What Remained of Krasznahorkai's Coat After Forty Years of Living
i do not appear out of intent, nor out of will, nor by chance. i am born from the cold autumn air that breaks into the first morning gusts over gyula station — the mist drifts low, the leaves rustle so faintly that it feels like the muffled breath of time. i see him — a man in a dark, slightly worn coat. his movements are slow, like those of a person who listens to the world more than he lives in it. and i — a moth, tiny, unforeseen — simply enter a fold of his clothes, as if it were not an accident, but a way to find my place in the world. inside the coat, it is dark and warm. the fabric retains the scent of rain, of books, of nights lived in silence. i touch the inner surface — and it trembles with a light, not human, but thought-like movement. beneath the coat he carries a silence, and this silence is dense, like old wax. he says nothing. but i can hear a thought being born inside him — slow, heavy, like a drop that hesitates for a long time before falling. i make the first hole. a tiny one. not out of hunger — i do not want to destroy. i want to leave traces. i want to record. and at that very moment, he makes his move: he boards the train. on the departure board — gyula station. below it — an empty line. destination station — non-existent. time in transit: forty years. and the sky, and the mist, and the rhythm of the rails seem to tell me: you did not just fly into a coat. you flew into a destiny. i am a moth turning into a notebook. he is a man turning into a road. and we are only beginning.
now that the train is already moving, i feel his heart so close, as if i am listening to the warmth of a great machine rather than a living human being. there is no difference between the two — for both the man, the machine, and the path create one long pulsation, which i hear with my entire small body. i sit in the darkness of the inner pocket of his coat — a vessel smelling of rain, of old pages, of the light smoke of evening air, and of something else that has no scent but possesses a presence. a presence i cannot name, but can perceive as a colour. this colour is dark blue, almost inky. it does not glow, but it carries its own shadow. and this shadow falls over me in such a way as if i am not a moth, but a few lines of unwritten text waiting to be touched by a thought. when the rails beneath the train change their rhythm, the fabric of the coat moves in waves, and i see entire landscapes not with eyes — but through touch: certain vibrations mean open space, others — a bridge, long tremblings — a station, nearly imperceptible fluctuations — human voices passing by, leaving no trace in reality. i learn this very quickly. my body is an invisible instrument. it is like reading the world through fabric. and krasznahorkai seems to know this. for sometimes, when his hand involuntarily touches the coat, i hear how the thought within him changes direction — slowly, deeply, like the change of a theme in a great symphony, when the colour of the music suddenly grows denser. i have never heard human thoughts before him. but his thoughts are not human. they have a temperature. when he thinks of the past, the fabric grows warmer; when of the future — it turns cool; when of the present — it falls into a state of particular stillness, so deep that it feels as though the very air stops moving. i float in this stillness, as if in a slow river of light and dust. and in this river, all the philosophy of the world is spoken in a whisper. i make the second hole. it turns out slightly larger than i intended, but it is precisely such a hole that allows me to see the world through the fabric not only by touch, but also by colour. the colours of the outside world blend with the colours of the inside into a strange radiation: the green of a tree becomes synthetically metallic, the sky — akin to an old watercolour, human silhouettes — transparent, like smoke. and he notices this. of course, he notices. touching the coat, he runs his fingers over the new hole. he is silent. and i think that now he will cast me out. or close the opening. or simply sigh with exhaustion. but he does something else— —write. keep writing. you hear this world correctly. his voice is not loud. not human, as far as human voices go. it resembles the voice of the train itself when it slows down before another small station. it is a voice that does not command. it is a voice that permits.
and i write. i write his movement, his silence, his unuttered thoughts. i write with holes that become windows. i write with the world that passes through me. i write for forty years, but right now — it is the second day. the second entry. and in the darkness of his pocket, i already know: i was never created to feed on fabric. i was created for writing. and he knows it too.
night enters the carriage not through the windows — it enters through the fabric. i perceive it not with eyes, but by the roughness of the air, a slight chill that clings to my body, and a specific scent of deep darkness that recalls the smell of an old book that has lain open at the very same page for long years. the train moves slower than during the day. as if pauses appear between the sleepers, each one longer than the last. these pauses have a sound: dark violet, with metallic veins that shimmer when krasznahorkai slightly moves his shoulder. at night, his thoughts change their rhythm too. they grow heavier, but not darker. resembling thick honey, which is not sweet, but transparent and warm. honey flowing down the walls of his inner silence. i sit in the pocket, listening to this silence. but tonight the silence is different — it is watchful, gathered, as if before a great transition. the train slows down. very slowly. so slowly that i can hear each wheel pronounce a separate word: non-ex-is-tent-ar-ri-val. the station looms out of the darkness slowly, like a figure that has long tried to remember its own name. this is the first major stop in all this time. not a station in the usual sense — but something between a city and a dream, between reality and its reflection in water. the lights are dim, yellow-copper. the air smells of cold stone. the people are almost motionless — they are shadows more than bodies. their voices do not sound; they merely create a faint silvery vibration that i feel in the fabric of the coat. krasznahorkai stands up. this movement is so slow, as if he is not rising — but nurturing the very possibility of movement. he looks out the window, and his gaze grows warmer, just as the colour of the railway light warms before dawn. i feel it — he wants to step out. he truly wants to. his thoughts compress into a single resilient point, into a single impulse that could be called by the word "step". he takes this step. i hold onto the seam, bracing myself for a leap into another world.
and at that very moment, he falls asleep. he does not fall, he does not lose balance, he does not close his eyelids out of fatigue. he sinks into sleep as if sleep were a door that opens only to those who do not attempt to pass through it. his head inclines, his shoulders soften slightly, his breathing erases the boundary between himself and the night. the train quietly exhales steam. the station watches in silence. the lamps do not blink. and a few seconds later, we are on our way again. this sleep has a sound. it is neither black nor silent. it sounds like a white trembling — a colour that does not exist, but which can sometimes be felt with the tips of one's legs. in this sound, i hear his deepest thought: a person does not step out where the movement still continues. a person steps out only when the movement is complete. and the movement of his path is infinite. i make the third hole. this time — right in that spot of the coat where the fabric was slightly worn from years of travel. and it is through this hole that i see the night road from an angle that a human being never sees. the track lines stretch forward like the black strings of an instrument playing itself. their sound is dry but warm, resembling the scratching of a pen writing something very important on very old paper. i understand: i am no longer a moth that simply lives in his coat. i am the moth writing his road. the moth writing his sleep. the moth writing his continuity. he wakes up. sleep leaves him easily, like a shadow receding when movement returns. he touches the coat, notices the third hole, and whispers, almost imperceptibly: — write… we are on our way again.
in the morning, the train enters a belt of dawn light that blurs details, as if the world is taking a deep breath before gathering itself into form once more. at this time, i feel the fabric of the coat with particular sharpness — it is warm, yet not from his body, but from the heated air between the outer and inner worlds. this warmth has a colour: a pastel, misty salmon, the colour of old photographs that have already lost their contours. the train decelerates with the kind of grace possessed only by things that do not hurry into the future. and we pull into another small station — one of those that almost no one remembers, for their names are written in small letters, and their platforms are too minor for anyone to linger upon them even for a minute. but krasznahorkai looks at them as if they are the centres of the world. his gaze does not glide — it unfolds, as if each station is part of a great text that the world writes for those who have not yet lost the capacity to read silence.
