Part 36 (1/2)

I have been h.o.a.rding my money--counting every cent. I dread the world so!

Now that I am so broken, so laden with misery, it sounds about me as one jeer of mockery. But I shall have to be hunting a place soon--you never can tell how long it may take you, and the chances are so terrible.

I will not do anything until I hear from this one man, however. He promised to let me know in a week.

I did not see him at the publisher's--he has another office besides. He had huge piles of papers and books about him; he is an important man, I guess; can it be that he will be the one to save me?

I think: ”Oh if he knew, he would!” I find myself thinking that of all the world--if I could only make them understand! Poor, impotent wretch, if I could only find the _word_!

--Or is it simply my blind egotism that makes me think that?

February 6th.

I do not think that what I write can be of much interest. It must be monotonous--all this despair, this endless crying out, this endless repet.i.tion of the same words, the same thought.

Yet that is all that my life is! That is just what I do every day--whenever I am not reading a book to forget myself.

It is all so simple, my situation! That is the most terrible thing about it, it is the same thing always and forever.

I have lived so much agony through this thing--it would not startle me if I saw that my hair had turned white. I know I feel like an old man. I am settled down into mournfulness, into despair; I can do nothing but gaze back--I have lived my life--I have spent my force--I am tired and sick.

I! I! I!--do you get tired of hearing it? It was not always like that; once you read a little about a book.

February 8th.

This is the fifth day. I am counting the days, I have been counting the very hours. He said he would be a week. And I--only think of it--I have but two dollars and sixty cents left!

Hurry up! Hurry up!

--And then I say with considerable scorn in my voice: ”Haven't you learned enough about that ma.n.u.script yet? And about publishers yet?”

February 10th.

Just imagine! I went to see him to-day, and he stared at me. ”Why, sure enough, Mr. Stirling!--It had slipped my mind entirely!”

I have learned to bear things. I asked him calmly to let me know as soon as possible. He said: ”I am honestly so rushed that I do not know where to turn. But I will do the best I possibly can.”

I said--poor, pitiful cringing, is it not terrible?--that I'd be up his way again in three days, and did he think he could have it read by then. He said he was not sure, but that he'd try.

And so I went away. Now I have two dollars and twenty-three cents. I have to pay my rent to-morrow, and that will leave me a dollar and a half. I can make that do me seven or eight days--I have one or two things at home.