got up, went to the chest to get something (a compass, L. thinks, A. thinks a contraceptive), then suddenly switched off the light, overwhelmed her with kisses; she sank
down on the sofa, he held her arms, her shoulders, and kept saying, “Kiss me!”
L. on another occasion: “W. is very clumsy.” Another time: “I didn’t kiss him.” Another time: “I felt as if I were lying in your arms.”
A.: “I must find out the truth, mustn’t I?” (he is thinking of having her examined by a doctor). “Only suppose I learn on the wedding night that she has been lying.
Perhaps she’s so calm only because he used a contraceptive.”
Lourdes: Attack on faith in miracles, also attack on the church. With equal justification he could argue against the churches, processions, confessions, the unhygienic
practices everywhere, since it can’t be proved that prayer does any good. Karlsbad is a greater swindle than Lourdes; Lourdes has the advantage that people go there
out of deepest conviction. What about the crackpot notions people have concerning operations, serum therapy, vaccination, medicines?
On the other hand: The huge hospitals for the pilgrimaging invalids; the filthy piscinas; the brancards waiting for the special trains; the medical commission; the great
incandescent crosses on the mountains; the Pope receives three million a year. The priest with the monstrance passes by, a woman screams from her stretcher, “I am
cured!” Her tuberculosis of the bone continues unchanged.
The door opened a crack. A revolver appeared and an outstretched arm.
Thürheim, II, 35, 28, 37: nothing sweeter than love, nothing pleasanter than flirtation; 45, 48: Jews.
10 February. Eleven o’clock, after a walk. Fresher than usual. Why?
1. Max said I was calm.
2. Felix is going to be married (was angry with him).
3. I remain alone, unless F. will still have me after all.
4. Mrs. X.’s invitation; I think how I shall introduce myself to her.
By chance I walked in the direction opposite to my usual one, that is, Kettensteg, Hradcany, Karlsbrücke. Ordinarily I nearly collapse on this road; today, coming from
the opposite direction, I felt somewhat lifted up.
11 February. Hastily read through Dilthey’s Goethe; tumultuous impression, carries one along, why couldn’t one set oneself afire and be destroyed in the flames? Or
obey, even if one hears no command? Or sit on a chair in the middle of one’s empty room and look at the floor? Or shout “Forward!” in a mountain defile and hear
answering shouts and see people emerge from all the bypaths in the cliffs.
13 February. Yesterday at Mrs. X.’s. Calm and energetic, an energy that is perfect, triumphant, penetrating, that finds its way into everything with eyes, hands, and
feet. Her frankness, a frank gaze. I keep remembering the ugly, huge, ceremonious Renaissance hats with ostrich feathers that she used to wear; she repelled me so
long as I didn’t know her personally. How her muff, when she hurries towards the point of her story, is pressed against her body and yet twitches. Her children, A. and
B.
Reminds one a good deal of W. in her looks, in her self-forgetfulness in the story, in her complete absorption, in her small, lively body, even in her hard, hollow voice, in
her talk of fine clothes and hats at the same time that she herself wears nothing of the sort.
View from the window of the river. At many points in the conversation, in spite of the fact that she never allows it to flag, my complete failure, vacant gaze,
incomprehension of what she is saying; I mechanically drop the silliest remarks at the same time that I am forced to see how closely she attends to them; I stupidly pet
her little child.
Dreams: In Berlin, through the streets to her house, calm and happy in the knowledge that, though I haven’t arrived at her house yet, a slight possibility of doing so exists;
I shall certainly arrive there. I see the streets, on a white house a sign, something like “The Splendors of the North” (saw it in the paper yesterday); in my dream “Berlin
W” has been added to it. Ask the way of an affable, red-nosed old policeman who in this instance is stuffed into a sort of butler’s livery. Am givers excessively detailed