given the old heave-ho! That you’ve had your chance! You yourself know in advance that it would be better to leave and let that first floor be. Leave and let it go its own way. Ah, but no. You’re too much the hotshot for that. It’s that all too forgiving nature of yours, which relishes doom and destruction! But that’s the great and good thing about your heart! And you’re canny enough never to blame yourself for not having done everything that could have been done. But that little face couldn’t care less. The only snag is that it leaves you being swept off to the great hearts of the stars, where tears are just tiny droplets of light and sorrow nothing but an airless space! Which is why it’s also better for you to play the buffoon to the end and take a look at love’s little corpse, so base and corrupt. Your tearless weeping and sorrow give you that right. So you’re padding along beneath the tingling maples again, you turn, hesitate, but you’re on a tight leash. If there’d been a snowfall, you’d be startled at the number of footprints you’ve been making just on account of her having said: “Come!” Just because you’ve taken it into your head to show her your crumpled face and to ask How are you and What have you been up to. Isn’t that right? And just as you raised your hand to ring the bell, you saw a woman in black with a dog on a lead turn towards the house. And after you hid in the cypress right next to the door, the lady actually had one foot on the scraper and was carefully cleaning her shoes. And having switched her handbag from left hand to right, she rang the bell. And then things started going like clockwork. Just as I’m seeing it now 98
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in this crystal ball. A light’s gone on upstairs. Then briefly nothing. And now there’s the glinting fold of a dressing gown and a patent leather carpet slipper. Isn’t that right? And a hand leads a rhythmical, well-kept body down by the banister. And a beautiful and imperious head comes rolling down towards the door. A head beautiful and perfect, truly suited to kissing, or to bashing with an axe for the sake of peace, so there’ll be peace and quiet for evermore. The not unexpected opening of the door, and hands go up as in a psychic trance and impeccably reach out to the lady. Those hands! Then some chitchat that matters not in the slightest and the bang of the door closing. And the dog runs up the stairs first. Then the well-bred hostess and finally the lady in black. The stairs abandoned and innocent, then nothing but darkness and silence. I, an old horoscopist with a green parrot, am prophesying that your marriage will be happy, because you have learned how to appreciate each other and because you’ll have put this cruel life behind you. But there will be unpleasantnesses, chiefly owing to relatives. Now you have to go back onto the pavement and remain in the dark, the better to watch the window. Again you must while away the moments of sadness by watching how the shadows of passersby pass from the tips of their shoes to their heels and vice versa. Again, some will recognise you and reach for their hats as if meaning to tear their hair out over lord knows what crimes! But this is a moment of repose, this watching the street in the dark, and so time isn’t such a total blank. 99
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100
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