Haller perches in a sombre studio. What dust and fleas! Once I came in whilst he was developing photographs of his Russian girlfriend Sch. in the chamber pot. He wants to push his Cycle to the Sun to completion. His energy can’t be doubted. He was fooled by a ravishing little model. She said she was not a professional model; she claimed she had overcome her scruples only to save her mother and four brothers and sisters from starvation (a letter to the Pope had brought no results). In the evening the little ones cry: Mamma, fame! The mother has almost lost her mind as a result. Too proud to beg. One day Haller wanted to pay her and sent her out to change 50 lire; she brought back only 45, which he nobly didn’t count until later. We now saw through the whole scheme. And yet she was such a splendid model. Stood undaunted on a platform of tables and chairs and ecstatically spread her arms to the sun.

      This week again we conquered another piece of Rome. The Pinacotheca in the Vatican and the Galleria Borghese. In the Vatican, the utmost solidity, only few pictures. An unfinished Leonardo (“St. Jerome”), a couple of Peruginos, a priest in solemn dress by Titian. Raphael is more difficult to do justice to. Snatched away right in the middle of an overwhelming effort. The possibilities indisputable, the actual production too much that of a disciple. Burckhardt is less just toward Botticelli (only one page in the Cicerone).

      I have now reached the point where I can look over the great art of antiquity and its Renaissance. But, for myself, I cannot find any artistic connection with our own times. And to want to create something outside of one’s own age strikes me as suspect. Great perplexity. This is why I am again all on the side of satire. Am I to be completely absorbed by it once more? For the time being it is my only creed. Perhaps I shall never become positive? In any case, I will defend myself like a wild beast. More and more Renaissance, more and more Burckhardt. I already speak his language, for example. One doesn’t like to think, in this connection, of the Gothic garments of the Germans. This doesn’t apply to the Italian Dürer, the Munich Apostles are clothed in exemplary fashion. Similar unfairness towards Baroque. That Greece existed is no longer believed. Bernini a raven foreboding misfortune. November 15th. Important concert in the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

      Collection of ancient art in the Palazzo degli Conservatori: “The She Wolf”, “The Remover of the Thorn” and of particular interest to the connoisseur of nudes, “The Statues of the Muses”, a rotating female figure, perfect as nature. The German turns it. His bride sits on a bench and admires him. The Italian makes silly jokes. The Englishman reads his guide, emitting noble sounds. You are never alone in museums.

      Galleria Barberini. I have never liked Guido Reni, though his deeply felt “Cenci” is moving. One is involved as a human being by this portrait; it becomes a little dramatic scene. This unhappy love is felt precisely because it is a picture. The shape of the eyelids might move us to soft lamentation. The small mouth is at once the pole of suffering and the pole of bliss.

      I am working on a composition. At an earlier stage there were many figures. I called it “Moralising on Stray Paths”. (Stuck calls a picture: “Sin”.) Now the approach is satirical. The figures have been concentrated into three. The way of love. Now I have left out the woman. The problem is simpler and yet no less demanding. The woman is to be expressed triply in the attitude of the three. I must concentrate on working more intimately; there is not much ammunition at hand. Then why the big gun?

      22.11.1901. We wandered far out, over the Aventine (Basilica Santa Sabina, splendidly primitive, with open wooden roof supports, mosaic pavement) and down to Porta San Paolo. At some distance from it stands another mighty basilica, unfortunately renovated after several fires, cold. On the way back we followed the course of the Tiber, or more exactly, went upstream. Just before the last bridge were anchored steamers and sailboats that had been dragged this far. The nearness of the sea. Near the appealing temple of Vesta an old man fell down with a large basket of oranges and lay there, looking at the rolling fruits. But already a number of children had come running to the rescue and filled up the basket again with great speed. First I had let myself be contaminated by Haller’s unquenchable laughter, but later we thought about the nice traits of these people. Triglie are quite delicious fish (reddish). Eating and drinking. Thinking as little as possible whilst doing so, as if one were somewhere in Corsica or in Sardinia. And when, besides, a green salad, unimaginably delicate, happens to be served! O this South!

      December 2nd. Today they took my cat away from me and I had to look on whilst it disappeared in a sack. I understood at last what words had not succeeded in making clear to me. It was a cat that had been borrowed to catch mice for a period of time. And I had already given away my heart.

      3.12.1901. Friendship with Haller not always untroubled. Incentive to rivalry in art. Recognition that he is more advanced in the domain of colour. Realisation that a long struggle lies in store for me in this field. “But in drawing, I correct him.”

      7.12.1901. Two letters and two postcards travel northward, they entail no answer. I want to know that most of the threads that bind me to the past are severed. Perhaps these are the symptoms of incipient mastery. I take leave from those who taught me. Ungratefulness to school! What is left for me now? Only the future. I violently prepare myself for it. I did not have many friends; when I ask for spiritual friendship, I am almost forsaken. I still have confidence in Bloesch, Lotmar has great possibilities, but my relationship with Haller is strange. We don’t fit together.