Category: W.

'You drink too much, that's your problem', W. tells me. 'Mind you, I'd drink if I had your life'. He'd slope off to the bars every evening as I do, W. says. He'd drink himself stupid in the corner of a pub.

How do I bear it, my day to day reality?, W. asks. But it's quite clear: I don't bear it. My life is in a state of collapse, anyone can see it. I'm in the final act, W. always tells himself. It can't go on, can it? But it does go on, W. says. Empires have collapsed more slowly.

A series of jerks and tics, like those of a hanged man in his final death throes; a series of involuntary and grotesque spasms: that will have been my life, W. says. It's not even desperation; it's more basic than that.

There's a rebellion at the level of my bare existence, W. says. - 'You shouldn't exist. You should never have been born': that's what my body knows. It's what I know at some abysmal level. And meanwhile, there I am twitching over the void, a man half-hung, neck broken …

You have to be gentle with the young, W. says. They're a gentle generation, like fauns, he says, and require a special tenderness. Their lives are going to be bad – very bad – and at the very least, we should be tender with them, and not remind them of what is to come.

Of course, my tendency is to scare them off, W. says. It's to bellow and fuss and deliver great pronouncements on the impending disaster. W. tries to keep quiet, he says, as a counterbalance. It's alright for me, who can go back to the north, but it will be him, W., who will have to soothe them with soft words and sympathy.

It won't be that bad, he tells them. Don't listen to him. Or: don't worry, everything's going to be fine. Ignore him, he's an idiot. – 'But in their hearts they know', W. says. 'They know what's going to happen'.

It all ends here, with us, The Star of Redemption open on our desks, doesn't it? It's completely at an end, a whole civilisation. Who allowed it? Who got us into this mess? Who raised our aspirations to the sky, by setting the great books amongst us? Who granted us the chance of commerce with the great ideas?

Because they were too great for us. They were more than our heads could contain. They broke us, and we wandered around dazed. What had happened to us? Something had happened, but what? We'll never understand, that's the tragedy. It will always have been beyond us.

These are the last days, says W. It's finished. Everything's shit, but we're happy – why is that?' Because we're puerile, he says. Because we're inane.

We're chatterers, we're agreed on that, like monkeys. We're never happier until until we've worn speech down to nothing, until we've reached the highest, most rarefied of inanities.

It was different once upon a time, W. says. He spoke little. He was nearly silent, everyone said so. And then he became a lay member of the Trappists, a silent order, W. remembers. That must have been difficult! No, he says. He liked the peace. He wasn't as inane back then. His head wasn't full of chatter. – 'It was before I met you'.

Most thought-provoking is that we are still not thinking, I read out aloud from Heidegger. – 'Most thought thought-provoking is that you think you are thinking', W. says. 'Because you do, don't you?'

W. admires loyalty wherever he finds it. Take the animal kingdom, for example. Swans!, says W. They mate for life! – 'You're the opposite of a swan', W. says. 'Friendship means nothing to you'. And then, 'You're always about to betray me', he says. 'You're thinking about it now, aren't you?' And then, 'You're a betrayer. You'd break the phalanx'. What phalanx? – 'The phalanx of our friendship!' 

It's empty time that I fear, W. remembers my telling him, it's always struck him. Empty time, he says – he's rarely heard me speak so movingly on any topic. Of course, it's all to do with my fear of unemployment, he knows that. That's always been my real fear, W. says, which goes back, no doubt, to my warehouse years.

W. has often talked of using my account of my warehouse years as an example in one of his philosophical essays. He's often urged me to write it up, to present it to him as a text he might use in some way. Whenever he thinks about the great questions of philosophy, W. says, he always has my warehouse years in the back of his mind. He knows they are relevant in some way, but how? He hasn't worked that out yet, W. says.

W. has always admired my working class credentials, he says, which are far better than his. When he thinks of me leaving school and working in the warehouse, he is invariably moved and feels the great urge to protect and encourage me. How long were you there?, he asks me, and when I tell him, he gasps. That long! And what did you do there?, he asks, and when I tell him he's amazed.

