Spring: -I- -II- (III)
The Stamp Album: -IV- -V- -VI- -VII- -VIII- -IX- -X- -XI- -XII-
In the Municipal Park: -XIII- -XIV- -XV- -XVI-
Springtime Twilight: -XVII-
The Villa: -XVIII- -XIX- -XX- -XXI- -XXII- -XXIII- -XXIV- -XXV- -XXVI- -XXVII-
Bianka’s Lineage: -XXVIII- -XXIX- -XXX- -XXXI- -XXXII- -XXXIII-
Hiatus: -XXXIV- -XXXV- -XXXVI- -XXXVII-
Finale: -XXXVIII- -XXXIX- -XL-
III
THE DAYS grew long, clear and immense — almost too immense for their still poor and vague content. Those days allowed for growth — days full of waiting, grown pale from boredom and impatience. A shining breath, a glistening wind blew through the emptiness of those days, not yet clouded by the effluvia of the bare and sun-drenched gardens; it blew the streets clean, and they stood long and shining, ceremonially swept as if awaiting someone’s still distant and unannounced coming. The sun bent slowly toward the equinoctial points, slowed down on its course, and arrived at the faultless position where it was to remain, motionless in its ideal equilibrium, discharging torrents of fire, portion after portion, onto the empty and absorbant earth.
A bright and infinite current blew throughout the whole span of the horizon; it arranged the lanes and avenues in clear lines of perspective; it levelled out in great and empty draughts, and finally it stood exhausted, enormous and lustrous as if it wanted to enclose an ideal picture of the town in its all-embracing mirror, a fata Morgana elongated deep inside its illuminated concavities. Then for a moment the world was still; it stood dazzled and out of breath, wanting to be completely at one with that illusory picture, that makeshift perpetuity that had opened up to it. But the auspicious offer elapsed, the wind broke its mirror, and time took us once more into its possession.
The Easter holidays arrived, long and limitless. Freed from school, we loafed about the town without purpose or need; we had no idea how to profit from our liberty. It was utterly empty, vague and useless freedom. Having as yet no definition of our own, we expected it to come from time, which could not find it either, getting lost amid its thousand subterfuges.
In front of a café, tables had already been arranged on the pavement. Women in brightly colourful dresses sat at them, swallowing the wind in little mouthfuls, like ice cream. Their skirts fluttered as the wind bit them from underneath like a furious little dog; the women’s cheeks flushed and the dry wind scorched their faces and chapped their lips. And still the entr’acte continued, and the great tediom of the entr’acte; slowly and tremulously, the world advanced toward some border; it reached some mark too early, and waited.
We all had appetites like wolves in those days. Desiccated by the wind, we ran home to eat enormous pieces of bread and butter in vacant pensiveness; in the street we bought great cracknels, splintering with freshness, and we sat in a row in the immense, empty and vaulted tenement hall on the market square, without a thought in our heads. Through its low arcades the white and empty market square was visible. Wine barrels stood in a row by a wall, exuding their smell. We sat on the long counter where peasants’ colourful kerchiefs were sold on market days, drumming on the planks with our heels in our indolence and boredom.
Suddenly Rudolf, his mouth blocked up with cracknels, took out a stamp album from under his jacket and spread it before me.
> -IV- >