surface. My irony when I think of myself tastes bitter on the palate.
There was something barren in the clay from which God formed the
Ploszowskis, since on that soil everything springs up and grows so
luxuriously, yet produces no fruit. Truly, if with this barrenness,
this powerlessness to act, I possessed the abilities of a genius, it
would be a strange kind of genius,--a genius without portfolio, as
there are ministers of state without portfolio.

This definition, "a genius without portfolio" seems to fit me to
perfection. I shall take out a patent of invention for the word. But
the definition does not apply to me alone. Its name is legion. Side
by side with the _improductivité Slave_ goes the genius without
portfolio; it is a pure product of the Slav soil. Once more I say its
name is legion. I do not know another part of the world where so much
ability is wasted, in which even those who bring forth something give
so little, so incredibly little, in comparison with what God gave
them.


ROME, BABUINO, 14 January.

Another letter from my aunt urging me to come. I am coming, I am
coming, dear aunt, though God knows I am doing it out of love for you;
otherwise I should greatly prefer to remain where I am. My father
seems not well; from time to time he feels a strange numbness on
the whole of his left side. At my urgent entreaties he has seen a
physician, but I am quite sure the physic he received is safely stowed
away in a cupboard, according to an old custom he has. Once he opened
the mysterious receptacle and showed me a whole collection of bottles,
pill-boxes, and powders, saying: "For mercy's sake! this would kill