Best of all, he says, are my accounts of reading in the warehouse: of the flight of stairs that led up to the roof and no one ever used, and where I went as I began to read my way through the library, W. says. What was the book I started with?, he asks. Oh yes: The Mammoth Book of Fantasy, he could never forget that. I began with The Mammoth Book of Fantasy, W. says, and read my way up to Kafka: how was that possible?

W. began with Kafka, of course, he says. He remembers it very clearly, his first encounter with the Schocken editions of Kafka in his school library ('we had a school library', he says, 'unlike you'). They had yellow dustcovers, W. says. Why was he attracted by that colour, he'll never know. But there it was: The Castle. The gates of literature opened to enclose him.

The Castle, W. says. He didn't have to mouth those letters to himself to understand them, W. says. He could actually read, unlike me. He didn't have to wrinkle his brow and mouth the letters out loud.

Ah, his intellectual awakening! Sometimes, W. thinks The Castle took him on an entirely wrong turn. The fatal lure of literature: wasn't that where it began to go wrong?

Of course, he immediately wanted to become a writer, which was a disaster. But then he could form letters, W. says, unlike me. He could actually write a coherent sentence, a task of which I am still incapable, W. says. It was worse, much worse in my case, W. says. It led to all my hopes and dreams, and the perpetual dashing of my hopes and dreams.

But still, says W., he remains infinitely moved by the mental image of my sitting on the stairs that led up to the roof, The Mammoth Book of Fantasy already long behind me. He remains immeasurably moved by the image of the ape-child who sat on the stairs, mouthing the letters T-H-E C-A-S-T-L-E to himself.

Now and again, W. says, he goes to the tulip garden at Mount Edgcumbe to read Kafka. Off he sets in the morning, with his Kafka and a notebook in his man bag, heading up to the Naval Docklands, and then catching the ferry across the Tamar – a friendly river, says W., he always thinks of it as that.

On the other side, it is only a short walk to the tulip gardens, which he approaches through the orangery, he says, and then the English garden and the French garden. But it is the tulip garden which is his destination, W. says, whether it's spring or summer, or for that matter, autumn or winter; whether or not there is anything in flower.

The tulip garden: W. gets out his Kafka, whatever it is he is reading, and then his notebook and sets to it. 

But what would I understand of any this?, W. wonders. What conception could I have of the ceremony of reading, of the rituals that must surround it?

He knows how I read, of course, W. says. There are books piled all over my office. Books leaning against other books. But it means nothing! You can have all the books in the world, but if you know nothing about reading, then …, W. says.

He's seen me at it, my reading, W. says. I open one page – another – and then what? I make a beginning, I open a book, and not always at the start, and what happens? I invariably open another, W. says. Another and then another.

Anything so as not to be alone with a book, W. says. Alone and undistracted, he says. Alone with a span of time opening ahead of me. Haven't I always feared empty time, W. muses, the time in which something might happen? And don't I, for that reason, fear – really fear – what might happen to me when I read?

There are some books, of course, over which W. has wept like a baby, he says. Imagine it! Him! Completely disarmed! Completely overcome! He's wept many times, W. says. There are books that have brought him to tears, he says, great floods of tears. He's always been a pathetic reader, W. says. He's always been tremendously alive to pathos.

Of course, it's different in my case, W. says. My eyes are always dry. When do I weep? Never, W. says. I am only a hooter, a pointer. I can hoot and point at a book, but that's about it, he says. Whereas W. will sometimes read in great sweeps, on a long train journey, for example, my reading is always sporadic and spasmodic; it begins, and is almost immediately interrupted.

In a sense, W. says, I cannot be said to read at all, though I claim to be a reader; I claim to have read books by this thinker and that thinker; I claim to be an admirer of literature. But what can it mean to me, all this philosophy, all this literature? What can it mean to one who has never wept like a baby over the pages of Cohen? What can it mean who has never felt so compelled, utterly compelled by The Star of Redemption, that tears ran streaming down his cheeks?

