Ah, God, in my soul I do not believe it, because I have lost my inspiration! I have let go of that fire that was to drive like a wind-storm over the world.
Yes, I ask myself if such things can be! I ask myself if they were real, all those fervors and all that boldness of mine! If it was natural, that way that lived!
—Oh, and then I look back, and my heart grows sick within me.
So I spend my time, and when I turn and try to lose myself in Nietzsche, his mercilessness flings me into new despair.
January 18th.
I have the terrible gift of insensibility; and I think my insensibility torments me more than anything else in the world.
I have no life, no power, no feeling, naturally—it is all my will, it is all effort. And now that I am not striving, I sink back into a state of numbness, of dull, insensible despair. I no longer feel anything, I no longer care about anything. I pass my time in helpless impotence—and day by day I watch a thing creeping upon me as in a nightmare. I must go out into the world again and slave for my bread!