When I said this to K. I heard, to my regret, the same stereotyped and indecent answer:
“The devil take it!”
All I could do was to shrug my shoulders. Suddenly changing his tone and bearing, the artist turned to me seriously with a question which, in my opinion, was also indecent:
“Why do you lie, old man?”
I was astonished, of course.
“I lie?”
“Well, let it be the truth, if you like, but why? I am looking and thinking. Why did you say that? Why?”
My indulgent reader, who knows well what the truth has cost me, will readily understand my profound indignation. I deliberately mention this audacious and other calumnious phrases to show in what an atmosphere of malice, distrust, and disrespect I have to plod along the hard road of suffering. He insisted rudely:
“I have had enough of your smiles. Tell me plainly, why do you speak so?”
Then, I admit, I flared up: