The following pages stand out, I would say almost by themselves, among the many we use to help, in various ways, our memory. They are the latest, for now, in a series marked by the fluctuations and inevitable interruptions of current life, which must begin in 1925.

They concern, I need not add, only the person and not his specific professional activities, or, to be clearer: I have not touched at all the personal notes of my public life. These are matters of other times, if they do not go, in the meantime, to the fire.

As for the names of contemporary figures mentioned here, one more word: In the first typewritten draft of these pages, no one was mentioned. I felt that names would give a personal tone that I did not want, and instead, I had placed ellipses. However, two or three friends who read it (I thank them for their careful suggestions) were bothered by these points. So I decided to use, where necessary, fictitious names; I borrowed them all from the streets of Athens; they at least have the advantage of being all, by definition, glorious.

‘New Year 1945, Kydathinaion 9’: I believe, no year like this one that has passed: nothing more terrible than the last two months. ‘Friday, January 12’: When you cannot write your entire feeling and your entire thought, all this quickly becomes tedious. What has remained whole for us?

All these days, the wretched monotony of rawness, the sadistic persistence of destruction. Yesterday, I took a tour of the wounded city: Athinas, Peiraios, G' Septemvriou, Agiou Konstantinou, Kaniggos Square. Ruins, ruins, houses blown apart, shattered, with that strange and dreadful humor that man-made works take on when they fall apart and become useless.