prayers were taken care of.  Then the pastor, Leopold Lehmann, began, at the behest and at the expense of my wife, to deliver a memorial speech.  He said: 

“Dear sisters and brothers!  Once again a kindly fate has robbed us of the life of a dear person.  In grief we stand at the grave of the departed and remember him sadly.”

My son Siegmund bit his lips.  The pastor said: 

“The earth, which has singled out the body so that it might lead its own life for a short while, has taken it back into the bosom of the mother.  A noble man has gone home—­”

A fit of laughter overcame my son Siegmund.  His face became red and serious...  He laughed until he was gasping.

My wife shrieked.

A pall-bearer dropped a bottle of whiskey, which broke on the coffin. 
The pall-bearer regretfully cast his eyes down.

The relatives were outraged.  They were ashamed of my son Siegmund. 
Some women cried into genuine lace handkerchiefs.

I was completely still.

The pastor said: 

“If one does not how to behave, he should not come to a burial—­Amen.”

He threw some sand over the broken bottle of whisky.  And left. 
Proud.  Offended.  The pastor.  Leopold Lehmann.

My son Siegmund cleaned his fingernails.

The Friend

I love the dead days.  They have no glow; they are colorless and filled with yearning.  The houses stand like scenery before the grey clouds; the people move as though in a film:  in the evening they move no differently from the way they moved in the morning.  All things are more ponderous.  And my room seems as though someone has died in it.

Whenever these days occur, a mindless desire to work grows irresistibly in me.  I carry out my daily tasks as though as I were performing a mass.  And I lose myself while doing so.  Almost the way dreamers have lost themselves.  But sometimes I notice that I have become motionless and inwardly rigid.

Then I become very alert, and I can no longer do tasks.  I go to the window, where I have wonderful thoughts.  But usually they occured only at night.

I feel out of place in all matters.  They press upon me as though they don’t know me:  the streets and the people and the doors to the houses and the thousand movements.  Wherever I look I become confused.

My little death torments me; there were many, greater deaths.  And that I am alone.  And that everywhere something inconceivable is threatening.  And that I do not find my way..  And all the remaining sadnesses, for which there is no doctor, and which should not be revealed.  Each must submit to them alone, and in his own way.  Talking about them is ridiculous, but many die of them.  I am afraid that I am so at odds with myself and so powerless.  Until memories come.  Unbidden.  But kind.  From somewhere.  They numb me.