15 March. The students wanted to carry Dostoyevsky’s chains behind his coffin. He died in the workers’ quarter, on the fifth floor of a tenement house.
Once, during the winter, at about five o’clock in the morning, the half-clothed maid announced a visitor to the student. “What’s that? What did you say?” the student,
still half asleep, was asking, when a young man entered, carrying a lighted candle that he had borrowed from the maid. He raised the candle in one hand the better to
see the student and lowered his hat in his other hand almost to the floor, so long was his arm.
Only this everlasting waiting, eternal helplessness.
17 March. Sat in the room with my parents, leafed through magazines for two hours, on and off simply stared before me; in general simply waited for ten o’clock to
arrive and for me to be able to go to bed.
27 March. On the whole passed in much the same way.
Hass hurried to get aboard the ship, ran across the gangplank, climbed up on deck, sat down in a corner, pressed his hands to his face and from then on no longer
concerned himself with anyone. The ship’s bell sounded, people were running along, far off, as though at the other end of the ship someone were singing with full voice.
They were just about to pull in the gangplank when a small black carriage came along, the coachman shouted from the distance, he had to exert all his strength to hold
back the rearing horse; a young man sprang out of the carriage, kissed an old, white-bearded gentleman bending forward under the roof of the carriage, and with a small
valise in his hand ran aboard the ship, which at once pushed off from the shore.
It was about three o’clock in the morning, but in the summer, and already half light. Herr von Irmenhof’s five horses Famos, Grasaffe, Tournemento, Rosina and
Brabant—rose up in the stable. Because of the sultry night the stable door had been left ajar; the two grooms slept on their backs in the straw, flies hovered up and
down above their open mouths, there was nothing to hinder them. Grasaffe stood up so that he straddled the two men under him, and, watching their faces, was ready
to strike down at them with his hoofs at their slightest sign of awakening. Meanwhile the four others sprang out of the stable in two easy leaps, one behind the other;
Grasaffe followed them.
Through the glass door Anna saw the lodger’s room was dark; she went in and turned on the electric light to make the bed ready for the night. But the student was
sitting half reclined upon the sofa, smiling at her. She excused herself and turned to leave. But the student asked her to stay and to pay no attention to him. She did
stay, in fact, and did her work, casting an occasional sidelong glance at the student.
5 April. If only it were possible to go to Berlin, to become independent, to live from one day to the next, even to go hungry, but to let all one’s strength pour forth instead
of husbanding it here, or rather instead of one’s turning aside into nothingness! If only F. wanted it, would help me!
8 April. Yesterday incapable of writing even one word. Today no better. Who will save me? And the turmoil in me, deep down, scarcely visible; I am like a living
lattice-work, a lattice that is solidly planted and would like to tumble down.
Today in the coffeehouse with Werfel. How he looked from the distance, seated at the coffeehouse table. Stooped, half reclining even in the wooden chair, the
beautiful profile of his face pressed against his chest, his face almost wheezing in its fullness (not really fat); entirely indifferent to the surroundings, impudent, and
without flaw. His dangling glasses by contrast make it easier to trace the delicate outlines of his face.
6 May. My parents seem to have found a beautiful apartment for F. and me; I ran around for nothing one entire beautiful afternoon. I wonder whether they will lay me
in my grave too, after a life made happy by their solicitude.