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annoying symptom to a
motus animi continuus
, an onward sweep of the productive mechanism in which, as we know fromCicero, the quintessence of eloquence resides. That spirit is nothing but a certain state of excitement, but it can have an effect—with me, at any rate—on the entire body, including in all likelihood the digestive system. I finally sat down at the table, after all, and then finished off the text just as speedily as I was able to glide pen over paper. I got the last sentence down as well: finished. For days after that I kept on tinkering with it, scribbling in something here and there, correcting some words, deleting others. Then there was nothing more that could be done: that was it, the end. I was overcome by a somewhat idiotic feeling. Suddenly, something that had been a rather good diversion over many long years had folded, it seems. I only came to realize this later on. Up till then I had presumed I was working and had set to it, day after day, with a corresponding, contrived fury. Now that had been drained from me. The daily hard slog had been transfigured into a heap of paper. Now I was left with empty hands, plundered. All at once I found myself confronting the immaterial and formless monster of time. Its gaping mouth yawned witlessly at me, and there was nothing I could shove down its maw.
    “Did you get any work done?” the old boy’s wife enquired after she had returned from the bistro where, as a waitress, she earned her bread (and occasionally the old boy’s as well) (if fate so willed it) (and it certainly did so will it more than once).
    “Of course,” the old boy replied.
    “Did you make any progress?”
    “I pushed on a bit,” said the old boy.
    “What do want for dinner?”
    “I don’t know. What’s the choice?”
    His wife told him.
    “All the same to me,” the old boy decided.
    A little later the old boy and his wife sat in front of the filing cabinet to eat their dinner (with due regard, naturally, to the circumstances that have already been touched upon) (thus when we say that the old boy and his wife sat in front of the filing cabinet to eat their dinner, this should be understood to mean that although the filing cabinet was facing them, in reality they were seated at the table, to be more precise,
the
table, the only real table in the flat) (and eating).
    The old boy’s wife had got into the habit during dinner of relating what had happened to her in the bistro.
    They would be making stock check soon; the managers were afraid that shrinkages would show up (not without reason, as they pilfered far too much) (and most unprofessionally at that, most notably the Old Biddy) (the chief administrator, to give her her official title) (though certain members of staff were no better) (but then there was much greater opportunity for the managers) (most notably the Old Biddy—the chief administrator, to give her her official title—who wanted to make up all the shrinkages through the tap beer and, more especially, the lunch menus) (what in the waitresses’ jargon was dubbed “pap”) (“pap” being the meals consumed mainly by children whose parents, not wanting, or possibly not being in a position, to cook for them, paid a weekly sum to the bistro for the lunch menu, or “pap” in the jargon) (although, as the old boy’s wife never omitted to remark, she had yet to meet the parent who checked up on what their children ate, or whether they even ate at all) (despite which the children did put on weight and, in time, would indisputably grow up into adults, who quite possibly would condemn their own children to lunch menus for want of time to fuss about with household chores) (that being the way of the world, what one major but highly suspect mind called eternal recurrence) (about which, as about many other things, he was mistaken, let it be noted): in short, veiled hints and open insinuations were alreadybeing expressed on the matter of the prospective stock check.
    “Apart