The bedside table & co
On the eighth of October, nineteen-twelve, in a hotel room, 1 was leaning against this pillar when 1 was overcome by a feeling of unparalleled awareness so intense it inspired me to write what became my famous Requiem. |
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On the twenty-seventh of January, nineteen hundred and ten, in the Imperial Museum of Budapest, 1 just happened to be boking at my right hand, which was casually resting on this sockel, when 1 had the strange impression that it no longer belonged to me. |
On the seventh of February, nineteen twenty-one, as 1 was leaning on this window-sill, gazing out of the window at nothing in particular, 1 happened to notice, opposite me, a crow perched on the balcony fence. 1 then had the strange impression, undoubtedly because of the glass pane between us, of having my own likeness in front of me. Suddenly it turned its head to one side, as birds do in order to get a better look at those they are communicating with, and, in a kind of unconscious mimicry, 1 did exactly the same. The result was that 1 fell so abruptly onto the mirror hanging in the corner of the room that for a moment 1 felt that 1 was the one perched on the balcony, observed by myself. |
During the night of the fourth and fifth of May, nineteen thirtythree, 1 awoke with a start, panic-stricken at the thought of having suddenly been struck blind. 1 immediately switched on the bedside lamp but, in my hurry, banged my head so hard against this bedside table that 1 put the return of my vision down to the thump 1 had given myself. |
On the sixth of November, nineteen fifty-six, locked away in this wooden box, 1 fled from Budapest. But the smell given off by the sap which oozed from the still fresh planks brought back such memories of my childhood that 1 was overcome by an inconsolable homesickness |
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On the fifteenth of December, nineteen twenty-eight, at the end of a particularly lively discussion, 1 sat on this stool to think about nothing. |
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In an attempt to keep in check the vertigo of which 1 was a chronic sufferer, 1 forced myself to remain standing for as long as possible on this trapdoor, at the time used to gain access to the house cellars. |
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