January 17

In the name of strict justice, the porcelain smeared with blood, death burning and then icy, the wantonness and turmoil of the slaughter, I mean that our manners have declined, every day, in order to burn until all this suffering cease (glad not to receive too many letters), nothing but an everlasting chatter seriously at anything, your mythology compared to mounting difficulties. (Then followed the business about the mythology and the knitting.) Separate until now.

Skeletons, sterilizations and similar medical matters, scientific and classical culture with the appropriate language, communication, even affection, enclosed in armor. The masses entering paradise, if just supposing, with a slight taste of defeat, they were mistaken, already started, forward march, the arrogance of a large part, pale as wax, tired of believing the chemistry, the complete obtuse inertia of virility (by analogy) and the men at his disposal, saddling him with acts, accusing each other, pleasure bursts all circumstances to recover what has been lost, ultimate episodes, appearances of religion and austerity (and bizarre episodes of luxury.) The area our tastes cherish.

Pleased to inflict wrath and triumph, his coat stuffed with food, little tramp,it is impossible to doubt a little less hunger, a space cluttered up, swept up by the fierce rythmn of paint and tar from the greasy earth, flock to them with blessings and tears, throwing oneself on the other side of a barrier.

We know the impulse well. Nothing but the smell of the sea.

except that it has no end.

that great stream of men

all wearing black and many using spectacles. Their opinions with untiring energy. The consequences, with horror, can hardly wait. The houses trembled like a wisp of grass in the wind.

Typewriters, Persian rugs, electric clocks, cloth, etc etc, electric clocks in the street, the soldiers with their drums, bundles lurching in the night, the rythmn of the great machine, the persons lucky enough to be onlookers, the discipline of geography (which might be described as conditional - becoming boring with all my burglars.) Criminal in nature, to act using priority in the order, due to the restraining influence of such a brief span of time. But the worst trouble came anyway, nothing but endive for a long time, day in, day out, endive with sand, endive without sand. Poorly-wrapped freezing day of fog begun to decompose, polluting the precious snow. Too late to disappear, no room for gratitude, all the languages of Europe accompanied by incomprehensible prayers, deserted and lifeless, white as far as the eye, lying under flight, shamefully visible from our windows, this endless plain, frozen and full of war and spirits and patiently scraped of anything which might be of use: axes, buckets, ladles, nails.

Ca roule encore?

Ca roule toujours. Out over all the roofs and on to the horizon: this sunshine, these cloudless skies, a great loathing for algebra, geometry, figures. Predictable failure, it was already common without being given language (and) rules. An authentic, shining humanity dreaming about all. Hence can be recognized as paraphenalia, far from being a mere symptom, mere reasons of prestige. The monolithic quality of this form (the old consolation no longer worked anyhow, deficient as it was (in proper hostility) to test the objectives of this particular set of motives), no definite figures endowed with this quality who were to do the work to be done. Motive power but hardly evidence of . . . . The same subtly-veiled resistance, the same failures to fulfill them. One begins to wonder: blood for trucks (as an historical memory and obsolete distinction) and listen to music, and, of course, accept.

Suffering, the gruesome Terminal Of All, so pleasantly at least devoid of cheap oratory. (If the trains entered a theatre . . . .) Strenuous denials and the utter lack in this field, ie. was everywhere, an empty space in the vicinity of railroad tracks, the damage from a distance. Understandable, even human sometimes but not good. Searching for a good argument against that terrible word “easy.”

Depths, depths where there is no comfort.

Incapable of doing anything good. People wished, they have it, occupy themselves with superficial things, bow down before the blows, crumbs from the rich man’s table, ridiculously inadequate. Stories told over and over to substantiate the paradox, how it was possible not to discover employment without any difficulty. A previously-rented house in a remote suburb. A bed, which was the only aspect around which many thoughts crystallized, feelings of elation, origins, customs, habits, organization, folklore, economy, the planners and those executing the deeds on all sides and in all walks of life, and the tools required for the investigation. Authority, whose weight depends upon its limitation and the extreme reluctance of all concerned to break fresh ground, to relate to and have intercourse with each other beyond the borders and limitations of its validity. Who fall back upon the compromised phraseology perpetrated upon the body, with the discovery of technical devices, parties, balls, beautiful girls (eun kans om naar Holywood te komen), dinners, a large home, etc etc, again spinach in our hollow stomachs (la colere a tirer sa vengeance) and the facts which reduce it to nothing again, into a wilderness: the ever-approaching thunder: meet the horrible truth and be shattered.