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drink bottles of champagne in the morning at the Sacher—but this was a mere trifle, hardly worth mentioning. At the Obenaus, a small establishment in the Weihburggasse, he would drink several liters of white wine in the course of an evening. This all took its toll. I think it was five or six years before his death when he gave up drinking. Had he not done so, he would probably have died three or four years earlier, which I think would have been an enormous pity. For it was only in the last years of his life that he developed into a real philosopher, having previously been simply a man who enjoyed the good things of life and had a bent for philosophizing, though admittedly he enjoyed life more than anyone else I have known—and this was what made him so lovable. In the Hermann Pavilion, as I lay in
fear of death
, I became clearly aware of the true value of my relationship with my friend Paul, the most valuable relationship I have ever had with another man, the only one I have been able to endure for more than the briefest period and would never have wanted to give up under any circumstances. Now, all at once, I was afraid for this man, who had suddenly become the one closest to me; I was afraid I might lose him—either
through my own death
or
through his
. During these weeks and months in the Hermann Pavilion I felt that I was close to death and that he was equally close to his in theLudwig Pavilion. I suddenly longed for this man, the only man I had ever been able to talk to in a way that was congenial to me, the only one with whom I could discuss and develop any topic whatever, even the most difficult. How long have I been starved of these conversations, I thought, of the chance to listen to him, to expound my own ideas and at the same time
take in other ideas
, how long is it since we talked about Webern and Schönberg and Satie, about
Tristan
and
The Magic Flute
, about
Don Giovanni
and
Il Seraglio
—how long since he sat with me in the yard at Nathal and listened to the “Rhenish” conducted by Schuricht? Only now, in the Hermann Pavilion, do I realize what I have been missing, what I have been deprived of by my renewed illness, what I have to have if I am to go on existing. I have friends, of course, the very best of friends, but none whose inventiveness and sensitivity can compare with Paul’s, I thought. And from that moment I did everything I could to restore my personal contact with my unhappy friend as soon as possible. When we’re both out again and
restored to health
, I told myself, I’ll catch up on everything I’ve missed through my stay on the Baumgartnerhöhe. I had a tremendous mental need to catch up. An endless number of topics had accumulated in my mind, waiting to be discussed with him. But he was possibly still lying on his bed in a straitjacket, as our friend Irina had reported a few days earlier, staring fixedly at the ceiling, in a ward housing twenty-four similar cases, and refusing all food. I must go to him as soon as possible, I told myself. During these weeks the weather was exceedingly hot, and Immervoll in particular suffered from the heat. He had had to stopplaying blackjack, and from one day to the next he became too weak to get up. His face suddenly became sunken, his nose seemed gigantic, and his protruding cheekbones gave his face a disturbingly grotesque appearance. His skin was gray and transparent, and there was hardly any flesh left on his legs. Most of the time he lay on his bed without any covers, showing no embarrassment, in the end with his legs spread wide apart. He could no longer pick up the urine bottle, and as he was constantly having to pass water, it was left to me to give it to him, because the sisters could naturally not be in our room all the time. But by now he was so clumsy that he could not aim into the bottle. Most of the time his mouth hung open, and from it ran a greenish-yellow fluid, which by midday had discolored his