Someone, at a certain time in my life, must have praised me too highly, W. says; I show all the signs of that. Someone must have told me I excelled, which of course I have, given my education.

Wasn't I happy in my warehouse? Wasn't I content long before I decided to venture into the university? Shouldn't I have stayed there, reading The Castle in my lunch hour? Should I have remained a lunchtime reader of Kafka and the others, rather than venturing into the university?

Of course, as W. knows, I never really read The Castle. He finds the idea of my reading anything particularly amusing. He can imagine my mouth forming the letters as I spoke them out loud, and the creases on my brow. T-H-E C-A-S-T-L-E. – 'It's still an effort for you, isn't it?', W. says.

But in the end, W. doesn't believe I actually read books. - 'They're like totems to you. They contain what you lack. You surround yourself with them, but you don't understand them'.

The real reader has no need for surrounding himself with books, W. says. The real reader gives them away to others, lending them without a thought of them being returned. What need has he for a library of books? 

But it's different for me, W. says, for whom all books – and particularly the first one for me, Kafka's Castle - are like the obelisk in 2001, making me jump up and down and hoot excitedly.

'What are you interested in?', W. asks me. 'What, really? Because it's not philosophy, is it? It's not thought'. Still, I like reading about philosophy and reading about thought, that much is clear. It exercises some kind of fascination over me, W. says. There's something in me which responds. Something that is left of the good and the true, he says.

In the end, I've never got over the fact that there are books – that books of philosophy exist. It's always as though I've just begun reading, W. says, as though I've just been given a ticket to the library. – 'It's always new for you, isn't it?' And this, W. supposes, is why I never really finish the books I read, but pile them up, one on top of another. I never finish them, says W., but I let them lean, one against the other, on my bookshelves.

'What have you been reading?', W. asks. 'What's caught your fancy lately?' I tell him. W. nods and murmurs. – 'Flusser again, oh yes … Walser, oh very interesting ….'

W.'s read everything, he says. For a long time, reading was more important to him than anything. Those were his golden years, W. says. He was in his heyday! He doesn't read anything like as much now, W. says. It happens in your late 30s; you find you can't read as much as you used to. You can't read for a whole day, stopping for dinner, and then read in the evening as well, not that this would mean anything to me.

'A bit of Flusser – the editor's introduction, for example - and a little Walser – or an online essay about Walser – that's enough for you', W. says. It's enough of me to have a whiff of literature, and it's the same for philosophy. Have I read, really read Rosenzweig, about whom I talk so passionately? And what about Cohen – have I read him?

W. even offered to lend me Religion Out Of The Sources Of Reason, he says. He would have offered to buy it for me, but there was no point. – 'It was enough for you that it existed'. Enough, for me, that there was a man called Cohen and a man called Rosenzweig, and that they wrote books once, a long time ago.

I'd like to start all over again, wouldn't I?, W. asks. I'd like to confess, to tell everyone my story only to wipe it away, to erase and delete until there was nothing left. I'm forever waiting for judgement, W. says. I'm waiting for the party leader to expel me, or the police to arrest me. I want to be sent down, W. says. I want to place my neck on the guillotine – indeed, that's all I want.

Pass sentence on me! Tell me what I've done wrong!: that's my message to the world, W. says. And indeed, I do more and more wrong, W. says. My guilt becomes deeper with every second that passes, and isn't that part of my problem? Doesn't it become more and more acute? Soon I'll no longer speak, only wail, W. says. Soon I'll only type the words, please kill me, over and again.

Paranoia, W. says. Have I always felt paranoid?Do I really think someone's watching me, that my footsteps are being followed? In truth, I'm only following myself, W. says. In truth, I only stalk myself, in horror at myself, and not only of what I have become.

That I am at all: that's what causes my paranoia, W. says. That I even exist: even I know, W. says; even I know somewhere that I am entirely at fault.

