July 10 + 

Am doing no work at all.⁠ ⁠… I sit motionless in my chair and beat the devil’s tattoo with my thumbs and think, think, think in the same horrible circle hour after hour. I am unable to work. I haven’t the courage to. I’ve lost my nerve. + 

At five I return “home” to the Boardinghouse and get more desperate. + 

Two old maids sat down to dinner tonight, one German youth (a lascivious, ranting, brainless creature), a lady typist (who takes drugs they say), a dipsomaniac (who has monthly bouts⁠—H⁠⸺ carried him upstairs and put him to bed the other night), two invertebrate violinists who play in the Covent Garden Orchestra, a colonial lady engaged in a bedroom intrigue with a man who sits at my table. What are these people to me? I hate them all. They know it and are offended. + 

After dinner, put on my cap and rushed out anywhere to escape. Walked to the end of the street, not knowing where I was going or what doing. Stopped and stared with fixed eyes at the traffic in Kensington Road, undetermined what to do with myself and unable to make up my mind (volitional paralysis). Turned round, walked home, and went straight to bed 9 p.m., anxiously looking forward to tomorrow evening when I go to see her again, but at the same time wondering how on earth I am to get through tomorrow’s round before the evening comes.⁠ ⁠… This is a hand-to-mouth existence. My own inner life is scorching up all outside interests. Zoology appears as a curious thing in a Baghdad bazaar. I sit in my room at the B.M. and play with it; I let it trickle through my fingers and roll away like a child playing with quicksilver. + 