abandoned me, but neither did you stay close to me. I wondered whether all housewives were like that—I am talking about your excessive impersonality. Indeed you acted cleverly. You manipulated time beautifully, with the precision of electric scales, attaching no unnaturalness to our silence.
To overcome this silence, I tried to put on a show of anger, but that did not work. When I saw your heroic efforts to remain calm I at once backed down, quite aware of my own willful self-conceit. The icy lump of silence that lay between us was apparently too deeply frozen to melt under just any pretext. The questions I had prepared as I walked along—possible opportunities for conversation—were so many matches held against an iceberg.
Of course, I was not so optimistic as to imagine I could succeed, like a wily salesman, by showing you two specimens of face models and asking which you preferred. The first requirement was that my mask should not appear to be a mask; thus, it would not do to reveal to you the real motive of my question. To do so would be malicious sarcasm. From now on, unless I took up hypnotism, my questions would have to be indirect. But I had no further ideas. I had been optimistic, thinking that I could adapt myself to circumstances, as I had fortunately been able to do so far. For example, I went through various of my friends’ faces with your tastes in mind.
However, you were not a fish living by nature in silence. Silence was an ordeal for you. I myself would be the first to be hurt by any rash mention of faces; you were concerned about this and were trying to shield me. I blamed my own frivolity, but, saying not a word, I by-passed the silence, returnedto my study, and locked up today’s booty and my instruments for mold-casting in a cabinet. Then, as usual, I began to take off my bandage in order to cream my face and perform my daily massage. But my fingers stopped unexpectedly in mid-air; I was lost in another dialogue with no one.
—Only my lost face knew how many hundreds of thousands of degrees it would take to melt this silence. And perhaps the mask was the answer. But I could not make it without your advice. Hadn’t I been checked into complete inactivity? If I did not break the vicious circle somewhere, it would end in a stupid impasse, repeating the same sequence. I could not give up the whole thing as useless now. Even if I couldn’t melt away the whole silence, as least I had to try to light a flame.
I rewound my bandage with the determination of a diver putting on his equipment. When my scar webs were exposed I had no confidence of ever overcoming the pressure of the silence.
I returned to the light room, concealing the strain I was under with feline detachment. I surreptitiously watched your comings and goings between the living room and the kitchen from the corner of my eye, as I pretended to read the evening paper. You were not smiling, but you moved about ceaselessly from one activity to another with that strangely light expression that comes just before smiling. Perhaps you were unaware of it, but it was indeed a curious expression. I believe I proposed marriage to you precisely because I was unexpectedly taken by that look.
(I wonder if I wrote about this before. Well, it doesn’t make any difference if I repeat myself. Because for me who sought the meaning of expression your expression was like the beacon of some lighthouse. Even as I write this, I try to think of you, and your expression comes to me first. The instant that expression becomes a smile something suddenlyshines forth, and everyone who receives its light has his existence reaffirmed.)
Yet while you shed this expression generously on everything—windows, walls, lights, pillars—I was the only one on whom you did not seem to be able to turn it. Though I thought it natural, I was unable to control my irritation, and being without definite hope of success, I came to feel it would be enough if only I could get you to
To overcome this silence, I tried to put on a show of anger, but that did not work. When I saw your heroic efforts to remain calm I at once backed down, quite aware of my own willful self-conceit. The icy lump of silence that lay between us was apparently too deeply frozen to melt under just any pretext. The questions I had prepared as I walked along—possible opportunities for conversation—were so many matches held against an iceberg.
Of course, I was not so optimistic as to imagine I could succeed, like a wily salesman, by showing you two specimens of face models and asking which you preferred. The first requirement was that my mask should not appear to be a mask; thus, it would not do to reveal to you the real motive of my question. To do so would be malicious sarcasm. From now on, unless I took up hypnotism, my questions would have to be indirect. But I had no further ideas. I had been optimistic, thinking that I could adapt myself to circumstances, as I had fortunately been able to do so far. For example, I went through various of my friends’ faces with your tastes in mind.
However, you were not a fish living by nature in silence. Silence was an ordeal for you. I myself would be the first to be hurt by any rash mention of faces; you were concerned about this and were trying to shield me. I blamed my own frivolity, but, saying not a word, I by-passed the silence, returnedto my study, and locked up today’s booty and my instruments for mold-casting in a cabinet. Then, as usual, I began to take off my bandage in order to cream my face and perform my daily massage. But my fingers stopped unexpectedly in mid-air; I was lost in another dialogue with no one.
—Only my lost face knew how many hundreds of thousands of degrees it would take to melt this silence. And perhaps the mask was the answer. But I could not make it without your advice. Hadn’t I been checked into complete inactivity? If I did not break the vicious circle somewhere, it would end in a stupid impasse, repeating the same sequence. I could not give up the whole thing as useless now. Even if I couldn’t melt away the whole silence, as least I had to try to light a flame.
I rewound my bandage with the determination of a diver putting on his equipment. When my scar webs were exposed I had no confidence of ever overcoming the pressure of the silence.
I returned to the light room, concealing the strain I was under with feline detachment. I surreptitiously watched your comings and goings between the living room and the kitchen from the corner of my eye, as I pretended to read the evening paper. You were not smiling, but you moved about ceaselessly from one activity to another with that strangely light expression that comes just before smiling. Perhaps you were unaware of it, but it was indeed a curious expression. I believe I proposed marriage to you precisely because I was unexpectedly taken by that look.
(I wonder if I wrote about this before. Well, it doesn’t make any difference if I repeat myself. Because for me who sought the meaning of expression your expression was like the beacon of some lighthouse. Even as I write this, I try to think of you, and your expression comes to me first. The instant that expression becomes a smile something suddenlyshines forth, and everyone who receives its light has his existence reaffirmed.)
Yet while you shed this expression generously on everything—windows, walls, lights, pillars—I was the only one on whom you did not seem to be able to turn it. Though I thought it natural, I was unable to control my irritation, and being without definite hope of success, I came to feel it would be enough if only I could get you to
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