Of course, I didn't ask to be born, W. grants that. Which one of us did? But I was born, and that's the problem – my problem, W. says, and everyone's problem.

And isn't that why my life is a series of autocritiques?, W. wonders. Isn't that why it has always resembled a kind of staged confession, a show trial, in which I repent for everything I have done and even in the end, the fact that I did anything at all; and indeed that I was, that even existed in the first place.

It wasn't me! That's what I want to cry to the world. It wasn't my fault! But it was me, W. says; it was my fault, and indeed my only, basic fault: that I ever lived at all.

Glee: that's what W. always sees on my face. That I'm still alive, that I can still continue, from moment to moment: that's enough for me, W. says. He supposes it has to be. If I realised for one moment … If I had any real awareness … But it would be too much, W. says I couldn't know what I was and continue as I am. I couldn't come into any real self-awareness.

'That's what saves you', W. says. 'Your stupidity'. If only he knew … That's what everyone thinks when they see me, W. says. That's what he thinks.

Meanwhile, it's left to him to bear the terrible fact of my existence, W. says. It's his problem, not mine as it should be, W. says. Everyone blames him for me. What's he doing here?, they ask. Why did you bring him? But he had to, W. knows. He has all the excuses. He's sorry in my place. I'm his responsibility.

'You've cheated us!', W. says. 'You've cheated everyone!' My very existence involves a horrible kind of deception, W. says. You only cheat yourself, that's the saying, W. says. But I've managed to cheat everyone but myself, because that's all my existence is: cheating.

'You've broken every rule', W. says. 'You've spoilt the game for everyone'. Why? Because I exist, W. says. Because I shouldn't exist, and do.

'How did you catch us out? How did you catch the world out?' It's a mystery to W. Someone should have been looking, he says. Someone should have been watching out. As it is … Who's going to put me out of my misery now? Who's going to wipe the grin off my face?

'What keeps you going?', W. asks. 'What – minute to minute?' If he has my life, W. he says, he'd kill himself straightaway. It's a disaster, a travesty. – 'How do you go on? How -really?' W.'s never been sure. He has enough trouble with his life, he says. It's already too much. But mine – mine!

He shakes his head. – 'If you had any decency …' But I don't, do I? I'm still alive! It's a kind of triumph for me, isn't it? It's a little victory, minute to minute: the knowledge that I still exist and I still annoy him, W. It's why I always look so gleeful. It's why I always look as though I've pulled one over on the world, which in fact I have.

Why does he listen to me?, W. says. But he knows why. There'd be sense in keeping people around to inspire him, W. says. But not to destroy him. Unless it's his death-drive, W. says. Unless I'm his death-drive, for how else could he account for it?

Ostracism, that's what I've brought him, W. says. Derision. Every door that was open to him is now closed. The shutters have been slammed on the windows, and W.'s out in the cold, stamping his feet for warmth, and there I am beside him.

What do I want from him?, W. asks. What does he want for himself? Ah, there's no way of telling. He'll simply have to follow where I lead, and listen to what I say. We're heading out, out into the wilderness, he knows that. Out beneath the flashing stars and the silvery pine trees to where nothing can live.

W.'s workfiles mean little to him now, he says. There are dozens of them now, saved in a folder called Notes, one after another, on every kind of topic. Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, for example. Hermann Cohen's Religion of Reason. He saves them to his folder and forgets them immediately, W. says.

What are they all for? What do they mean? Didn't a friend of his set up a website in his honour? Didn't he put up some of W.'s miscellaneous notetakings? It was a disaster, of course, W. says. You should never venture casually into the public domain. It's something over which you should exercise the greatest caution.

He always does the opposite to me, W. says, that's his policy. Take my attitude to the internet, for example. Take my advocacy of the world of blogging. A few years ago, I was a blogging-advocacy-madman, W. remembers. I spoke of nothing else.

I told him of Rilkes of the blogosphere, of blogospherical Nietzsches. I spoke of the new commons, of new modes of writely collectivity. Couldn't we envisage the online fuflilment of Blanchot's La Revue Internationale? Couldn't we bypass the institutions and channels of conventional thought?

