impressions

Man is a machine. All his deeds, actions, words, thoughts, feelings, convictions, opinions, and habits are the results of external influences, external IMPRESSIONS. Out of himself a man cannot produce a single thought, a single action. Everything he says, does, thinks, feels — all this happens. Man cannot discover anything, invent anything. It all happens. Fragments: One

“At the same time the same work of art will produce different IMPRESSIONS on people of different levels. And people of lower levels will never receive from it what people of higher levels receive. This is real, objective art. Imagine some scientific work — a book on astronomy or chemistry. It is impossible that one person should understand it in one way and another in another way. Everyone who is sufficiently prepared and who is able to read this book will understand what the author means, and precisely as the author means it. An objective work of art is just such a book, except that it affects the emotional and not only the intellectual side of man.” “Do such works of objective art exist at the present day?” I asked. “Of course they exist,” answered G. “The great Sphinx in Egypt is such a work of art, as well as some historically known works of architecture, certain statues of gods, and many other things. There are figures of gods and of various mythological beings that can be read like books, only not with the mind but with the emotions, provided they are sufficiently developed. In the course of our travels in Central Asia we found, in the desert at the foot of the Hindu Kush, a strange figure which we thought at first was some ancient god or devil. At first it produced upon us simply the impression of being a curiosity. But after a while we began to feel that this figure contained many things, a big, complete, and complex system of cosmology. And slowly, step by step, we began to decipher this system. It was in the body of the figure, in its legs, in its arms, in its head, in its eyes, in its ears; everywhere. In the whole statue there was nothing accidental, nothing without meaning. And gradually we understood the aim of the people who built this statue. We began to feel their thoughts, their feelings. Some of us thought that we saw their faces, heard their voices. At all events, we grasped the meaning of what they wanted to convey to us across thousands of years, and not only the meaning, but all the feelings and the emotions connected with it as well. That indeed was art!” Fragments: One

“Speaking on very broad lines, one may say that the thinking function always works by means of comparison. Intellectual conclusions are always the result of the comparison of two or more IMPRESSIONS. Fragments: Six

“Having fixed in his own mind the difference between the intellectual, the emotional, and the moving functions, a man must, as he observes himself, immediately refer his IMPRESSIONS to this or that category. And at first he must take mental note of only such observations as regards which he has no doubt whatever, that is, those where he sees at once to what category they belong. He must reject all vague or doubtful cases and remember only those which are unquestionable. If the work is carried on properly, the number of unquestionable observations will rapidly increase. And that which seemed doubtful before will be clearly seen to belong to the first, the second, the third center. Each center has its own memory, its own associations, its own thinking. As a matter of fact each center consists of three parts: the thinking, the emotional, and the moving. But we know very little about this side of our nature. In each center we know only one part. Self-observation, however, will very quickly show us that our mental life is much richer than we think, or in any case that it contains more possibilities than we think. Fragments: Six

“In order to understand what the difference between states of consciousness is, let us return to the first state of consciousness which is sleep. This is an entirely subjective state of consciousness. A man is immersed in dreams, whether he remembers them or not does not matter. Even if some real IMPRESSIONS reach him, such as sounds, voices, warmth, cold, the sensation of his own body, they arouse in him only fantastic subjective images. Then a man wakes up. At first glance this is a quite different state of consciousness. He can move, he can talk with other people, he can make calculations ahead, he can see danger and avoid it, and so on. It stands to reason that he is in a better position than when he was asleep. But if we go a little more deeply into things, if we take a look into his inner world, into his thoughts, into the causes of his actions, we shall see that he is in almost the same state as when he is asleep. And it is even worse, because in sleep he is passive, that is, he cannot do anything. In the waking state, however, he can do something all the time and the results of all his actions will be reflected upon him or upon those around him. And yet he does not remember himself. He is a machine, everything with him happens. He cannot stop the flow of his thoughts, he cannot control his imagination, his emotions, his attention. He lives in a subjective world of ‘I love,’ ‘I do not love,’ ‘I like,’ ‘I do not like,’ ‘I want,’ ‘I do not want,’ that is, of what he thinks he likes, of what he thinks he does not like, of what he thinks he wants, of what he thinks he does not want. He does not see the real world. The real world is hidden from him by the wall of imagination. He lives in sleep. He is asleep. What is called ‘clear consciousness’ is sleep and a far more dangerous sleep than sleep at night in bed. Fragments: Eight

