by yao
SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS SPRING full of waiting. A light, bright breeze cut their emptiness, yet untroubled by the exhalations of the bare and sunny gardens; it blew the streets clean, and they looked long and festively swept, as if waiting for someone's announced but uncertain arrival. The sun headed for the equinoctial position, then braked and almost reached the point at which it would seem to stand immobile, keeping an ideal balance and throwing out streams of fire, wave after wave, onto the empty and receptive earth. A continuous draught blew through the whole breadth of the horizon, creating avenues and lanes. It calmed itself while blowing and stopped at last, breathless, enormous and glassy as if wishing to enclose in its all-embracing mirror the ideal picture of the city, a Fata `lnrgana magnified in the depth of its luminous concavity. Then the world stood motionless for a while, holding its breath, blinded, wanting to enter whole into that illusory picture, into that provisional eternity that opened up before it. But the enticing offer passed, the wind broke its mirror, and Time took us into his possession once again. The Easter holidays came, long and opaque. Free from school, we young scholars wandered about the town without aim or necessity, not knowing how to make use of our empty, undefined leisure. Undefined ourselves, we expected something from Time, which was unable to provide a definition and wasted itself in a thousand subterfuges. In front of the cafe, tables were already put out on the pavement. Ladies sat at them in brightly coloured dresses, and in small gulps they swallowed the breezes as if they were ice cream. Their skirts rustled, the wind worried them from below like a small angry dog. The ladies became flushed, their faces burned from the dry wind, and their lips were parched. This was still an interval with its customary boredom, while the world moved slowly and tremulously towards some boundary. In those days we all ate like wolves. Dried out by the wind, we rushed home to eat in dull silence enormous chunks of bread and butter, or else we would buy on street corners large cracknels smelling of freshness, or we would sit in a row without a single thought in our heads in the vast vaulted porch of a house in the market square. Through the low arcades we could see the white and clean expanse of the square. Empty, stong-smelling wine barrels stood under the walls of the hall. We sat on a long bench, on which coloured peasants' kerchiefs were displayed on market days, and we thumped the planks with our heels in listlessness and boredom. Suddenly Rudolph, his mouth still full of cracknel, produced from his pocket a stamp album and spread it before me. 4 I realized in a flash why that spring had until then been so empty and dull. Not knowing why, it had been introverted and silent – retreating, melting into space, into an empty azure without meaning or definition – a questioning empty shell for the admission of an unknown content. Hence that blue (as if just awakened) neutrality, that great and indif- ferent readiness for everything. That spring was holding itself ready: deserted and roomy, it was simply awaiting a revelation. Who could foresee that this would emerge – ready, fully armed, and dazzling – from Rudolph's stamp album? In it were strange abbreviations and formulae, recipes for civiliza- tions, handy amulets that allowed one to hold his thumb and finger between the essence of climates and provinces. These were bank drafts on empires and republics, on archipelagoes and continents. 156 157
SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS SPRING Emperors and usurpers, conquerors and dictators could not possess anything greater. I suddenly anticipated the sweetness of domination over lands and peoples, the thorn of that frustration that can only be healed by power. With Alexander of Macedonia, I wanted to conquer the whole world and not a square inch of ground less. 5 Ignorant, eager, full of chafing desire, I took the march-past of creation, the parade of countries, shining processions I could see only at intervals, between crimson eclipses, caused by the rush of blood from my heart beating in time with the universal march of all the races. Rudolph paraded before my eyes those battalions and regiments; he took the salute fully absorbed and diligent. He, the owner of the album, degraded himself voluntarily to the role of an aide, reported to me solemnly, somewhat disoriented by his equivocal part. At last, very excited in a rush of fierce generosity, he pinned on me, like a medal, a pink Tasmania, glowing like May, and a Hyderabad swarming with a gypsy babble of entangled lettering. 