Not even shyness. It’s a natural, simple and unforced sense of being left to yourself. Sometimes I’d like to leave my own body and from a corner of the room observe how I talk, how I get worked up, see what I’m like when I’m cheerful or sad, knowing that none of those things is me. Playing at having a double? No, that’s not it at all.

*

I ate at the canteen between a bad-smelling loud-talking Russian and a thin girl with chapped hands and badly applied lipstick. A concrete floor, the cold, a coat thrown over my shoulders, a plate shoved before me, a tin fork on the ground.

I’m never going to be a social revolutionary, I who in that moment somehow managed a cheerful smile.

There are eleven boys in the room, including me. Sadigurski Liova, my neighbour to the right, shaves with the old razors given to him by Ionel Bercovici, my neighbour to the left. I’m still guarded in my interactions here. I fear greater familiarity.

Towards morning, whenever I happen to wake, I like to listen to the chorus of breathing of the ten people around me, in this long, cold room: the rasping breath of the polytechnic student by the door, his neighbour’s fluting whistle, Liova’s sighing, the bumblebee buzz of someone towards the back, by the window and, above them all, the loud, penetrating, animal snore of Ianchelevici Şapsă, the giant.

*

I watch how they return in the evening from the university, in dribs and drabs, or singly, worn out. And each one grimly enumerates the fights he’s got into, like a billiard score, so that a competitor won’t steal their points.

Marcel Winder is up to fifteen. The other day his hat also got ripped, which puts him well ahead on the road to martyrdom. Loudly, in the middle of the yard, he points out each of his wounds. This one and this one and this one …

*

Today they removed Ianchelevici Şapsă’s mattress. He hasn’t paid his bill for three months and they’re taking action. He watched calmly, leaning against the wall, without protest. In the evening he laid down on his bed board and uttered a choice curse. I threw him one of my pillows. He sent it sailing back, high through the air, nearly smashing the lamp, and turned over to face the wall.

*

It was a tough day. It’s been decided that we absolutely have to get into the civil law faculty, where they grade you for attendance. Up until now we’ve only been going in scattered groups of three people at most. This avoids major confrontations, but it achieves nothing as they usually identify us all and kick us out.

So today we had to change our tactics. We entered in a compact group and sat in the front rows, by the lectern. We don’t respond to minor provocations, but defend ourselves if we’re attacked. ‘Until the end’ – that was the slogan.

It’s a bad strategy, I think, but I’m not going to tell the boys that, so thrilled are they with today’s success. We gave as good as we got, perhaps, but did nobody notice Liebovici Isodor, jammed in the corner by the blackboard, with his coat ripped and a bloody split lip? Ianchelevici Şapsă did wonders: he was pale and serious, holding the leg of a chair he had broken off for the fight.

Evening. Marcel Winder made a list of those who were beaten up, to give to the paper. I told him to rub my name out: I don’t think I received more than two blows and, more to the point, Mama doesn’t need to find out.

*

Calm exteriors. Perhaps antagonism has acquired a certain style.

‘Dear colleague, would you kindly show me your student identification card?’

Three of them surround me, waiting. I take out my student card and display it to the one who spoke.

‘Aha! Please vacate the lecture hall. Come along.’

He points the way.

*

Liebovici Isodor got badly beaten up. Again. I wasn’t there, but heard from Marga Stern, who was.

I’m rather fond of his curt manner, his proud, firm reserve.

‘Again, Liebovici?’

‘Again, what?’

‘They beat you up again.’

‘No.’

‘Of course they did.’

‘All right, they did, then … You seem to know all about it.’

He turns and leaves, irritated, head bowed.

I lost my gloves in the scuffle or they were taken.