these bloated pusses by comparison: Herr Senator Meier-Müller or whatever his name is: I can’t stand his face, prefer his ass. I can recall it packed in field-gray trousers, general-staff tucks along the side seams. He staggers around, drunk. The staff is quartered in the remains of a villa. On a tattered sofa lies a little dog the grunts have picked up as a mascot, still a pup, wagging its tail in excitement and greeting everyone who comes near—and the ass approaches and plops down on top of it. The major is too drunk to notice what’s there under his bottom, whimpering, its chest crushed and legs broken . . .

With every glass of the generously available (gastritis-inducing) expense-account champagne, increasingly severe palpitations. Professor Hertzog’s pills obviously have conflicting effects. Keeps me on a short leash in any case; if I ask for more, he blabbers about Thanatos. (As if the wish to be no longer a part of this world belonged merely to the subconscious ur-elements of the psyche and were not urged upon us by every step we take through our environment.) Didn’t even confess to him that I now and then swallow whatever I can get hold of even without his prescriptions. But perhaps not so harmless after all, in combination with his pharmaceuticals.