6 It is then that the revelation took place: the vision of the fiery beauty of the world suddenly appeared, the secret message of good tidings, the special announcement of the limitless possibilities of being. Bright, fierce, and breathtaking horizons opened wide, the world trembled and shook in its joints, leaning dangerously, threatening to break out from its rules and habits. What attraction, dear reader, has a postage stamp for you? What do you make of the profile of Emperor Franz Joseph with his bald patch crowned by a laurel crown? Is it a symbol of ordinariness, or is it the ultimate within the bounds of possibility, the guarantee of unpassable frontiers within which the world is enclosed once and for all? At that time, the world was totally encompassed by Franz Joseph I. On all the horizons there loomed this omnipresent and inevitable profile, shutting the world off, like a prison. And just when we had given up hope and bitterly resigned ourselves inwardly to the uniformity of the world – the powerful guarantor of whose narrow immutability was Franz Joseph I – then suddenly Oh God, unaware of the importance of it, you opened before me that stamp album, you allowed me to cast a look on its glimmering colours, on the pages that shed their treasures, one after another, ever more glaring and more frightening . . . Who will hold it against me that I stood blinded, weak with emotion, and that tears flowed from my eyes? What a dazzling relativism, what a Copernican deed, what flux of all categories and concepts! Oh God, so there were uncounted varieties of existence, so your world was indeed vast and infinite! This was more than I had ever imagined in my boldest dreams. So my early anticipation that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, continued to nag at me and insist that the world was immeasurable in its variety had been proven right at last! 7 The world at that time was circumscribed by Franz Joseph I. On each stamp, on every coin, and on every postmark his likeness confirmed its stability and the dogma of its oneness. This was the world, and there were no other worlds besides, the effigies of the imperial-and- royal old man proclaimed. Everything else was make-believe, wild pretence, and usurpation. Franz Joseph I rested on top of everything and checked the world in its growth. By inclination we tend to be loyal, dear reader. Being also affable and easygoing, we are not insensitive to the attractions of authority. Franz Joseph I was the embodiment of the highest authority. If that authoritarian old man threw all his prestige on the scales, one could do nothing but give up all one's aspirations and longings, manage as well as one could in the only possible world – that is, a world without illusions and romanticism – and forget. But when the prison seemed to be irrevocably shut, when the last bolt-hole was bricked up, when everything had conspired to keep silent about You, Oh God, when Franz Joseph had barred and sealed even the last chink so that one should not be able to see You, then You rose wearing a flowing cloak of seas and continents and gave him the lie. You, God, took upon Yourself the odium of heresy and 158 159
SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGGN OF THE. HOURGLASS SPRING riches, these were the first random words that came to your mind. You reached into your pocket and showed me. like a handful of marbles, the possibilities that your world contained. You did not attempt to be precise; you said whatever came into your mind. You taught equally well has, said Panphibrass or Halleieevah, and the air among palms would flutter with motley parrot wings, and the sky, like an enormous, sapphire, cab; !ge rose, blown open to its core, would show in its dazzling centre you, frightening peacock eye, would shine with the glare of your wisdom, al d would spread a super-scent. You wanted to dazzle me, Oh God, :1 seduce me, perhaps to boast, tot even You have moments of van 'y when you succumb to self- co lgratulation. Oh, how I love these a oments! How greatly diminished you have bet., me, Franz Joseph, and your gospel of prose! I looked for you in vain: At last I found you. You were among the crowd, but how small, unimportant, and grey
. You were marching with some others in the dust of the highway, immedi- ately following South America, but preceding Australia, and singing together with the others: Hosanna! 8 I became a disciple of the new gospel. i struck up a friendship with Rudolph. I admired him, feeling vaguely that he was only a tool, that the album was destined for somebody else. In fact, he seemed to me only its guardian. He catalogued, he stuck in and unstuck the stamps, he put the album away and locked the drawer. In reality he was sad, like a man who guesses that he is waning while I am waxing. He was like the man who came to straighten the Lord's paths. 9 I had reasons to believe that the album was predestined for me. Many signs seemed to point to its holding a message and a personal commission for me. There was, for instance, the fact that no one felt himself to be the owner of the album, not even Rudolph, who acted more like its servant, an unwilling and lazy servant in the bond of duty. Sometimes envy would flood his heart with bitterness. He rebelled inwardly against the role of keeper of a treasure that did not really belong to him. He looked with envy on the reflection of distant worlds that flooded my face with a gamut of colour. Only in that reflection did he notice the glow of these pages. His own feelings were not really engaged. 