“For its normal existence the organism must receive all three kinds of food, that is, physical food, air, and IMPRESSIONS The organism cannot exist on one or even on two kinds of food, all three are required But the relation of these foods to one another and their significance for the organism is not the same The organism can exist for a comparatively long time without a supply of fresh physical food Cases of starvation are known lasting for over sixty days, when the organism lost none of its vitality and recovered very quickly as soon as it began to take food Of course starvation of this kind cannot be considered as complete, since in all cases of such artificial starvation people have taken water Nevertheless, even without water a man can live without food for several days Without air he can exist only for a few minutes, not more than two or three, as a rule a man dies after being four minutes without air Without IMPRESSIONS a man cannot live a single moment If the flow of IMPRESSIONS were to be stopped in some way or if the organism were deprived of its capacity for receiving IMPRESSIONS, it would immediately die. The flow of IMPRESSIONS coming to us from outside is like a driving belt communicating motion to us. The principal motor for us is nature, the surrounding world. Nature transmits to us through our IMPRESSIONS the energy by which we live and move and have our being If the inflow of this energy is arrested, our machine will immediately stop working Thus, of the three kinds of food the most important for us is IMPRESSIONS, although it stands to reason that a man cannot exist for long on IMPRESSIONS alone Impressions and air enable a man to exist a little longer Impressions, air, and physical food enable the organism to live to the end of its normal term of life and to produce the substances necessary not only for the maintenance of life, but also for the creation and growth of higher bodies. Fragments: Nine

“The third octave begins with do 48. “Impressions enter the organism in the form of ‘oxygen’ 48, that is, la, sol, fa of the second cosmic octaoctave Sun-Earth. Fragments: Nine

“It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is ‘not his own.’ ‘Not his own’ means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior IMPRESSIONS left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation — all this is ‘not his own,’ all this is personality. Fragments: Eight

“The human organism receives three kinds of food 1. The ordinary food we eat 2. The air we breathe 3. Our IMPRESSIONS Fragments: Nine

“It is not difficult to agree that air is a kind of food for the organism But in what way IMPRESSIONS can be food may appear at first difficult to understand We must however remember that, with every external im pression, whether it takes the form of sound, or vision, or smell, we receive from outside a certain amount of energy, a certain number of vibrations, this energy which enters the organism from outside is food Moreover, as has been said before, energy cannot be transmitted without matter If an external impression brings external energy with it into the organism it means that external matter also enters which feeds the organism in the full meaning of the term Fragments: Nine

“It has been explained before that in ordinary conditions of life we do not remember ourselves; we do not remember, that is, we do not feel ourselves, are not aware of ourselves at the moment of a perception, of an emotion, of a thought or of an action. If a man understands this and tries to remember himself, every impression he receives while remembering himself will, so to speak, be doubled. In an ordinary psychic state I simply look at a street. But if I remember myself, I do not simply look at the street; I feel that I am looking, as though saying to myself: ‘I am looking.’ Instead of one impression of the street there are two IMPRESSIONS, one of the street and another of myself looking at it. This second impression, produced by the fact of my remembering myself, is the ‘additional shock.’ Moreover, it very often happens that the additional sensation connected with self-remembering brings with it an element of emotion, that is, the work of the machine attracts a certain amount of ‘carbon’ 12 to the place in question. Efforts to remember oneself, observation of oneself at the moment of receiving an impression, observation of one’s IMPRESSIONS at the moment of receiving them, registering, so to speak, the reception of IMPRESSIONS and the simultaneous defining of the IMPRESSIONS received, all this taken together doubles the intensity of the IMPRESSIONS and carries do 48 to re 24. At the same time the effort connected with the transition of one note to another and the passage of 48 itself to 24 enables do 48 of the third octave to come into contact with mi 48 of the second octave and to give this note the requisite amount of energy necessary for the transition of mi to fa. In this way the ‘shock’ given to do 48 extends also to mi 48 and enables the second octave to develop. Fragments: Nine