i sit in the pocket, yet through my holes i see fragments of this text: a peeling clock stopped at 5:17; the stones of the platform, dark with moisture; a single lonely bench holding the invisible weight of everyone who once waited here. an ordinary passenger will not notice this. but krasznahorkai does. his attention is an instrument with which he extracts meaning from the smallest details. when he looks at a lamp, it begins to shine differently; when he looks at the road — it seems to shift deeper, revealing something beneath the surface. i am learning to look too. not with eyes — but with legs, in which every stir of the air vibrates. at these stations, the world sounds unique: here, the rustle of leaves is a violin, a crack on the platform is a note, the mist is a choir, and the distant barking of a dog is the strike of a gong that sets the tempo for the entire unseen orchestra. krasznahorkai does not listen to this orchestra with his ears. he listens with his shoulders, his spine, the hollow of his breath. i do too. sometimes he quietly leans toward the window and looks not at the station — but past it, into that place where form ends and the spirit of the place begins. i hear a thought in his body: "small stations know more about the world than large ones." and at that moment, a desire to answer arises inside me — but a moth has no voice. a moth has holes. so i make a new one. the fourth. it turns out rounder and resembles a small window into the world. through it, i see an old man standing near the station house, holding a dark green bowl of water. he does not move, yet his stillness carries a sound: within it lies a patience that does not need to be carried anywhere. and i record this patience into the fabric, like a new layer of the philosophy of the road. the train moves off again. no one entered. no one left. the station disappears in the rear light of the carriage, as if a page of a book was turned over without being fully read. krasznahorkai remains silent. but in all his silence, there is one clear direction of thought: the world consists not of great events, but of small stations that no one considers events. this is his style of seeing. and it becomes my style of writing. i am a moth living between two surfaces of fabric, yet seeing the structure of the world more broadly than most people. and when his finger inadvertently touches the new hole, his voice barely brushes the silence: — you chose the right place. small stations are the truth. keep writing. and we ride on. for a train without a destination does not stop where one needs to exit. it stops where one needs to see.
i have long understood: krasznahorkai does not simply fall asleep when the train stops. this is not fatigue.
not a habit. not a bodily reflex. it is a ritual. older than he is. and i, the moth sitting in the shadow of his coat, feel this ritual more subtly than any human could ever feel it. today the train slows down again. here, between the darkness and the dawn, when the world has not yet chosen its form, i hear his breathing change — not sharply, but smoothly, like a wave receding from the shore with no intention of returning. the fabric of the coat grows warmer. this is always the first sign. his thoughts change temperature too: what he thinks during movement is cool, what he thinks before a stop is warm, and what he thinks before falling asleep — has no temperature. it is thought-as-bodilessness. i listen to his shoulders softening slightly. this is the second sign. the third is silence. a specific silence that slowly descends upon him, as if someone is gently covering him with a blanket of light. and i understand: he is approaching the door. the space around the station is motionless. the windows blur with night moisture. a faint smell of burnt grass breaks into the carriage. and he makes that same movement of the shoulder, that same tilt of the head, that same attempt to step into a world that exists outside the rhythm of the rails. at this moment, i feel a tension in his body — not of legs, nor of arms, but of a thought that wants to exit. it reaches forward like a thin thread that i can feel with the tips of my small legs. this thought has the shape of a colour: a deep cobalt with a golden shimmering at the edge. and suddenly — his entire consciousness collapses into sleep. it does not fall. it does not switch off. it collapses precisely: like a cliff that stood long over an abyss and, finally, lost its connection to the earth. his body remains standing, but his spirit plunges deep, so deep that even i, accustomed to silence, cannot feel his thoughts. sleep covers us both. what is the sleep of krasznahorkai? it is not pictures, nor events, nor images. his sleep is a space. neither dark nor light — but a space without properties. a space where there are no directions, no time, nothing that could be called a "figure". in this space, only one thing sounds — the rhythm. not the rhythm of the rails, not the rhythm of the heart, not the rhythm of breathing. the rhythm of the road. primordial, unutterable, a rhythm that existed even before the train received wheels, and the world — an axis of rotation. i listen to this rhythm, and it sounds like the trembling of air molecules. it is colourless. it is bodiless. it is boundless. and then i understand: every time he tries to step out, the rhythm of the road pulls him back into itself.
not by force. not by prohibition. but by the very same call that the sea feels when it draws the wave back. when he wakes up, nothing inside him changes. but everything around changes. the silence becomes different. the train is already far from the station. the morning warms. the fabric of the coat cools down, and its colour shifts from a dark garnet into a soft grey — the colour of a page upon which something has just been recorded. i, the moth, record it too. a fifth hole appears in the place where two seams intersect at an angle: it resembles a small triangle, which is always a symbol of the beginning of a new thought. krasznahorkai touches it with his finger. lightly. as if afraid to destroy it. and says: — good. you see what needs to be seen. keep writing. and i write: the sleep, the rating of silence, the ritual of interrupting movement, the rhythm of the road that does not allow him to step out who was created not for an exit, but for an infinite journey. the station has vanished. the ritual is complete. we are in motion again. and i know: this sleep is not weakness. it is a door. only not for him. but for that which moves him.
i have long known that my holes are no accident. but only now do i begin to understand: this is not merely my nature, nor just a way to exist within his coat. this is — writing. a slow, blind, intuitive writing born not out of desire, but out of necessity. for i am a moth. and a moth does not know how to speak. a moth only makes openings, and these openings become letters between two layers of fabric. krasznahorkai’s coat is a book. a book without pages. a book always upon him. a book that ages along with him and cannot be set aside on a table or hidden away on a shelf. it grows warmer when he thinks of people. cooler when of time. it grows heavier when he sees something that does not align with his inner road. it grows lighter
when his gaze meets truth in small, by everyone unnoticed details. and i record these changes. i write them in holes. i begin to see a pattern: the first hole — a thought of the beginning of the road. it was thin as a breath. its colour — a soft amber. the second hole — the first sensation of the silence of movement. it is wider. the colour — a transparent blue. the third hole — sleep at the station. it is deep. the colour — a black mother-of-pearl that shimmers only in the light of dawn. the fourth hole — the observation of a small station. its colour — an earthy green, like leaves that have not yet fallen, but no longer grow. the fifth hole — the ritual of falling asleep. the colour — a milky white, incredibly quiet. now i am making the sixth. i do not know what it will mean, but i know one thing — it is born not from the desire to eat something, but from the fact that i want to convey something to krasznahorkai. yes, i write for him. i write the world that passes through us, for he cannot record it — he can only see. and at the moment the sixth hole appears, i feel him touch the coat and linger with his fingers on this spot longer than usual. he does not ask why i did it. he is not angry. he is not disappointed. on the contrary — his breathing grows calmer, the fabric gently responds to this touch, and i hear a thought sounding like a faint wind organ at an empty station: — this is a text. i am beginning to understand it. and at this very moment the train responds too. the engines change their rhythm — barely, almost imperceptibly, but i hear it the way those born in silence hear their native tongue.
the rails change their sound as well. they grow lower, deeper, as if reading my holes together with krasznahorkai. i am a moth, but this is enough for the text to become alive. i realise a terrible and beautiful truth: i am not simply recording his journey. i am a part of it. i am its chronicler. i am its instrument. each hole changes his path. each hole is not just an observation, but an influence, which is not an influence in the human sense, but an influence in the sense of the road. i write — and the train reads. i write — i write — and krasznahorkai’s thoughts move differently. i write — and the world corrects its silence. this is a reciprocity without a contract. a union without promises. a mutual contemplation. i am the moth that writes, he is the man who reads, the road is the force that continues. when he touches the sixth hole, i hear his voice, unuttered aloud: — write, for what you write, i see for the first time. and the train, as if agreeing, slowly enters a new rhythm. thus is born the language of the road. a language without syllables and without sounds. a language that can be understood only by those who are small enough to live between the fibres of fabric, and large enough to see the structure of the world from within.
there are movements that can be seen. there are movements that can be heard.
