It was not necessary; I knew.
To bid her good-bye, I moved my foreign limbs, struck the chair with them. It fell upside down, dead, like the table in her room. Her lips were cold ... just as cold was once the floor, here, near my bed....
When she left I sat down on the floor, bent over the cigarette-butt....
I cannot write any more—I no longer want to!
RECORD THIRTY-NINE
The End
All this was like the last crystal of salt thrown into a saturated solution; quickly, needle-like crystals began to appear, to grow more substantial and solid. It was clear to me; the decision was made and tomorrow morning I shall do it! It amounts to suicide but perhaps then I shall be re-born. For only what is killed can be re-born.
Every second the sky twitched in convulsion there in the west. My head was burning and pulsating inside; I was up all night and I fell asleep only at about seven o’clock in the morning when the darkness of the night was already dispelled and becoming gray and when the roofs crowded with birds became visible....
I woke up; ten o’clock. Evidently the bell did not ring today. On the table—left from yesterday—there stood the glass of water. I gulped the water down with avidity and I ran; I had to do it quickly, as quickly as possible.
The sky was deserted, blue, all eaten up by the storm. Sharp corners of shadows.... Everything seemed to be cut out of blue autumnal air—thin, dangerous to touch; it seemed so brittle, ready to disperse into glass dust. Within me