a letter to E., looked through a story by Pick, “Der blinde Gast,” (The Blind Guest) and made some corrections, read a little Strindberg,
then didn’t sleep, home at half past eight, back at ten in fear of headaches which had already begun; and because I had slept very little during the night, did not work any
more, partly too because I was afraid to spoil a fair passage I had written yesterday. Since August, the fourth day on which I have written nothing. The letters are the
cause of it; I’ll try to write none at all or only very short ones. How embarrassed I now am, and how it agitates me. Yesterday evening my excessive happiness after
having read several lines by Jammes, whom otherwise I don’t care for, but whose French (it is a description of a visit to a poet who was a friend of his) had so strong an
effect on me.
4 November. P. back. Shouting excited past all bounds. Story about the mole burrowing under him in the trenches which he looked upon as a warning from heaven to
leave that spot. He had just got away when a bullet struck a soldier crawling after him at the moment he was over the mole—His captain. They distinctly saw him
taken prisoner. But the next day found him naked in the woods, pierced through by bayonets. He probably had had money on him, they wanted to search him and rob
him of it, but he—“the way officers are”—wouldn’t voluntarily submit to being touched—P. almost wept with rage and excitement when he met his boss (whom in the
past he had admired ridiculously, out of all measure) on the train, elegantly dressed, perfumed, his opera glass dangling from his neck, on his way to the theater. (A
month later he himself did the same with a ticket given him by this boss. He went to see Der ungetreue Eckehart, a comedy.) Slept one night in the castle of Princess
Sapieha; one night, while his unit was in reserve, right in front of the Austrian batteries; one night in a peasant cottage, where two women were sleeping in each of the
two beds standing right and left against each wall, a girl behind the stove, and eight soldiers on the floor—Punishment given soldiers. Stand bound to a tree until they
turn blue.
12 November. Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even some who insist on it) are like usurers who gladly risk their capital if only they receive
interest.
24 November. Yesterday on Tuchmachergasse, where they distribute old clothing to the refugees from Galicia. Max, his mother, Mr. Chaim Nagel. The intelligence,
the patience, the friendliness, the industry, the affability, the wit, the dependability of Mr. Nagel. People who, within their sphere, do their work so thoroughly that you
believe they could succeed in anything on earth—yet it is part of their perfection too that they don’t reach out for anything beyond their sphere.
The clever, lively, proud, and unassuming Mrs. Kannegiesser from Tarnow, who wanted only two blankets, but nice ones, and who nevertheless, in spite of Max’s
influence, got only old, dirty ones, while the new blankets were put aside for the better people in another room, together with all the best things. Then, they didn’t want to