“We have followed the development of two octaves. The third octave, that is, the octave of IMPRESSIONS, begins through a conscious effort. Do 48 passes to re 24; re 24 passes to mi 12. At this point the development of the octave comes to a stop. “Now if we examine the result of the development of these three octaves, we shall see that the first octave has reached si 12, the second la 6, and the third mi 12. Thus the first and third octaves stop at notes which are unable to pass to the following notes. “For the two octaves to develop further, a second conscious shock is needed at a certain point in the machine, a new conscious effort is necessary which will enable the two octaves to continue their development. The nature of this effort demands special study. From the point of view of the general work of the machine it can be said in general that this effort is connected with the emotional life, that it is a special kind of influence over one’s emotions. But what this kind of influence really is, and how it has to be produced, can be explained only in connection with a general description of the work of the human factory or the human machine. Fragments: Nine

“In order to understand the analogy between man, the human organism, and the universe, let us take the world as we did before in the form of three octaves from the Absolute to the sun, from the sun to the earth, and from the earth to the moon. Each of these three octaves lacks a semitone between fa and mi and in each octave the place of this missing semitone is taken by a certain kind of ‘shock’ which is created artificially at the given point. If we now begin to look for an analogy between the three-story factory and the three octaves of the universe, we ought to realize that the three ‘additional shocks’ in the three octaves of the universe correspond to the three kinds of food entering the human organism. The ‘shock’ in the lower octave corresponds to physical food; this ‘shock’ is do 768 of the cosmic three-story factory. The ‘shock’ in the middle octave corresponds to air. It is do 192 of the cosmic factory. The ‘shock’ in the upper octave corresponds to IMPRESSIONS; it is do 48 of the cosmic factory. In the inner work of this cosmic three-story factory all three kinds of food undergo the same transformation as in the human factory, on the same plan and in accordance with the same laws. A further study of the analogy between man and the universe is possible only after an exact study of the human machine and after the respective ‘places’ of each of the ‘hydrogens’ in our organism has been established exactly. This means that to proceed with any further study we must find the exact purpose of each ‘hydrogen,’ that is to say, each ‘hydrogen’ must be defined chemically, psychologically, physiologically, and anatomically, in other words, its functions, its place in the human organism, and, if possible, the peculiar sensations connected with it must be defined. Fragments: Nine

“The first stage refers to the work of the human organism as it has been created by nature, that is to say, to the life and functions of man number one, number two, and number three. The first octave, that is, the octave of food, develops in a normal way to mi 192. At this point it automatically receives a ‘shock’ from the beginning of the second octave, and its development goes on consecutively to si 12. The second octave, that is, the air octave, begins with do 192 and develops to mi 48 where it stops. The third octave, that is, the octave of IMPRESSIONS, begins with do 48 and stops there. Thus seven notes of the first octave, three notes of the second, and one note of the third octave represent a complete picture of the work of the ‘human factory’ in its first or natural stage. Nature has provided only one ‘shock,’ that is, the ‘shock’ received from the entrance of the second octave which helps mi of the first octave to pass to fa. But nature did not foresee and did not provide for the second ‘shock,’ that is, the ‘shock’ that would help the development of the third octave and thereby enable mi of the second octave to pass to fa. A man must create this ‘shock’ by his own personal efforts if he desires to increase the output of the fine hydrogens in his organism. Fragments: Nine

“The second stage refers to the work of the human organism when a man creates a conscious volitional ‘shock’ at the point do 48. In the first place this volitional ‘shock’ is transmitted to the second octave which develops as far as sol 12, or even further up to la 6 and so on, if the work of the organism is sufficiently intense. The same ‘shock’ also enables the third octave to develop, that is, the octave of IMPRESSIONS which in this event reaches mi 12. Thus in the second stage of the work of the human organism, we see the full development of the second octave and three notes of the third octave. The first octave has stopped at the note si 12, the third at the note mi 12. Neither of these octaves can proceed any further without a fresh ‘shock.’ The nature of this second ‘shock’ cannot be so easily described as the nature of the first volitional ‘shock’ at do 48. In order to understand the nature of this ‘shock’ it is necessary to understand the meaning of si 12 and mi 12. Fragments: Nine

