While making my routine rounds this morning in the building, I surprised Dr. Gabriel while he was showing the experimental arrangements in the lab to Knorr, that imbecile, who had turned up unannounced. 1 assume Gabriel was initiating him into our secrets; in any case., he was waiting on him hand and foot as if not I, but he, were the head of the lab. When I saw the two of them whispering to each other confidentiality, I suddenly blew up. I threw myself at them, lashing out wildly. The spies tried to defend themselves, but I found the strength of a madman in myself and was giving them a thorough thrashing when we were separated by the lab assistants, who had come rushing to the scene.
That'll teach them a lesson. I'm sick and tired of the unending sabotage. And I'm firmly resolved to defend the lab—by tooth and nail if necessary!
17 October 1980
I no longer respond to the harassing letters and calls from Switzerland. Funds have long ago been cut to the costs of bare maintenance, and besides me, there are only a biological assistant and two technicians remaining in the building. The most insolent news came this morning. Knorr is supposed to take my place next year. My suspicion is now fully and unquestionably confirmed: the project has fallen prey to hateful intrigues and secret agreements with the institute. My task was to do initial research for PHARMAROX, nothing more. Credit for any success was to have gone to that disgusting, double-dealing Knorr. But they're not counting on my putting up a fight. When they come I will greet them with bullets. As far as I'm concerned, they can install as many bugs as they want, anywhere they want, and they can have their spies drive up and down the street in black Limousines to see if they can't find out what I'm up to; I'm ready for them.
I have dismissed all the people who were still here so that I can work all alone next week in peace and quiet. I don't need their damned money and their damned personnel. I don't need anyone anymore!
If I only knew what these strange formulas that sometimes glow on the walls are supposed to mean.
November
It's great to work alone! You can turn up the radio, drink as much as you want, do what you please. Undisturbed by sabotage, I am making progress much more rapidly, although no moment passes by in which I may forget that I am under the closest observation. Why else should they have put the lab at my disposal? Naturally, every day another letter arrives in which they demand that I leave the building; however, they will not immediately summon the police. Why not? Why not? I am well informed about their sinister plans. They want to let the screwball experiment until he finds what he's seeking—and what they are seeking.
Meanwhile, I have been going about procuring new animals with undiminished enthusiasm. Indeed, they are the only ones who know how to appreciate my work. How brave and self-sacrificing they are in putting their little bodies at my disposal, how grateful they are for the little food they receive, and how worthless their own lives must seem to them in comparison to the inestimably great service being done to science.
I go through about seven animals daily. Since the mixture still does not show any adhesive qualities, I have been operating practically all day long. I make incisions in every part of their bodies: in the neck, in the anus, in the intestines, in the muscles, in the eyes—everywhere. Thanks to my ingenious breeding program, some of the females have given birth to kittens, so that a supply has been provided. I work, of course, most intensively on Claudandus, although he continues to conceal his secret from me.
I must admit that I should take a break now and clean up the lab. There is a terrible stench of blood and animal cadavers.
November
Rosalie, oh my poor Rosalie, don't worry about me, you virtuous woman. You were just standing at the door and ringing the bell for a very long time. I didn't open the door for you, although I was watching you from behind the window blinds. Your face was full of worry; I could see it clearly. Your husband, who loves you more than anything, will return to you after he has completed his work, and then everything will be the way it was.
The way it was? I can no longer remember how it once was. In fact, it's hard for me to even formulate a clear thought, to determine whether it's day or night.
Oh, Rosalie! Did you know that blood possesses a magical power of attraction, and that the body of an animal is almost identical to that of a person? One should not work as intensively and as long with blood and bleeding bodies as I have; otherwise you start to get funny ideas. Then you can no longer get to sleep, and if you do, you have these terrible nightmares in which the bleeding bodies return from the dead, extend at you their gaping wounds reproachfully, and scream: Glue them together! Glue them together! But you are not in a position to glue together all the wounds of this world, because your glue fails, fails again and again. But then the little, wound-covered bodies cry out again and again: glue! glue! Put us together again! Then you wake up, screaming, drenched in sweat, but reality is not capable of offering you any consolation, because all these slit-open bodies lie next to you and because you are completely soaked in their blood.
There are infinite versions of hell, Rosalie, and all of them begin even before you die. Ask Claudandus, who can confirm this for you. I often sit in front of his cage and watch
