—My training has not been to let things go.

—But Davey, your training and the way you have used yourself have brought you at last to Zürich for an analysis. I’m sure Jo von Haller, who is really excellent, though not at all my style, has made you see that. Are you going to do more work with her?

—That’s a decision I must make.

—Well, don’t be in a hurry to say you will.

Went for a long walk alone this afternoon, and thought about Liesl’s advice.

This eve. after dinner Eisengrim showed us some home-movies of himself doing things with coins and cards. New illusions, it seems, for a tour they begin early in January. He is superb, and knows it. What an egotist! And only a conjuror, after all. Who gives a damn? Who needs conjurors? Yet I am unpleasantly conscious of a link between Eisengrim and myself. He wants people to be in awe of him, and at a distance: so do I.

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Dec. 22, Mon.: I suppose Eisengrim sensed my boredom and disgust last night, because he hunted me up after breakfast and took me to see his workrooms, which are the old stables of Sorgenfrei; full of the paraphernalia of his illusions, and with very fine workbenches, at one of which Liesl was busy with a jeweller’s magnifying-glass stuck in her eye…. “You didn’t know I had the family knack of clockwork, did you?” she said. But Eisengrim wanted to talk himself:

—You don’t think much of me, Staunton? Don’t deny it; it is part of my profession to sniff people’s thoughts. Well, fair enough. But I like you, and I should like you to like me. I am an egotist, of course. Indeed, I am a great egotist and a very unusual one, because I know what I am and I like it. Why not? If you knew my history, you would understand, I think. But you see that is just what I don’t want, or ask for. So many people twitter through life crying, “Understand me! Oh, please understand me! To know all is to forgive all!” But you see I don’t care about being understood, and I don’t ask to be forgiven. Have you read the book about me?