I love the dead days. They have no glow; they are colorless and
filled with yearning. The houses stand like scenery before the grey
clouds; the people move as though in a film: in the evening they move
no differently from the way they moved in the morning. All things
are more ponderous. And my room seems as though someone has died in
it.
Whenever these days occur, a mindless desire to work grows
irresistibly in me. I carry out my daily tasks as though as I were
performing a mass. And I lose myself while doing so. Almost the way
dreamers have lost themselves. But sometimes I notice that I have
become motionless and inwardly rigid.
Then I become very alert, and I can no longer do tasks. I go to the
window, where I have wonderful thoughts. But usually they occured
only at night.
I feel out of place in all matters. They press upon me as though
they don't know me: the streets and the people and the doors to the
houses and the thousand movements. Wherever I look I become confused.
My little death torments me; there were many, greater deaths. And
that I am alone. And that everywhere something inconceivable is
threatening. And that I do not find my way.. And all the remaining
sadnesses, for which there is no doctor, and which should not be
revealed. Each must submit to them alone, and in his own way.
Talking about them is ridiculous, but many die of them. I am afraid
that I am so at odds with myself and so powerless. Until memories
come. Unbidden. But kind. From somewhere. They numb me.
I smile when I find a child crying or the mother's death, which was
hideous and is unspeakable, or the other bloody delights, dear things.
I smile when the eyes of my friend suddenly come to life in the
silky shadows, that they shine as though out of a haze, and they
reveal their most inner secrets. No one has said it to me, and you
will call me a fool... but I know that his death has always been in
the eyes, the way for someone else it is in the lungs or in the
spinal cord...
His eyes were miserable and lost and painfully hopeless, so that
people laughed when he looked at them. He was ashamed of his eyes,
as if they betrayed sinful adventures, and he hid them under yellowed
lids. But he felt how he was stared at when he entered someplace
where he was not expected. Or he sat down where his presence needed
no explanation. He watched in an exaggerated manner, like a
petitioner. Coughed and held his hand in front of his mouth, drew
his cheeks in and pushed one of them outward with his tongue. Was
embarrassed. Unhappy. Would have preferred to have been alone... in
the dark.
Children bent their heads when his gaze caught their eyes. And
turned red. And grinned shyly and silently. Women giggled, and
looked innocuous, and slapped each other on the thigh or on the bare
shoulders and kissed their ravaged men. In the night they lay awake
and their thoughts were white hot. But the young girls avoided him.