Alchemists who spoke of this transmutation began directly with it. They knew nothing, or at least they said nothing, about the nature of the first volitional ‘shock.’ It is upon this, however, that the whole thing depends. The second volitional ‘shock’ and transmutation become physically possible only after long practice on the first volitional ‘shock,’ which consists in self-remembering, and in observing the IMPRESSIONS received. On the way of the monk and on the way of the fakir work on the second ‘shock’ begins before work on the first ‘shock,’ but as mi 12 is created only as a result of the first ‘shock,’ work, in the absence of other material, has of necessity to be concentrated on si 12, and it very often gives quite wrong results. Right development on the fourth way must begin with the first volitional ‘shock’ and then pass on to the second ‘shock’ at mi 12. Fragments: Nine

“If the emotional center were to work with hydrogen 12, its work would be connected with the work of the higher emotional center. In those cases where the work of the emotional center reaches the intensity and speed of existence which is given by hydrogen 12, a temporary connection with the higher emotional center takes place and man experiences new emotions, new IMPRESSIONS hitherto entirely unknown to him, for the description of which he has neither words nor expressions. But in ordinary con-ditions the difference between the speed of our usual emotions and the speed of the higher emotional center is so great that no connection can take place and we fail to hear within us the voices which are speaking and calling to us from the higher emotional center. Fragments: Nine

“If we could connect the centers of our ordinary consciousness with the higher thinking center deliberately and at will, it would be of no use to us whatever in our present general state. In most cases where accidental contact with the higher thinking center takes place a man becomes unconscious. The mind refuses to take in the flood of thoughts, emotions, images, and ideas which suddenly burst into it. And instead of a vivid thought, or a vivid emotion, there results, on the contrary, a complete blank, a state of unconsciousness. The memory retains only the first moment when the flood rushed in on the mind and the last moment when the flood was receding and consciousness returned. But even these moments are so full of unusual shades and colors that there is nothing with which to compare them among the ordinary sensations of life. This is usually all that remains from so-called ‘mystical’ and ‘ecstatic’ experiences, which represent a temporary connection with a higher center. Only very seldom does it happen that a mind which has been better prepared succeeds in grasping and remembering something of what was felt and understood at the moment of ecstasy. But even in these cases the thinking, the moving, and the emotional centers remember and transmit everything in their own way, translate absolutely new and never previously experienced sensations into the language of usual everyday sensations, transmit in worldly three-dimensional forms things which pass completely beyond the limits of worldly measurements; in this way, of course, they entirely distort every trace of what remains in the memory of these unusual experiences. Our ordinary centers, in transmitting the IMPRESSIONS of the higher centers, may be compared to a blind man speaking of colors, or to a deaf man speaking of music. Fragments: Nine

“This means that the center has become connected directly to the large accumulator. The large accumulator contains an enormous amount of energy. Connected with the large accumulator a man is literally able to perform miracles. But of course, if the ‘rolls’ continue to turn and energy which is made from air, food, and IMPRESSIONS continues to pour out of the large accumulator faster than it pours in, then there comes a moment when the large accumulator is drained of all energy and the organism dies. But this happens very seldom. Usually the organism automatically stops working long before this. Special conditions are necessary to cause the organism to die exhausted of all its energy. In ordinary conditions a man will fall asleep or he will faint or he will develop some internal complication which will stop the work a long time before the real danger. Fragments: Eleven

Laughter is also directly connected with accumulators. But laughter is the opposite function to yawning. It is not pumping in, but pumping out, that is, the pumping out and the discarding of superfluous energy collected in the accumulators. Laughter does not exist in all centers, but only in centers divided into two halves — positive and negative. If I have not yet spoken of this in detail, I shall do so when we come to a more detailed study of the centers. At present we shall take only the intellectual center. There can be IMPRESSIONS which fall at once on two halves of the center and produce at once a sharp ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ Such a simultaneous ‘yes’ and ‘no’ produces a kind of convulsion in the center and, being unable to harmonize and digest these two opposite IMPRESSIONS of one fact, the center begins to throw out in the form of laughter the energy which flows into it from the accumulator whose turn it is to supply it. In another instance it happens that in the accumulator there has collected too much energy which the center cannot manage to use up. Then every, the most ordinary, impression can be received as double, that is, it may fall at once on the two halves of the center and produce laughter, that is, the discarding of energy. Fragments: Eleven

The next meeting after this was very interesting. Everyone was full of IMPRESSIONS of talks with friends; everyone had a great many questions; everyone was somewhat discouraged and disappointed. Fragments: Twelve

