Of course he wouldn’t show me what he was writing, not after the offensive remarks I was guilty of, evidence of my cynical, godless attitude (“which I really wouldn’t have expected of you, dear friend!”). He kept it from me like a secret lover (I was able to buy it in a bookstore a year later). But once he had gotten his fury off his chest by talking, he found his way back to our old intimate tone, his teeth shining white in a face smeared with soot from the stove. He worked with his brain instead of his hands now, and in place of his miner’s lamp, his forehead glowed with the sublimity of the successful creative process. We talked to each other again, had conversations instead of discussions, exchanges of ideas instead of debates. We forgot our utopias and turned to daily life, the adventure-filled daily life of those Ice Age years. In brotherly cooperation we pursued the day’s business (usually black-market business). Sometimes Nagel even made a little joke at Hertzog’s expense, but then he had a relapse, became deadly earnest about the nights of discussion—or rather, about their noble goal: “thinking through” a new society—

or did I deny that this was a matter pregnant with significance and consequence?

No, no, not at all. I only admitted that in this regard, I was totally without ideas. I was abashed in the presence of such passionately engaged people as our one-legged friend Wilhelm; I wasn’t suffering under the current conditions, after all. Given the current state of affairs, I was remarkably contented—

and Nagel got excited again: Do you realize what you’re saying, man? The country’s bombed to smithereens, a horde of starving people are controlled by a foreign military power and barely able to keep from giving up the ghost—and you’re content? . . .

I had to declare myself shamefully devoid of any sense of national pride. I wasn’t a German, after all, hadn’t anything invested in the lost cause, hadn’t risked my neck—an arm off here, a leg off there—no, no, the times owed me nothing . . . but that’s not what I’m talking about; it’s the future of Europe as a whole I’m worried about . . . exactly, and that’s why I was so contented: that future could only come from the total destruction of the existing order, right? In that regard, Germany was an exemplary country. . . But that’s pure nihilism! . . . Could be, I said, sure. I’m quite aware of that, but I’m simply a very radical thinker who happens to have no allegiances whatsoever, always an outsider, alas, I’ve always been a lone wolf—in short, the hunter-gatherer existence in this arctic, archetypical landscape suited me. It corresponded completely to the world of inner experience (as Hertzog would call it) that was formed by my experience of the war, and from that, from the acceptance of that, something new might emerge . . .

(Honestly, back then I seriously thought it could be possible. I was dazzled by freedom, didn’t see what was coming. That is, I saw it but refused to see it. But even then, Nagel didn’t buy it.)