Nevertheless I am still susceptible to human kindness.  At moments, when those honest blue eyes of Clara’s looked into mine with such kindliness and such keen scrutiny, as if they wanted to look into my very soul, her goodness humiliated me so that I felt a desire to weep.  Clara, in spite of my effort to seem as usual, noticed that I was changed, and with quick feminine intuition she guessed that I speak, live, almost think mechanically, and that my soul is half dead within me.  She left off all searchings and inquiries, but became very tender.  I saw that she was afraid of wearying me.  She also tried to make me understand that in the tenderness she was showing there was no concealed intention of winning my regard, but only the desire to comfort me.  And it did comfort me, but I could not help feeling very tired.  My mind is not capable of any concentration, any effort to maintain a conversation, even with a friend.  And besides, since the one aim of my life has vanished from my eyes, everything appears to me so empty that I have continually the question in my mind:  “What is the use of it? what can it matter now?”

21 September.

Never in my life have I passed a more terrible night.  I had a sensation of terror, as if I descended by endless steps into deeper and deeper darkness, full of horrible, indefined, moving shapes.  I made up my mind to leave Berlin; I cannot breathe under that heavy, leaden sky.  I will go back to Rome, to my house on the Babuino, and settle there for good.  I think my accounts with Aniela and the world in general may be considered as closed, and henceforth I will quietly vegetate at Rome until my time comes.  Anything for tranquillity!  Yesterday’s visit to Clara convinced me that even if I wished it, I cannot live with others, since I have nothing wherewith to repay their kindness.  I am excluded from general life and stand outside, and though I am conscious of the indescribable solitude, I have no wish to go back.  The idea of Rome and my hermitage on the Babuino smiles upon me; it is a pale, sorrowful smile, but I prefer it to anything else.  There I spread my wings to fly out into the world, and thither I go back with broken wings,—­to wait for the end.

I am writing mostly in the morning, for at night I always descend to those dark regions wherein fear dwells.  To-day I shall go to the concert and say good-by to Clara.  To-morrow I depart.  On the way I may stop at Vienna, perhaps see Angeli, but am not certain.  I am never certain how I shall feel, or what I shall do the next day.

I received to-day a note from Clara, in which she asks me to come and see her after the concert.  I shall go to the concert because there are so many healthy-minded people there that I feel safer in their midst; and they do not tire me, as they are personally unknown to me; I see only the crowd.  But I shall not go to Clara.  She is too kind.  It is said of persons dying from starvation that for some