In our talks we often returned to the IMPRESSIONS our friends had of us and to our new IMPRESSIONS of our friends. And we began to realize that, more than anything else, these ideas could either unite people or separate them. Fragments: Twelve

I am bound to say that all these attempts came to nothing. Some said too much, others said too little. Some went into unnecessary details or into descriptions of what they considered were their particular and original characteristics; others concentrated on their “sins” and errors. But everything taken together failed to produce what G. evidently expected. The result was anecdotes, or chronological memoirs which interested nobody, and family recollections which made people yawn. Something was wrong, but what exactly was wrong even those who had tried to be as sincere as they could were unable to determine. I remember my own attempts. In the first place I tried to convey certain early childhood IMPRESSIONS which seemed to me psychologically interesting because I remembered myself as I was at a very early age and was always myself astonished by some of these early IMPRESSIONS. But nobody was interested in this and I quickly saw that this was certainly not what was required of us. I proceeded further but almost immediately I felt a certainty that there were many things that I had no intention whatever of telling. This was a quite unexpected realization. I had accepted G.’s idea without any opposition and I thought I would be able to tell the story of my life without any particular difficulty. But in reality it turned out to be quite impossible. Something in me registered such a vehement protest against it that I did not even attempt to struggle and in speaking of certain periods of my life I tried to give only the general idea and the significance of the facts which I did not want to relate. In this connection I noted that my voice and intonations changed when I talked in this way. This helped me to understand other people. I began to hear that, in speaking of themselves and their lives, they also spoke in different voices and different intonations. And there were intonations of a particular kind which I had first heard in myself and which showed me that people wanted to hide something in what they were talking about. But intonations gave them away. Observation of intonations afterwards made it possible for me to understand many other things. Fragments: Twelve

“But this is only one aspect of it. Another aspect consists in the fact that, when the energy of the sex center is plundered by the other centers and spent on useless work, it has nothing left for itself and has to steal the energy of other centers which is much lower and coarser than its own. And yet the sex center is very .important for the general activity, and particularly for the inner growth of the organism, because, working with ‘hydrogen’ 12, it can receive a very fine food of IMPRESSIONS, such as none of the ordinary centers can receive. The fine food of IMPRESSIONS is very important for the manufacture of the higher ‘hydrogens.’ But when the sex center works with energy that is not its own, that is, with the comparatively low ‘hydrogens’ 48 and 24, its IMPRESSIONS become much coarser and it ceases to play the role in the organism which it could play. At the same time union with, and the use of its energy by, the thinking center creates far too great an imagination on the subject of sex, and in addition a tendency to be satisfied with this imagination. Union with the emotional center creates sentimentality or, on the contrary, jealousy, cruelty. This is again a picture of the ‘abuse of sex.’” Fragments: Twelve

With this began long talks about the IMPRESSIONS that a man produces on other people and how he can produce a desirable or an undesirable impression. Fragments: Thirteen

The talk about IMPRESSIONS brought us once more to “inner” and “outward considering.” Fragments: Thirteen

“We made everything a secret”; we failed to tell them what G. had spoken of in their absence. We told tales about them to G., trying to make him distrust them. We recounted to him all talks with them, leading him constantly into error by distorting all the facts and striving to present everything in a false light. We had given G. wrong IMPRESSIONS about them, making him see everything far from as it was. Fragments: Thirteen

We tried many times to talk to G. about them. He laughed very much when we told him that in their opinion we always gave him “wrong IMPRESSIONS” of them. Fragments: Thirteen

I stayed in Moscow about a week and returned to St. Petersburg with a fresh store of ideas and IMPRESSIONS. Here a very interesting occurrence took place which explained many things to me in the system and in G.’s methods of instruction. Fragments: Thirteen

Trying to draw out as much as possible the beginning of the “diagrams,” as we called a part of G.’s system, dealing with general questions and laws, I began to convey the general IMPRESSIONS of my journey. And all the time I was saying one thing, in my head another thing was running: How shall I begin — what does the transition 1, 2, 3 into 1, 3, 2 mean? Can an example of such a transition be found in the phenomena we know? I felt that I must find something now, immediately, because unless I found something myself first I could say nothing to the others. Fragments: Thirteen

