November 18, 1967
(Mother answers appeals.)
In her note I felt she was quite distraught. I wanted to keep it to show it to you, but there is such a confusion of letters that I don’t know where it’s gone. I don’t even know … I wanted to send her a brief note in answer, but I don’t even know if I did.
Page 374
Because with all this accumulation of work, I have only one possible method – it is every minute to “transfer” and wait for the Impulsion to answer or not. For certain things the response comes right away: I immediately write a line and it’s over; with others, I am obliged to keep it aside and wait in order to know what I should do. And among those, some I keep aside and find again, and another day, the answer comes and I reply; but with others, it’s as if … (gesture of vanishing) something took them away! They disappear, I don’t see them anymore…. Naturally, the mental answer, the invisible action is done instantly, in every case – I know what I answered her, or rather what I DID: that goes without saying and it’s never lacking, because it doesn’t take any time, it’s immediate. It’s only a question … in reality, answering is only a concession to the external consciousness. You understand, there are a good hundred cases every day, so … What I lack is material time.
Page 375