WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1943Dearest Kitty,To take our minds off matters as well as to develop them, Father ordered a catalog from a correspondence sargot pored through the thick brochure three timeswithout finding anything to her liking and within her budget. Father was easier to satisfy and decided to write and ask for a trial lesson in "Elementary Latin." No sooner said than dohe lesson arrived, Margot set to work enthusiastically and decided to take the course, despite the expes much too hard for me, though Id really like to learn Latin.To give me a new project as well, Father asked Mr. Kleiman for a childrens Bible so I could finally learn something about the estament."Are you pnning to give Anne a Bible for Hanukkah?" Margot asked, someerturbed."Yes. . . Well, maybe St. Nichos Day would be a better occasion," Father replied.Jesus and Hanukkah doly go together.Sihe vacuum ers broken, I have to take an old brush to the rug every night.The windows closed, the lights on, the stoves burning, and there I am brushing away at the rug. "Thats sure to be a problem," I thought to myself the first time. "Therere bound to be pints." I was right: Mot a headache from the thick clouds of dust whirling around the room, Margots new Latin diary was caked with dirt, and rim grumbled that the floor didnt look any different anyway. Small thanks for my pains.Weve decided that from now oove is going to be lit at seven-thirty on Sunday ms instead of five-thirty. I think its risky. What will the neighbors think of our smoking ey?Its the same with the curtains. Ever since we first went into hiding, theyve been tacked firmly to the windows. Sometimes one of the dies entlemen t resist the urge to peek outside. The result: a storm of reproaches. The response: "Oh, nobody will notice." Thats how every act of carelessness begins and ends. No one will notio one will hear, no one will pay the least bit of attention. Easy to say, but is it true?At the moment, the tempestuous quarrels have subsided; only Dussel and the van Daans are still at loggerheads. When Dussel is talking about Mrs. van D., he invariably calls her that old bat" or "that stupid hag," and versely, Mrs. van D. refers to our ever so learned gentleman as an "old maid" or a "toueurotic spinster, etc.The pot calling the kettle bck!Yours, AnneMONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 8,1943Dearest Kitty,If you were to read all my letters iting, youd be struck by the fact that they were written in a variety of moods. It annoys me to be so depe on the moods here in the Annex, but Im not the only one: were all subject to them. If Im engrossed in a book, I have to rearrange my thoughts before I mih other people, because otherwise they might think I was strange. As you see, Im currently in the middle of a depression. I couldnt really tell you what set it off, but I think it stems from my cowardice, which fronts me at every turn. This evening, when Bep was still here, the doorbell rang long and loud. I instantly turned white, my stomach ed, and my heart beat wildly -- and all because I was afraid.At night in bed I see myself alone in a dungeon, without Father and Mother. Or Im roaming the streets, or the Annex is on fire, or they e in the middle of the night to take us away and I crawl under my bed in desperation. I see everything as if it were actually taking pce. And to think it might all happen soon!Miep often says she envies us because we have such pead quiet here. That may be true, but shes obviously not thinking about our fear.I simply t imagihe world will ever be normal again for us. I do talk about "after the war," but its as if I were talking about a castle in the air, something that Ii never e true.I see the ei ght of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menag bck clouds. The perfectly round spot on which were standing is still safe, but the clouds are moving in on us, and the riween us and the approag danger is being pulled tighter and tighter. Were surrounded by darkness and danger, and in our desperate search for a way out we keep bumping into each other. We look at the fighting down below and the pead beauty up above. In the meantime, weve been cut off by the dark mass of clouds, so that we go her up nor down. It looms before us like an imperable wall, trying to crush us, but not yet able to. I only cry out and implore, ", ring, open wide a us out!”Yours, AHURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1943Dearest Kitty,I have a good title for this chapter:Ode to My Fountain Pen In Memoriam My fountain pen was always one of my most prized possessions; I valued it highly, especially because it had a thiib, and I only write ly with thiibs. It has led a long and iing fountain-pen life, which I will summarize below.When I was nine, my fountain pen (packed in cotton) arrived as a "sample of no ercial value" all the way from Aa, where my grandmother (the kindly donor)used to live. I y in bed with the flu, while the February winds howled around the apartment house. This splendid fountain pen came in a red leather case, and I showed it to my girlfriends the first ce I got. Me, Anne Frank, the proud owner of a fountain pen.When I was ten, I was allowed to take the pen to school, and to my surprise, the teacher eve me write with it. When I was eleven, however, my treasure had to be tucked away again, because my sixth-grade teacher allowed us to use only school pens and inkpots. When I was twelve, I started at the Jewish Lyceum and my fountain pen was given a new case in honor of the occasion. Not only did it have room for a pencil, it also had a zipper, which was much more impressive. When I was thirteen, the fountain pe with me to the Annex, and together weve raced through tless diaries and positions. Id turned fourteen and my fountain pen was enjoying the st year of its life with me when . . .It was just after five on Friday afternoon. I came out of my room and was about to sit down at the table to write when I was roughly pushed to one side to make room for Margot and Father, who