10 I once saw a prestidigitator. He stood in the centre of the stage, slim and visible to everybody, and demonstrated his top hat, showing its empty white bottom. Thus having assured us that his art was above suspicion of fraudulent manipulation, he traced with his wand a complicated magic sign and at once, with exaggerated precision and openness, began to produce from the top hat paper strips, coloured ribbons by the foot, by the yard, finally by the mile. The room filled with the rustling mass of colour, became bright from the heaps of light tissue, while the artist still pulled at the endless weft, despite the spectators' protests, their cries of ecstasy and spasmodic sobs until it became clear that all this effort was nothing to him, that he was drawing this plenty, not from his own, but from supernatural resources that had been opened to him and that were beyond human measures and calculations. But some people who could perceive the real sense of this demon- revealed this enormous, magnificent, colourful blasphemy to the world. Oh splendid Heresiarch! You struck me with the burning book, with that explosive stamp album from Rudolph's pocket. I did not know at that time that stamp albums could be pocket-size; in my blindness I at first took it for a paper pistol with which we sometimes pretended to fire at school, from under the seats, to the annoyance of teachers. Yet this tittle album symbolized God 's fervent tirade ; a fiery and splendid philippic against Franz Joseph and his estate of prose. It was the book of truth and splendour. I opened it, and the glamour of colourful worlds, of becalmed spaces, spread before me. God walked through it, page after page, pulling behind Him a train woven from all the zones and climates. Canada, Honduras, Nicaragua, Abracadabra, Hipporabundia . . . I at last understood you, Oh God. These were the disguises for your 160 161
SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS SPRING stration went home deep in thought and enchanted, having had a glimpse of the truth that God is boundless. 11 Now perhaps is the time for drawing a parallel between Alexander the Great and my modest self. Alexander was susceptible to the aroma of countries. His nostrils anticipated untold possibilities. He was one of those men on whose head God lays His hand while they are asleep so that they get to know what they don't know, so that they are filled with intuitions and conjectures, while the reflections of distant worlds pass across their closed eyelids. Alexander, however, took divine allusions too literally. As a man of action — that is to say, of a shallow spirit – he interpreted his mission as that of conqueror of the world. He felt as unfulfilled as I was, his breast heaved with the same kind of sighs, and he hungered after ever new horizons and landscapes. There was no one who could point out his mistake. Not even Aristotle could understand him. Thus, although he had conquered the whole world, he died disappointed, doubting the God who kept eluding him and doubting God's miracles. His likeness adorned the coins and seals of many lands. In the end, he became the Franz Joseph of his age.12 I should like to give the reader at least an approximate idea of that album in which the events of that spring were adumbrated, then finally arranged. An indescribable, alarming wind blew through the avenue of these stamps, the decorated street of crests and standards, and unfurled these emblems in an ominous silence, under the shadow of clouds that loomed threateningly over the horizon. Then the first heralds appeared in the empty street, in dress uniforms with red brassards, perspiring, perplexed, full of the sense of their mission. They gestured silently, preoccupied and solemn, the street immedi- ately darkened from the advancing procession, and all the side streets were obscured by the steps of the demonstrating throngs. It was an enormous manifestation of countries, a universal May Day, a march - past of the world. The world was demonstrating with thousands of hands raised as for an oath, it averred in a thousand voices that it was not behind Franz Joseph but behind somebody infinitely greater. The demonstration was bathed in a pale red, almost pink light, the liber- ating colour of enthusiasm. From Santo Domingo, from San Salvador, from Florida came hot and panting delegations, clothed in raspberry red, who waved cherry pink bowler hats from which chattering gold- finches escaped in twos and threes. Happy breezes sharpened the glare of trumpets, brushed softly against the surface of the instruments, and brought forth tiny sparks of electricity. In spite of the large numbers taking part in the march-past, everything was orderly, the enormous parade unfolded itself in silence and according to plan. There were moments when the flags, waving violently from balconies, writhing in amaranthine spasms, in violent silent flutters, in frustrated bursts of enthusiasm, became still as for a roll call: the whole street then turned red and full of a silent threat, while in the darkened distance the carefully counted salvoes of artillery resounded dully, all forty-nine of them in the dusk-filled air. And then the horizon suddenly clouded