does not realize it. Is it her tragedy or mine? Out of the two of us who suffers most? She is always fretting about things that did not go her way; I am full of despondency for concluding that it was crazy to nope for the very same things in the first place. Passing under my window, she did not lift up her eyes to greet me, or to acknowledge my presence. I am sure she knew I was there because this is where I usually drag out the time of day as well as part of the night. I don't care! In strict truth, I am slightly hurt. Even a hermit needs, from time to time, a bit of acknowledgement. Could it be that I put her off?
Every comrade has to wear an armour or a kind of carapace, or go into his shell in order to survive. My thick skin took a long time to grow. Until middle-age, I was fairly sensitive and equally tolerant. With the coming of old-age I became short- tempered; not an unnatural thing with most people. But from being short-tempered to simulating uncontrollable rage is but a short step and I did not hesitate to take it. When people feel you are about to explode, they tend to leave you alone and so, more often than not, you can have your own way; albeit, for a man in my position, only in small, insignificant matters.

*

I remember my first simulated explosion. One evening, some time after I had been put in charge of the new music library, purchased at great cost to the Kibbutz, a bunch of Kibbutz youngsters came along to listen to classical music, or rather to satisfy their curiosity about the new turntable. I put on a record of Bach, a solo cello piece which I used to listen to when I was a child. When the music had ended, one youngster jumped from his place to flip over the record. Something in the clumsy movements of his hands told me he was going to scratch the record. And so he did. I snapped. I hurled at him more insults than I could remember. I was literally foaming at the mouth. But what was absolutely clear to me during these moments of uncontrollable rage was that I wasn't really angry. I was quite cool inside. For I could have easily replaced the record from the ample budget I had been given for the music library. What really made me hurl insults on those youngsters was the way they listened to the music.