knowing.

It is 4pm, and I have been thinking all day….

our writer, hunched over his diary, began.

But what am I to do? I….

He had nothing else; he could think only in clichés. He felt he had to write something beautiful so that at least this torment would be purposive. For an hour he stared out his window, motionless.

It is 5pm, I have been thinking all day…

Our writer jumped up and began to pace his study.
“I know what needs to be done!” escaped from him in a high pitch.

6pm lit a candle, 7pm drew the curtains, 8pm forgot to tip his hat. Our writer stood before the mirror, his cold fingers encircling a pimple near his nose. The tiny, beaming face of his little brother appeared.
“There’s someone to see you, a lady,” he whispered.
“Impossible!” our writer squealed, taking a tissue to the wound.

He hurried to the front door, panting and very anxious.
But there was no one; only the empty, moonlit street.

“She was here, I swear! On my livelihood I swear it!” little Winton lamented.
The 7 year-old Winton had no livelihood to swear upon, but our writer believed him. He went to his study, and thirty minutes later emerged with a note.
”Take this to Mrs F-”

Winton hurried outside and opened the letter.

I love you.
read he, and the moonlight.

Leonid Pasternak, At the window, Autumn. 1913.