Then I had to take a load of my best books--my poor, few precious books that I have loved--and sell them at a second-hand bookstore. When I had sold them I had to hire a waiter's suit for a week, until I had money to buy it. And then with that awful thing on I went down to the restaurant. Can you imagine how a pure woman would feel if she had to go into a brothel to live? That was just how I felt--just how! Oh my God, the indignity of it! Is there _anything_ that I could do more humiliating? --But I have lost the power of getting angry. Only my heart is one great sob. * * * * * February 20th. Oh, that hellish place! What is there in this whole city more brutal than that restaurant? Day and night, day and night, to see but one thing--to see flashy, overdressed, fat and vulgar men and women gorging themselves! Oh, this will teach me to feel--this at least! I go about with my whole being one curse of rage--I could throttle them! And to bow and smirk and lackey them--all day! All day! Oh, what shall I do--how shall I bear it? They offer me tips. At first I thought I should refuse; but no, I dare not do that, even if I wanted to. And since I have stooped to do it, I will take all I can get. To get money is my one passion now. Oh my God, how can I bear it! * * * * * February 21st. I said to-day, I must fight this thing--I must, or it will kill me; I can not let myself go to wreck in this fashion--_I've got to fight!_ And so I got my note-book; and I fell to work to drive myself as of old. The effort that it cost me made me ill, but I did it. I shall keep on doing it--I am like a man faced by a fiend--I _must_ keep on--I must! But then, why do you want to have new languages? Do you not know enough now to keep you in reading matter for all the time you are ever likely to have? * * * * * February 24th. Oh, one can get used to even a flashy restaurant! It is your fate--you take it. This is how I pass all my time there. I struggle to resist the deadening of it, and the horror of it; while I am going about the loathsome grind I try to think--try to have some idea in my head. And something comes to me--something beautiful, perhaps; and then in a few moments, in the clatter and confusion, I lose it; and after that I go about haunted, restless, feeling that I have lost something, that I ought to be doing something. What the thing is, I do not even know--but so it drives me and drives me! I spend literally hours that way. * * * * * February 25th. When are you going to read that poem--_when_? The week was gone yesterday--but I will not trouble you, even now! I wait, I wait! * * * * * February 27th.