According to Valéry

 My feeling for a new beginning was very strong indeed, so I rented a whole floor apartment overlooking the north side of Washington Square, and drove with Miss Rogoff to Montauk to pick up the rest of my boxes at a friend's beach house. Measured by the hands of a clock, the trip had been short. In the hours of light traffic one could make dazzling progress along this masterpiece of the yellow and gray road. And Liz knew how to drive it, she was a flawless driver in a flawless car. ----- If you ever feel like spending a whole week with me again, in my apartment (she said), put on a coat and take a cab; I think I could spend hours trying to explain any other solution that would eliminate the necessity of choice or definition; and yet I doubt whether you understand what I am saying. Understanding has never been the foundation of your decisions, K (.) That foundation, in you, is a "bogeyman" that you resort to whenever you lack wisdom (.) an allegory of self-awareness (.) -----, she said, as I lightly tapped the car window with a coin. ----- Is everything okay, Liz (.) Can I smoke in here?) ----, I asked, as we stopped at the toll booth. I lit my cigarette beside him and, watching his hands slide over the steering wheel, I continued: ----- Je suis étant et me voyant; me voyant me voir, et ainsi de suite (.. I have written a lot, in this life, about the strange healing power associated with the hands of certain women. Once, I even wrote that ''their movements are extremely expressive, but it would be almost impossible to describe this expression.. It is as if they were telling a story (.)''; But no Mozart this time. This time, pandemonium, by virtue of which any basis of decision becomes a provisional theatrical fiction, or an impossible limit. Still, this seems to be the best ''solution''. An eye that sees itself in a mirror. So, we gesture, stick out our tongue... and soon we begin to suspect that an evil god is having fun at our expense by crazily slowing down the speed of light. According to Valéry: ''You are 40 cm from the mirror. Before, I received your image in 2.666 thousandths of a second. But the devil is now having fun by thickening the ether. And now you see yourself after a minute, a day, a year, a century, ad libitum... ''What happens between a thing and itself is often paradoxical (.) -----, I said....