Envy dropped by this morning. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and he was feeling neglected. “No way to treat a friend,” he said, all pouty.

“Es schwimmt eine Leiche im Landwehrkanal” — “A corpse swims in the Landwehr Canal” — went a music-hall song in the 20s, referring not specifically to Rosa [Luxemburg] but to the post-World War I poor who committed suicide out of desperation.