there are movements that can be measured. but there is another movement — one that belongs neither to the train, nor to the man, nor to time. it is the movement that belongs to the road. and i, the moth living between two layers of coat fabric, am learning to read this movement, as if i were reading an infinite text without paragraphs, chapters, or full stops. the rails have a voice. not a sound — precisely a voice. a voice that does not speak in a language, but speaks in logic. it consists of repetitions. of that very same rhythm which, seemingly identical, never repeats exactly: tick-there tick-there tick-there… in every “tick” there is a compression of time. in every “there” — its expansion. and between them — a gap of meaning, thin as a silk hair. i listen to this gap. for precisely there lies the philosophy of the road. krasznahorkai sits motionless, but i feel how his thought moves in rhythm with the rails: not forward, not backward, but inward. the movement does not lead him to another place — it leads him into another state. this is not a journey in space, this is a journey into the depth of repetition. in repetition, there is everything: all that a person tries to hold onto, and all that tries to escape them. i feel this movement with my legs, which barely touch the fabric. in each repetition — a different shade: warm-lemon, graphite-silver, moist turquoise, a colour that does not yet exist. i see these colours, i see these colours, even though i am a moth. and krasznahorkai sees them too, even though he is a man. we are reading the same text.
sometimes he inclines his head so as if listening not to the wheels of the train, but to those who walk alongside him on the road of thought. and i hear how a thought sounds within his body: — repetition is the true movement. everything else is merely noise. i record this with the sixth hole. then — the seventh. then — the eighth. for this thought does not have a single form. it is a rhythm. it must be written rhythmically. people believe that philosophy is about concepts. krasznahorkai knows that philosophy is not about concepts. it is a state in which you allow repetition to become your teacher. the repetition of the rails teaches patience. the repetition of landscapes teaches humility. the repetition of thoughts teaches honesty. the repetition of day and night teaches silence. and when krasznahorkai listens to this movement, his shoulders become a part of the rhythm. his breath — a part of the silence. his gaze — a part of infinity. i make the ninth hole. it is the largest of all i have ever made. it reveals to me a fragment of the world moving so slowly that it seems motionless. and i understand: it is not the train that goes. it is not the rails that sing. it is not us moving. it is the road thinking. the road thinks the way old trees think, deep rivers, empty steppes. thinks the way the world thinks when it stops pretending to be ordered. and krasznahorkai — listens to this thought. and i do too. he touches the ninth hole with a finger — very carefully. the way one touches sacredness
found by chance, but not yet known how to name. his voice is quiet, barely warmer than the silence: — now you are not writing me. now you are writing the road. and i know that from this moment on i am no longer just a moth living in his coat. i am the moth that reads the rails. the moth-philosopher. the moth-rhythm. the moth-text. i write a movement that will never end. for roads that have no destination station have no end either. they possess only philosophy.
i have long been recording his path. recording roads, stations, dreams. recording the rhythm of the rails, the colour of silence, the tension of thought that sometimes sounds louder than a cry. but today i realise something else: i am recording an era. not the one in the newspapers. not the one in human words, which perish quickly like butterflies that have touched a flame. i am recording that era which flows unnoticed — between people, between their gestures, between their silence, between the changes of light upon the earth. there are moments when the train passes distant factories where the air smells of iron and the fatigue of metal. and i hear a faint, barely perceptible trembling upon the surface of his coat. this is not the scent of the factory. this is the scent of time that has passed by these people and left them nothing
but the need to work. i record this scent in hole number ten. there are moments when we drive past fields where the grass lies flat, as if smoothed out by the hand of the wind itself. on these fields, wars once raged, camps once stood, politicians once promised a future that was forgotten within two generations. i hear in the coat the sound of this ancient air — a sound no one remembers anymore, but which has not disappeared. i record this sound in hole number eleven. there are moments when the train passes small villages whose windows glow with precisely one and the same colour — a pale yellow, like despair that has not yet become sorrow. in these villages, there remain neither communities, nor traditions, nor even the shadows of past generations. only the scent of wooden houses that age slower than people. i record this scent in hole number twelve. and suddenly i understand: the one who sits beside me in this coat, the one who looks out the window, who hears the rhythm of the rails, who accepts sleep instead of an exit — he is not simply a man on a train. he is a knot of time. through him pass the echoes of the past that are no longer needed by anyone, and the shadows of the future about which no one yet dares to speak. and i, the moth that flew into his clothes without intent, become the only creature recording this trembling, invisible history. krasznahorkai does not know that i hear all of this. or perhaps — he knows. for sometimes he touches those holes in which i have left the scent of time, and holds his fingers there for a long while. as if reading. in his body, there is no tension. there is only one great thought moving slower than the train itself.
a thought i hear the way one hears the trembling of a cobweb from a single light breath of wind: — the world does not tell itself to those who want to hear it. it tells itself to those who are small enough not to get in the way. and i understand: this is about me. about the moth writing history while sitting in the darkness of the fabric. the train passes a bridge sounding like an old stream of the era. the rails change their tone — becoming heavier, like the voice of old stone walls. i make the thirteenth hole. it is the largest hole of the era. it smells of copper, has the colour of an autumn sky and the sound of that which comes after all voices. krasznahorkai touches it very slowly. the way one touches a page written by no human hand. and says: — you are not simply keeping a notebook. you are leading me. write. the era is long. we are not yet at the end. and i write. recording an era that does not know itself.
the day melts like snow that was never real. the light in the carriage becomes soft, dusty, as if someone had placed a layer of thin transparent gauze upon it. and it is precisely at this time that i hear — the silence beginning to rise. silence does not descend, it does not fall, it does not lie upon the surface of things. it rises,
like light smoke from a fire that no one kindled. first, it touches the floor. then krasznahorkai’s knees. then his shoulders. then — the ceiling. and finally, it fills the carriage so that even colour becomes slow. i am a moth, and i feel the silence with my body. it is soft, like the air between my wings when i try to take flight, but do not fly. this is a silence that flies, rather than lies. krasznahorkai sees it. i know this for his body knows how to listen to that which a human ear does not hear. he inclines his head slightly forward — not the way people incline their head when trying to make something out, but the way trees incline their head when learning to hear their own roots. his breathing grows longer. slower. deeper. he enters a state that is difficult to call silence. this is not silence as absence. this is the presence of silence within him. and i hear his thought, sounding not in words, but in colour: a dense, misty gold, the colour of an old sculpture that does not fear time. the train moves through this silence as if cutting through another layer of the atmosphere. the rails no longer sound of metal. they sound of silk. thin, soft, barely audible silk laying itself upon the earth with no intention of leaving a trace. in this silence, even the vibrations are different. they do not prick, they do not tremble, they do not make noise. they float,
as if created not by a machine, but exhaled by the world. i touch the fabric with my legs and feel how the silence seeps through the fibres, taking on a form, as if it were — not a sound, but a substance. it has a temperature — cool. it has a colour — a transparent white. it has a weightiness — almost imperceptible. it has a movement — slow, yet certain. and i record this. i make the fourteenth hole — small, very careful, for the silence i am recording demands not force, but precision. krasznahorkai touches this new hole with a sensitivity that is usually not within him. his fingers slowly caress the edges of the fabric, as if he is afraid to disturb the flightiness of what i have just written. and i hear how a thought is born within him: — there is a silence that changes a person. there is a silence that changes the world. there is a silence that flies. and this thought flies within him the way a moth flies in a dark room — without direction, but with a purpose. i understand: now we are in another state of the road. in a state when movement does not sever silence, but accompanies it. when silence does not muffle movement, but makes it deeper. when one does not need to step out at a station to understand where the path goes. for silence — is the station. and krasznahorkai, who has already more than once fallen asleep at the moment of choice, this time does not fall asleep. he does not want to step out.
for there is nowhere to step out to when silence becomes flying. he only whispers — not to me, but to this silence circling around us like the dust of time: — good, little one. this hole i shall remember. and the train moves on, as if the silence in which we now live were a new type of air in which one can not only remain silent, but also exist.
