Here sit I, creating mortals
After my own image,
A race similar to me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad,
And, as I,
not to look back upon you!
IVO ANDRIC
245
That was the first time I had seen him like that. I listened with awe
and a slight fear. Then we went outside and continued our conversation
about the poem in the warm dusk. Maks saw me to my steep street and
then I walked him to the river bank again, then back to the street, and
back again to the bank.
The night caught on and fewer people were around, but we never–
theless covered the same route, discussing the meaning of life and the
origins of gods and men. I remember one moment exceptionally well.
The first time we reached my homely street and stopped at some gray
wooden fences, Maks stretched out his left hand in a strange way and
said to me in a sort of warm, confidential voice: "You know, I'm an
atheist. "
A thick clump of elder was blooming above the tumbled-down fence,
spreading its strong, heavy scent which came to me as the scent of life
itself. The evening was solemn, all around us was quiet, and the dome
of heaven above me, full of stars, seemed new to me. I was so excited I
did not know what to say. I only felt that something important had hap–
pened between me and my older friend and that now we could not sim–
ply part and go to our separate homes. That is how we went on strolling
until late into the night.
Maks's graduation separated us. He left for Vienna to study medi–
cine. We wrote to each other for a short while but the letter writing
somehow petered out. We sometimes saw one another during breaks,
but without the former closeness. And then came the war, separating us
completely.
And now, after several years, we met, again, at this ugly and boring
station. We had traveled from Sarajevo to Slavonski Brod on the same
train, but did not know it and we saw one another only then on the plat–
form waiting for the uncertain arrival of the Belgrade train.
In a few words we told one another how we spent the war years. He
graduated in the first year of the war, and went as a doctor to all the
Austrian fronts, always serving in Bosnian regiments. During the war
his father died of typhus fever and his mother left Sarajevo and moved
