profit is quite incomparable. In saying the word I almost reproduced the intonation she uses when speaking of her business deals. Oh, that’ll bring in another tidy profit! she often says, without of course going into the actual amount of the profit, let alone the method by which she makes it. And if it suddenly gets too warm in Palma, I told myself, I’ll carry my fur coat on my arm. It was now out of the question for me to leave simply wearing a greatcoat, as I had at first intended. And so I put the greatcoat back in the wardrobe, having got it out the day before, and took out my fur coat. As I did so I thought, How many fur coats I used to have! But I’ve gradually given them all away, forcibly got rid of them, as I tell myself, because each of them was associated with some town I’d visited. One was bought in Warsaw, another in Cracow, a third in Split, a fourth in Trieste — on each occasion it was when the weather had become unexpectedly cold and I’d thought I should become ill or even freeze to death without a fur coat. I gave a lot of these fur coats to Frau Kienesberger. The only one I’d kept was one that I’d bought twenty-two years ago in Fiume. This one was my favourite. I shook it out and laid it on the chest of drawers. What a long time it is since I wore this coat! I thought. It wasn’t as valuable as the others I’d given away. It’s heavy, but it’s my favourite. It’s been in the wardrobe for years, and it smells as though it had, I said to myself. We are attached to certain garments and reluctant to part with them, even when they almost fall off us because they’re so threadbare and shabby, just because they bring to mind some journey, some particularly enjoyable journey, some particularly enjoyable experience. In fact I could tell a pleasant story about every one of the garments I still possess; most of them I’ve got rid of — given them away or burnt them. I haven’t kept any which were associated with some sad or dreadful experience; I parted with them as quickly as possible, because I couldn’t bear to open the wardrobe and be reminded of something dreadful, by a scarf, for instance, even if it was an expensive one. For a long time I’ve kept only garments which remind me of enjoyable, or at least of pleasant occasions, but among those I still have are a number which bring back feelings of great happiness, the sight of which, I have to admit, can still make me feel supremely happy years later, even decades later. But I could write a whole book on the subject. If we lose someone we love, we always keep some garment that belonged to them, at least as long as it retains their smell, in fact as long as we live, because we go on believing that the garment brings back their smell, even when this has ceased to be anything but pure imagination. For this reason I still have one of my mother’s coats, though this is a secret I’ve never divulged to anyone, not even to my sister. She would have simply made fun of it. My mother’s coat hangs in a wardrobe which is otherwise empty and which I keep firmly locked. However, never a week goes by but I open the wardrobe and smell the coat. I slipped my fur coat on and found that it fitted me —still fitted me, I had to say after looking at myself in the mirror, for in the last few years, so it seemed to me, I’d gone down to about half my previous weight, if not less. There had been the fresh attack of sarcoidosis, the repeated colds I caught every year, the general chronic debility resulting from them, and then the constant alternation between being bloated by too much prednisolone and losing weight through having to cut down or discontinue the medication. At the moment my weight was reduced, and I was waiting to become bloated again, for I had started taking large doses of prednisolone two weeks earlier. I was now taking eight tablets a day. I realised that this method of survival couldn’t be kept up for much longer. But I suppressed the thought — suppressed it although it was there all the time, suppressed it because it was there all the time. I’ve got used to it. Naturally the fur coat is unfashionable, I thought, standing in front of the mirror, but the very fact that it was unfashionable pleased me. In fact I’ve never worn fashionable clothes; I’ve always detested them and still do. The important thing is that it keeps me warm, I told myself; how it looks is really of no importance. It has to serve its purpose; nothing else matters. No, I’ve never had anything fashionable on my person, just as I’ve never had anything fashionable in my head. People were more inclined to say of me, he’s old-fashioned than he’s fashionable or even he’s modern — such a repulsive word. I’d always cared extremely little for public opinion because I was always obsessed with my own opinion and hence had no time at all for the public’s. I’ve never gone along with it, I don’t go along with it today, and I never shall. I’m interested in what people say, but obviously it mustn’t be taken in any way seriously. As far as I am concerned this is the best way forward. I can already see myself getting off the plane in Palma, with the warm African wind in my face, I said to myself. I shall drape the fur coat round my shoulders, and suddenly my feet will be light and my mind clear, and so on — I shall no longer feel this hopelessness which gnaws away at both mind and body. Of course it’s possible that everything will turn out to be a cruel deception. How often that has happened to me! I’ve gone away for months and returned after two days. The more luggage I’ve taken, the sooner I’ve been back home again. Having taken enough luggage for two months, I’ve been back in two days, and so on. And I’ve made myself look ridiculous, especially in front of Frau Kienesberger — having told her I’d be away for months when in fact it was only for two days, having told her it would be for six months when it proved to be only for three weeks. On such occasions I felt ashamed of myself and went about Peiskam with my head low, but I was ashamed only in front of Frau Kienesberger, nobody else, because in the meantime I had become supremely indifferent to everyone else. I had no explanation to offer, for the word despair would have been just as ludicrous as the word mad. I couldn’t expect somebody like Frau Kienesberger to take it seriously. It’s hard enough to convince oneself by using such words, let alone a difficult person like Frau Kienesberger, who is anything but simple; people are always talking about simple folk, yet nobody is more difficult, more complicated indeed, than these so-called simple folk. One can’t expect them to take words like despair and mad seriously. So-called simple people are in reality the most complicated people, and I find it increasingly difficult to get on with them. I have of late almost ceased having any dealings with them. It’s beyond my capacity: I can’t expect simple people to take me seriously any longer. In fact I’ve entirely given up all dealings with simple people, who, as I’ve already said, are the most difficult people of all, because such dealings require too great an effort, and I’m not prepared to lie to them in order to gain their understanding. It’s become clear to me also that it’s the simplest people who make the highest demands, and I’ve now reached the stage where I can no longer afford them. I can hardly afford myself any longer. I accuse my sister of going away for several weeks or for months and then perhaps turning up again a few hours later, and yet I’m no different — I intend to be away for ages, and two days later I’m back again. With all the devastating consequences that this entails. We’re both like this: for decades we’ve been accusing each other of being impossible, and yet we can’t give up being impossible, erratic, capricious and vacillating. This is what makes up our existence, my sister’s and mine, and always has; this is what has always got on other people’s nerves and yet has never ceased to fascinate them and make them seek our company — fundamentally because we’re capricious, erratic, vacillating and unreliable. This is what has always attracted others. People seek the society of others who are exciting, disconcerting and volatile, who are never the same from one moment to the next and usually change complexion completely. And all our lives my sister and I have been asking ourselves what it is we really want, without ever being able to find the answer. All our lives we’ve been looking for something, in the end for everything imaginable, and never finding it, always wanting to achieve everything and not succeeding, or else achieving it and losing it the selfsame moment. It’s an age-old inheritance, it seems to me, coming neither from our father nor from our mother, but from generations back. But Frau Kienesberger is not even surprised now if she finds me back home unpacking my bags two days after I’ve gone away for three or four months. She’s no longer surprised by anything to do with me. What a simple person and yet what an infinitely vigilant seismograph! I reflect. But suddenly everything is in favour of Palma and my work: I’ve got to get out, away from Peiskam, in fact until — I hardly dare say it, though I do dare to think it —