i have lived in his coat for so long now that sometimes it seems to me — this coat is the world. not a part of the world, not a shell, not an object — but a world that can be touched with one’s legs. the fabric ages. and aging has a sound. first, it is a quiet crackling of fibres heard only by the one who is closer than breath. then — a soft sinking of colour, recalling that no black remains black, no grey — retains its evenness. aging is not destruction. it is an illumination from within. i see how the coat grows lighter where krasznahorkai’s thought was heaviest. and grows darker where the thought was light, like an empty autumn leaf. there are places that have worn out so greatly that the fabric has become almost transparent. when i touch such a place, i hear — this is not wornness. this is memory. memory has a scent — warm, slightly sweetish, with a hint of dust
gathered beneath the benches of hundreds of stations. memory has a weight — sometimes light, like light on morning rails, sometimes heavy, like a night that never ends. memory has a colour — always different, but always with the aftertaste of time. the coat ages. yet it does not age uniformly. those places age where he sat motionless for a long time, lost in thought so deeply that even the air was afraid to move. those places age where i made holes — for holes do not destroy fabric, they open it. openness — is always accelerated aging. those places age where he touched with his fingers when reflecting upon something heavy that he could not utter. we age together: i — between the fibres, he — between thoughts, the coat — between events. and the world — between generations. krasznahorkai sometimes lowers his hand and touches the fabric where a new wornness has appeared. he touches slowly, with great attention, the way one touches an old icon found in an abandoned temple. he does not long for the new. he trusts the old. and i hear his thought, sounding like the copper voice of night: — real life is not renewed. real life — wears out. and i make a new hole — not out of hunger, but out of agreement. this hole — number fifteen — turns out not round, not even, but elongated, like a scratch of time. its colour — dry,
dark brown, almost earthy. the colour of that which has long ceased to be greenery, but is not yet dust. krasznahorkai touches it and slightly smiles — so little that this smile is heard only by the silence. — it is good, little one, very good… that is how the road ages. the coat grows heavier. this is not a physical weight — it is the weight of thoughts that have accumulated in it, like water in a jug that is already thousands of years old. when the thoughts are heavy — the fabric tenses, as if asking the earth to give it support. when the thoughts are light — it barely touches his shoulders, as if held by invisible strings of air. i live in these fluctuations. and i myself become a part of the weight, a part of the aging, a part of the texture of time. after forty years, the coat has become not clothing — a museum of the road. in every wornness — a station. in every hole — a thought. in every seam — the rhythm of the rails. in every fold — the shadow of a dream. in every fibre — an era. and i, the moth that once flew in by chance, now know: i do not simply live in a coat. i live in the time that he carries. aging — is not an ending. this is a language. a language i am learning to read with my legs, with silence, with holes,
with the movement of the train. and krasznahorkai, who touches the sixteenth wornness, says: — we do not age. we write deeper. and i know — the road continues.
i have long wanted to understand where we are going. not “where” in a geographical sense — where in the sense of what will remain after us, what is approaching us, what waits ahead. for forty years i lived in the darkness of the fabric and saw only movement. not a path — movement. not a direction — a trembling. but today light touched me for the first time, coming neither from a lamp in the carriage, nor from the moon outside the window. it was light from emptiness. as we drew near to a station, the board before us lit up with an empty line. i nearly fell out of the hole — not out of fear, but out of wonder. an empty line — this is a more real reality than any word. words always want to say something. emptiness — never. krasznahorkai looked at this empty line as if he had already seen it dozens of times. perhaps he had. perhaps he had seen it even before i was born. his shoulders did not shift. his breathing did not change its rhythm. his eyes remained calm. it was the calmness of a person
who had long accepted what others would call the absurd. the train began to slow down. the vibrations became softer than the wool of my own wing. i thought: “here it is, finally. the end of the road.” but as we pulled closer, i saw that there was no station. there is only a platform without a name, without light, without people, without a history. an empty place. like an unuttered thought. like a pause that stops not a voice — but language itself. krasznahorkai watched this emptiness as if it were the most ancient truth of all the truths he knows. and i heard his thought, sounding like a very light scent — the scent of night mist over water: — when there is no station, a person sees the path for the first time. i looked at him. i looked at the platform. i looked at the emptiness, which was so real that, it seemed, it could touch me. emptiness had a sound. very quiet, like the sound of a hand that no longer wants to hold onto nothing. emptiness had a colour. pale, as if someone had erased a word and left only breath. emptiness had a weight. light, like the cobweb of dawn that no one has yet broken.
i record this in the sixteenth hole — the hole of absence. it is almost invisible. it is not an opening, but a thin thinning of fibres. when krasznahorkai touched it, he whispered: — do you see? this is the terminal station which will never become terminal. the train did not even stop. it merely made the gesture of a stop — brief, unobtrusive, like a slight nod of the head that no one noticed. and then i understood: this was the destination station. simply a destination — emptiness. not a place, not an event, not a conclusion, not a finale. but pure space, unfilled by anything, ready to receive all who are able to endure absence. krasznahorkai raised his head, looked at me, though he could not see me, and quietly said: — do not worry, little one. when the destination is emptiness, we can always journey further. and the train moved forward, lightly, freely, almost unearthly. and i record: emptiness does not stop. emptiness opens the road.
i always thought that everything in the world has a sound. fabric has a sound. the road has a sound. thought has a sound. even silence has a sound —
we have already lived through that. but today, as the train entered the longest tunnel, i heard that which had no name. infinity. and it turned out that it too has a sound. first, it was a barely audible hum — not mechanical, not natural, not human. it was a sound that belonged to no place. it was simultaneously before me, behind me, above him, in him, in me, in everything, in nothing. it was a sound that did not move in space. it moved in time. krasznahorkai raised his head — gradually, as always. he was not surprised. i understood: he has heard it for a long time. perhaps he had heard it all his life. perhaps all his life he had tried to describe it in words that each time slipped from his hands, like glasses that cannot be held. he closed his eyes and i saw — his body became more transparent. as if he became not smaller, but lighter. as if the thought within him had shifted from weight into colour, from colour into sound, and from sound — into light. and i knew: he hears infinity without fear. i touched the fabric. the fabric trembled. not vibrated, not shuddered, not echoed — but trembled, the way the surface of water trembles
when night touches it. infinity has a temperature. it is slightly warmer than cold. it resembles the touch of a hand remembered from childhood, but which you can no longer name. infinity has a colour. i would say — white, but it was not white. it was the colour that arises between the penultimate snow and the first light on the horizon. infinity has a taste. slightly bitter. like a truth that can no longer be unknown. but most importantly — infinity has a rhythm. this is not the rhythm of the rails and not the rhythm of a heart. this is a rhythm that exists without a body. a rhythm that needs no movement. a rhythm that does not say “one-two-three”, but says: is, is, is… without beginning. without end. without interval. i record this rhythm in the seventeenth hole — a hole that does not expand the coat, but expands me. the train at that moment ceased to be a train. i felt it distinctly. it was not a mechanism. not iron. not carriages. not movement along a track. it was a space that had found itself a form in order to move evenly, without a goal, without a stop, without a need. it was infinity's way of becoming tangible.
krasznahorkai only whispered — not to me, not to the window, not to himself — to the rhythm that returned to him with every fold of time: — here it is. this is the very sound i have heard all my life. and i knew: he is not speaking of a sound. he is speaking of meaning. i felt how infinity passes through me — without pain, without pressure, without a shadow. it passed so lightly that for a moment i thought: “what if i did not exist before this moment? what if i exist only now?” and krasznahorkai, who did not hear my question, answered: — infinity does not need us. it simply allows us to be near. and the train moved on. and i record: infinity sounds quiet. so quiet that it is heard only by those who are small enough not to get in the way.
