In the evening, dinner at Maxim’s. I talk for a while with Castor Siebel, octogenarian art critic, an old friend of Miquel’s. I am surprised by his good memory; he remembers my full name, and the only time that we met before, about ten years ago, with Miquel, in a brasserie. He asks me where I live now. “Don’t you feel threatened,” he asks later, “living in Guatemala?” I tell him that saying yes would be an exaggeration but saying no would not be the exact truth.

On a recommendation from Miquel, I read the first chapters of Zweig’s Fouché, “inventor of the political police,” and often cited by Tun in the Yearly Reports.

In the afternoon, in his studio, Miquel shows me the experiments he is working on with materials and paint for his project for the dome of the Palace of Nations, home of the United Nations Office in Geneva. It is a seascape with a surface area of about one thousand square meters. “The dome is huge,” he says, “like a bullring, but upside down.” He also shows me pieces for a stage set that he might soon create for Peter Brook. They are something like large pillows made with balls of newspaper pasted with a little diluted glue onto undulating sheets. Viewed from the side, they are reminiscent of the cross section of flat, striated muscle fiber of a cactus leaf.

“This,” he tells me, “could be used to make beds and other furniture, and perhaps even homes for poor people.” I think of teaching the technique to Pía after returning to Guatemala.

Almost at dawn, back from the party at Maxim’s, I call B+. She scolds me when she realizes what time it is in Paris, and that I’m “too cheerful.” I tell her she is exaggerating. In the end, we agree that she will pick me up at the airport on Tuesday. The flight, I tell her, will arrive almost at midnight. She complains about the late hour but assures me that she will be there.

I read De Quincey, Essays on Style, Rhetoric, and Language, and through him I come to Salvator Rosa, the “bandit painter and satirical author from the seventeenth century” (possibly our ancestor?) beloved by the English romantics, who wrote:

“Our wealth must be spiritual, and we must content ourselves with small sips while others choke on prosperity.”

Monday.

Last night, with Miquel, we saw Notes from the Underground, a curious and interesting adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s story transplanted to Los Angeles. We spoke once again of the expedition project to El Golea (Algeria), to look for the blockhouse with the frescoes by François Augiéras.

I have a dream about an experiment with “Barceló blocks.” In the dream, Pía and I build a great pyramid in a vacant lot in Guatemala City, where I return tomorrow.

Tuesday. Seven thirty in the morning (before leaving for the airport).