I’m not sure if you can tell, but I’ve breathed life into a deranged monster that’s now pursuing me relentlessly. Of course, of course there was a reason why I resisted and prevaricated so much before writing the first lines of this novel. The most ridiculous episodes of my life are all flooding into my head and they won’t leave me alone; I can hardly eat or sleep, I wake up very late and go to bed when the sun’s already risen; yesterday I saw serious signs that more biliary colic is on the way; and since even before starting to write, I’ve been in a constant flu-like state, which is obviously false: an excuse to waste all my time writing. I live for the novel; I think about it all the time; I write up neat versions of the drafts, making additions and cuts, and I think and think and think and think. My life has turned into a speech, an uninterrupted monologue completely beyond my control. I’m in thrall to the delirium, the search for catharsis, the demands of the work I must do, whether I like it or not, with the single vague hope of one day reaching a full stop and finding myself empty, exhausted, cleaned out – and ready for another. Because the point is that none of the luminous experiences and none of the liberating experiences have served to make me say ‘Enough now’, ‘I’ve made it’, ‘That was the one’. What’s more, although there was a time when I tried – and oh, how I tried – to reach something that would allow me to say ‘Enough’, ‘I’ve made it’, I’m now very aware that we only get to this point when we die, and I recoil from that even more than from the very demon itself. Readers, do not be deceived: I have no great wisdom to pass on, and I hope I never acquire any. The name of wisdom is: arteriosclerosis.