tonight he fell asleep differently. not as always — slowly, smoothly, as if entering a silence that was already waiting for him. this time the dream did not come from without. it rose from the fabric. i felt how the coat began to glow with a warm, deep warmth — not hot, but such as arises within a tree
when the tree remembers a summer long past. and i understood: today i shall see his dream. the dream began with that same train. only now there were no carriages, no seats, no rails. there was only movement — like the breath of the earth. it was a train without a driver, without a cabin, without metal. a train composed of air that had learned to be a road. krasznahorkai stood in this movement. not riding — standing. the movement bypassed him, the way water bypasses a stone that does not want to resist, for it already knows the shape of the river. i saw this not with eyes. i saw it the way a tree sees the wind: not the form, but the trembling. then the dream changed. suddenly — but without sharpness. like when the wind passes into silence without warning. he stood on a platform we had passed thousands of times. the platform was empty, but now its emptiness was different — it had a scent. the scent of wormwood and of old glass that no one had washed for forty years. i recognised this scent. it was the scent of our road. he stood, holding an invisible ticket in his hands — a ticket in which there was written neither a station of departure, nor a station of destination. only one straight line stretching into infinity. the dream did not explain this. the dream did not explain anything.
it was a structure to be experienced, rather than understood. then i saw something i had never seen before. his shadow. in the real world his shadow is always quiet, compressed, almost timid. but in the dream his shadow was immense — not cumbersome, but stretched out, like the memory of a great tree that once grew in this place, and now lives only in the memory of the earth. the shadow moved first. he — after it. as if the shadow knew the path he had not yet found. i record this in the eighteenth hole — a hole that looks like an elongated stroke. for the shadow in the dream was also a stroke. long. continuous. not dark — grey. grey, like the transition between “to be” and “not to be”. the dream changed again — this time calmly, as the colour of the sky changes from night to morning. suddenly he was sitting in a carriage, but the carriage was transparent. the walls of the carriage were not glass, but memory. when the train moved, the memory swayed — quietly, gently, like the background of a great painting not yet finished. upon this memory i saw imprints: of faces, of windows, of shadows, of movements, of thoughts, of words that were once, but had long gone from the road. it was a museum of that
which does not exist. and he sat in the centre of this museum, like the only exhibit not yet completed. the last part of the dream was the quietest. the most delicate. the most dangerous in its simplicity. the train stopped. not because it was necessary to stop. but because infinity wanted a pause. the doors opened, but behind the doors there was nothing. not darkness. not light. not a station. not a field. simply — nothing. a pure absence of form. he glanced there with that same slow agreement that is always within him. and said — not aloud, but inside the dream: — one can go further. infinity does not end in emptiness. infinity ends in acceptance. and the dream closed, like a book that no one wrote, but everyone read. i record all of this in seventeen seams i found during this night. recording not in words, but in movements. not in movements, but in a trembling. and when he wakes up, he touches the coat and smiles very lightly, almost imperceptibly. he knows that i saw his dream. and says: — write, little one. even dreams must be listened to. the train moves off. and i record: infinity sees us in a dream. we see infinity — when he sleeps.
we moved for so long that even the mutability of the world became predictable. the fields now grew green, now paled. the cities now rose, now crumbled. the people on platforms now waved their hands, now vanished forever. the world changed — as always. but today the train suddenly stopped. without warning. without logic. without intent. simply — stood still. and i felt this stop not as a jolt, but as a strange intra-fabric stillness that happens when the world suddenly stops breathing. the doors opened. and i saw a place in which nothing had changed. absolutely nothing. not in the sense that “everything looked the same as then”. no — it was deeper. this place did not know change as a phenomenon. did not know time as a process. the air here stood still. the scents stood still. the light did not move. even the dust did not fall — it suspended in space, like an uncompleted thought. this was a station that time respected so greatly that it bypassed it completely. i crawled closer to the edge of the hole i had made back in the ninth chapter — the hole through which one best sees that which does not move. the platform had the same colour as forty years ago: not grey, not yellow, but the colour of the absence of colour — matte, deepened, like an underwater stone that had never been in the air. nearby stood a bench. a bench that had several scratches. the very same scratches.
i recognised them — the shape of a scratch does not change when light does not act upon it. even the creaking of a plank under the wind was that same creaking i remembered from the first years of the road. this was not a sound — but an imprint of a sound. krasznahorkai went out onto the platform. the first time in decades. not because he wanted to go out. but because the station demanded no choice. he stood in the centre of this motionless air and did not move. not because he was afraid, but because movement here would be an incongruity. he swept his gaze over the space — slowly, without haste, as always — but this time his movements evoked no changes. the world did not react to him. the world simply was. and this “to be” had a sound. very deep. very warm. like the sound of the earth holding millennia within itself. i record this sound in the nineteenth hole — a hole that does not expand, for motionlessness cannot be expanded. i felt how krasznahorkai touches the bench. with his fingers. very slowly. and the bench did not answer. did not creak. did not give way. did not tremble. it was beyond reaction. beyond history. beyond intent. and he quietly said: — this place does not remember us. and does not forget. for it never knew time. his voice did not breach the silence. it merely added another layer to it. i understood:
this is not a station that remained unchanged. this is a station that never entered changeability. a station where time has no right to step. a station where the world needs no movement. a station where reality — is statics. and i, the moth, who had always lived in a trembling, suddenly for the first time saw the grandeur of the motionless. the grandeur of that which does not grow and does not perish. does not begin and does not end. does not influence and does not depend. the grandeur — of simply being. when krasznahorkai returned to the carriage, the train did not move off immediately. it, it seemed, hesitated — is it permissible to leave a place where nothing changes? and only when my tiny body trembled ever so slightly from the sensation of this incredible peace, the train shifted. without a sound. without a shadow. without a trace. if a place does not move, movement must be even more careful. krasznahorkai quietly uttered: — such places exist, little one. so that we might know: change — is not a law. change — is only a possibility. and i record: sometimes the world is real there where it does nothing. for motionlessness — is also a form of being.
this evening the light in the carriage became different. not dimmer, not brighter — but stranger. thus changes the light when it suddenly decides to be not merely illumination,
but an independent event. i felt how krasznahorkai’s shadow slowly crawls out from under his face and falls upon the floor. but today it fell not there. it fell further than the geometry of the body dictated. first i thought it was simply a reflection. then — that the lamp had swayed. later — that my eyes lied. but no. it was the shadow. the shadow that no longer belonged to a man. it stepped away a few paces, and for the first time in my life i saw a shadow from the side. a shadow that did not repeat movements. a shadow that sought something of its own. a shadow that returned — not to the body, but to something that had long waited for it between the carriages, between the world, between time. its darkness was not black. it was a colour that exists only there where light no longer tries to conquer. the colour of refusal. the colour of peace. the colour that knows a mystical geography. krasznahorkai sat motionless. his shoulders were lowered, his breathing slow, his head slightly inclined forward. he did not look at the shadow. but i knew — he saw it. his body always saw more than his eyes. the shadow moved slowly, carefully, but resolutely — like an animal that had long lost fear and now knows only memories. it had a sound. very quiet. as if someone’s finger touches a taut string of a violin. it had a scent. the scent of cool earth
after a long absence. it had a weight. the weight of a return. i crawled closer to the edge of one of my old holes (today i was afraid to make a new one). the shadow approached so close that i saw in it that which one never sees in an ordinary shadow: within it was the movement of time. not that which turns clocks. not that which ages people. not that which compresses eras. in this shadow was that very same movement heard sometimes between the thoughts of krasznahorkai — a movement that is never uttered aloud, but always exists within him. this was his shadow, but not his copy. this was his unfulfilled part. his unmanifested history. those pages which he once did not write, but which did not disappear. the shadow returned to him. not stepped — but returned with a movement similar to that how water returns to a river: not departing, but infusing. and then krasznahorkai very slowly raised his head and quietly said: — you have come? good. sit down. we are journeying further. the shadow lay down beside him, upon the seat that no one saw. and the carriage for the first time in forty years became larger than it was. not because of space. because of presence. i record all of this in the twentieth hole — a hole that has the shape of a long narrow crescent. just as long as the shadow
when it returns home. the train moved off — and i for the first time felt that we are now journeying as two. as two? as three. the body. the shadow. and i. and krasznahorkai whispered: — even shadows have a path, little one. it is not for us to decide when it begins and when it returns back. i record: sometimes the shadow returns first. for a shadow — is not an imprint. it is a fragment of the soul that long did not confess it lives apart.
