The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

Dearest Kitty, Since I've left my entire 'junk box' - including my fountain pen - upstairs and I'm not allowed to disturb the grown-ups during their nap time (until two-thirty), you'll have to make do with a letter in pencil.

I'm terribly busy at the moment, and strange as it may sound, I don't have enough time to get through my pile of work. Shall I tell you briefly what I've got to do? Well then, before tomorrow I have to finish reading the first volume of a biography of Galileo Galilei, since it has to be returned to the library. I started reading it yesterday and have got up to page 220 out of 320 pages, so I'll manage it. Next week I have to read Palestine at the Crossroads and the second volume of Galilei. Besides that, I finished the first volume of a biography of Emperor Charles V yesterday, and I still have to work out the many genealogical charts I've collected and the notes I've taken. Next I have three pages of foreign words from my various books, all of which have to be written down, memorized and read aloud. Number four: my film stars are in terrible disarray and are dying to be sorted out, but since it'll take several days to do that and Professor Anne is, as she's already said, up to her ears in work, they'll have to put up with the chaos a while longer. Then there're Theseus, Oedipus, Peleus, Orpheus, Jason and Hercules all waiting to be untangled, since their various deeds are running crisscross through my mind like multicoloured threads in a dress. Myron and Phidias are also urgently in need of attention, or else I'll forget entirely how they fit into the picture. The same applies, for example, to the Seven Years' War and the Nine Years' War. Now I'm getting everything all mixed up. Well, what can you do with a memory like mine! Just imagine how forgetful I'll be when I'm eighty!