Time, That Most Abstract Of Humanity's Homes.

How Far, In Any Case, Must One Go Back To Find The Beginning?

This Then, I Thought, As I Looked Round About Me, Is The Representation Of History. It Requires A Falsification Of Perspective. We, The Survivors, See Everything From Above, See Everything At Once, And Still We Do Not Know How It Was.

It Is A Sore Point, Because You Do Have Advantages If You Have Access To More Than One Language. You Also Have Problems, Because On Bad Days You Don't Trust Yourself, Either In Your First Or Your Second Language, And So You Feel Like A Complete Halfwit.

As Far As I Know, The Question Of Whether And How It Could Be Strategically Or Morally Justified Was Never The Subject Of Open Debate In Germany After 1945, No Doubt Mainly Because A Nation Which Had Murdered And Worked To Death Millions Of People In Its Camps Could Hardly Call On The Victorious Powers To Explain The Military And Political Logic That Dictated The Destruction Of The German Cities.

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.