THE WATERS @ RIVA

Dr. K tries as far as possible to immerse himself entirely in quiet and tranquility, but the woes he endured with [redacted], and she with him, continually come over him, like a living thing, usually when he awakes, though also at mealtimes when he often feels quite paralysed and unable to pick up his knife and fork.

At table, as it happens, the place to Dr. K's right is occupied by an old general who remains silent for the most part, but now and then will venture a cryptic yet penetrating observation. Thus on one occasion, looking up abruptly from the book which always lies open beside him, he remarks that, when one thinks about it, a vast range of unfathomable contingencies come between the logic of the battleplan and that of the final despatches, both of which he knew inside out.

Tiny details imperceptible to us decide everything! Even the greatest battles in the history of the world were won or lost like that. Tiny details, but they weight as heavy as the 50,000 dead soldiers and horses at Waterloo. The fact is that ultimately it all comes down to the question of specific gravity. Stendhal had a clearer grasp on this than any high command, he says, and now, in my old age, I have apprenticed myself to that old master, so that I may not die quite without understanding.

It is a fundamentally insane notion, he continues, that one is able to influence the course of events by a turn of the helm, by the will-power alone, whereas in fact all is determined by the most complex interdependencies.