A NEW YEAR'S FABLE
265
the man who will come ... I have wasted so much time! Why
did
I
allow myself to play games with you as if
I
were only
seventeen!
If
you want me to,
I
shall say that word you wanted
to hear. Yes! Yes! Do you hear?
Cry
out that you hear me!"
"I
hear,"
I
whispered.
I
could no longer fight against the
current. The twig was racing towards the waterfall. "Which
me
do you love best,"
I
asked, "the one who was murdered
or the one beside you here?"
"The one here!"
I
was loved.
I
saw the eyes.
I
had only to turn my head
slightly to the right to meet two stars glistening with tears. Now
I
occupied the place of the departed bandit. The days of my
youth had now been transformed into an early maturity.
The doctor's diagnosis proved correct: five or six months
after consulting him
I
began to feel ill.
In
the middle of a bright
summer
I
took to bed.
Apologetically
I
told my gentle, distraught, love:
"Do you know, my dear,
I
find it hard to walk. You'll
have to take over today, for
I
shall stay in bed. Turn on the
radio."
She turned it on. At once we could hear a loud howling,
and through the roar of magnetic storms the fading voice of
our dark continent. They were working out there, mining coal
or growing cabbage under artificial light!
"We must act more energetically,"
I
said. "We must
hurry."
The bubbling rivulets ran ever faster through the glass
tubes and the flames flared brighter.
In
rainy September, we completed our work on one of the
installations. I was in bed, feeling so weak I could hardly raise
my head.
"Open the first copper container," I said.
She opened it.
