The duty of an author—The ice-swells—The most difficult love.
Yesterday was her day and again she did not come. Again there came her incoherent note, explaining nothing. But I am tranquil, perfectly tranquil. If I do act as I am told to in the note, if I do go to the controller on duty, produce the pink check and then, having lowered the curtains if I do sit alone in my room, I do all this of course not because I have no power to act contrary to her desire. It seems funny? Decidedly not! It is quite simple: separated from all curative, plaster-like smiles I am enabled quietly to write these very lines. This first. And second: I am afraid to lose in her, in I-330 , perhaps the only clue I shall ever have to the understanding of all the unknowns, like the story of the cupboard, or my temporary death, for instance. To understand, to discover these unknowns as the author of these records, I feel it simply my duty. Moreover, the unknown is naturally the enemy of man. And Homo Sapiens only then becomes Man in the complete sense of the word, when his punctuation includes no question marks, only exclamation points, commas and periods.
Thus, guided by what seems to me simply my duty as an author, I took an aero today at sixteen o’clock and went to the Ancient House. A strong wind was blowing against me. The aero advanced with difficulty through the thicket of air, its transparent branches whistling and whipping. The city below seemed a heap of blue blocks of ice. Suddenly—a cloud, a swift, oblique shadow. The ice became leaden; it swelled. As in springtime when you happen to stand at the shore and wait; in one more minute everything will move and pull and crack! But the minute passes and the ice remains motionless; you feel as though you yourself are swelling, your heart beats more restlessly, more frequently. … But why do