one, and flings them into the sea. They burst out there in the mist like burned-out lightbulbs. This symbolism was very fine, I thought, because in fact he threw away his …
“I collapsed fully dressed on the bed and slept for sixteen hours straight. I had a strange and beautiful dream in which I was in Japan with a group of tourists. The wonderful thing about dreams is their incongruity. Although it was Japan, we stood in front of a bay I had seen in Greece. The bay was surrounded by imposing cliffs, and we descended them in single file, making our way down to the sea. The path was extremely intricate and unpredictable, which, it seemed, proved that I was in Japan; although the reason it was Japan was perhaps because my great-grandfather had married a Japanese woman. The path evolved in such a way that we gradually found ourselves jumping from stone to stone. It became clear that we were in a kind of Japanese garden, and that these artificial stones, placed illogically, in the Japanese manner, were tiles paving the pedestrian pathway. Leaping from tile to tile, now left, now right, sometimes even backward, one had to step very gingerly, because between the tiles there was not simply grass, or little bushes, but infinitesimally small Japanese gardens, living ikebana that it would have been a shame to destroy. Carried away by this task, I discovered that I had gotten lost. I was lost, to be exact, in one of the lilliputian gardens; because, suddenly, between two of the tiles, the one on which I was standing and the one onto which I was supposed to spring, I saw underneath me that very bay, that very sea we had been descending to … But ‘we’ was not the right word, because the whole group was down below already, scattered along the narrow strip of shore, getting ready, most likely, to take a dip in the sea, while I was still there above them on the cliff. I raced down after my companions at breakneck speed, in leaps and bounds—it was easy and pleasant, almost like flying. What was strange, however, was that I didn’t seem to get any nearer to them.
“On my way down I came across a strange contraption that vaguely resembled a reflecting telescope. It was blocking my path. I clambered up its trusses, slid down a short flight of steps, and came to a stop when I hit the mirror. It reflected the very same bay, the same shore, the same sea, but my companions were already walking along, farther down the shore. I realized I really had to hurry to catch up, turned away from the mirror, looking for a passage leading out of the contraption, and stumbled across another mirror. I started to run, searching for an exit, but everywhere there were mirrors blocking my path. I kept rushing about and running into them, until I noticed with horror that I was circling around and around in one spot that was lined with mirrors. I was immured in a prism of mirrors.
“I woke up with a sense of panic, thinking that I had been left behind and would never catch up, and then I saw Dika. She kissed me, and congratulated me. Why? I had forgotten everything. She had read the novel. ‘It’s wonderful.’
“What a blockhead I was! I had forgotten about everything. I slapped myself on the forehead, saw that I was already dressed, and, without washing, ran down to the post office. There was a telegram for me from Helen. She wrote that she had waited for me the whole day, then left, and that I shouldn’t write her anymore. When I reread the first telegram, I realized I had mixed up the dates, that in my impatience had gone to meet her a day earlier than she was to arrive. Thus, she had been waiting for me all the next day, while I was finishing my novel … For some reason I resigned myself quite calmly to the loss, telling myself that she wasn’t the real one anyway, and hadn’t even resembled her very closely. I rubbed my chin—it was overgrown with three-day stubble. Have you ever noticed that when you write through the night your beard
“I collapsed fully dressed on the bed and slept for sixteen hours straight. I had a strange and beautiful dream in which I was in Japan with a group of tourists. The wonderful thing about dreams is their incongruity. Although it was Japan, we stood in front of a bay I had seen in Greece. The bay was surrounded by imposing cliffs, and we descended them in single file, making our way down to the sea. The path was extremely intricate and unpredictable, which, it seemed, proved that I was in Japan; although the reason it was Japan was perhaps because my great-grandfather had married a Japanese woman. The path evolved in such a way that we gradually found ourselves jumping from stone to stone. It became clear that we were in a kind of Japanese garden, and that these artificial stones, placed illogically, in the Japanese manner, were tiles paving the pedestrian pathway. Leaping from tile to tile, now left, now right, sometimes even backward, one had to step very gingerly, because between the tiles there was not simply grass, or little bushes, but infinitesimally small Japanese gardens, living ikebana that it would have been a shame to destroy. Carried away by this task, I discovered that I had gotten lost. I was lost, to be exact, in one of the lilliputian gardens; because, suddenly, between two of the tiles, the one on which I was standing and the one onto which I was supposed to spring, I saw underneath me that very bay, that very sea we had been descending to … But ‘we’ was not the right word, because the whole group was down below already, scattered along the narrow strip of shore, getting ready, most likely, to take a dip in the sea, while I was still there above them on the cliff. I raced down after my companions at breakneck speed, in leaps and bounds—it was easy and pleasant, almost like flying. What was strange, however, was that I didn’t seem to get any nearer to them.
“On my way down I came across a strange contraption that vaguely resembled a reflecting telescope. It was blocking my path. I clambered up its trusses, slid down a short flight of steps, and came to a stop when I hit the mirror. It reflected the very same bay, the same shore, the same sea, but my companions were already walking along, farther down the shore. I realized I really had to hurry to catch up, turned away from the mirror, looking for a passage leading out of the contraption, and stumbled across another mirror. I started to run, searching for an exit, but everywhere there were mirrors blocking my path. I kept rushing about and running into them, until I noticed with horror that I was circling around and around in one spot that was lined with mirrors. I was immured in a prism of mirrors.
“I woke up with a sense of panic, thinking that I had been left behind and would never catch up, and then I saw Dika. She kissed me, and congratulated me. Why? I had forgotten everything. She had read the novel. ‘It’s wonderful.’
“What a blockhead I was! I had forgotten about everything. I slapped myself on the forehead, saw that I was already dressed, and, without washing, ran down to the post office. There was a telegram for me from Helen. She wrote that she had waited for me the whole day, then left, and that I shouldn’t write her anymore. When I reread the first telegram, I realized I had mixed up the dates, that in my impatience had gone to meet her a day earlier than she was to arrive. Thus, she had been waiting for me all the next day, while I was finishing my novel … For some reason I resigned myself quite calmly to the loss, telling myself that she wasn’t the real one anyway, and hadn’t even resembled her very closely. I rubbed my chin—it was overgrown with three-day stubble. Have you ever noticed that when you write through the night your beard
Similar Books
