I Doubt If One Ever

What It Sees There Isn't So Much A Face As The Expression Of A Predicament.

Berlin Is A Skeleton Which Aches In The Cold: It Is My Own Skeleton Aching. I Feel In My Bones The Sharp Ache Of The Frost In The Girders Of The Overhead Railway, In The Iron-work Of Balconies, In Bridges, Tramlines, Lamp-standards, Latrines. The Iron Throbs And Shrinks, The Stone And The Bricks Ache Dully, The Plaster Is Numb.

Staring And Staring Into The Mirror, It Sees Many Faces Within Its Face - The Face Of The Child, The Boy, The Young Man, The Not-so-young Man - All Present Still, Preserved Like Fossils On Superimposed Layers, And, Like Fossils, Dead. Their Message To This Live Dying Creature Is: Look At Us - We Have Died - What Is There To Be Afraid Of? It Answers Them: But That Happened So Gradually, So Easily. I'm Afraid Of Being Rushed.

The Nazis Were Not Right To Hate The Jews. But Their Hating Of Jews Was Not Without A Cause. No One Ever Hates Without A Cause.

I'm Horrified To Find, As I Look At These Diaries Of Twenty-five Years Ago Or More, That I Don't Remember Who The People Were. "bill And Tony Were Constantly In And Out. We Went To La Jolla" - Or Something. I Haven't The Bluest Idea Who They Were!