The flight was very hard on me. Right at takeoff, heart problems, which kept on and then worsened unnervingly when the plane landed. Throughout the flight, the roaring PA system right by my left ear: “Ladies an’ zhentlemen, Capitaine Malfichu and his crew welcome you aboar’ our Caravelle Seine-et-Oise.” PR vulgarity. The ass’s language drill: “At your left an’ below you, ladies an’ zhentlemen, you may look now on ze town of Fulda” (pronounced Faldeh). And the icy droning of the turbine, which presses toward the bull’s-eye, over the backs of the herding cloud lambs as one wing rises ominously . . . Fear, malaise, claustrophobia. I want to get up, and drop back in the seat, fettered: I forgot to unfasten the safety belt. All very ridiculous, very embarrassing. I couldn’t get rid of the droning in my ears. It remained there all day long. (Hertzog is probably right; I take too many barbiturates and smoke too much; two and a half packs of Lucky Strikes yesterday—the pack I’d opened was empty by the time we landed. Didn’t sleep last night, of course; tried to dope myself around three a.m. with a bottle of rotgut Algerian wine—no use, just a gush of stomach acid, so I doubled the dose. Only to hover among dreamy states of anxiousness and hallucinate along the brittle ridges of nightmares. Woke up around seven: Pervitin. Hertzog promised me new prescriptions, but he’ll give them to me only if I come back to the clinic for two weeks.)

At Orly, my suitcase was nowhere to be found. After long, torturous fumbling in French, I understood: it had flown to Tangier. Since it had been uncomfortably cool in Hamburg, I’m wearing a thick turtleneck under my jacket. The welcome Paris gives me is still disconcertingly summery. I am sweating like a polar bear. I can’t eat breakfast on the plane (the Montessori kindergarten spoons and the stewardesses’ robust solicitude are too reminiscent of the psychiatric ward). So I have my first coffee at the Deux Magots. Then, parching thirst. The only way I can cope with it lately is a gin and tonic with lots and lots of ice (it doesn’t agree with me, but the immediate effect is beneficial). I’m on my second drink and he’s standing before me. His eyes only graze the glass, but he’s too alert not to notice that I caught his lids narrowing. He therefore says casually, “Hey, that’s a great idea, I’ll have one too.”