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-
XI
THIS IS the place to elaborate a trifling parallel between myself and Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was susceptible to the aromas of countries. His nostrils held a prescience of stupendous possibilities. He was one of those over whose faces God placed his hand in their sleep, so that they came to know what they had not known, who were filled with guesses and suspicions, and reflections of faraway worlds passed under their closed eyelids. But he took divine allusions too literally. Being a man of action, that is to say of shallow spirit, he justified his calling as the mission of the conqueror of the world. His breast filled with the same insatiability as my own; those same sighs swelled it, laying claim to his soul, horizon after horizon, landscape after landscape. There was no one to correct his mistake. Not even Aristotle understood him. And so he died disappointed, despite having conquered the whole world, despairing of God — who continually retreated before him — and His miracles. And his portrait adorned the coins and stamps of all countries. For his punishment, he became the Franz Joseph I of his times.
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