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My only consolation is that everything is still so new that what happened can neither be comprehended by reason nor has it yet been able to penetrate the subconscious.
He cast a few unpleasant remarks in my direction; he insisted that I didn’t know what I was talking about and maintained that it was in fact essential to conceal what could be concealed; indeed, an inspired lie could be preferred to a malignant truth.
we meet no one’s eye and therefore do not need to think about ourselves.
No one thought about protecting himself against the survivors or their demands on us. We paid money to go on living in the same way that one once paid health insurance; we bought the commodity called survival, and according to all existing contracts no one has the right to take it from us or make demands upon it.
He shrugged his shoulders and replied ironically that democracy is based on the vote and that therefore he did not put his faith in democracy.
But his powerful obstinacy, his primitive blend of cunning and stupidity attracts supporters to rally round behind him.
Suddenly I feel I am in the space between two breaths, in the moment of time it takes to stretch out a hand to another person, in the second when the heart beats and braces itself to beat again.
He had not wished to or had not been in a position to resume the interrupted game of make-believe that nothing had happened.
I have always been interested in my environment, but I have wanted to reach my conclusions about it in peace. I have stressed a person’s right to observe and clarify his thoughts without being obliged to intervene. Intervention could prevent free observation; it meant that one was no longer unprejudiced or open to all points of view.
Disaster has already left its mark on them in our eyes; somewhere in their bodies lies the germ of change, of mutilation and decay. And somewhere within the healthy people lies a far-reaching contempt for the deformed.
Our fear is no longer a fear of death but of change and mutilation. We have not thought this through and cannot talk about it, but in those moments when we are able to escape from our own personal needs the picture becomes clear to us.
