But I wanted to know if I had overslept. I asked her: “What’s the time?” She looked round and said: “You’ve got a watch. Have a look!” Her smile confused me and I reached for it apprehensively. It had stopped. It might have meant nothing, but I went numb. What if more than just my watch had stopped! Had its stopping not been joined perhaps by time stopping, and was I now as in a maze with no way out? She briefly watched my discomfiture with merriment, resting her arms on her hips. Then she said: “Where are you in such a rush to get to?” “To fetch that certificate to say you can stay here.” She looked grave, turned away and looked towards the sun. “It’s about half past ten.” “That’s unfortunate.” “What?” “That I won’t be back till after dark.” “So let’s go tomorrow. You’ll let me come too, won’t you?” “And what day is it?” “You don’t even know when you got here?” “Yes, I do. Monday.” 98
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She burst out laughing. “I see you think it’s Wednesday. But I wouldn’t let you. You can get up now.” And she trotted out, smiling, and the door clicked to and the stairs creaked. All this attested to the fact that I had not been dreaming. Having had a bite to eat, I dressed and unpacked my rucksack. I took downstairs whatever belonged in the kitchen and begged permission to have a little look round the house. It seemed very nice. This could have been because the sky had brightened and I didn’t have to worry about anything. In particular the beamed ceilings and attic spaces invited one irresistibly to dream, the sunlight coming through the quite small-paned windows doing little more than screen them in a delicate glow. And there was a smell of wood and hay and times past – with their coy remembrance of the scent of balsam, fading lilies and long-stored bedding. Next I explored the lofts and looked nosily into some chests that contained old weaving spools, then I set up a ladder and clambered up into the dormer window. And I saw birches and alders and ashes exposing their first yellowing leaves, steep, tree-clad hillsides, cottage roofs and the sky and clouds –
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Oh, how strange it was now in the daytime! Again the sun was shining bright, a golden sun, and it radiated warmth and smiled down as if time had suddenly turned back, as if summer had suddenly come back with its storms and flowers. It was all just so sad, so very sad! But unspeakably beautiful. Then to the side, through the branches of the birches, something glinted and I saw a cross set on the spike atop a slender spire. Surely the spire of a mortuary chapel. Then it felt as if I had escaped without permission from my coffin or grave and that now I was standing in the dormer like a ghost, looking out and not knowing how to get back or whether I wasn’t going to be chased off by a rook or the gravedigger’s dog. But now she was calling. She had made our lunch and so had a moment in which to show me round. We set off. With rising melancholy I took stock of the empty, fairly large stables with their stone troughs, outhouses containing rusting implements, a woodshed full of uncut timber, a threshing floor and a henhouse. I wanted to pat the goat, but it was so full of distrust that it jumped to one side without even bleating at me. Then she led me into the garden. I looked at the weed-infested flowerbeds, the crayfish-straggly trees, neglected shrubs and flowers past their best. And suddenly I spotted a rosebush. 100
Ukázka elektronické knihy, UID: KOS221928