Toward the end Winkelburg’s visits grew more frequent. I gave instructions that he shouldn’t be admitted, and that whenever he called, “I was out.” Futile. There were three things that the rich man couldn’t keep out with his high fence, says the poet--rain, death and tomorrow. And Winkelburg was gifted with an almost similar aloof tenacity. He crawled past barriers. He melted through walls. And regardless of subterfuges and instructions, I would hear his dragging step in the corridor leading to my desk. He wished to discuss things. He had become suddenly garrulous. He wished to talk about the city. About its institutions. About politics. About people. About art. This phase of Winkelburg was the most unbearable. He was willing to admit himself an outcast, a thing on a scrap heap. He was reconciled to the fact that he would starve to death, and that everybody who had ever seen him would feel it was a good thing he had finally died. But he made one plea. He wanted nothing except to talk and to hear words in order to relieve the loneliness of his day. He would like abstract discussions that had nothing to do with Winkelburg and the Winkelburg misfortunes. His smile now said, “I am useless. Worn out and better off dead. But never mind me. Never mind Winkelburg and his troubles. My mind is still alive. It still thinks and works. I wish that it didn’t. I wish it was crippled like Winkelburg is, and that it crawled around like my body. But it doesn’t. So talk to me as if it were a mind belonging to somebody else, as if it were an impersonal machine able to pronounce ideas and to argue and to appreciate what you say. Talk to me as if I weren’t this insufferable Winkelburg, but somebody of whom you have never heard.” I grew suspicious finally. I began to think there was something vitally spurious about this whole Winkelburg business. And I said to myself, “The man’s a downright fake. If anybody were as pathetic and impossible and useless as this Winkelburg is he would shoot himself. Winkelburg doesn’t shoot himself. So he becomes illogical ... unreal.” III