over as before a spring storm, with only the instruments of the bands brassily shining, and in the silence one could hear the murmur of the darkening sky, the rustle of distant spaces, while from nearby gardens the scent of bird cherry floated in concentrated doses and dissolved imperceptibly in the air.13 One day towards the end of April the morning was warm and grey; people walking in the streets and looking ahead did not notice that the trees in the park were splitting in many places and showing sweet, festering wounds. Enmeshed in the black net of tree branches, the grey, sultry sky lay heavily on human shoulders. People scrambled from under its weight like June bugs in a warm dampness or, without a thought in their heads, sat hunched on the benches of the park, a sheet of faded newspaper on their laps. Then at about ten o'clock the sun appeared like a luminous smudge from under the swollen body of cloud, and suddenly among the tree 162 163
SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS SPRING branches all the fat buds began to shine and a veil of chirruping uncovered the now pale golden face of the day. Spring had come. And at once the avenue of the park, empty a moment before, filled with people hurrying in all directions, as if this were the hub of the city, and blossomed with women's frocks. Quick and shapely girls were hurrying – some to work in shops and offices, others to assignations – but for a few moments, while they passed the openwork basket of the avenue, which now exuded the moisture of a greenhouse and was filled with birds' trills, they seemed to belong to that avenue and to that hour, to be the extras in a scene of the theatre of spring, as if they had been reborn in the park together with the delicate branches and leaves. The park avenue seemed crowded with their refreshing hurry and the rustle of their underskirts. Ah, these airy, freshly star- ched shifts, led for a walk under the openwork shadow of the spring corridor, shifts damp under the armpits, now drying in the violet breezes of distance! Ah, these young, rhythmical steps, those legs hot from exercise in their new crunchy silk stockings that covered red spots and pimples, the healthy spring rash of hot-blooded bodies! The whole park became shamelessly pimply, and all the trees came out in buddy spots, which burst with the voices of birds. And then the avenue became
empty, and under the vaults of trees one could hear the soft squeaks of a perambulator on high wheels. In the small varnished canoe, engulfed in highly starched bands of linen, like in a bouquet, slept something more precious than a flower. The girl who slowly pushed the pram would lean over it from time to time, tilt to its back wheels the swinging, squeaking basket that bloomed with white freshness, and blow caressingly into the bouquet of tulle until she had reached its sweet sleepy core, across whose dreams tides of cloud and light floated like a fairy tale. At noon the paths of the park were crisscrossed with light and shadow, and the song of birds hung continuously in the air, but the women passing on the edge of the promenade were already tired, their hair matted with migraine, and their faces fatigued by the spring. Later still, the avenue emptied completely, and in the silence of the early afternoon smells began slowly to drift across from the park restaurant. 14 Every day at the same time, accompanied by her governess, Bianca could be seen walking in the park. What can I say about Bianca, how can I describe her? I only know that she is marvellously true to herself, that she fulfills her programme completely. My heart tight with pleasure, I notice again and again how with every step, light as a dancer, she enters into her being and how with each of her movements she unconsciously hits the target. Her walk is ordinary, without excessive grace, but its simplicity is touching, and my heart fills with gladness that Bianca can be herself so simply, without any strain or artifice. Once she slowly lifted her eyes to me, and the seriousness of that look pierced me like an arrow. Since then, I have known that I can hide nothing from her, that she knows all my thoughts. At that moment, I put myself at her disposal, completely and without reservation. She accepted this by almost imperceptibly closing her eyes. It happened without a word, in passing, in one single look. When I want to imagine her, I can only evoke one meaningless detail: the chapped skin on her knees, like a boy's; this is deeply touching and guides my thoughts into tantalizing regions of contradic- tion, into blissful antinomies. Everything else, above and below her knees, is transcendental and defies my imagination. 15 Today I delved again into Rudolph's stamp album. What a marvellous study! The text is full of cross-references and allusions. But all the lines converge towards Bianca. What blissful conjectures! My expec- tations and hopes are ever more dazzling. Ah, how I suffer, how heavy is my heart with the mysteries that I anticipate! 16 A band is now playing every evening in the city park, and people on their spring outings fill the avenues. They walk up and down, pass 164 165