Even W. was persuaded, or some part of him was. Even he thought something was happening, that something might come of it … We started a group blog, of course. – 'And then what happened?', W. says. 'Tell me. Start at the beginning'. When I say nothing, he says, as he always does, 'You ruined it! You destroyed it straightaway!'

I published like a maniac, W says. Post after post, one after another. No one else had a chance! No one could get a word in! Occasionally, W. would put up one of his considered, reasonably-written posts, he says. Every now and then, after much thought, W. would put something up – a modest post, soberly written – supposing that, surrounded by my madness, his post might seem all the more reasonable. He thought it might rise up, a calm island in the midst of a sea of madness.

But that's not what happened, is it? It was drowned! Everything he wrote was drowned! It was like Atlantis all over again, W. says. That's when he learnt the internet was only a support network for my fantasies.

He sees it in his mind's eye, W. says. I pause from my ceaseless administrative work, look up for a moment … Of what am I thinking?, W. says. What's struck me? But he knows I'm only full of administrative anxieties, and my pause is only a slackening of the same relentless movement.

On, on, on, that's what I say to myself, isn't it?, W. says. There are more boxes to fill, more forms … I'm an administrative machine, an administrative maniac, W. says. I find the meaning of my existence in my administrative labours, he knows that; he finds it fascinating.

I've replaced the attempt to think with the attempt to administer. But then, W. says, perhaps my attempt to think was likewise an attempt at administration. Perhaps it was only an attempt to administer and organise myself, to rationalise my reading and linearise my note-taking. Wasn't I only ever a bureaucrat of thinking?

And what of him, when he looks up from his labours? What does he see? Of what is he dreaming? Of thought, W. says. Of a single thought, from which something might begin. Of a single thought that might justify his existence.

W. remembers my work phase, he says. How long did it last? For a while, it was all activity with me. For a while, a flood of writings, it was incredible. I used to send him some of them; he was impressed – not at the content of what I wrote, of course, but the fact that I was writing; that I could write at all.

There was something independent about me he admired, he said at the time. Something untouched by the great disasters overtaking the world. – 'You stuck at it in your corner', he said. 'Working away'.

For a time, he even took dietary advice from me, W. remembers. I told him to eat oily fish – mackerel, sardines – and to restrict his caffeine intake. And he took life coaching advice. I told him never to work at night and to get a good night's sleep, W. remembers.

I told him to write everything up, and never to begin writing without a clear aim in view. I told him to rationalise and organise his workspace; to keep a separate drawer for every work in progress. Because there was to be nothing other than works in progress; no idle notetaking, no leafing through books in languages he half understands.

And he followed my advice, W. says. He did exactly what I told him. He even began to publish. He wrote for publication; he sent things out, inspired by my example. Not by what I wrote, W. says, but the fact that I wrote. Not what I published, which he never read, but that I published, and ceaselessly.

But when W. finally read what I wrote, when he read it, line by line … The shock was immense, W. remembers. Suddenly it was clear to him: he knew who I was. His own private Mephistopheles, W. says. His last temptation.

I was the mirage that there was a kind of shortcut to thinking. That to think meant to publish and nothing other. That thinking was only a working for publication, and the mania of writing for publication.

He immediately gave up eating oily fish, W. said. And he immediately began drinking more coffee. He let his office to fall back into a mess, and emptied the drawers of his filing cabinet. Why did he listen to me? Why did he ever listen?

And now he waits, every morning, looking out over Stonehouse roofs, naked but for his dressing gown. Now he waits, the lone watchman, knowing that I've long since stopped getting up as early as him, or going to bed early, for the thought that he dreams is crossing the sky to find him.

W. has always been immensely susceptible to changes in weather, he says. He can feel them coming days in advance, for example, he says of the Westerlies that bombard his city. He knows there's another low front out over the Atlantic, ready to hit the foot of England with rain and grey clouds and humidity, and another low front behind that. How's he going to get any work done – any serious work?

