Tuesday 1 July 2008

italo calvino

I would like to swim against the stream of time:
I would like to erase the consequences of certain events
and restore an initial condition.
But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts
and each of these new facts brings with it its consequences;
so the more I seek to return to the zero moment from which I set out,
the further I move away from it;
though all my actions are bent on erasing the consequences of previous actions
and though I manage to achieve appreciable results in this erasure,
enough to open my heart to hopes of immediate relief,
I must,
however,
bear in mind that my every move to erase previous events
provokes a rain of new events,
which complicate the situation worse than before
and which I will then,
in their turn,
have to try to erase.
Therefore
I must calculate carefully every move
so as to achieve
the maximum of erasure
with the minimum of recomplication.


from if on a winter's night a traveler

3 comments:

Roxana said...

oh yes. yes yes yes. I don't know what else to say :-)

Marta said...

But this is a miracle! i was reading this to my daughter just last night!

swiss said...

your daughter! cool! she'll grow up very well adjusted if you're exposing her to this. it's a real shame but i used to be in touch with someone on msn groups who actually knew calvino but have long since lost touch