An Ermine in Czernopol
“We very soon found out his name as well, because from then
on we saw him over and over, although the empty days in which we were denied
the joy of his sight often stretched out unbearably. Please don’t consider this
exaggerated and extravagant. I think that every childhood has such secret
passions, images in which we lose ourselves completely, with all our unbridled
emotion, whether we encounter them in a person, a landscape, a book, or some
object we may desire—and the chance of subsequent encounters lies outside our
power. Perhaps life uses these images as lessons—to help us realize that the
fulfillment of desire is not a matter of will, and to show us how much we are
at the mercy of fate—or whatever other truths might be derived from the sheer
power of incontrovertible truisms. In any case, back then we viewed our
encounters with the hussar as the fervently longed-for proof of our special understanding
with secret life powers, which, though it could only be established for a few moments,
nonetheless consistently reinforced our belief in a higher reality of life; and
the interludes between encounters, when our beautiful, courageous impatience
gradually fermented into patience, seemed designed to lead us to insights,
which, like all precocious knowledge, was filled with a sadness that shaped the
foundation of our souls forever.”
