August 15th
One thing is certain—nothing justifies a man’s existence like being loved. I feel that Lotte would not like to lose me, and it never occurs to the children that I might not turn up every day. Today I went over to tune Lotte’s piano, but never got around to doing it, because the little ones would not leave me alone. They wanted a fairy tale, and in the end, even Lotte asked me to tell them one. I cut their supper bread for them—now they are almost as willing to receive it from me as from Lotte—and I told them their favorite tale about the princess who is waited on by invisible hands.
I learn a great deal when I do this sort of thing, I can assure you, and am astonished by what an impression it makes on them. Sometimes, when I have to invent an incident because I have forgotten how I told the story the first time, they tell me at once that last time it was different, so now I try to tell every tale in a sustained singsong tone. This has taught me that an author can harm his book if he publishes a second, changed version of his story, however improved it may be poetically. The first impression finds the reader willing, and a human being can be persuaded to believe in the most daring adventure, but it takes root immediately, and woe to him who tries to dig it up and eradicate it!
August 18th
Why does that which makes a man happy have to become the source of his misery?
My full, warm enjoyment of all living things that used to overwhelm me with so much delight and transform the world around me into a paradise has been turned into unbearable torment, a demon who pursues me wherever I go.
When I used to look at the far-off hills across the river from the crags that give me a full view of the fruitful valley below and saw all things burgeoning around me: the mountains opposite, overgrown with thick, tall trees; the valleys winding in the shade of the loveliest forests; the river flowing gently between whispering reeds, mirroring the pretty clouds moving slowly across the horizon in the light evening breeze; when I heard the birds around me bringing the woods to life with their song and saw millions of little gnats swarming in the sun’s red light; saw how its last tremulous rays brought the humming beetles up out of the grass; and all this whirring and buzzing around me made me more aware suddenly of the ground beneath my feet, of the moss wresting its nourishment out of the hard rock, of the brush flourishing on arid, sandy slopes, revealing the innermost, glowing, sacred life of nature itself—how warmly I used to be able to embrace all this and feel like a god in its abundance! How the magnificent creatures of this infinite world came to life in my soul!
I was surrounded by titanic mountains, abysses lay at my feet, waterfalls tumbled down steep slopes, rivers flowed beneath me, and forest and mountain resounded with it all. And I could see unfathomable powers working and creating in the bowels of the earth, generations of divers creatures milling around above the ground, beneath the sky—all of it taking a thousand different shapes—and the human beings seeking protection in their little houses, settling down together and, in their way, ruling over this wide world. He is a poor fool who has so little respect for all this because he is so small!
From the forbidding mountain range, across the barren plain untrodden by the foot of man, to the ends of the unknown seas, the spirit of the Eternal Creator can be felt rejoicing over every grain of dust that comprehends Him and lives! Oh, how often I used to yearn in those days to fly with the wings of the crane above me to the shores of the limitless seas and drink the surging joy of life from the foaming cup of eternity and feel, with the restricted powers of my breast, one single drop of the bliss of Him who created all this.
Dear brother, merely recalling hours such as these refreshes me; even the exertion of remembering those indescribable feelings, and the retelling of them, lifts me out of myself—but then I feel my dread condition doubly hard. Something has been drawn away from my soul like a curtain and the panorama of eternal life has been transformed before my eyes into the abyss of an eternally open grave. Who can say, “That’s how it is!” when all things are transient and roll away with the passing storm, and one’s powers so rarely suffice for one’s span of life but are carried off in the torrent to sink and be dashed against the rocks? There is not a moment in which one is not a destroyer and has to be a destroyer. A harmless walk kills a thousand poor crawling things; one footstep smashes a laboriously built anthill and stamps a whole little world into an ignominious grave. The rare disasters of this world, the floods that wash away our villages, the earthquakes that swallow up our cities—they do not move me. My heart is undermined by the consuming power that lies hidden in the Allness of nature, which has created nothing, formed nothing, which has destroyed neither its neighbor nor itself. Surrounded by the heavens and the earth and the powerful web they weave between them, I reel with dread. I can see nothing but an eternally devouring, eternally regurgitating monster.
August 21st
I stretch out my arms for her in vain when, troubled by my dreams, I awaken in the morning; at night I vainly seek her in my bed when a happy, innocent dream has deceived me into imagining I am sitting beside her in a field and holding her hand and kissing her. Oh, when I feel for her, still half dazed with sleep, and wake myself with it—a flood of tears flows from my oppressed heart and I weep inconsolably into a dark, dreary future.
August 22nd
It is a tragedy, William. My creative powers have been reduced to a restless indolence. I cannot be idle, yet I cannot seem to do anything either. I have no imagination, no more feeling for nature, and reading has become repugnant to me. When we are robbed of ourselves, we are robbed of everything! I swear there are days when I wish I were a common laborer if only to have something to do that day, an impetus, some hope when I awaken in the morning. I often envy Albert when I see him up to his ears in legal papers and tell myself that I would feel wonderful if I were in his place. How many times it has occurred to me to write and tell you that I was going to ask the minister for that post at the embassy, that you assured me would be granted me! I think it would be, too. The minister has shown a liking for me for some time now and has been urging me to seek some sort of occupation. For an hour or two I can work up a measure of enthusiasm for it, but then, when I think it over again, I am reminded of the fable about the horse that, impatient with its freedom, permitted itself to be saddled and ridden to death. I don’t know what to do. And isn’t it possible, my dear friend, that my longing for a change in my circumstances is an innate impatience that will pursue me wherever I go?
August 28th
It is true—if my illness were not incurable, these people could cure it. Today is my birthday, and early in the morning, I received a little package from Albert. When I opened it, I at once saw one of the pink bows Lotte was wearing when I saw her for the first time, which I have begged her so often to give me. The package consisted of two slim duodecimo volumes, the small Wetstein Homer, an edition I have often tried to find so that I would not have to drag my heavy Ernesti edition with me on my walks. So there you are—they try to fulfill my every wish; they think of any little friendly favors they can do me that are worth a thousand times more to me than those dazzling gifts that make us feel ashamed of the donor’s vanity. I have kissed the little bow a thousand times, and with every breath I inhale the bliss with which those few, happy, irretrievable days filled me. William, that is how it is and I am not complaining. The flowers of life are illusion. How many blossom and leave no trace, how few bear fruit, and what a small amount of this fruit ripens! And still there are enough left, and still—oh, dearest friend—can we neglect the ripened fruit or despise it, or let it rot without ever having enjoyed it?
Farewell. It is a marvelous summer. I often sit in the fruit trees in Lotte’s orchard and with long shears cut the pears from the top of the tree. She stands below and takes them from me one by one as I hand them down to her.
August 30th
Miserable wretch!
