I have lost all power
of resistance. It is undoubtedly inflammation of the lungs.

I shall keep up as long as I can. In the morning as soon as I felt
ill, I wrote to my aunt, telling her I was all right, and would leave
Berlin in a few days. In a few days, if I am still conscious, I shall
write the same. I asked her to send all letters and telegrams to my
banker here. I shall take care that nobody at Ploszow knows about my
illness. How very fortunate I said good-by to Clara yesterday.

23 September.

I am worse than yesterday. I am feverish and at times conscious that
my thoughts wander, but I have not lain down. When I shut my eyes the
border line between the real and the outcome of my sick brain seems to
vanish altogether. But I have still control over my senses. I am only
afraid the fever will overpower me and I shall lose consciousness
altogether.

The thought comes now and then into my mind that I, a man more richly
endowed by fate than so many others, who could have a home, a family,
be surrounded by loving hearts, sits here lonely and in sickness, in
a strange place, with nobody near him to give him a glass of water.
Aniela would be near me too--I cannot go on.

14 October.

I resume my writing after an interval of three weeks. Clara has left
me. Seeing me on a fair way to recovery she went to Hanover and
promised to come back in ten days. She nursed me during the whole
time of my illness. It was she who brought a doctor to me. I should
probably have died but for her. I do not remember whether it was the
third or fourth day of my illness she came here. I was conscious, but
at the same time as indifferent as if it were not to me that she had
come, or as if her being there were an every-day occurrence. She came
with the doctor, whose thick, curly, white hair attracted my attention
and fascinated me. After examining me he asked me several questions,
first in German, then in French; and though I understood what he said,
I did not feel the slightest inclination to answer, could not make an
effort,--as if my will-power had been struck down by the disease, as
well as the body.

They worried me that day with cupping, and then I remained quiet
without any sensations. Sometimes I thought that I was going to die,
but this did not trouble me any more than what was going on around me.
Perhaps in severe illness, even when conscious, we lose the sense of
proportion between great and small matters, and for some reas