‘I have been here for three years,’ he said suddenly, ‘and I am so destroyed that I think I will never be normal again. I will never be able to wipe these years away from my life – and it's not the end yet. And I don't even know if I’ll ever get back. If only this could be sure at least.’ I tried to calm him down but my words were in vain. I didn't know how to do it. I myself could have done with some comfort. I could only feel how those cold, sceptical words uttered with a freezing little grin, but with trembling lips, were hiding a deep internal pain of an artist who is getting used up more and more without finding a fountain from which he could drink some new energy. ‘If only you knew,’ he went on bitterly, ‘how well I know it all. The pain, the poverty, everything. I was one of the first to come here. There was nothing here, but perhaps it was better in the beginning. Better than now when we get all those “benefits” with the orchestra in the square. I know what it's all about. I know and I can estimate anything that's going to happen here. Nothing can take me by surprise.’ I knew how useless it was to try and talk him out of his bitterness.