Pushkin Press

he was not so much interested in the world as he was invaded by its many forms.

nd noted with increasing astonishment how little trustworthy information there was concerning this astounding exploit. As had happened to me several times before, I found that to tell the story to others would be the best way of explaining the inexplicable to myself. Such was the origin of my book, which, I can frankly say, has come into being to my own surprise. For, in recounting this odyssey

I beg you, do not tire of listening to me for a quarter of an hour, when I have never tired of loving you all my life.

Frits rolled a cigarette and ran through the luminescent scale of frequencies without finding anything to his liking.

Frits smiled and looked closely at the handsome, bronzed face with its deep-set, dark blue eyes. “Look for the brand when you buy toothpaste,” he thought. “Wandering?” he replied, “I’m not wandering. It’s bound to be a nasty business this evening, don’t you think, Wim?”

felt his eyes grow moist, seized the sheet between his teeth and fell asleep.

“A doctor once told me that they asked one of the loonies in the asylum: What are you going to do when you leave here? He says: Oh, maybe I’ll become an actor, I’ve always had a flair for that. Or else I’ll work for a newspaper, I did that too for a few years. But there’s always a chance that I’ll pick up my old calling; in actual fact, I’m a teapot.”

I breathed freely, purely, and full of sudden delight I felt the air on my lips like a clear drink. It was soft, effervescent air carrying on it the aroma of fruits, the scent of distant islands, and making me feel slightly drunk. Now, for the first time since I had set foot on the ship’s planks, I knew the blessed joy of reverie, and the other more sensual pleasure of abandoning my body, woman-like, to the softness surrounding me.

I haven’t spoken a word to anyone for ten days … well, not for years, really, and then it seems so difficult, perhaps because forcing it all back inside myself chokes me.

I can’t bear the company of human beings either because they laugh all day … I can’t endure that now, I hear it in my cabin and stop my ears against it.