There's something entirely lacking in us, W. says, although he's not quite sure what it is. Shame – is that the word? Anyone else would have stopped doing what we do. They would have known their inability to think and to write and given up.
But there's something missing in us, isn't there?, W. muses. What do you suppose it is? We don't stop, do we? On and on it goes, and we fall a little further every day. We don't stop, do we? Or something doesn't stop in us.
Perhaps it's a kind of reflex, W. muses. Some kind of automatic behaviour of the kind exhibited by those insects who continue to mate even when their heads are cut off.
Why don't we stop? There's a short story by Kafka, a fragment really, W. says, that reminds him of our predicament. A man in a great hurry gets lots on the way to the station and asks a policeman the way. Gibt sie auf!, says the policeman, give it up! That's what we should do, says W. Give it up!
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