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The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana :: Эко Умберто
Страница: 21 из 286That is to say I recognized the titles- The Betrothed, Orlando Furioso , The Catcher in the Rye. For the first time, I had the impression of being in a place where I felt at ease. I pulled a volume from the shelf, but even before looking at the cover I held the back of it in my right hand and with my left thumb flipped quickly through the pages in reverse. I liked the noise, did it several times, then asked Paola whether I should see a soccer player kicking a ball. She laughed; apparently there were little books that made the rounds when we were children, a kind of poor man’s movie, where the soccer player changed position on each page, so that if you flipped the pages rapidly you saw him move. I made sure that this was something everyone knew: I thought as much, it was not a memory, just a notion.
The book was Père Goriot , Balzac. Without opening it I said: "Goriot sacrificed himself for his daughters. One was named Delphine, I think. Along come Vautrin alias Collin and the ambitious Rastignac- just the two of us now, Paris. Did I read much?"
"You’re a tireless reader. With an iron memory. You know stacks of poems by heart."
"Did I write?"
"Nothing of your own. I’m a sterile genius, you used to say; in this world you either read or write, and writers write out of contempt for their colleagues, out of a desire to have something good to read once in a while."
"I have so many books. Sorry, we do."
"Five thousand here. And there’s always some imbecile who comes over and says, my how many books you have, have you read them all?"
"And what do I say?"
"Usually you say: Not one, why else would I be keeping them here? Do you by chance keep the tins of meat after you’ve emptied them? As for the five thousand I’ve already read, I gave them away to prisons and hospitals. And the imbecile reels."
"I see a lot of foreign books. I think I know several languages." Verses came to me unbidden: " Le brouillard indolent de l’automne est épars… Unreal city , / under the brown fog of a winter dawn , / a crowd flowed over London Bridge , so many , / I had not thought death had undone so many… Spätherbstnebel , kalte Träume , / überfloren Berg und Tal , / Sturm entblättert schon die Bäume , / und sie schaun gespenstig kahl… Mas el doctor no sabía ," I concluded, " que hoy es siempre todavía …"
"That’s curious, out of four poems, three are about fog."
"You know, I feel surrounded by fog. It’s just that I can’t see it. I know how others have seen it: At a turn , an ephemeral sun brightens: a duster of mimosas in the pure white fog.
The book was Père Goriot , Balzac. Without opening it I said: "Goriot sacrificed himself for his daughters. One was named Delphine, I think. Along come Vautrin alias Collin and the ambitious Rastignac- just the two of us now, Paris. Did I read much?"
"You’re a tireless reader. With an iron memory. You know stacks of poems by heart."
"Did I write?"
"Nothing of your own. I’m a sterile genius, you used to say; in this world you either read or write, and writers write out of contempt for their colleagues, out of a desire to have something good to read once in a while."
"I have so many books. Sorry, we do."
"Five thousand here. And there’s always some imbecile who comes over and says, my how many books you have, have you read them all?"
"And what do I say?"
"Usually you say: Not one, why else would I be keeping them here? Do you by chance keep the tins of meat after you’ve emptied them? As for the five thousand I’ve already read, I gave them away to prisons and hospitals. And the imbecile reels."
"I see a lot of foreign books. I think I know several languages." Verses came to me unbidden: " Le brouillard indolent de l’automne est épars… Unreal city , / under the brown fog of a winter dawn , / a crowd flowed over London Bridge , so many , / I had not thought death had undone so many… Spätherbstnebel , kalte Träume , / überfloren Berg und Tal , / Sturm entblättert schon die Bäume , / und sie schaun gespenstig kahl… Mas el doctor no sabía ," I concluded, " que hoy es siempre todavía …"
"That’s curious, out of four poems, three are about fog."
"You know, I feel surrounded by fog. It’s just that I can’t see it. I know how others have seen it: At a turn , an ephemeral sun brightens: a duster of mimosas in the pure white fog.