2 2                                        Otto Rmik

as if diey were those of a deceased loved one. The reason is that
as a stillborn one never really experienced them, and in waking
reminiscence relives at least enough to taste real life, which as they
say in all the books, can be found somewhere out there, though
not known first-hand by the writers themselves.

5 November

Man is unsuited to survey and regard his own life in context.
For it really has not a logical context but a temporal one, which
exists only in the present moment, but to dissolve in its wake.
Furthermore, if one has really li\ed, nothing remains to be sur¬
veyed. The past is a corpse in which the germ of life has died, and
if something remains which invites contemplation, then it has not
been lived at all or at best incompletely. The person died there:
the price for an immortal past which gradually consinned the real
life-strength. The past is alive, but allows its bearer no more life
unless he denies its connection to his ego, disowns it.

Mountainlakc in the Summer

A mild night lit by a full moon, which transforms everything
into an luircal magical mood. In one of the gardens which lead
down to the lake she sits on a bench, surrounded by bushes and a
carpet of grass. First we speak a few halting words, then tiptoe
down to the lake and soon we are sitting in the boat. First opposite
one another, then side-by-side. Our hands find one another, our
lips. We awake and look upwards: a starry sky is stretched out
over us, as if to confirm the impression of the unreal. The boat
drifts slowly and aimlessly like our souls. Today I know that that
would have been happiness—had I let myself live it out. But I was
dead then, and only the memory has stayed alive. I really did ex¬
perience it. I can still name the place and the year—of course I had
no witnesses—I even know the name of the boat. And she lived
next door, was slender, very blond with a delicate profile, and her
name was ... I forgot her name, but somewhere I must still have