230
PARTISAN REVIEW
In this operation I am careful to spare passersby, outsiders,
strangers who have never bothered me; indeed, the faces of some of
them, if I observe them objectively, seem worthy of sincere interest. But
when a crowd of strangers is all that remains from the world surround–
ing me, I suddenly feel lonely and disoriented, so better to erase them as
well, the whole lot, and forget it.
In a simplified world I have greater probabilities of meeting the
few people I like to meet: Franziska, for example. Franziska is a friend,
and when I run into her, I feel a great joy. We exchange witticisms, we
laugh, we tell each other things, ordinary events, but perhaps ones we
do not tell other people, and when we discuss them together, they prove
interesting
to
both of us, and before saying goodbye, we both insist we
must meet again as soon as possible. Then months pass, until we run
into each other in the street, by chance: festive cries, laughter, promises
to get together again soon, but neither of us ever does anything to bring
about a meeting; perhaps because we know that it would no longer be
the same thing. In a reduced and simplified world, now that the air has
been cleared of all those pre-established situations which would make
the fact of my seeing Franziska more often suggest a relationship
between us somehow requiring definition, perhaps even tual marriage
or, in any event, our being considered a couple, assuming a bond
possibly extending
to
our respective families , to our forebears and
descendants, to siblings and cousins, and a bond between the environ–
ment of our joint lives and our attachments in the sphere of incomes
and possessions; now, having achieved the disappearance of thes·e
conditions which, all around us, silently, weighed on us and on our
conversations, causing them never to last more than a few minutes, my
meeting Franziska should be even more beautiful and enjoyable. So it
is natural for me to try to create the circumstances most favorable to a
crossing of our paths, such as the abolition of all young women
wearing a pale fur like the one she wore last time, so that if I see her
from a distance, I can be sure it is she, without any risk of misunder–
standings or disappointments, and then the abolition of all young men
who look as if they might be friends of Franziska and might conceiv–
ably be about to meet her, maybe intentionally, and delay her in
pleasant conversation just when I should be the one to meet her, by
chance.
.
I have gone into details of a personal nature, but this should not
lead anyone to believe that my abolitions are inspired primarily by my
own immediate, private interests; on the contrary, I try to act in the
interest of the whole (and hence also my own, but indirectly). True, to
begin somewhere, I made all the public buildings that occurred
