Motionless I sat at the table but everything around me seemed to be moving, as if the less than microscopic movements of the atoms suddenly were magnified millions of times, and I saw the walls trembling, my pen trembling and the letters swinging and fusing together. “To hide them! But where?” Glass all around. “To burn them?” But they would notice the fire through the corridor and in the neighboring room. Besides I felt unable, I felt too weak, to destroy this torturing and perhaps dearest piece of my own self.⁠ ⁠…

Voices from a distance (from the corridor) and steps. I had only time to snatch a handful of pages and put them under me, and then as if soldered to the armchair, every atom of which was quivering, I remained sitting, while the floor under my feet rolled like the deck of a ship, up and down.⁠ ⁠…