It's alright for me, he says, staring out of my window at the incoming banks of clouds. I'm on the East of the country, for a start, which means the weather doesn't linger in the same way. Oh it's much colder, he knows that – he always brings a warm jacket when he stays – but it's fresher, too; it's good for the mind, good for thought.

But W. can't think, he says. He knows the Westerlies are coming. He knows low pressure's going to dominate the weather for weeks, if not months. Sometimes whole seasons are dominated by Westerlies, which costs him an immense amount in terms of lost time and missed work.

He's still up early every morning, of course. He's still at his desk at dawn. Four A.M. Five A.M. – he's ready for work; he opens his books; he takes notes as the sky brightens over Stonehouse roofs. He's there at the inception, at the beginning of everything, even before the pigeons start cooing like maniacs along his window ledge.

He's up before anyone else, he knows that, but there's still no chance of thinking. Not a thought has come to him in recent months. Not one. He's stalled, W. says. There's been an interregnum. But when wasn't he stalled? When wasn't it impossible for him to think? No matter how early he gets up, he misses it, his appointment with thought. No matter how he tries to surprise it, thought, by being there before everyone.

W. and I both had our monk years, which surprises everyone who knows us. It surprises us, too. How did we end up, in our different ways, with the monks?

It was poverty in my case, W. remembers. Sheer desperation. What could they do, seeing me snivelling and cold, but take me in?

With him, of course, W. says, it was genuine religious feeling. He took a vow of silence. He spent days in solitary prayer. Why didn't he stay there? Why couldn't he have spent a contemplative life with his brother monks?

It must have been my fault, W. surmises, although I didn't know him at that time. I must have already been sent out to find him. It was fate: someone, somewhere, had decided that his life should be ruined.

Sometimes important people fall into our orbit, we're never quite sure why. They come with us to the pub to escape it all, and we order them plate after plate of Cumberland sausages. 'Look at them all', says W., 'I hope you're hungry'.

We invariably try to convince our guest that everyone hates the three of us. – 'They hate us!' – 'I hope they don't hate me', said one guest. - 'They hate us and they hate you', we tell our guest. 'Especially you. Everyone round here. All of us. Even we hate you, and we don't hate anyone'.

That night, wandering back, we got lost in the fog, the three of us. – 'Where are we going?' – 'We'll never get out of here', we told the speaker. 'You'll be trapped forever with us, going round and round'. I asked W. to narrate his recurring dream to help us pass the time. After, W. asked our guest whether he had any recurring dreams. And then, 'What's your favourite colour?'

They must be undergoing a crisis of some kind, they always are, we decide of those who come to join our table. – 'Never listen to us', W. says. 'We give bad advice, don't we?' Very bad, I agree. But still they listen. We must have the air of people in the know, I say to W. – 'We have the air of idiots', says W.

'We'll be in the bar', that's what we always tell them. 'That's where you can find us: the bar'. Constancy is always admired, we agree. People in crisis need to know where we are. We spend all day in the bar, which requires great stamina and pacing. We're calm drinkers, and full of amiability. There are only a few people we absolutely want to avoid.

'We'll be in the bar'. W. likes to ask questions of the people who join us, who are often tongue-tied and confused. – 'What's your favourite colour?', or 'Do you have any recurring dreams?' Sometimes he will ask, 'What's your favourite drink?', and tell them about Plymouth Gin. – 'You have to find the old bottle', he says. 'The new one's been redesigned'.

Then we give them more advice: 'The point is not even to try to engage'. Or, 'Give up now: that's our advice'. Or, 'There's no hope for you, you have to know that'. Then we buy them a drink, or get them to buy us one. Our table guests are invariably cheered. – 'See, it doesn't have to be so bad!' Hours pass in the bar. – 'The key is pacing', we tell them.

The kernel is in Poland, W. often says. The secret is in Poland. But what does he mean? we run through our memories. Our Polish adventure! When were we happier? It all came together there. In a real sense, it all began.

