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[...] Forgetting that I had been immediately shocked by the middle-class banality of Jacques’ liaison, I blamed myself for having condemned him in the light of purely abstract principles. In fact, I was lost in a dark tunnel, battling against shadows, brandishing the useless sword of an ideal I no …

[...] with what blind obstinacy I had deceived myself! It was I alone who had built up the image of our friendship over the last three years; I still clung to it today because of the past, and now the past was nothing but a lie. Everything was falling to pieces. I felt I wanted to burn all my boats…

I did not think much of him as a philosopher. I noted, rather incoherently, in my diary: ‘I admire his ability to have his own theories about everything. Perhaps because he does not know much about philosophy. I like him enormously.’ He was, in fact, ignorant of any philosophic discipline, but what…

Once or twice a week during the next month I Went to the Stryx with Stépha, Fernando, and a Ukrainian journalist who was a friend of theirs and who preferred to spend his free time learning Japanese; I also took my sister, Lisa, and Mallet. I don’t quite know where I found the money that year, beca…

In October, while the Sorbonne was closed, I spent my days in the Bibliothèque Nationale. I had obtained permission to have my lunch out: I would buy bread and rillette and eat them in the gardens of the Palais Royal while watching the petals of the late roses fall; sitting on the benches, navvies …