horseâs head, ending just behind the jaw. The galloping man had fallen.
And his owner? Driven out? Run away?
How stupid to think she could be omnipotent all in a minute, to think she might swoop over the world without becoming hopelessly lost among the intricacies of a billion minds and their trillion works. Try to picture it: that brightly lit morning room, painted butter-cream yellow with white trim on the window â she only glimpsed it, and then only glimpsed his hand, scratching across a paper tablet with a fountain pen. Where was he? Someplace here in Vienna? She felt the urge to panic, to flee from street to street, shout questions at German soldiers, rip into their brains!
Stop this. Reason coolly. It had been a bright morning but now was midday in Vienna. West, then â she turned her ear, listening hopefully for that hand still scratching on the pad. Trying to shut out all else,- the Vienna cellar grew dim and gray, tissuey ⦠the pile of yellow rubble from the frieze lay in the dark like a heap of burning coals. How many men were writing now? Where was that hand, among all the hands, where was the one she sought? Just in the city itself, many hands crawled across lined paper, writing all the time: hesitant hands, hands that pressed forward, hands that paused to doodle on an empty page. The small pile of broken stone glowed on the floor â the only thing that mattered â and slowly one by one all those other writing hands put down their pens, â¦
Then she heard his sound; it drew her on, separate from the sound of a thousand squints scratching their squibs across the continent. He was writing a letter, and thinking the words as he wrote:
20 Maresfield Gardens
London N.W. 3
April 1, 1939
Dear (name mumbled, didnât catch it)
It is surprising how little we can foresee the future. If you told me before the war â or twenty years ago â that a society for psychoanalysis would be founded in London, I would never have imagined that a quarter of a century later à might be living next door. And, even more unlikely, that, while living next door, S would still not be able to celebrate the occasion with you. Accept these good wishes in lieu of my presence.
Unhappily, people here are trying to lull me into an atmosphere of optimism, I donât believe it, and I donât like being deceived. If only some kind of intervention would cut short this cruel process.
The words were hushed, tremulous, so soft they could barely be distinguished from the babble of human noise coming from every corner of the world. His writing mind became a thin thread that never left her hand, and she ran alongside it back to the sunlit room, England. Smoggy, gray London, Steaming taxis, vistas of brick row houses ⦠She found his new home quiet and out of the way.
His study was brighter than the old one, with a bit of well-tended garden beyond the French doors. Outside, the leaves of an almond tree stirred in the wind, their color a tender springtime green. She wanted to ask, What happened? To Vienna? To my clinic? Did anyone tell you? But though she might circle the earth a dozen times, or sink to the depths of the sea where the devilfish lit their way in the dark, she couldnât pick up a pebble. Make a sound. Or blow a fleck of lint from his sleeve. Yet she could travel in his mind. And know his thoughts. The date on the letter read 1939: six years gone by. A mere six years for all of them in Rostov to be forgotten. Not even a shred of memory fluttering in a passing thought. And as she watched his hand crawl across the pad, she could feel the man was sick. Too sick to care about anything else, Perhaps he had a month to live. Perhaps a week.
They had made yet another appointment for him at the London Clinic. A mere formality. Lün, the chow dog, lay under the desk and breathed sleepily. No formality in that. Looking down, he saw that Lün had cracked open one eye, which glanced upward
And his owner? Driven out? Run away?
How stupid to think she could be omnipotent all in a minute, to think she might swoop over the world without becoming hopelessly lost among the intricacies of a billion minds and their trillion works. Try to picture it: that brightly lit morning room, painted butter-cream yellow with white trim on the window â she only glimpsed it, and then only glimpsed his hand, scratching across a paper tablet with a fountain pen. Where was he? Someplace here in Vienna? She felt the urge to panic, to flee from street to street, shout questions at German soldiers, rip into their brains!
Stop this. Reason coolly. It had been a bright morning but now was midday in Vienna. West, then â she turned her ear, listening hopefully for that hand still scratching on the pad. Trying to shut out all else,- the Vienna cellar grew dim and gray, tissuey ⦠the pile of yellow rubble from the frieze lay in the dark like a heap of burning coals. How many men were writing now? Where was that hand, among all the hands, where was the one she sought? Just in the city itself, many hands crawled across lined paper, writing all the time: hesitant hands, hands that pressed forward, hands that paused to doodle on an empty page. The small pile of broken stone glowed on the floor â the only thing that mattered â and slowly one by one all those other writing hands put down their pens, â¦
Then she heard his sound; it drew her on, separate from the sound of a thousand squints scratching their squibs across the continent. He was writing a letter, and thinking the words as he wrote:
20 Maresfield Gardens
London N.W. 3
April 1, 1939
Dear (name mumbled, didnât catch it)
It is surprising how little we can foresee the future. If you told me before the war â or twenty years ago â that a society for psychoanalysis would be founded in London, I would never have imagined that a quarter of a century later à might be living next door. And, even more unlikely, that, while living next door, S would still not be able to celebrate the occasion with you. Accept these good wishes in lieu of my presence.
Unhappily, people here are trying to lull me into an atmosphere of optimism, I donât believe it, and I donât like being deceived. If only some kind of intervention would cut short this cruel process.
The words were hushed, tremulous, so soft they could barely be distinguished from the babble of human noise coming from every corner of the world. His writing mind became a thin thread that never left her hand, and she ran alongside it back to the sunlit room, England. Smoggy, gray London, Steaming taxis, vistas of brick row houses ⦠She found his new home quiet and out of the way.
His study was brighter than the old one, with a bit of well-tended garden beyond the French doors. Outside, the leaves of an almond tree stirred in the wind, their color a tender springtime green. She wanted to ask, What happened? To Vienna? To my clinic? Did anyone tell you? But though she might circle the earth a dozen times, or sink to the depths of the sea where the devilfish lit their way in the dark, she couldnât pick up a pebble. Make a sound. Or blow a fleck of lint from his sleeve. Yet she could travel in his mind. And know his thoughts. The date on the letter read 1939: six years gone by. A mere six years for all of them in Rostov to be forgotten. Not even a shred of memory fluttering in a passing thought. And as she watched his hand crawl across the pad, she could feel the man was sick. Too sick to care about anything else, Perhaps he had a month to live. Perhaps a week.
They had made yet another appointment for him at the London Clinic. A mere formality. Lün, the chow dog, lay under the desk and breathed sleepily. No formality in that. Looking down, he saw that Lün had cracked open one eye, which glanced upward
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