For a week I have been unable to write a single line in my diary. When it comes night, I am tired, exhausted, at the end of my strength. I think of nothing but going to bed and to sleep. To sleep! If I could always sleep!

Oh! what a shabby place, My God! You can have no idea of it!

For a yes, for a no, Madame makes you run up and down the two cursed flights of stairs. One has not even time to sit down in the linen-room and breathe a little, when … drinn! … drinn! … drinn! … one has to get up and start again. It makes no difference if one is not feeling well, drinn! … drinn! … drinn! In these days I have pains in my loins that bend me in two, and gripe my stomach, and almost make me cry out. That cuts no figure; drinn! … drinn! … drinn! … One has no time to be sick; one has not the right to suffer. Suffering is a master's luxury. We, we must walk, and fast, and forever; walk at the risk of falling. Drinn! … drinn! … drinn! … And if one is a little slow in coming at the sound of the bell, then there are reproaches and angry scenes.

"Well, what are you about? You do not hear,