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other eyes likewise turned towards me.
    I could feel myself blanch. I did not dare stir. I did not even dare to think; for I felt as if he could read my mind and was therefore scoffing at me. He was far more intelligent than I am; I had often admired his mind and been ashamed of my own ignorance. Yet I felt odd about him; he never really said anything that struck me as new. In general, he only said things that I felt had already occurred to me, except that I did not voice them or that I was not endowed with the ability to voice them. Upon hearing them from him, I grabbed my head and thought: Yes, of course, that is it. At the same time, I had a sense of regret that these ideas had been uttered, and the spoken thoughts detached themselves from me and became alien to me and hostile.
    Thus, when he addressed me now, his words were like my own thought, which I had not permitted to be uttered. I suddenly realized that I must know more about the afternoon event than the others. But was it not too early to talk about it? Was not this "friend" of mine trying to pull an unripe fruit from the branch?
    For I swear to you, my true friend, you who are listening to this, or I swear to you, the woman so patiently lying next to me in bed, that I did not know it at the time. In any case, did not know it enough to have words for it. And what do I really know about it now? Not much more than the external facts, and I even saw very little of them; there were things I did not understand and much that I have forgotten.
    And what if I had known it? How should I have behaved? If, for instance, one happens to know that a good friend's favorite child is to die within a week, and the father now comes and makes plans for his child's future and would like to discuss them with somebody, what should one say to him? For example: Save your energy, it is useless? Or one has learned — and one is the only one — that the Deluge will burst in tomorrow. There is absolutely no salvation, except for one person, and that one person is oneself. Oh, what a burden for that person to live from today until tomorrow! If he endures this, he is truly afflicted. If he were to tell people, then assuming that they believed it, which is not probable — the sole consequence would be that the Deluge would already begin today. So one has to keep silent, although that is the hardest thing to do.
    Let us not forget that I am recounting a dream; for during the time that we could have been sitting at the table, I was entirely somewhere else. I was standing on the threshold of my room. Thus, contrary to my original goal, I had not left the city to pursue the birds; instead, I had turned back halfway. I had reached the edge of the city, where sporadic houses drip into the surrounding heath. There, I felt as if I had missed something, and I had to go home. When I opened the door to my room ...
    It was under the roof; I did not like to have people weighing down the ceiling overhead, thereby forcing me to help bear them. was a longish room, not very high. From the windows, one could see beyond the edge of the city into infinity. There was also a small room in which I slept and washed. How many lives I lived in that room! They are not to be counted. And what long distances I wandered, through the window and back again. And even if I was fainthearted at times and thought: Now I am tired, I cannot go on, I was never actually alone up there for even an instant. Someone always showed up at the right time. There was a coming and going. Many people came from far away, where they were now living after turning their backs on this existence. But they did not look as if they had traveled a long distance. They were not exhausted, they simply walked in through the door as if they had been waiting there, and now here they were. Several merely went through and did not see me or did not wish to see me. I did not dare address them, for I sensed that they did not wish to be disturbed. Others halted and