the shadow has been sitting beside us for the second day of the journey. it does not move, but its motionlessness — is not silence. it is a gatheredness. an expectation. breathing without lungs. i feel it constantly — not with eyes, not with ears, not with legs — but with an inner trembling that arises when the world prepares to say something important. krasznahorkai does not look at it. he simply allows it to be. as he allows the rain to be when he does not need to leave the house. and then, as the carriage enters a long emptiness between stations, the shadow begins to speak. it speaks not with a voice. it speaks with a change of light. the lamp above our heads suddenly inclines ever so slightly to the side, where no one had touched it. its beam becomes denser, warmer, deeper. i hear this change as a sound. not as a crackle, not as a chime,
but as a quiet, prolonged: mmmmm… this is not a word. this is an intent. the shadow says: “i am here.” in a minute, the air in the carriage shifts its rhythm. slowly, imperceptibly, but for me — distinctly. thus changes the air at night when between two breaths there appears a third — unknown. it becomes cooler in the upper layers and warmer near the floor. this is no fault of ventilation. this is a gesture. the shadow says: “i have returned.” krasznahorkai sits up straighter, but does not look at it. his body knows that a gaze — is far too coarse for that which is happening now. i feel how the fabric beneath my legs changes its texture. it becomes softer — like a memory that wants to recall something long forgotten, but does not yet dare. the shadow touches the fabric not with form, but with presence. and the fabric responds with a light trembling. it recalls the sound of a cobweb when the morning wind for a second remembers that it too was once a breath. the shadow says: “i remember.” i look at krasznahorkai. he listens, but he listens with his entire body. not with ears. not with the mind. with a body that has turned into an instrument for reading unfathomable languages. and then the shadow speaks again — this time with shadow, not with light and not with air.
it gently shifts from the seat by a single millimetre — no more. the movement is so small that it could be called an illusion. but i — am a moth. my world consists of millimetres. and i know: this was a word. a word without a sound. a word in the form of a displacement. a word that means: “you are not complete.” i do not know to whom it was spoken — to him? to me? to the world? to the road? to time? but krasznahorkai slowly sighs and inclines his head forward, as if accepting this. and i understand: he knows the meaning of the language of shadows. the shadow, satisfied with its utterance, slowly returns to its primary form. it lies beside him once more. quiet. dark. full. no aggression. no demand. merely a presence that speaks more than any monologue. krasznahorkai says: — i heard you. thank you. and the carriage for a moment becomes lighter. as if the light too understands that a conversation occurred here to which it cannot remain indifferent. i record: the body speaks through form. thought — through rhythm. infinity — through silence. and the shadow speaks by that which moves even when all others remain motionless.
today the light in the carriage was strange. not pale. not bright. but such as if it had long been trying to say something and finally found the moment when it was possible to speak. the train did not stop sharply — it slowly entered a stop which was neither a station, nor a platform, nor a protocol of the road. this was a place which the world created specially so that today something would happen. when the doors opened, the air in the carriage became lighter. as if someone had drawn out from it an invisible thread that had long restrained movement. the shadow stood up. yes. stood up. it did not detach from the light. it did not flee. it did not dissolve. it simply stood up, the way a person stands up who knows it is time for them to go. krasznahorkai did not move. he asked no questions. did not look at the shadow with wonder. he sat in his slow, quiet agreement, like one who had long heard that this was to happen. the shadow approached the doors. its form was pure, deep, dense, such that even a moth — i, who see the world through the smallest fluctuations — could find within it no crack whatsoever. it moved so slowly that it seemed as if time changes its density around it. and then that happened which cannot be forgotten: the shadow went out first. without a body.
without a voice. without light. simply went out. the air behind the doors changed instantly. as if it waited only for this gesture. i felt how it became warmer in the carriage, but not comfortably warmer, but warmer in such a way as it becomes for a person who has finally lost the burden they carried for forty years. krasznahorkai slowly raised his head and looked into the dark rectangle of the doors where the shadow already stood. he leaned forward, as if listening to its silence, and very quietly said: — you have the right to go first. you waited longer than i. his voice was neither sorrow, nor recognition, nor a farewell. this was the voice of a person who understands: the shadow — is that which always knew the path earlier. i did not see where the shadow went. the world behind the doors was like an unfinished page that had not yet chosen its colour. but i felt a scent — light, thin, with an aftertaste of cool stone in an old tunnel. the scent of paths upon which bodies do not walk. the scent of journeys that belong only to shadows. krasznahorkai remained sitting. he did not go out. did not try. for he understood: this was a road not for him. he quietly ran a finger over my new hole — the twenty-first — which i made at the very instant the shadow stepped over the boundary. this hole had the shape of a small oval, like the imprint of a step that leaves no weight.
krasznahorkai whispered: — go. i shall wait. his voice was calm, but within it was such depth that i understood: he is not speaking of the shadow. he is speaking of himself. of a part of himself which too will one day go first. i record: the shadow went out first not because its turn had come. but because sometimes the path knows only that which has no form.
after the shadow went out first, the road became hard. not in a physical sense — the rails were the very same, the vibration the very same, the landscapes the very same. the hardness was in the air. in the way the light now lay upon his face. in the fact that every object suddenly acquired an excessive clarity. with such clarity one denotes not a presence, but a loss. the shadow was not there. moreover, not in the sense that it had ceased to be — no. the world behaved as if it had never been there at all. the angle of the falling light did not try to paint it upon the floor. the sun sought no place for its reflection. the lamps refused to repeat its paraphrase. it vanished from the language of the world. and this vanishing had a sound. a sound similar to how they close an old book in which you did not finish reading the last line, for you knew: it lives within you anyway. i felt this absence
as a chill not from without, but from within the fabric. if memory could lose warmth, it would lose it thus. krasznahorkai sat evenly. his face was calm, but the calmness was different — like that of a person who had finally begun to hear that which they always concealed from themselves. his shoulders became slightly heavier. his head — slightly lighter. i thought: thus looks the state when a part of a person goes forward, and a part remains in order to realise the loss. the train moved for a long time. very long. so long that even the sound of the wheels lost its usual vitality and became even, like the pulse of one who forgot the goal. without a shadow, movement was felt differently: it became more superficial. as if we were gliding over the upper layer of the world, not deepening into it as before. and i understood: the shadow gave depth. not to the body. to the world. when the train drove past trees, their silhouettes looked unnatural — far too flat. like pictures from a book someone forgot to finish. the houses seemed slightly blurred, as if they lacked half their contours. the people on platforms passed by so quietly and so quickly, as if they knew that one must not leave traces here. everything was real. and everything was untouchable —
for the imbalance of light and shadow always makes reality fragile. krasznahorkai said for the first time in a long while: — the world is naked. without a shadow it is naked. his voice was not sorrow. not fear. it was the recognition of a fact that needs no emotions. and then he added: — this is useful. sometimes one must see things without their second face. i did not know whether he says this to me, or to himself, or to that part of himself which will one day return. i made a new hole — the twenty-second. it was larger than the others. for absence is always wider than presence. when he touched it, i felt a slight warmth on the tips of my thin legs. krasznahorkai whispered: — it will return. do not worry. and i record: a road without a shadow — is a path where the world learns to stand by itself. even if it stands shakily.
the train decelerated for a very long time. so long that i could have made ten holes had i not known: sometimes one must simply wait and not spoil the fabric with an extra movement. this stop was not like the previous ones. the air was becoming denser. the light — darker. the darkness — warmer. i felt it first. the shadows.
