29th of January

                    29th of January 1943

"I am deeply distressed by the agony of the men at Stalingrad, the agony of

Europe. And in order to be able to endure this tragedy, I take refuge in myself,

in the book I’m writing, and in my long-standing thoughts concerning the end

of our continent. I have banished the war from this notebook, in order to keep

from becoming neurasthenic. I can no longer work without taking vitamins and

Neurasthenin, and I can’t sleep without Pasiflorina and Adolina.

And from out of this hell, I hear Aeschylus turning over in his grave. He

who sang the heroic resistance of the Greeks against Asia witnesses now the

surrender of Europe to the Asiatic hordes. Churchill and Roosevelt have met

again at Casablanca. And none of their men sees how Stalin is playing with

them, how they are the victims of the most tragic farce in the history of the

world: the Red assassins—who, in comparison with other political assassins,

have the merit of operating on a large scale, in the millions—the Red assassins

are awaited as the liberators of Europe . . . "

MIRCEA ELIADE -The Portugal Journal