March 4th.
I gave the place up this morning. I have thirty-one dollars. I think such a sum of money never made me less happy.
I have nothing to do but drag myself back to my room and wait there until the eighth, to take back my manuscript. It will be five weeks that he has kept me—I suppose that is not his fault.
And then I say: “Fool, to torment yourself with such hopes! Don't you know that he will say what all the rest have said? He is a clever man, and he knows everything; but what use is he going to have for your poetry?”
I wandered about almost all of to-day, or sat stupid in my room. I have lost all my habits of effort—I have forgotten all that I ever knew, all my hopes, all my plans. I said: “I will study!” But then I added: “Why should I? Shall I not only make myself miserable, get myself full of emotion, and to no purpose but the carrying of dishes?”
It is terrible to me to have to acknowledge any change in my way of living—I never did that before. Compromises! Concessions! Surrenders!—words such as those set me mad. But what am I to do? What can I do? I writhe and twist, but there is no escape. I struggle upward, but I am only beaten back and back? How should I not stop striving?