From Robert Musil’s diaries (Tagebucher 1 – 286,7), as Musil follows his wife’s preparations for bed.
Towards the end of November. I have gone to bed early, I feel I have caught a slight cold, indeed I’m perhaps running a temperature. The electric light is switched on; I see the ceiling or the curtain over the door of the balcony. You began to get undressed after I had already finished doing so; I am waiting. I simply listen to you. Incomprehensible walking to and fro. You come to put something on your bed; what can it be? You open the cupboard, put something in or take something out, I hear it shut again. You put hard objects on the table, others on the marble top of the chest of drawers. You are constantly in motion. Then I hear the familiar sounds of hair being let down and brushed.
Water rushing into the wash-basin. Before that, clothes being slipped off; now more of them; it is incomprehensible to me how many clothes you are taking off. The shoes. Then your stockings move to and fro constantly just as the shoes did before. Your pour water into glasses, three, four times, one after the other. In my visualization I have long exhausted every conceivable possibility, whereas you, in reality, clearly still have things to do. I hear you putting on your nightdress. But still you are far from finished.
This was deemed offensive for its accuracy in my house.
Extracts 