It all happens decorously, ritually. Someone by the door lashes out with his fist, but it is a glancing blow. A late punch, my friend.

I’m out in the street. I see a beautiful woman. I see an empty carriage passing by. Everything is as it ought to be. A cold December morning.

*

Winder sought me out to congratulate me on yesterday’s events. I don’t know who told him about it. And he gave me a ticket to go to the student dormitories the day after tomorrow. A group is being organized for every faculty. The boys are determined to attend lectures on 10 December. A matter of principle, Winder says.

The whole thing bores me to death. I’d like a big, clear, severe book with ideas that challenge all I believe in, a book I could devour with the same intense passion with which I first read Descartes. Every chapter would be a personal struggle.

But no: I’m involved in a ‘matter of principle’. Ridiculous.

*

10 December. Walking straight ahead, head uncovered, in the rain, blindly, looking neither right nor left nor behind, without crying out, to avoid crying out, above all, and allowing the noise of the street, the people who are watching, and this hour of confusion, to wash over me. There. If I close my eyes, nothing remains but drizzling rain: I can feel the fine droplets on my cheek, trickling from my eyebrow towards my nostrils and from there falling suddenly to my lips. Why can’t I be profoundly, imperturbably calm, like a horse drawing an empty cart through mud, through a storm?

I’ve been beaten. That’s all I know. I’m not in pain and, apart from a punch to the thigh, none of them were severe blows. He had a strange expression, under his cap. I hadn’t believed he was going to strike me until I saw his raised fist. He was a stranger: perhaps it was the first time he’d laid eyes on me.

I’ve been beaten and the world doesn’t stand still for such things. Italian-Romanian Bank, paid-up capital, 50,000,000. Where Minimax guards, fire doesn’t spread. The capital of Iceland is … Liebovici Isodor, what happened to you? If he found the door to the secretariat, he escaped. If not … But what the hell is the capital of Iceland? Not Christiana, for God’s sake, and not Oslo either, because they’re the same place …

If I cry, I’m lost. I’m still self-possessed enough to know that much. If I cry, I’m lost. Clench your fists, you fool, if necessary, believe yourself a hero, pray to God, tell yourself you’re the son of a race of martyrs, yes, yes, tell yourself that, knock your head against the wall, but if you want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and not die of shame, don’t cry. That’s all I ask of you: don’t cry.

*

If I thought it would do any good, I’d rip out that page I wrote the other day.