wao practice their Latin. The fountain pen remained unused oable, while its owner, sighing, was forced to make do with a very tiny er of the table, where she began rubbing beans. Thats how we remove mold from the beans aore them to their inal state. At a quarter to six I swept the floor, dumped the dirt into a neer, along with the rotten beans, and tossed it into the stove. A giant fme shot up, and I thought it was wonderful that the stove, which had been gasping its st breath, had made such a miraculous recovery.All was quiet again. The Latin students had left, and I sat down at the table to pickup where Id left off. But no matter where I looked, my fountain pen was nowhere in sight. I took another look. Margot looked, Mother looked, Father looked, Dussel looked.But it had vanished."Maybe it fell iove, along with the beans!" Margot suggested."No, it couldnt have!" I replied.But that evening, when my fountaiill hadnt turned up, we all assumed it had been burned, especially because celluloid is highly infmmable. Our darkest fears were firmed the day when Father went to empty the stove and discovered the clip, used to fasten it to a pocket, among the ashes. Not a trace of the gold nib was left."It must have melted into stone," Father jectured.Im left with one sotion, small though it may be: my fountain pen was cremated, just as I would like to be someday!Yours, AnneWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1943Dearest Kitty,Ret events have the house rog on its foundations. Owing to an outbreak of diphtheria at Beps, she wont be allowed to e in tact with us for six weeks.Without her, the cooking and shopping will be very difficult, not to mention how much well miss her pany. Mr. Kleiman is still in bed and has eaten nothing but gruel for three weeks. Mr. Kugler is up to his ne work.Margot sends her Latin lessons to a teacher, who corrects and theurns them.Shes registered under Beps he teachers very nice, and witty too. I bet hes gd to have such a smart student.Dussel is in a turmoil and we dont know why. It all began with Dussels saying nothing when he stairs; he didnt exge so much as a word with either Mr.or Mrs. van Daan. We all noticed it. This went on for a few days, and then Mother took the opportunity to warn him about Mrs. van D., who could make life miserable for him. Dussel said Mr. van Daan had started the silent treatment and he had no iion of breaking it. I should expin that yesterday was November 16, the first anniversary of his living in the Annex. Mother received a pnt in honor of the occasion, but Mrs. van Daan, who had alluded to the date for weeks and made nobones about the fact that she thought Dussel should treat us to dinner, received nothing. Instead of making use of the opportunity to thank us -- for the first time -- for unselfishly taking him in, he didnt utter a word. And on the m of the sixteenth, when I asked him whether I should offer him my gratutions or my dolences, he replied that either one would do. Mother, having cast herself in the role of peacemaker, made no headway whatsoever, and the situation finally ended in a draw.I say without exaggeration that Dussel has definitely got a screw loose. We often ugh to ourselves because he has no memory, no fixed opinions and no on sense. Hes amused us more than once by trying to pass on the news hes just heard, sihe message invariably gets garbled in transmission. Furthermore, he answers every reproach or accusation with a load of fine 1 promises, which he never mao keep."Der Mann hat einen grosse Una ist so klein van Taten!"* [*A well-known expression:"The spirit of the man is great, How puny are his deeds.”Yours, AURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1943Dearest Kitty,Last night, just as I was falling asleep, Hanneli suddenly appeared before me.I saw her there, dressed in rags, her face thin and worn. She looked at me with such sadness and reproa her enormous eyes that I could read the message in them:"Oh, Anne, why have you deserted me? Help me, help me, rescue me from this hell!”And I t help her. I only stand by and watch while other people suffer and die.All I do is pray to God t her back to us. I saw Hanneli, and no one else, and I uood why. I misjudged her, wasnt mature enough to uand how difficult it was for her. She was devoted tirlfriend, and it must have seemed as though I were trying to take her away. The poor thing, she must have felt awful! I know, because I reize the feeling in myself! I had an occasional fsh of uanding, but then got selfishly ed up again in my own problems and pleasures.It was mean of me to treat her that way, and now she was looking at me, oh so helplessly, with her pale fad beseeg eyes. If only I could help her! Dear God, I have everything I could wish for, while fate has her in its deadly clutches. She was as devout as I am, maybe even more so, and she too wao do what was right.But then why have I been chosen to live, while shes probably going to die? Whats the differeween us? Why are we now so far apart?To be ho, I hadnt thought of her for months -- no, for at least a year. I hadnt fotten her entirely, a wasnt until I saw her before me that I thought of all her suffering.Oh, Hanneli, I hope that if you live to the end of the war aurn to us, Ill be able to take you in and make up for the wrong Ive done you.But even if I were ever in a position to help, she wouldnt more than she does now. I wonder if she ever thinks of me, and what shes feeling?Merciful God, fort her, so that at least she wont be alone. Oh, if only You could tell her Im thinking of her with passion and love, it might help her go o to stop dwelling on this. It wo me anywhere. I keep seeing her enormous eyes, and they haunt me. Does Hanneli really and truly believe in God, or has religion merely been foisted upon her? I dont even know that. I ook the trouble to ask.Hanneli, Hanneli, if only I could take you away, if only I could share everything I have with you. Its too te. I t help, or undo the wrong Ive done. But Ill never fet her again and Ill alray for her!Yours, Anne