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[...] But there comes the point when your soul overflows with the desire for solitude, when all you want is, quietly, with a proper human dignity, to prepare yourself for the end, for the last human task of all: for death. When you get to that point you must be careful not to cheat, because if you …

Lázár once told me, half-jokingly, that there’s nothing as true as calumny.

But all this meant nothing; it was just a tiresome, careful, conscientious way of filling time. Life remains hollow if you don’t fill it up with something exciting, some project with a hint of danger. That project can only be work, of course. It is the other kind of work, the invisible work of the …

And I? What did I do? I was the boss. I sat there like a sentry. I took great trouble to be dignified, humane, and just. At the same time, of course, I also made sure that the factory and my staff provided me with what befitted, and was required by, my position. I was very punctilious in working th…

[...] Once, a long time ago, I tried the experiment of taking her away to Merano. It was on the way there I discovered it was hopeless, that there would not be an accommodation. My life—what I had made of it—was certainly tolerable but almost entirely without meaning. A great artist might be able t…