Day 5

Kasimir is a fascinating character, with his slow driving and macabre revelries (“This is the edge of darkness”… “I am a long way away, though I never quite know from where”)

Cosmo Solomon has a legendary quality, an otherworldly clairvoyance that wins him fortunes at the casinos but also destroys his mind when the great war in Europe begins, and he claims he can see it from overseas: “the inferno, the dying”

Fini says Ambros, recounting his past, was “at once saving” and “mercilessly destroying himself.” Like life-saving poison. (Was Paul’s suicide also self-salvation?)

She herself has trouble believing Ambros’ history, wonders not if he was lying but if he had Korsakoff syndrome (“which causes lost memories to be replaced by fantastic inventions”), an interesting metaphor for imagination in the “nonfiction novel.”