He couldn’t help noticing how shaky he was when he asked for a paper at the newsstand in the arcade leading to the river. He could hardly finish his sentence, and when the change was held out to him he had difficulty taking it. Buying a paper, he said to himself for the hundredth time, had been his first mistake of the day; he resolved that he would just leaf through it, if possible while walking, and then throw it into a trash can. Just glancing at the headlines made him momentarily speechless; in response to the vendor’s small talk, the best he could manage was a nod. Seized with a sudden hatred of mankind, he winced when accidentally grazed by a passerby, and looked to one side to avoid speaking to an acquaintance who had recently told him the story of his life; by way of self-justification he “blacked out.” As a rule, these blackouts were put on.
[The Afternoon of a Writer, Handke, P.]
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