As the taxi took me through the city to the station, I felt as though I’d been dropped onto another planet, a cruel and hostile place. Inclined by character to silence and reflection, I’d always been repulsed by noise and uproar, by any manifestation of the excessive merriment that so often borders on violence. I’d always detested student revelry, as though death became even more menacing to me precisely in the rites meant to exorcise it.
The Lüneburg Variation – Paolo Maurensig