“I must see you today without fail. Yes, in my room, after sixteen, without fail!”

Dear⁠ ⁠… she is such a dear!⁠ ⁠… “Without fail!” I was smiling and I could not stop, I felt I should carry that smile with me into the street like a light above my head.

Outside the wind ran over me, whirling, whistling, whipping, but I felt even more cheerful. “All right, go on, go on moaning and groaning! The Walls cannot be torn down.” Flying leaden clouds broke over my head⁠ ⁠… well let them! They could not eclipse the sun! We chained it to the zenith like so many Joshuas, sons of Nuns!

At the corner a group of Joshuas, sons of Nuns, were standing with their foreheads pasted to the glass of the wall. Inside, on a dazzling white table already a Number lay. One could see two naked soles diverging from under the sheet in a yellow angle.⁠ ⁠… White medics bent over his head⁠—a white hand, a stretched-out hand holding a syringe filled with something.⁠ ⁠…