From Afar

How good that you didn’t come. The air of the city is not good just as if they had filled a huge bubble with steam and crammed the lanes and houses of the city inside it the buzzing of a fly circling on the windowpane the sound of the metal comb striking the weft on the loom ruins the chance for loving thoughts ruins it, ruins it. How good that you didn’t come, what use would it be! All day long, from the shame of tormenting you I would turn blue and red and yellow and like a dazed fool only one or two phrases, “Aren’t you hungry?” “Aren’t you thirsty?” would reach your ear from my stammering tongue, oh! And you would put the boredom of being beside a sullen, bitter woman - just like a pebble in the bread - down to the icy joke of the times. How good that you didn’t come! But the strange thing is that I all through the day with no respite inside this bubble have been looking at you and some near-poetic phrases - after finishing your book - I have written for you. To put it precisely, I have been with you and the ceiling of this bubble - with you - with you I have split open how good it was how good it was...