constantly feeling that there would be a sudden reversal, that the landâfor my benefit aloneâwould do a salto mortale, but no, it remained on good terms with itself. I was a barbarian from the unwashed, unfinished east. There was no contrast here, no chaos, no trap to put my wits to the test. Accustomed to discontinuity, to losing the thread, to plot twists dreamlike and in bad taste, I could not deal with a space arranged in so irrevocable a way.
I slept in Prelasko. The inn was empty. At the bar sat two locals. Not particularly different from our locals who worked on a slightly better class of farm. They drank Laško beer and some kind of clear liquor in turn. Smoked cigarettes, conversed in low voices. Wore dirty clothes, looked like beggars. Unshaven, rumpled, and evidently not worried about the day's division between work and rest. They were the kind who could get into bed as they were. They had another round, but I saw no change in them. They drank calmly, as if performing a duty. In their words and gestures, not a trace of the impatience so common where I came from. They were stolid and solemn in their drinking, without inebriation or male neurosis. Both drank "internally." The peace and melancholy of their conversation didn't go at all with the four or five fifties they drank in the course of an hour or hour and a half. Not to mention all the beer. Finally they rose, shuffled in their rubber boots, and left, and the innkeeper didn't even come out from behind the bar to see if the right money had been left on the table. I was alone with my wine. The boss got into a black Mercedes with double exhaust pipes and took off. I went out to the driveway to look at the Slovenian night. Frost had settled on last year's grass. The round moon silvered the long mountain ridge. In the distance, a lone dog was barking.
"He sensed and at the same time knew: this is the home of devils, depressed and morose ... Here among the alpine valleys and a little farther, on the plains of Panonia. They are in the wind, in the air; you cannot hide from them. In the lakes and among the hills, in the roots of trees, in the fens, among the rocky cliffs. They are in the village taverns and on the city streets empty on a Sunday. They are in children, men, old men ... Everyone here is steeped in death. Death in the likeness of a lovely landscape, autumnal and cold, vernal and warm. In the fall, Gothic; in the spring, Baroque. They are strewn, as the churches are, throughout the country; as thick as gravestonesâwhich the people here love to decorate with flowers, candles, angels ... On Sunday afternoons, when foreigners and immigrants wander the abandoned streets, surprised at the emptinessâon Sunday afternoons it does not seem out of place that a man will open a window on the fourth floor, where every window is shuttered, and throw himself out with a rope around his neck."
The next day I drove across KoÄevski Rog, a stretch of mountains to the south, near the border with Croatia. For thirty-five kilometers I saw no other car. The gravel road ran through a forest and climbed the main peak, Visoki Rog. I was on snowy, icy switchbacks, doing no more than thirty kph. Not a soul. This was one of the most beautiful roads I had ever seen. The sun a golden mist floating among the fir trees. Snow melting in the warmth, and sometimes, when I stopped, I could hear, in the stillness of the high forest, the whisper of a thousand drops joining to make a stream. Light and shadow intermingled endlessly, and though it was a bright day, everything seemed submerged in green water. The southern side of the peak steamed. I saw birds I couldn't name. This was neither Gothic nor Baroque. KoÄevski Rog suggested an architecture that would never come to pass, because the simplicity of its beauty would throw into question the whole point of an imagination.
In the dark valleys lay 10,000 bodies. I was driving through the largest unmarked cemetery
I slept in Prelasko. The inn was empty. At the bar sat two locals. Not particularly different from our locals who worked on a slightly better class of farm. They drank Laško beer and some kind of clear liquor in turn. Smoked cigarettes, conversed in low voices. Wore dirty clothes, looked like beggars. Unshaven, rumpled, and evidently not worried about the day's division between work and rest. They were the kind who could get into bed as they were. They had another round, but I saw no change in them. They drank calmly, as if performing a duty. In their words and gestures, not a trace of the impatience so common where I came from. They were stolid and solemn in their drinking, without inebriation or male neurosis. Both drank "internally." The peace and melancholy of their conversation didn't go at all with the four or five fifties they drank in the course of an hour or hour and a half. Not to mention all the beer. Finally they rose, shuffled in their rubber boots, and left, and the innkeeper didn't even come out from behind the bar to see if the right money had been left on the table. I was alone with my wine. The boss got into a black Mercedes with double exhaust pipes and took off. I went out to the driveway to look at the Slovenian night. Frost had settled on last year's grass. The round moon silvered the long mountain ridge. In the distance, a lone dog was barking.
"He sensed and at the same time knew: this is the home of devils, depressed and morose ... Here among the alpine valleys and a little farther, on the plains of Panonia. They are in the wind, in the air; you cannot hide from them. In the lakes and among the hills, in the roots of trees, in the fens, among the rocky cliffs. They are in the village taverns and on the city streets empty on a Sunday. They are in children, men, old men ... Everyone here is steeped in death. Death in the likeness of a lovely landscape, autumnal and cold, vernal and warm. In the fall, Gothic; in the spring, Baroque. They are strewn, as the churches are, throughout the country; as thick as gravestonesâwhich the people here love to decorate with flowers, candles, angels ... On Sunday afternoons, when foreigners and immigrants wander the abandoned streets, surprised at the emptinessâon Sunday afternoons it does not seem out of place that a man will open a window on the fourth floor, where every window is shuttered, and throw himself out with a rope around his neck."
The next day I drove across KoÄevski Rog, a stretch of mountains to the south, near the border with Croatia. For thirty-five kilometers I saw no other car. The gravel road ran through a forest and climbed the main peak, Visoki Rog. I was on snowy, icy switchbacks, doing no more than thirty kph. Not a soul. This was one of the most beautiful roads I had ever seen. The sun a golden mist floating among the fir trees. Snow melting in the warmth, and sometimes, when I stopped, I could hear, in the stillness of the high forest, the whisper of a thousand drops joining to make a stream. Light and shadow intermingled endlessly, and though it was a bright day, everything seemed submerged in green water. The southern side of the peak steamed. I saw birds I couldn't name. This was neither Gothic nor Baroque. KoÄevski Rog suggested an architecture that would never come to pass, because the simplicity of its beauty would throw into question the whole point of an imagination.
In the dark valleys lay 10,000 bodies. I was driving through the largest unmarked cemetery
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