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I do not know the day of the week. That is one step nearer the goal for which I long. May it come to pass that the weeks and months shall glide imperceptibly over me, so that I shall only recognise the seasons by the changing tints of the forest and the alternations of heat and cold.
Alas, those days are still a long way off!
I have just been having a conflict with myself, and I find that all the time I have been living here as though I were spending a summer holiday in Tyrol. I have been simply deceiving myself and playing with the hidden thought that I could begin my life over again.
I have shivered with terror at this self-deception. The last few nights I have hardly slept at all. A traveller must feel the same who sails across the sea ignorant of the country to which he journeys. Vaguely he pictures it as resembling his native land, and lands to find himself in a wilderness which he must plant and cultivate until it blossoms with his new desires and dreams. By the time he has turned the desert into a home, his day is over....
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If I could but make up my mind to burn that letter! I weigh it, first in my right hand, then in my left. Sometimes its weight makes me happy; sometimes it fills me with foreboding. Do the words weigh so heavy, or only the paper?
Last night I held it close to the candle. But when the flame touched my letter, I drew it quickly away.—It is all I have left to me now....
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Richard writes to me that Malthe has been commissioned to build a great hospital. Most of our great architects competed for the work. He goes on to ask whether I am not proud of "my young friend."