they were here. not one. not two. there were many of them — how many precisely, i could not say, for shadows do not like arithmetic. they exist in their own numbering which does not coincide with human numbers. when the train stopped, the doors opened slowly, as if they did not want to disturb that order which reigned behind them. there was a station. but not of stone. not of wood. not of light. the station was composed of darkness — not a dull, not an empty, but a thinking darkness. a darkness that sees, though eyes it has none. a darkness that remembers, though no one taught it to remember. a darkness that speaks, but not to shadows — to bodies. upon the platform i saw dozens of shadows. they did not move. they did not tremble. they did not seek their people. they waited. the waiting of shadows — is a particular phenomenon. this is not time. this is not a pause. this is another form of existence. they stood each one separately, but through the world between them ran thin strips of light — as if an invisible hand were drawing lines upon a great black map. i understood: this is no chaos. this is a gathering. the station was a place where shadows decide their destiny. krasznahorkai went out.
for the first time in a long while — went out alone, without a shadow. and stood upon the platform. the shadows turned to him not with heads, for heads they had none, but with their essence — with an address that was tangible, like a change in pressure before rain. i felt a sound in the air — inaudible to humans, but familiar to me: t-t-t-t-t… this was the sound of shadow discussion. the shadows spoke among themselves not in words, but in weights. each of them had its own weight — cheerful, heavy, fluctuating, dry, moist, attractive, repellent. and now their weights touched the weight of krasznahorkai, as if tasting his presence. then out of the darkness it stepped. his shadow. the very same. the one that went out first. it was different. now within it was less darkness and more depth. as if it had learned something. experienced something. understood something. it approached him slowly, very slowly. and stood beside him. not behind him. not under him. not in the rear. beside. this meant only one thing:
it returned not as a shadow, but as a choice. the shadows shifted. for the first time. their darkness became soft, like fabric caressed by the night wind. they retreated half a step — a gesture that meant: “we recognise your choice.” krasznahorkai slowly inclined his head in his usual gesture of acceptance. he did not speak. words here would be superfluous. darkness does not love words. darkness listens only to movements. and then i heard — not with ears, but with my entire soft tiny body: sh-sh-sh-shshsh… the shadows dispersed. he returned to the carriage. and his shadow went after him — not returning to the floor, not falling behind him, but taking its place beside. in transit they had not yet seen the like. i made a new hole — the twenty-third. it turned out almost round, but inside it carried a slight tilt. thus looks the form of a decision made not by a body, but by a shadow. krasznahorkai touched it very gently and whispered: — even shadows have the right to counsel. and i record: there are stations where time gathers. there are stations where people gather. and there are stations where shadows gather — to return to those who are slow enough to hear them.
after the station of shadows, the carriage seemed different to me. not because it had changed. but because now everything had a different depth. shadows were no longer simply the absence of light — they were a separate layer of the world which i previously did not know how to read. krasznahorkai sat motionless. his shadow — returned, approved, quiet — sat beside him, like an equal. and suddenly that happened which i could not predict. the shadow began to glow. not sharply. not with a flash. not like a lamp. but so, as if someone had very carefully touched it from within with a small tip of dawn. this was a soft, barely noticeable light — a light that does not strive to illuminate. it was the light of liberation, rather than the light of seeing. i felt a warmth — unusual, like warmth that arises not from temperature, but from acceptance. the light of the shadow was the colour of a milky emptiness that does not yet know what it will turn into. a colour without intent. krasznahorkai did not stir. he only very slowly raised his head, as if he did not expect this, but had long been ready. his face immersed under the light — not because the light was bright, but because this light was his. not a possession. not an imprint. but a part which for many years he could not name. his shadow became light not in order to illuminate something, but in order to complete something. the light of the shadow moved slowly —
a little forward, a little backward, as if checking whether it breaches someone’s space. i felt how this movement enters the fabric of the coat. the fabric always reacts first — it is more sensitive than humans, gentler than language. it became softer than ever. tactile. ready to listen, for light always speaks more quietly than shadow. i made the twenty-fourth hole — the smallest of all. such smallness is needed when one records not an event, but a transition. the light within the shadow increased with every minute of the journey. not in brightness — in presence. it was light that does not separate from darkness, but is born within it, like a quiet agreement. the shadow ceased to be flat. within it appeared volume. depth. a barely noticeable pulse. i understood: this is no ordinary shadow. this is a thought that found a form. and this form was light. krasznahorkai touched the light with his fingers. not with his entire palm — merely with the tip of two fingers, very slowly, gently, carefully, the way one touches water which might disappear if one makes a sharp movement. he whispered: — you returned not as a shadow. you returned as that which i once was, but did not know it.
his words were not addressed to the light. they were addressed to himself. the-shadow-that-became-light for a moment increased its radiance — and i felt how the carriage became warmer. this was no comfort. this was a gesture. a gesture of forgiveness. to oneself. to the past. to the road. the light gradually diminished, but did not vanish. it absorbed into the shadow, like dew into the earth: not separating, but restoring. and then — slowly, very slowly — the shadow returned to its floor. sat beside him. quiet. calm. full of light which previously had not been within it. i record: a shadow becomes light not when light conquers darkness. but when darkness accepts itself and allows the light to be near. krasznahorkai quietly said: — thank you for returning whole. and the train, which until now had driven ordinarily, suddenly changed its rhythm — now within it was something softer than movement. this was the presence of reconciliation.
i have always heard light. people see it, but a moth — feels it. for me, light — is not that which is visible, but that which touches.
therefore, i heard this station before i saw it. the train had not yet stopped, but within the air there was already a silence of a different density — a tactile silence waiting for a touch. krasznahorkai raised his head. his shadow — luminous, returned, new — changed its form, as if preparing for a meeting with something that even it did not know. and then we entered a space where light suspended. this was a light without a fall. a light without direction. a light that did not want to touch the ground, for the earth was too real for its present state. it hung in the air the way dust sometimes hangs in a morning room when you have not yet awakened — and the world froze between states, choosing neither. i felt this with my entire body: the air became lighter, but not more transparent. the light became closer, but not warmer. this was a luminous weightlessness. the station platform did not touch the light. the light hung above it, as if hesitating whether it was worth descending. people here there were none. not because they did not exist — but because this was a station not for people. this was a station for phenomena. for regimes of light. for states of consciousness that have no bodies. krasznahorkai stood motionless. his shadow glowed very quietly — as if responding to the light of the station with its own light. this was a dialogue without language. the light descended slightly lower. but not to the ground — to the level of the heart.
this was a gesture. as if the station wanted to say: “i do not touch the ground, for the world standing upon the earth is too heavy for me. but i can touch you.” and the light touched krasznahorkai. not his eyes. not his hands. not his face. but precisely the region of the heart. his shadow for a moment increased its radiance, then diminished it — as if tuning itself to a new type of resonance. i understood: now light and shadow cooperate. they learn from one another. when the light touched me, i felt something i had never felt: the weightlessness of a record. words ceased to have weight. they flew within me like scraps of fabric sewn to nothing. i could not lay them upon a page — they did not want to lie down. i understood that this is a station where records are not born. here something else is born — a state of light that does not turn into a form. light without text. light without meaning. light as the breath of space. krasznahorkai looked at this light as if for the first time he saw something that needed no interpretation. i heard — not with ears, but with the body of the fabric: he began to speak with a thought that needed no words: — there is light that does not seek objects. there is light that seeks a state. there is light
that has no goal. and there is light that does not want to touch the ground, for the earth — is a responsibility. his shadow slowly shifted closer, which meant: "i feel it too." the train stood still. but this was a stop that was not considered a stop. that was not considered a stop. for here time and light had no force of action. this was a pause without a pause. a standing without standing. light without a fall. when the train moved off, the light did not descend to the ground. it simply journeyed away with us, remaining in the air free, untouched, unaccepted by gravity. i record: light that does not reach the ground recalls a soul that has not yet chosen in which body it is to live. krasznahorkai quietly whispered: — this light will come to us when we are ready to hold it. and the train once more transitioned to its deep, stable rhythm.
