heart palpitations, all from fear. At night, when I’m in bed, I see myself alone in a dungeon, without Mummy and Daddy. Sometimes I wander by the roadside, or our ‘Secret Annexe’ is on fire, or they come and take us away at night. I see everything as if it is actually taking, place, and this gives me the feeling that it may all happen to me very soon. Miep often says she envies us for possessing such tranquillity here. That may be true, but she is not thinking about all our fears. I simply can’t imagine that the world will ever be normal for us again. I do talk about ‘after the war,’ but then it is only a castle in the air, something that will never really happen. If I think back to our old house, my girl friends, the fun at school, it is just as if another person lived it all, not me.
I see the eight of us with our “Secret Annexe” as if we were a little piece of blue heaven, surrounded by heavy black rain clouds. The round, clearly defined spot where we stand is still safe, but the clouds gather more closely about us and the circle which separates us from the approaching danger closes more and more tightly. Now we are so surrounded by danger and darkness that we bump against each other, as we search desperately for a means of escape. We all look down below, where people are fighting each other, we look above, where it is quiet and beautiful, and meanwhile we are cut off by the great dark mass, which will not let us go upwards, but which stands before us as an impenetrable wall, it tries to crush us, but cannot do so yet. I can only cry and implore: “Oh, if only the black circle could recede and open the way for us!”
Yours, Anne
Thursday, 11 November, 1943
Dear Kitty, I have a good title for this chapter.
ODE TO MY FOUNTAIN PEN IN MEMORIAM
My fountain pen has always been one of my most priceless possessions, I value it highly, especially for its thick nib, for I can only really write neatly with a thick nib. My fountain pen has had a very long and interesting pen- life, which I will briefly tell you about.
When I was nine, my fountain pen arrived in a packet (wrapped in cotton wool) as a ‘sample without value’ all the way from Aachen, where my grandmother, the kind donor, used to live. I was in bed with flu, while February winds howled round the house. The glorious fountain pen had a red leather case and was at once shown around to all my friends. I, Anne Frank, the proud owner of a fountain pen! When I was ten I was allowed to take the pen to school and the mistress went so far as to permit me to write with it.
When I was eleven, however, my treasure had to be put away again, because the mistress in the sixth form only allowed us to use school pens and inkpots.
When I was twelve and went to the Jewish Lyceum, my fountain pen received a new case in honour of the great occasion, it could take a pencil as well, and as it closed with a zipper looked much more impressive.
At thirteen the fountain pen came with us to the ‘Secret Annexe,’ where it has raced through countless diaries and compositions for me.
Now I am fourteen, we have spent our last year together.
It was on a Friday afternoon after 5 o’clock. I had come out of my room and wanted to go and sit at the table to write, when I was roughly pushed on one side and had to make room for Margot and Daddy, who wanted to practice their ‘Latin.’ The fountain pen remained on the table unused while, with a sigh, its owner contented herself with a tiny little corner of the table and started rubbing beans. ‘Bean rubbing’ is making mouldy beans decent again. I swept the floor at a quarter to six and threw the dirt, together with the bad beans, into a newspaper and into the stove. A terrific flame leapt out and I thought it was grand that the fire should burn up so well when it was practically out. All was quiet again, the “Latinites” had finished, and I went
