Right at this moment sounds the moving 19th nocturne and I am prompted for some minutes to come up with a few words, to give some idea of my main preocupation this morning. More to the point my refusal to give up, horrified, to hang on resolutely to a process of inward dissolution, strongly suggested by certain signs, and to resist the attempt, the reflex to import a sense of organisation, of
geistiger symmetrie to counter the corrosive tendency of this process. That my presence paralyses the upbeatnness, the positive
entrain of others, their attempt to project bright feelings into the world, perhaps by not reflecting these attitudes, by not taking up so to speak the invisible hands extended sometimes forcefully toward me, or maybe is it that I am reaching more deeply into them pass the sham to come into contact with something deeper, less posturing, if can put it that way, I am a little bit aware. I am flat, or depending on your approach, unusually craggy, but also strangely immaterial, nervous,
ausweichend. As the result of a very consciously or relentlessly cultivated sense of independence? of
entfremdung? I sit there and listen to them, give polite signs tham I am attending to them, to their
propos, I make efforts at rejoinder
dans leur sens, and rarely contradict anyone or anything, though they can't but have the impression of my failure to morally rally with them on any issue, yet all the while I must also make the effort to tone down what I call my
Bohrenden Blick, this ruthless almost primal severerity of expression. Maybe its only the consequences of 10 years of constant reading in german which have given this expression to my features, that has killed my former animation. I do sit very still, quite intensely
lauschend. Faustian
? As for my pathetic attemps at urbanity, it is better i think to give them up...
Reading
A severed head by Iris Murdoch.