354
PARTISAN REVIEW
1921
October 15.
All my diaries given to M., about a week ago. A bit
freer? No.
Am I still capable of keeping a sort of diary? In any event, it will
be different, or rather it will shrink away, it will not exist at all; for.
instance, concerning Hardt, although he preoccupied me pretty much,
I would be able only with the greatest effort to contrive a note.
It
is
as though I had already long ago written everything about him, or–
which is the same thing-as though I were no longer alive. Concerning
M. I doubtless could write, but again not out of free resolve; it would
be far too much directed against myself. I no longer need to be conscious
of such things in detail, as I used to, I am not as forgetful in this respect
as I once was, I am a memory become alive, hence, too, my sleeplessness.
October 16. Sunday.
The misfortune of continuous beginning, the
absence of illusion about the fact that everything is only a beginning
and not even a beginning, the folly of others who do not know this and,
for instance, play football in order finally for once to "get ahead," one's
own folly buried within oneself as in a coffin, the folly of those others
who think that is a real coffin, that is, a coffin that can be transported,
opened, destroyed, exchanged.
Among the young women up in the park. No envy. Enough imagi–
nation to share their happiness, enough judgment to know that I am
too weak for this happiness, enough folly to believe that I see through
my condition and theirs. Not enough folly, there is a small gap in it,
the wind whistling through it prevents full resonance.
If
I had a strong wish to be a lightweight athlete, it probably
would be as though I wished to go to heaven and to be allowed to be
as deeply despairing there as I am here.
Miserable as my assets may be-"all else being equal" (especially
considering my weakness of will)--even the most miserable on earth–
!
must nevertheless, even in my own sense, attempt to achieve the utmost
with them, and it is empty sophistry to say that only one thing can be
achieved with them, that one thing being therefore the best, that being
despair.
October 17.
Behind the fact that I have not learned anything
useful and- there is a connection here-have let myself deteriorate
physically also, there may be a design. I wanted to remain undiverted,
undiverted by the joy of living the life of a useful and healthy man.