There we were, ambassadors for our country, in our teeshirts and jungle-print shorts. There we were, intellectual delegates, who had a civic reception. Wasn't it the mayor of Wroclaw who greeted us? Of course, the welcoming committee in Wroclaw looked at us in bemusement: was this the best Britain had to offer? – 'And that was before they heard you go on about blowholes over dinner', W. says. That was before the real fiasco began, he says, when we re-enacted the primal scene for them on the dancefloor. It's a British dance move, we told them. It's what we do on British dancefloors, but they looked away from us appalled.

But they treated us with European grace. We attended a grill party in the sun – that's what they called it, a grill party. There were sausages and beer. We're a loutish people, we told them. Don't expect anything from us. We told them we'd disappoint them, we warned them in advance, but after a while, they seemed to find us charming.

I think we won them over, in some sense, W. says. They came to like our inanities. To them, we were like a race apart, like elves or something. A lower branch on the human tree. Once they knew they could expect very little, it was okay. We were free from any expectations.

Yes, that's where it all began, W. and I agree. Free from our hosts' expectations, we also became freer from our own. It was then, in our jungle-print shorts, that we accepted what we were.

W. and I never make a point of finding someone to discourage. They must find us, deliberately seeking us out, since we who are the last people to whom anyone would want to speak. Of course, and we are always ready. We're friendly, if nothing else, and it amuses us when people throw themselves upon our mercy. – 'You must be really desperate. We're the last people you should talk to. It'll get you nowhere'.

What advice do we give? What do we tell them? – 'You should leave at once. It's terrible. You shouldn't spend another day here. You'll go mad'. People like them don't belong here, we tell them. – 'They'll hate you. They probably already do'. And then, our best advice, 'You have to know you're a failure. That's absolutely essential'. We know we're failures, don't we? We're the worst of all. We're from the wrong class, we tell them. – 'The difference is that I can pretend to be middle class, and he can't', W. says. I agree. – 'He's either overpolite, or surly', W. says. I can't help it, I say, spreading my hands.

On the other hand, we point out, I saved W. from the high table. Everyone agrees: since he's met me, his work's really gone downhill. We laugh. – 'He's destroying my career', says W. 'No, really, he is. He'll destroy yours, too'. And then we start again: 'You have to leave straightaway. Go somewhere else. Head to the periphery'. And then, in chorus, 'always stay at the periphery'.

We speak of our failure. – 'When did you know that you'd failed?' We speak of the thinkers we admire. Do you remember X.? and Y? and Z.? Ah, that conversation we had with Z.! And with Y., that summer's day by the river! And do you remember when we had Z. to ourselves for a whole evening?

Then, with an even keener sense of awe, we speak of the thinkers we love to read. – 'How was it possible for a human being to write like that …?' We go up to the study and look in wonder through the pages of Rosenzweig and Cohen. – 'How was it possible for a human being to write such books?' Above all, it's not possible for us, and that first of all.

It's enough that Rosenzweig and Cohen existed. Enough that they were once alive and wrote these boo. The books are like great looming mountains, like flashing stars. How was it possible? How could a human being write such books? And above all: how impossible it would be for us, and especially us, to write such books!

Of course, you can't be ambitious once you know you've failed, says W. And if there's one thing we know, it's that we've failed. W. realised long ago that he wasn't a genius, he says. – 'Do you think you're a genius?', W. asks me. And then, 'I think you still have nostalgia for the time when you thought you might be a genius'.

Most thought provoking is that we are still not thinking, I read out loud from my book. – 'Most thought provoking is that you think you're thinking', says W. 'Because you do, don't you?'

Our friend makes a trip to Heidegger's hut in Todnauberg. – 'Did you shit in the well?' You can't get near the hut, apparently. Hermann, the son lives up there. Later, our friend meets him. Hermann said his father turned down the Rectorship twice, and only accepted it as a favour to a friend. A likely story.