We walk halfway across Paris (but I can’t think of any other way to tire him out). At the Madeleine, we wander into the stalking grounds of whores who roam the area in daylight. A redhead with provocative breasts sizes us up at a glance. She spots the john in me. It doesn’t elude him. He jokes: “One can smell your solidity, and my disreputableness. I’m too mean for a big spender and not authentic enough for a good pimp.”

This too makes me feel clumsy and awkward. I am moving crudely and ponderously through a light world. The air here is light; the people walk more lightly, speak more vivaciously; the colors shine effortlessly and lie upon things more lightly. I love this lightness, which I do not possess. (The remedy that Hertzog gave me, without letting on what it was, put me into this lightness. I have to get H. to at least give me a hint about the pharmacological, or rather toxological, makeup: I am well on the way to systematically poisoning myself.)

But the thought of it makes me light now too. My mood lightens. I feel hungry. He knows a restaurant not far from the hotel we are heading toward. A year ago, an extremely embarrassing scene with an Indian doll took place there. Incidentally, I think I remember the restaurant too: its name is Laget.

In half an hour, we are there. The food is marvelous though much too heavy. The wine is heavy too. I feel numb after the first glass. But I can still see well enough to observe how embarrassing it is that I slip off my jacket but refuse to let the hat-check girl take it. He says a few words to her that I don’t understand, but she leaves with a smile. I have the impression it was a joke at my expense. He now quite bluntly makes fun of me; he quips his way through a distasteful tirade about his religious upbringing, full of allusions that again I don’t understand. (Apparently he thinks I want to propose that he write his book about theodicy, even assumes I intend to write something similar myself.) Again, I drink more than I can take. And I have to pay the bill too. It’s dismayingly high, and I have trouble concealing my shock. (I do so by announcing that I want to dine here every day; anyway, I’m in a very good mood; I order more wine and two framboises with the coffee.)

As we get up, an irritating mishap occurs. I want to say, jokingly, “Allons, enfants de la patrie!” (one of the few French phrases I recall from school), but I bellow out the words. I’m so startled that I almost knock the table over. The wine bottle tumbles from its basket, the remaining wine spills across the tablecloth. We walk to the hotel. He shows me the room where he lived and wrote while waiting for the girl (in a different room, one flight up) to ask for him: three o’clock at night or seven in the morning, depending on her whim or mood. If he went out, he gave the porter the most detailed information for her on where she could reach him, when he planned to return, and when he’d be at her disposal again. (With a smile, he says, “Discreetly at your service any hour of the day or night, the perfect nurse,” as if he wants to recommend himself to me.)