That was the main thing.

[2] That I cannot give up sleeping with the window open! The trams rattle jangling through my room. Automobiles drive over me. A door slams. Somewhere a window smashes; I hear the laughter of the larger shards and the sniggering of the splinters. Then suddenly a thudding, muffled noise from the other direction, inside the house. Someone is climbing the stairs, coming, coming steadily, reaches my door, pauses for some time, then goes on. And once again the street. A girl shrieks: ‘Ah, tais-toi, je ne veux plus!’ The tram races up all agitated, then rushes on headlong. Somebody shouts. People are running, overtaking each other. A dog barks. What relief: a dog. Around dawn, a cock even crows, affording balm unlimited. Then quite abruptly I fall asleep.

[3] Those are the sounds I hear. But there is something more fearful still: the silence. I have a notion that, at big fires, a moment of extreme suspense can sometimes occur, when the jets of water slacken off, the firemen no longer climb, no one moves a muscle. Without a sound, a high black wall of masonry cants over up above, the fire blazing behind it, and, without a sound, leans, about to topple. Everyone stands waiting, shoulders tensed, faces drawn in around their eyes, for the terrible crash. That is how the silence is here.

[4] I am learning to see. Why, I cannot say, but all things enter more deeply into me; nor do the impressions remain at the level where they used to cease. There is a place within me of which I knew nothing. Now all things tend that way. I do not know what happens there.

Today, as I was writing a letter, I realized that I have been here for a mere three weeks. Three weeks in some other place – say, in the country – could seem a day; here they are years. I have resolved to write no more letters. Why should I inform anyone of the changes within me? If I am changing, I no longer remain the person I was, and if I become someone else, it follows that I have no friends or acquaintances. And to write to strangers, to people who do not know me, is quite out of the question.

[5] Have I mentioned already that I am learning to see? Yes, I am making a start. I have not made much progress yet, but I mean to make the most of my time.

To think, for example, that I have never consciously registered just how many faces there are. There are a great many people, but there are a great many more faces, for every person has several. There are people who wear the same face for years on end; naturally it shows signs of wear, it gets dirty, it cracks at the creases, it splays out like gloves worn on a journey.