Evening.

Tired, agitated, and in conflict with myself.

To-day when I met Morrik, I welcomed my dear friend with particular
pleasure, after these last painful days. He told me without laying much
stress on it--for here one is accustomed to the disappearance of some
known face--of the sudden death, and asked me if I remembered the
handsome young man. I said: no, and then felt heavy at heart as though
I had committed some crime. In vain I tried to persuade myself that by
this untruth, I had cut short any further conversation on the subject,
and perhaps the necessity of telling other falsehoods, I cannot get rid
of the painful feeling that I have wronged my friend who has so much
right to hear the truth. I shall again have a bad night, and shall not
be able to rest till I have confessed all to him, and begged his
pardon.

The next day--I believe it to be the 23rd,
cold and foggy.--

I am severely punished. The cold prevents his walking out. Now I must
wait patiently till to-morrow comes, or perhaps till the day after. It
has become quite a necessity with me, not to let the least breath of
untruth, or misunderstanding come between us.

Edgar Allan Poe with his morbid discontents; his bitter and hopeless
sarcasms, is now congenial to me. There is a frame of mind when wisdom
is repugnant to us, as a bowl of sweet milk is to a man in a fever.
Only that....

Two hours later.

Are calm and peace really only words void of meaning in this troubled
world? Cannot even those retain them inwardly who had won them. I begin
to think that I should not be secure from the events, and storms, which
harass my last moments, even were I shut up in a walled in tower, where
the ravens brought me my food through the barred windows. If no other
catastrophe were possible, an earthquake would root up my place of
concealment, and break through the walls, and I should be again cast
out into the world among strangers, whose affection would distress me,
when I had ceased to care for their aversion.

A visitor disturbed me this morning; the last person in Meran whom I
should have expected to see in my room! No less a personage than the
Burghermeister of the town. He came to spare me the disagreeable
surprise of a solemn summons, and disclosed to me that he had been
entrusted with a letter for me, and with the