=Havana, Friday, April 26, 1912.= Hope dispelled, but I am making progress. Since my awakening the last few months of last year and the first of this year, the reactions have been short and sharp for the most part. Probably the worst one began a little over a week ago and culminated yesterday. During this week, while I have not had more than one very bad night, there was a perceptible diminution of my spirit of fight and I temporarily slipped back into the old mood of indifference. However, I have recovered, stronger I hope, from the temporary weakness. * * * * =Havana, Wednesday, May 1, 1912, 4:20 A. M.= Slowly but surely the net is tightening. The past few months have been such a hell as I hope few young men in their bare majority have passed through. Day by day the work at the office becomes more of a burden, a yoke. Come 11:15 or time for lunch (almuerzo or breakfast here), and I feel as if I were leaving prison. Strive as I may to concentrate my mind on routine work I look forward to getting away soon after arrival. Breakfast and an hour’s (more or less) reading revive me temporarily, and I generally manage to get in an hour or two hours in the afternoon before the utter weariness, brain fag and nervous fatigue, takes possession of me, and the previous day’s ordeal is repeated. The strain of this and the necessity of showing a semblance of interest in the work (which, lately, however, I have not done to any great extent), repeated day after day in monotonous regularity is only part of the hell, but a part of such deadliness that I doubt if I am able to complete my allotted time of contract, which I had made up my mind to force myself to do for the sake of the money.