heads and peer behind their backs, to see who might be watching.
Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only way to live is to die. In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past. These few souls, with their dear relatives looking on, dive into Lake Constance or hurl themselves from Monte Lema, ending their infinite lives. In this way, the finite has conquered the infinite, millions of autumns have yielded to no autumns, millions of snowfalls have yielded to no snowfalls, millions of admonitions have yielded to none.
• 10 June 1905
Suppose that time is not a quantity but a quality, like the luminescence of the night above the trees just when a rising moon has touched the treeline. Time exists, but it cannot be measured.
Just now, on a sunny afternoon, a woman stands in the middle of the Bahnhofplatz, waiting to meet a particular man. Some time ago, he saw her on the train to Fribourg, was entranced, and asked to take her to the Grosse Schanze gardens. From the urgency in his voice and the look in his eyes, the woman knew that he meant soon. So she waits for him, notimpatiently, passing the time with a book. Some time later, perhaps on the following day, he arrives, they lock arms, walk to the gardens, stroll by the groupings of tulips, roses, martagon lilies, alpine columbines, sit on a white cedar bench for an unmeasurable time. Evening comes, marked by a change in the light, a reddening of the sky. The man and woman follow a winding path of small white stones to a restaurant on a hill. Have they been together a lifetime, or only a moment? Who can say?
Through the leaded windows of the restaurant, the mother of the man spots him sitting with the woman. She wrings her hands and whines, for she wants her son at home. She sees him as a child. Has any time passed since he lived at home, played catch with his father, rubbed his mother’s back before bed? The mother sees that boyish laugh, caught in candlelight through the leaded windows of the restaurant, and she is certain that no time has passed, that her son, her child, belongs with her at home. She waits outside, wringing her hands, while her son grows older quickly in the intimacy of this evening, of this woman he has met.
Across the street, on Aarbergergasse, two men argue about a shipment of pharmaceuticals. The receiver is angry becausethe pharmaceuticals, which have a short shelf life, have arrived aged and inactive. He expected them long ago and, in fact, has been waiting for them at the train station for some time, through comings and goings of the gray lady at no. 27 Spitalgasse, through many patterns of light on the Alps, through alterations of the air from warm to cool to wet. The sender, a short fat man with a mustache, is insulted. He crated the chemicals at his factory in Basle as soon as he heard the awnings open over the market. He carried the boxes to the train while the clouds were still in the same positions as when the contract was signed. What more could he do?
In a world where time cannot be measured, there are no clocks, no calendars, no definite appointments. Events are triggered by other events, not by time. A house is begun when stone and lumber arrive at the building site. The stone quarry delivers stone when the quarryman needs money. The barrister leaves home to argue a case at the Supreme Court when his daughter makes a joke about his growing bald. Education at the gymnasium in Berne is concluded when the student has passed his examinations. Trains leave the station at the Bahnhofplatz when the cars are filled with passengers.
In a world where time is a quality, events are recorded by thecolor of the sky, the tone of the boatman’s call on the Aare, the feeling of happiness or fear when a person comes into a room. The birth of a baby, the patent of an invention, the meeting of two people are not fixed points in time, held down by hours and minutes.
Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. Over time, some have determined that the only way to live is to die. In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past. These few souls, with their dear relatives looking on, dive into Lake Constance or hurl themselves from Monte Lema, ending their infinite lives. In this way, the finite has conquered the infinite, millions of autumns have yielded to no autumns, millions of snowfalls have yielded to no snowfalls, millions of admonitions have yielded to none.
• 10 June 1905
Suppose that time is not a quantity but a quality, like the luminescence of the night above the trees just when a rising moon has touched the treeline. Time exists, but it cannot be measured.
Just now, on a sunny afternoon, a woman stands in the middle of the Bahnhofplatz, waiting to meet a particular man. Some time ago, he saw her on the train to Fribourg, was entranced, and asked to take her to the Grosse Schanze gardens. From the urgency in his voice and the look in his eyes, the woman knew that he meant soon. So she waits for him, notimpatiently, passing the time with a book. Some time later, perhaps on the following day, he arrives, they lock arms, walk to the gardens, stroll by the groupings of tulips, roses, martagon lilies, alpine columbines, sit on a white cedar bench for an unmeasurable time. Evening comes, marked by a change in the light, a reddening of the sky. The man and woman follow a winding path of small white stones to a restaurant on a hill. Have they been together a lifetime, or only a moment? Who can say?
Through the leaded windows of the restaurant, the mother of the man spots him sitting with the woman. She wrings her hands and whines, for she wants her son at home. She sees him as a child. Has any time passed since he lived at home, played catch with his father, rubbed his mother’s back before bed? The mother sees that boyish laugh, caught in candlelight through the leaded windows of the restaurant, and she is certain that no time has passed, that her son, her child, belongs with her at home. She waits outside, wringing her hands, while her son grows older quickly in the intimacy of this evening, of this woman he has met.
Across the street, on Aarbergergasse, two men argue about a shipment of pharmaceuticals. The receiver is angry becausethe pharmaceuticals, which have a short shelf life, have arrived aged and inactive. He expected them long ago and, in fact, has been waiting for them at the train station for some time, through comings and goings of the gray lady at no. 27 Spitalgasse, through many patterns of light on the Alps, through alterations of the air from warm to cool to wet. The sender, a short fat man with a mustache, is insulted. He crated the chemicals at his factory in Basle as soon as he heard the awnings open over the market. He carried the boxes to the train while the clouds were still in the same positions as when the contract was signed. What more could he do?
In a world where time cannot be measured, there are no clocks, no calendars, no definite appointments. Events are triggered by other events, not by time. A house is begun when stone and lumber arrive at the building site. The stone quarry delivers stone when the quarryman needs money. The barrister leaves home to argue a case at the Supreme Court when his daughter makes a joke about his growing bald. Education at the gymnasium in Berne is concluded when the student has passed his examinations. Trains leave the station at the Bahnhofplatz when the cars are filled with passengers.
In a world where time is a quality, events are recorded by thecolor of the sky, the tone of the boatman’s call on the Aare, the feeling of happiness or fear when a person comes into a room. The birth of a baby, the patent of an invention, the meeting of two people are not fixed points in time, held down by hours and minutes.
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