I have to write about her before I begin to forget her. Because I’ll have to forget her if I want to resume my old peaceful life.

Because that’s what I’d really like to do: live in peace, without fear or memory. It’s enough for me to run my household as I did before, to care for the children and look out of the window into the garden. If one behaves calmly, I thought, one cannot get involved in other people’s business. And I thought of Wolfgang. It was so nice having him around me every day. Should I have endangered our peaceful companionship over Stella?

No, things couldn’t have ended worse for me if I had. Stella is avenging herself on me, and taking from me the only thing to which my heart still clings. But that’s nonsense. Stella can’t take her revenge, she was already so helpless when she was alive, how helpless she must be now. I am taking Stella’s revenge on myself, that’s the truth, and it’s as it should be, however much I might try to resist.

Of course I’ve always known that the day would come, it didn’t need Stella for that to happen. Sooner or later Wolfgang would have been lost to me. He’s one of those people who has no illusions and accepts the consequences. I don’t have any illusions either, but I live as if I did. I used to think I could start over again from the beginning, but it’s much too late for that now, in fact it was always too late for that, except I didn’t want to acknowledge it.

There could no longer be any point in anything, because Wolfgang moved away from me. And that’s good for him.

I read somewhere that you can get used to anything, and habit is the strongest force in our lives. I don’t believe it. It’s only the excuse that we need to keep from thinking about the suffering of our fellow human beings, or indeed about our own suffering. It’s only the excuse that we need to stop thinking about our own suffering. It’s true, a human being can endure a lot, not only out of habit, but because a faint spark glimmers within them, which they secretly hope will one day allow them to break the habit. The fact that they usually can’t, out of weakness and cowardice, does not speak against it. Or are there perhaps two kinds of people, those who get used to things and those who aren’t able to? I can’t believe that; it’s probably just a matter of constitution. Once we reach a certain age, we are gripped by anxiety and try to fight against it in some way. We sense that we’re in a hopeless position, and make desperate little attempts to escape.

If the first of these attempts is unsuccessful, as it generally is, we surrender until the next one, which will already be weaker, and which will leave us feeling still more miserable and defeated.

So Richard regularly drinks his red wine, chases after women and money, my friend Luise pursues men who are young enough to be her son, and I stand at the window and stare into the garden. Stella, that stupid young person, escaped successfully on her first attempt.

I would much prefer it if I could switch places with her, if I didn’t have to sit here and write her pitiful story, which is also my pitiful story. I would much prefer to be dead like her, and not have to hear the little bird crying. Why does no one protect me against its cry, against dead Stella and the agonising red of the tulips on the chest of drawers? I don’t like red flowers.