Abstraction culminates in the black-on-white grids of Mondrian: straight lines, right angles, ingenious variations on the prison-bar theme. Then poor old Mondrian remembers about color, and fills in a corner of his jail with a minute square of wash, better than nothing to be sure; but after that, how gorgeous, how unforgettable a red blouse looks or a richly patterned scarf! All that remains of art is an imprisoned whiteness. You'll say it's powerful, and I won't deny it. Very powerful and very dead.

The good thing about war is that it leaves no time for thinking. All you care about is not getting killed, finding aomething to eat, killing someone else, destroying something and holding out another day. It puts your consciousness at ease, by supressing it. The misfortune of prisoners is that they have time...I've just spent two extraordinary days, Erna, windows flying open in my skull, my skull was like the ruins, with empty casements gaping on all sides, all the sky pouring in, and the winds, the memories, the future, all this in the form of ideas without form. I couldn't sleep, nor could I make any order out of the mess in my mind. I let it go, I thought: Either I hang myself tomorrow, or else the mess will settle, I'll see things more clearly, decisions will have been made...It's now been proved, Erna; I am not destined to hang myself. I've decided.