what I saw before me was merely the long, empty road by which he had come. Then again, from afar, there appeared a form, that of a man, giving a knock with his stick to every wayside tree-trunk; nearer and nearer he stalked, and I tried to make out his face.… And lo, with jaw protruding and eyes looking straight into mine—But he faded as before, the moment he reached me, or, better say, he seemed to enter into me, and pass through, as if I were a shadow; and then again there was only the road stretching out expectantly, and again a figure appeared, and again it was he.
I turned on my other side, and for a while all was dark and peaceful, unruffled blackness; then, gradually, a road became perceptible: the same road, but the other way round; and there appeared suddenly before my very face, as if coming out of me, the back of a man’s head and the bag strapped to his shoulders; slowly his figure diminished, he was going, going, in another instant would be gone … but all of a sudden he stopped, glanced back and retraced his steps, so that his face grew clearer and clearer; and it was my own face.
I turned again, this time lying supine, and then, as if seen through a dark glass, there stretched above me a varnished blue-black sky, a band of sky between the ebon shapes of trees which on either side were slowly receding; but when I lay face downwards, I saw running below me the pebbles and mud of a country road, wisps of dropped hay, a cart rut brimming with rainwater, and in that wind-wrinkled puddle the trembling travesty of my face; which, as I noticed with a shock, was eyeless.
“I always leave the eyes to the last,” said Ardalion self-approvingly.
He held before him, at arm’s length, the charcoal picture which he had begun making of me, and bent his head this way and that. He used to come frequently, and it was on the balcony that we generally had the sitting. I had plenty of leisure now: it had occurred to me to give myself something in the way of a small holiday.
Lydia was present too, curled up in a wicker armchairwith a book; a half-squashed cigarette end (she never quite crushed them to death) with grim tenacity of life let forth a thin, straight thread of smoke out of the ashtray: now and then some tiny wind would make it dip and wobble, but it recovered again as straight and thin as ever.
“Anything but a good likeness,” said Lydia, without, however, lifting her eyes from her book.
“It may come yet,” rejoined Ardalion. “Here, I’m going to prune this nostril and we’ll get it. Kind of dull light this afternoon.”
“What’s dull?” inquired Lydia, lifting her eyes and holding one finger on the interrupted line.
Let me interrupt this passage, too, for there is still another piece of my life that summer worthy of your attention, reader. While apologizing for the muddle and mottle of my tale, let me repeat that it is not I who am writing, but my memory, which has its own whims and rules. So, watch me roaming again about the forest near Ardalion’s lake; this time I have come alone and not by car, but by train (as far as Koenigsdorf) and bus (as far as the yellow post).
On the suburban map Ardalion left on our balcony one day all the features of the locality stand out very clear. Let us suppose I am holding that map before me; then the city of Berlin, which is outside the picture, may be imagined somewhere in the vicinity of my left elbow. On the map itself, in its southwestern corner, there stretches northward, like a black and white bit of scaled tape, the railway line, which, metaphysically at least, runs along my sleeve cuffward from Berlin. My wristwatch is the small town of Koenigsdorf, beyond which the black and white ribbon turns and proceeds eastward, where there is another circle (the lower button of my waistcoat): Eichenberg.
No need, however, to travel as far as that yet; we get off at Koenigsdorf. As the railway line swerves to the east, its companion, the main road,
I turned on my other side, and for a while all was dark and peaceful, unruffled blackness; then, gradually, a road became perceptible: the same road, but the other way round; and there appeared suddenly before my very face, as if coming out of me, the back of a man’s head and the bag strapped to his shoulders; slowly his figure diminished, he was going, going, in another instant would be gone … but all of a sudden he stopped, glanced back and retraced his steps, so that his face grew clearer and clearer; and it was my own face.
I turned again, this time lying supine, and then, as if seen through a dark glass, there stretched above me a varnished blue-black sky, a band of sky between the ebon shapes of trees which on either side were slowly receding; but when I lay face downwards, I saw running below me the pebbles and mud of a country road, wisps of dropped hay, a cart rut brimming with rainwater, and in that wind-wrinkled puddle the trembling travesty of my face; which, as I noticed with a shock, was eyeless.
“I always leave the eyes to the last,” said Ardalion self-approvingly.
He held before him, at arm’s length, the charcoal picture which he had begun making of me, and bent his head this way and that. He used to come frequently, and it was on the balcony that we generally had the sitting. I had plenty of leisure now: it had occurred to me to give myself something in the way of a small holiday.
Lydia was present too, curled up in a wicker armchairwith a book; a half-squashed cigarette end (she never quite crushed them to death) with grim tenacity of life let forth a thin, straight thread of smoke out of the ashtray: now and then some tiny wind would make it dip and wobble, but it recovered again as straight and thin as ever.
“Anything but a good likeness,” said Lydia, without, however, lifting her eyes from her book.
“It may come yet,” rejoined Ardalion. “Here, I’m going to prune this nostril and we’ll get it. Kind of dull light this afternoon.”
“What’s dull?” inquired Lydia, lifting her eyes and holding one finger on the interrupted line.
Let me interrupt this passage, too, for there is still another piece of my life that summer worthy of your attention, reader. While apologizing for the muddle and mottle of my tale, let me repeat that it is not I who am writing, but my memory, which has its own whims and rules. So, watch me roaming again about the forest near Ardalion’s lake; this time I have come alone and not by car, but by train (as far as Koenigsdorf) and bus (as far as the yellow post).
On the suburban map Ardalion left on our balcony one day all the features of the locality stand out very clear. Let us suppose I am holding that map before me; then the city of Berlin, which is outside the picture, may be imagined somewhere in the vicinity of my left elbow. On the map itself, in its southwestern corner, there stretches northward, like a black and white bit of scaled tape, the railway line, which, metaphysically at least, runs along my sleeve cuffward from Berlin. My wristwatch is the small town of Koenigsdorf, beyond which the black and white ribbon turns and proceeds eastward, where there is another circle (the lower button of my waistcoat): Eichenberg.
No need, however, to travel as far as that yet; we get off at Koenigsdorf. As the railway line swerves to the east, its companion, the main road,
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