self with various amenities⁠—which is why I am telling you this, that the pangs of conscience may not torment me. Frankly, I confess that I am in desperate straits⁠—in such straits as I have never yet known. My landlady flouts me, and I enjoy the respect of no one; my arrears and debts are terrible; and in the office, though never have I found the place exactly a paradise, no one has a single word to say to me. Yet I hide, I carefully hide, this from everyone. I would hide my person in the same way, were it not that daily I have to attend the office where I have to be constantly on my guard against my fellows. Nevertheless, merely to be able to confess this to you renews my spiritual strength. We must not think of these things, Barbara, lest the thought of them break our courage. I write them down merely to warn you not