down there, “and not just down there either, there is a development in progress that will turn everything upsidedown.” Technology was continually revolutionizing itself. “Come on,” he said, “let’s step outside. Perhaps we’ll be able to see something.”
We went outside. But there was nothing to be seen but a thickening pall of gray in front of our eyes. “I want to see the funeral today, from my vantage point over the pass,” he said. “They’re burying the grocer.”
Eighth Day
Today I cleared the path of snow from the inn to the road. The landlady called me a “kind gentleman,” and she twice brought me large glasses of slivovitz when she saw me leaning on my shovel, resting. She said: “I would never have thought you were so strong.” I said I was used to physical work. Circumstances had repeatedly led me to perform physical work. Doing physical work, so as not to go out of my mind over my studies, that was something she could well understand. “It hasn’t snowed as much as this in years,” she said. She pointed south toward the mountains, which were obscured by clouds. She went in, and came out with a salt beef sandwich. “If you work, you’re going to need something to eat,” she said. She was pleased I was clearing away the snow, because she wouldn’t have gotten around to it. “That would be a pity,” she said. When she saw the painter coming out of the inn, she left me alone, and went in pasthim. It looked as though she wanted to avoid him. She didn’t want to be standing there with him. That was how it appeared anyway.
It was unbelievable what I’d managed to do in such a short space of time, said the painter. He had been watching me from the window. “If you hadn’t volunteered,” he said, “no one else would have done it.” Unusually, he had slept that night, he said, and he stood behind me, which bothered me. “Unusually, I slept. ‘Sleeping’ with me means merely that I don’t go pacing my room all night!” From the degree of his morning pains, he could predict the pains of the evening to come, and the night. “It will be a terrible evening, and a godawful night. But it can’t go on much longer, I’m sure of that.” Decades ago, in the capital, he had “belonged to a snow-clearing troop. Three schillings eighty per hour, under a carbide lamp.” My snow-clearing reminded him of those bitter times. “The time I was more dead than alive. I was often on the brink,” he said. “But what a wonderful time that was, compared to today … at least, soon to end in my death.” I barely listened. He felt like going to the café in the afternoon. “Will you accompany me? Down to the station? There are new editions of the weekly magazines.”
Then he briefly described how he had once met himself as someone else. “Have you had an experience like that, ever?” he asked. “When I went up to myself, I naturally wanted to shake my hand, but then I suddenly pulled it back. And I knew why.” I cleared the last of the snow, and took the shovel back in the house. The painter waited outside for me. WhenI came back, he said: “The young man just has to pick up a shovel to feel alive. But what does the old man do?”
Life was like a forest: you kept finding signposts and markers until, all at once, there weren’t any. And the forest is never-ending, and hunger only ends with death. And you keep walking through clearings, you can never see past those clearings. “The universe can feel oddly constricting, under certain circumstances.” But to show someone the way to where he was now, if the person didn’t happen to know it already himself, that was something he was no longer prepared to do. “I work with my own notions, elaborated by myself out of chaos.” One would have to understand what he meant by “bitterness,” by “fundamentally,” by “light” and “shade,” and “poverty
tout court.”
But who understood. And yet, one might sense what sort of areas he
We went outside. But there was nothing to be seen but a thickening pall of gray in front of our eyes. “I want to see the funeral today, from my vantage point over the pass,” he said. “They’re burying the grocer.”
Eighth Day
Today I cleared the path of snow from the inn to the road. The landlady called me a “kind gentleman,” and she twice brought me large glasses of slivovitz when she saw me leaning on my shovel, resting. She said: “I would never have thought you were so strong.” I said I was used to physical work. Circumstances had repeatedly led me to perform physical work. Doing physical work, so as not to go out of my mind over my studies, that was something she could well understand. “It hasn’t snowed as much as this in years,” she said. She pointed south toward the mountains, which were obscured by clouds. She went in, and came out with a salt beef sandwich. “If you work, you’re going to need something to eat,” she said. She was pleased I was clearing away the snow, because she wouldn’t have gotten around to it. “That would be a pity,” she said. When she saw the painter coming out of the inn, she left me alone, and went in pasthim. It looked as though she wanted to avoid him. She didn’t want to be standing there with him. That was how it appeared anyway.
It was unbelievable what I’d managed to do in such a short space of time, said the painter. He had been watching me from the window. “If you hadn’t volunteered,” he said, “no one else would have done it.” Unusually, he had slept that night, he said, and he stood behind me, which bothered me. “Unusually, I slept. ‘Sleeping’ with me means merely that I don’t go pacing my room all night!” From the degree of his morning pains, he could predict the pains of the evening to come, and the night. “It will be a terrible evening, and a godawful night. But it can’t go on much longer, I’m sure of that.” Decades ago, in the capital, he had “belonged to a snow-clearing troop. Three schillings eighty per hour, under a carbide lamp.” My snow-clearing reminded him of those bitter times. “The time I was more dead than alive. I was often on the brink,” he said. “But what a wonderful time that was, compared to today … at least, soon to end in my death.” I barely listened. He felt like going to the café in the afternoon. “Will you accompany me? Down to the station? There are new editions of the weekly magazines.”
Then he briefly described how he had once met himself as someone else. “Have you had an experience like that, ever?” he asked. “When I went up to myself, I naturally wanted to shake my hand, but then I suddenly pulled it back. And I knew why.” I cleared the last of the snow, and took the shovel back in the house. The painter waited outside for me. WhenI came back, he said: “The young man just has to pick up a shovel to feel alive. But what does the old man do?”
Life was like a forest: you kept finding signposts and markers until, all at once, there weren’t any. And the forest is never-ending, and hunger only ends with death. And you keep walking through clearings, you can never see past those clearings. “The universe can feel oddly constricting, under certain circumstances.” But to show someone the way to where he was now, if the person didn’t happen to know it already himself, that was something he was no longer prepared to do. “I work with my own notions, elaborated by myself out of chaos.” One would have to understand what he meant by “bitterness,” by “fundamentally,” by “light” and “shade,” and “poverty
tout court.”
But who understood. And yet, one might sense what sort of areas he
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