I remember, as a boy, being taken fishing by my father. Brown trout lay hidden in little stone holes like the complete expression of a wish, and disappeared at the rude intrusion of my shadow even before my bait dropped like a schoolboy’s casual pebble in the water. A whisper would frighten these fish, a footstep, any clatter, so that all I saw of them was the ripples where they’d been. My father was annoyed with me and my ineptness—furious, in fact, for I had fallen into his life, too, ploppily disturbed its peace—but this time his complaints lay quietly inside the fullness of his cheeks, and merely reddened their skin. I sat down sullenly on a rock and let him go on alone. He was away for some time, but after the menace of his absence had subsided I was able to look calmly about me at the grasses, ferns, and trees; and, in a silence so still my breath was a breeze, register the quality of every quiver in their delicate fronds and thin stems. There were weeds like wild hair, indefatigable ivy, gold and purple seeds, blue bells. The washed bowls of the pools gleamed like teaspoons, and I could easily see grains of sand crawling slowly along a bottom from which the light rose like a cloud of steam, while the water itself seemed to stand above the eroded stone as if it were air—another atmosphere—the medium of a different sort of life. I leaned over ledges, studied moss and minnows, followed the path of the stream down its smooth warm sides, watched a leaf like a bather (behavior quite ill suited to my nature), and scooped up a flutter of sun with one swift motion— gotcha. When my father returned, himself empty-handed, I caught hell. From the long entry of September 23, 1943:

I then posed the veil serious and important question to the Führer as to how far he intends to extend the Reich. His idea is that we ought to advance as far as the Venetian border, and that Venetia should be included in the Reich in a sort of loose federation. Venetia would be all the more willing to accept this, since the Reich alone would be able after a successful war to supply it with tourist trade, to which Venice attaches the greatest importance.

I saw a sugar gum whose ancient branches fell like gray rain through its leaves.

FÜHRER FULL OF IT

The Führer is full of praise for Seyss-Inquart. He governs the Netherlands very cleverly; he alternates wisely between gentleness and severity, thereby indicating that he has had excellent Austrian schooling.

FÜHRER WOULD GO OUT IN EVE

The yearning for peace, widespread among the German people, is also to be discerned among other peoples. All peoples are human, and after four years of war nobody sees any fun in it. Personally, too, we are yearning for peace. The Führer stressed this. He said he would be happy to have contact with artistic circles again, to go to the theater in the evening and to visit the Artists’ Club.