And the weather is icy … Damn.

*

No, I’m not the tough kind. Where are the oaths I made two years ago, on the freshly shut cover of Zarathustra? Why did I wander aimlessly in the street last night, alone, miserable because I was unable to cry and terrified at the same time that I might have been about to? Why in the evening, when I lay my head on my pillow, is it like collapsing in exhaustion after being chased?

Imbecile. Three times over.

What depresses me most is the feeling of losing, with each day, the refuge of solitude, of finding myself in solidarity with Marcel Winder and Ianchelevici Şapsă, descending the stairs together, united in common feeling, becoming one with them, the same as them, a fellow sufferer and sympathizer. Jewish fellow-feeling – I hate it. I’m always on the brink of shouting out a coarse word, just to show that even though I’m in the midst of ten people who believe me their ‘brother in suffering’, I am in fact absolutely, definitively alone.

Listen, Marcel Winder, if you pat me on the shoulder one more time, I’ll punch you out. My business if I’m hurt, your business if your skull gets cracked. I’ve nothing to share with you, you don’t need anything from me. You go your way and I’ll go mine.

*

We’ve had no fire for three days. We’re out of wood and awaiting a promised subsidy.

Liova is sick, a fever of 39 degrees. An intern from Caritas came to see him and promised to take him there as soon as a bed becomes available.

The polytechnic student has got frostbitten ears and a big yellowing bandage covers his entire cheek. It turns my stomach at mealtimes in the canteen, along with the tattered cotton wool and gutta-percha.

Ianchelevici Şapşa has washed his socks and hung them on the edge of the bed to dry. A girl was looking for him today. I think she’d come from a market in his town and she brought him a bag of walnuts. He laughed awkwardly: I think he was embarrassed to receive her in front of us.

Am I not ridiculous here, with my fussy judgements, and minding how I ‘carry’ myself? An aesthete. That’s what I am. ‘Decency, reserve, solitude’ – worthless virtues that oblige you to grin through the pain.

Unshaven for four days. It’s too cold to spend a quarter of an hour in front of the mirror.

*

Things could have gone badly today. I was coming down from the administrative offices, where I’d gone to get warm, and was two steps from the door when Ştefăniu went out ahead of me. He hadn’t noticed me. I’ve just realized that. But I lacked composure and foolishly spun about to avoid him, and that’s when he saw me. He could only reach me with his walking stick (a good blow on the right shoulder). I ran from him, though this risked attracting the attention of the others, and took a left into the hall. With him in pursuit. I went through the upper gallery, towards the senate, calculating I could stop in the chancellery. But there was no key in the door and I wouldn’t have been able to hold it shut indefinitely with my shoulder. Luckily the door to the senate steps was open. Once out in the street, I supposed he wouldn’t pursue me. And he didn’t.

And I should write to Mama this evening. But what?

Ten in the evening. A while ago the Bessarabian medical student brought two pieces of wood in the pockets of his overcoat. But since we haven’t had a fire for so long the stove smokes and now it’s gone cold again and the acrid smell in the room chokes Liova.

Somebody went out and left the door open.