Here we only, she says, have sun once a month, and just for a short time. We rub our eyes days in advance. But it’s no use. Inexorable weather. Sunlight only arrives on time.
Then we have a world of things to do, as long as there’s light, so much there’s scarcely time to look at each other a little.
Trouble for us is we have to work at night, and we really have to: dwarves are born constantly.
II
When you walk in the country, she confides to him further, you may happen to run into some considerable masses in the road. These are mountains and sooner or later you have to kneel down to them. It doesn’t do any good to resist, you couldn’t go any further, even if you did yourself harm.
I don’t say this to be hurtful. I could says other things if I really wanted to be hurtful.
III
Dawn is gray here, she says to him further. It wasn’t always like this. We don’t know whom to accuse.
At night, the cattle’s loud bellows grow long and flute-like at the end. We have compassion, but what can be done?
The odor of eucalyptus surrounds us: a blessing, serenity, but it can’t protect us from everything; or else do you think it really can protect us from everything.
IV
I’m adding another word to you, a question rather.
Does water flow in your country too? (I don’t remember if you’ve told me) and it gives the chills, if it’s the real thing.
Am I fond of it? I don’t know. One feels so alone inside when it’s cold. It’s altogether different when it’s warm. So? How do I decide? How do you others decide, tell me, when you talk about it with no disguises, with open hearts?
V
I am writing to you from the end of the world. You have to realize this. The trees often tremble. We gather the leaves. They’ve got an insane number of veins. But what’s the use? Nothing more between them and the tree, and we scatter, embarrassed.
Couldn’t life on earth continue without wind? Or does everything always have to tremble, always?
There are subterranean disturbances too, and in the house as well, like rages that come right up to you, like severe beings who want to wring out confessions.
We see nothing, only things it doesn’t matter to see. Nothing, and nonetheless we tremble. Why?
VI
Here we all live with lumps in our throats. Do you realize that, although I’m very young, in the past I was even younger, and my companions likewise. What does that mean? Surely there’s something horrible in that.
And in the past when, as I’ve already told you, we were even younger, we were afraid. Someone might have profited from our confusion. Someone might have told us:
“Look, we’re going to bury you. The time has come.” We thought: “It’s true, we could very well be buried this evening, if it’s been established that it’s time.”
And we didn’t dare run too much: Out of breath, at the end of a race, coming right up to a ditch, and no time to say a word, not a breath.
Tell me, what’s the secret in this connection?
"I'm Writing to You from a Far-Off Country", 2