load. The last letter to her that I tortured out of myself she considers calm; it “breathes so much calmness,” as she puts it. It is of course not impossible that she puts it
this way out of delicacy, out of forbearance, out of concern for me. I am indeed sufficiently punished in general, even my position in my own family is punishment
enough; I have also suffered so much that I shall never recover from it (my sleep, my memory, my ability to think, my resistance to the tiniest worries have been
weakened past all cure—strangely enough, the consequences of a long period of imprisonment are about the same); for the moment, however, my relationship to them
causes me little suffering, at least less than F. or E. There is of course something tormenting in the fact that I am now supposed to take a Christmas trip with E., while
F. will remain in Berlin.
8 December. Yesterday for the first time in ever so long an indisputable ability to do good work. And yet wrote only the first page of the “mother” chapter, for I had
barely slept at all two nights, in the morning already had had indications of a headache, and had been too anxious about the next day. Again I realized that everything
written down bit by bit rather than all at once in the course of the larger part (or even the whole) of one night is inferior, and that the circumstances of my life condemn
me to this inferiority.
9 December. Together with E. K. of Chicago. He is almost touching. Description of his placid life. From eight to half past five in the mail-order house. Checking the
shipments in the textile department. Fifteen dollars a week. Two weeks’ holiday, one week with pay; after five years both weeks with pay. For a while, when there
wasn’t much to do in the textile department, he helped out in the bicycle department. Three hundred bicycles are sold a day. A wholesale business with ten thousand
employees. They get all their customers by sending out catalogues. The Americans like to change their jobs, they don’t particularly like to work in summer; but he
doesn’t like to change, doesn’t see the point of it, you lose time and money by it. So far he has had two jobs, each for five years, and when he returns—he has an
indefinite leave—he will go back to the same job, they can always use him, but can always do without him too. Evenings he generally stays at home, plays cards with
friends; sometimes, for diversion, an hour at the cinema, in summer a walk, Sunday a boat ride on the lake. He is wary of marriage, even though he is already thirty-four
years old, since American women often marry only in order to get divorced, a simple matter for them, but very expensive for the man.
13 December. Instead of working—I have written only one page (exegesis of the “Legend”)—looked through the finished chapters and found parts of them good.
Always conscious that every feeling of satisfaction and happiness that I have, such, for example, as the “Legend” in particular inspires in me, must be paid for, and must
be paid for moreover at some future time, in order to deny me all possibility of recovery in the present.
Recently at Felix’s. On the way home told Max that I shall lie very contentedly on my deathbed, provided the pain isn’t too great. I forgot—and later purposely
omitted—to add that the best things I have written have their basis in this capacity of mine to meet death with contentment. All these fine and very convincing passages
always deal with the fact that someone is dying, that it is hard for him to do, that it seems unjust to him, or at least harsh, and the reader is moved by this, or at least he
should be. But for me, who believe that I shall be able to lie contentedly on my deathbed, such scenes are secretly a game; indeed, in the death enacted I rejoice in my
own death, hence calculatingly exploit the attention that the reader concentrates on death, have a much clearer understanding of it than he, of whom I suppose that he