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-
XII
I WOULD LIKE to give the reader a sense, albeit approximate, of what that book meant at that time, in whose pages the definitive matters of that spring were prearranged and set down in advance.
An unutterable, disquieting wind blew along the glistening lane of those stamps, along a street decorated with pennants and coats-of-arms, crests and emblems unfurling in fervour, waving in the exhausted silence, in the shadow of clouds looming menacingly over the horizon. And suddenly on that empty street the first heralds came into view, in gala uniforms, with red bands on their shoulders, glistening with sweat, bemused, and imbued with perplexity and duty. They gave signals in silence, deeply moved and filled with solemn earnestness, and now the street grew dim from the impending march, the lanes grew dark from every cross street, from the crunching of a thousand approaching feet. It was an enormous pageant of countries, a universal First of May, a monster-parade of worlds. The world was protesting with a thousand upraised hands, with a thosand flags and pennants, with a thousand voices, as if declaring an oath — it protested that it by no means stood behind Franz Joseph I, but that it stood behind someone many, many times greater. A bright-red colour, the almost pink, unutterable, liberating colour of enthusiasm was flourished over everything. From San Domingo, San Salvador and Florida came delegations, breathless and hot, all in raspberry suits, and they doffed cherry coloured bowler hats, from which chirruping goldfinches flew out in twos and threes. The glistening wind sharpened the glare of the trumpets in its happy flights — softly and delicately it struck the edges of the instruments, shedding quiet comet tails of electricity at every rim. Regardless of the size of the crowd, despite that thousandfold cortège, everything proceeded in order. The enormous revue progressed systematically and in silence. At certain moments the flags — waving avidly and vehemently from the balconies, writhing in amaranthine torsions in the thinning air, in vehement, quiet flutters, futile ascents of enthusiasm — stood motionless as if on parade. And the whole street turned red, glaring and filled with a soundless alarum, whilst in the darkened distance a gently muted salute of cannonade was carefully counted off — forty-nine detonations in the darkening air.
Then the horizon abruptly clouded over, like before a springtime storm, and only the instruments of the orchestra shone brightly now. In the stillness, the murmur of the darkening sky was audible, a roar of distant spaces, and from nearby gardens the scent of hagberry arrived in concentrated batches, discharged in unutterable propagations.
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