“None the less the idea of the unity of everything exists also in intellectual thought but in its exact relation to diversity it can never be clearly expressed in words or in logical forms. There remains always the insurmountable difficulty of language. A language which has been constructed through expressing IMPRESSIONS of plurality and diversity in subjective states of consciousness can never transmit with sufficient completeness and clarity the idea of unity which is intelligible and obvious for the objective state of consciousness. Fragments: Fourteen

Man, in the normal state natural to him, is taken as a duality. He consists entirely of dualities or ‘pairs of opposites.’ All man’s sensations, IMPRESSIONS, feelings, thoughts, are divided into positive and negative, useful and harmful, necessary and unnecessary, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. The work of centers proceeds under the sign of this division. Thoughts oppose feelings. Moving impulses oppose instinctive craving for quiet. This is the duality in which proceed all the perceptions, all the reactions, the whole life of man. Any man who observes himself, however little, can see this duality in himself. Fragments: Fourteen

“And furthermore, even if a man were to succeed in regulating two components of the process, food and breathing, again this would not be enough, because it is still more important to know how to regulate the food of the third story — ‘IMPRESSIONS.’ Fragments: Fourteen

“The difference between objective art and subjective art is that in objective art the artist really does ‘create,’ that is, he makes what he intended, he puts into his work whatever ideas and feelings he wants to put into it. And the action of this work upon men is absolutely definite; they will, of course each according to his own level, receive the same ideas and the same feelings that the artist wanted to transmit to them. There can be nothing accidental either in the creation or in the IMPRESSIONS of objective art. Fragments: Fourteen

“When we talked before about the octaves of food in the three-story factory we saw that ‘all the finer ‘hydrogens’ needed for the working, the growth, and the evolution of the organism were prepared from three kinds of food, that is, from food in the strict meaning of the word — eatables and drink, from air which we breathe, and from IMPRESSIONS. Now let us suppose that we could improve the quality of food and air, feed, let us say, on ‘hydrogen’ 384 instead of 768 and breathe ‘hydrogen’ 96 instead of 192. How much simpler and easier the preparation of fine matters in the organism would be then. But the whole point is that this is impossible. The organism is adapted to transform precisely these coarse matters into fine matters, and if you give it fine matters instead of coarse matters it will not be in a position to transform them and it will very soon die. Neither air nor food can be changed. But IMPRESSIONS, that is, the quality of the IMPRESSIONS possible to man, are not subject to any cosmic law. Man cannot improve his food, he cannot improve the air. Improvement in this case would be actually making things worse. For instance ‘hydrogen* 96 instead of 192 would be either very rarefied air or very hot incandescent gases which man cannot possibly breathe; fire is ‘hydrogen’ 96. It is exactly the same with food. ‘Hydrogen’ 384 is water. If man could improve his food, that is, make it finer, he would have to feed on water and breathe fire. It is clear that this is impossible. But while it is not possible for him to improve his food and air he can improve his IMPRESSIONS to a very high degree and in this way introduce fine ‘hydrogens’ into the organism. It is precisely on this that the possibility of evolution is based. A man is not at all obliged to feed on the dull IMPRESSIONS of H48, he can have both H24, H12, and H6, and even H3. This changes the whole picture and a man who makes higher ‘hydrogens’ the food for the upper story of his machine will certainly differ from one who feeds on the lower ‘hydrogens.’” Fragments: Sixteen

A few days later the paper to which A. was contributing contained an article “On the Road” in which A. described the thoughts and IMPRESSIONS he had on the way from Petersburg to Moscow. A strange Oriental had traveled in the same carriage with him, who, among the bustling crowd of speculators who filled the carriage, had struck him by his extraordinary dignity and calm, exactly as though these people were for him like small flies upon whom he was looking from inaccessible heights. A. judged him to be an “oil king” from Baku, and in conversation with him several enigmatic phrases that he received still further strengthened him in his conviction that here was a man whose millions grew while he slept and who looked down from on high at bustling people who were striving to earn a living and to make money. Fragments: Sixteen

We were particularly surprised by G.’s “French novel.” Either A. invented it, adding it to his own IMPRESSIONS, or G. actually made him “see,” that is, presume, a French novel in some small volume in a yellow, or perhaps not even a yellow cover, because G. of course did not read French. Fragments: Sixteen