Time, That Most Abstract Of Humanity's Homes.

How Happily, Said Austerlitz, Have I Sat Over A Book In The Deepening Twilight Until I Could No Longer Make Out The Words And My Mind Began To Wander, And How Secure Have I Felt Seated At The Desk In My House In The Dark Night, Just Watching The Tip Of My Pencil In The Lamplight Following Its Shadow, As If Of Its Own Accord And With Perfect Fidelity, While That Shadow Moved Regularly From Left To Right, Line By Line, Over The Ruled Paper.

The More Images I Gathered From The Past, I Said, The More Unlikely It Seemed To Me That The Past Had Actually Happened In This Or That Way, For Nothing About It Could Be Called Normal: Most Of It Was Absurd, And If Not Absurd, Then Appalling.

We Take Almost All The Decisive Steps In Our Lives As A Result Of Slight Inner Adjustments Of Which We Are Barely Conscious.

I Wonder Now Whether Inner Coldness And Desolation May Not Be The Pre-condition For Making The World Believe, By A Kind Of Fraudulent Showmanship, That One's Own Wretched Heart Is Still Aglow.

No Matter Whether One Is Flying Over Newfoundland Or The Sea Of Lights That Stretches From Boston To Philadelphia After Nightfall, Over The Arabian Deserts Which Gleam Like Mother-of-pearl, Over The Ruhr Or The City Of Frankfurt, It Is As Though There Were No People, Only The Things They Have Made And In Which They Are Hiding.