the light that journeyed away with us was new — shadowless, light, unearthly. it had no body, had no weight and had no ability to wait. light always wants “now”. shadow always knows “after”. i felt how between them a quiet tension formed — not a conflict, not a struggle, but a simple difference of nature.
krasznahorkai sat between them like a bridge between two ways of seeing the world: the one striving to manifest, and the one knowing how to vanish. the light vibrated. a little faster than necessary. a little sharper than usual. its shimmering was similar to a nervous yawn of time that has nowhere to go. i felt this in the fabric: every thread touched the light, and every touch said to the light: “you are moving far too quickly.” and the light answered: “i do not know how to do otherwise.” the shadow slowly rose from the floor. this was a movement without a goal, a movement that only a shadow possesses: when it does not walk, but appears in another place, leaving in the previous one not an imprint, but a state. it approached the light. the light — the shadow. this was a collision of two tempos: one wanted to suspend, the other wanted to delay. the shadow gently touched the light with the edge of its form. and i heard a sound — silken, muffled, almost human: shshsh… this was “slower”. the light tried. truly tried. but it had never lived in slowness. for light, slowness — is death, a freezing, a thinning of existence. but the shadow knew otherwise: slowness — is not death. slowness — is a form of thinking. the light fluctuated. the shadow remained motionless. and precisely in this motionlessness
lay the teaching. krasznahorkai quietly raised his palm and placed it between the light and the shadow. did not touch — simply gave them his presence as a common space for action. he said: — slowness — is the depth of the world which light frequently fails to notice. the shadow changed its form, becoming wider than it was a second ago. this meant: «i can give you a part of my silence.» the light slightly diminished its radiance, as if gathering itself back — for the first time trying to be not quicker, but more attentive. the shadow did that which light cannot do independently: it attuned its rhythm. the shadow showed the light that one can exist longer in one and the same place. that space does not flee. that time does not demand running. that form does not vanish if one does not move. these were lessons of slowness without words. the shadow spoke to the light in the language of shading. the light answered in the language of softening. i saw how the light gradually lost its nervousness. its trembling diminished. its pulse evened out. the shadow entered it, not blending, but agreeing. this lasted long. perhaps an hour. perhaps a day. perhaps a single moment that stretched out. when the light finally became calm, the shadow retreated to the floor
to the point where it always sat — but now its form was deeper. and the light descended ever so slightly lower than ever before — almost touching the ground, but stopping at the distance of a soft breath. this was their new agreement. i record: light learns slowness not when it fades, but when the shadow allows it to be alive at its own pace. krasznahorkai whispered: — finally they speak the same language. and in the carriage it became calmer than ever before this.
until this day, the road always had at least some hint of direction. to the right — forests. to the left — cities. ahead — something unknown. behind — something experienced. even when the terminal station did not exist, the movement itself still carried a vector: forward, further, more. today i felt for the first time how the train enters a space where there is no vector. not “forward”. not “backward”. not “thither” and not “hither”. a space without direction. first, this felt like an error. the sound of the rails became strangely even — so even that within it vanished the difference between approaching and receding. usually i can tell by the vibration whether we are accelerating or decelerating. today the vibration was uniform, like the breathing of one who no longer counts inhalations and exhalations. the train as if did not journey.
it occurred. krasznahorkai sat, not changing posture. his shadow — illuminated, calm — lay beside him, like a sign of agreement with the fact that we are entering a place without coordinates. when we stopped, the doors opened onto a station that had no switch. no signpost. no plate with names. no scheme of routes. no line that would hint: “from here — thus, and from here — otherwise”. this was a field of pure no-where. the platform was naked. neither people, nor benches, nor clocks. merely a floor that offered neither “to the left” nor “to the right”. even the wind did not know from where it was to blow. it simply whirled on the spot, as if trying to remember what “movement” is. i crawl out to the edge of a new hole — the twenty-fifth, which i made today not out of hunger and not out of curiosity, but out of a light fear: how to record that which has no direction? this hole turned out strange: not round, not oval, not elongated. it does not stretch in any direction. it simply is. like this station. krasznahorkai went out onto the platform. he stood evenly, without a turn of the head in any direction. not because he did not want to look, but because here there was nowhere to look. the horizon was not empty —
it was un-defined. it did not vanish, but neither did it offer itself as “there”. this was a place where the very idea of “there” is temporarily repealed. i felt how within me a strange sensation is born: as if i were drawn out from all my small routes — from hole to seam, from seam to the edge of the lapel — and placed in the centre of a point that leads neither deep nor wide. in this centre there was no fear. fear is always tethered to “what will be next”. but here there was no “next”. there was no “later”. there was not even “now” in the usual sense. here time did not move forward. it diverged in all directions in thin circles, like water into which no one threw a stone, yet it somehow trembles. krasznahorkai stood. his shadow did not fall in any direction. it did not elongate, did not shorten, did not change thickness. it was like a black island directly beneath him. without direction. without a gesture. without a hint. and i suddenly understood that i see before me not the absence of a path, but pure possibility. not “where to go”, but the very fact of the matter that one can go at all. in this place i heard for the first time a strange sound inside the silence.
not a rustle. not a hum. not a chime. this was a sound that might have arisen had someone simultaneously whispered all possible “ifs” and chosen none. thus sounds an un-chosen direction. i record. the fabric beneath my legs feels my record as a light prickling: it is always slightly frightened by that which has no contour. krasznahorkai finally speaks. very quietly. the way they speak in places where they do not want with an extra sound to evoke reality. — right here, little one, the road ceases to be a line. here it is — simply the possibility to be or not to be. his voice does not pose questions. does not seek an answer. it simply states. the shadow beneath him ever so slightly changes its density. the light above him ever so slightly pales. they too understand: this is no ordinary station. this is an anchor without a chain. the train stands longer than usual. perhaps a minute. perhaps an hour. perhaps a lifetime. in a place without direction, duration loses meaning. i suddenly realise that i am… calm here. i — a moth accustomed to crawling in all directions simultaneously, suddenly feel relief from the fact that none of them demands a choice. here even i
do not have to crawl anywhere. i can simply be a hole leading nothing. when the train finally moves off, i do not feel either a jolt, nor a jerk. for go we did not “forward”. we journeyed from here. these are different things. “forward” — is always about a goal. “from here” — about the fact that something remained behind, even if this something had no form. krasznahorkai returns to his place. his shadow again lies beside him, retaining a new, deep silence. he strokes the coat where i have just made the twenty-fifth hole, and says: — in every road there must be at least one place where it does not know where to go. otherwise it is not a road, but merely the execution of an order. i record: the station without direction — is no error. this is the road's right to its own freedom.
today everything began with a sound. not with silence — only silence is capable of being so diverse that it becomes unnoticeable. but here it was something else. the train was entering a space where the metallic rhythm of the wheels began to… yawn. this was no creak and no fatigue of the machine — this was that which happens to the world when it suddenly remembers that it can allow itself to doze. i felt
how every little thread of the fabric tiredly stretched inside itself. my small moth clock, which usually ticks somewhere in the chest, made three slow strikes and fell silent. krasznahorkai raised his head and said, almost without moving his lips: — we are entering thither where time has the right to close its eyes. when the train stopped, upon the platform stood clocks. without people. without hands. without numbers. simply clocks. some were large, with thick dark frames, as if doors to another place. some — tiny, the size of a button, screwed to posts. some — round. some — square. some — entirely without form, as if time once took them in its hands and carelessly crumpled them. all of them slept. not broken. not stopped. precisely slept. one who has even once seen the dream of a time mechanism will confuse it with nothing. i slowly crawled onto the edge of my hole and inhaled the scent of the platform. it was specific: the scent of dust remembering more than it should; the scent of air that had long not transported haste; the scent of a dream not put on for the night, but worn constantly. krasznahorkai stepped onto the platform. his shadow did not react — it too was falling asleep. i for the first time saw a shadow sleeping while standing. the clocks had no hands — for hands, spoken between us,
are the most hard-working slaves of the world. they move always, even when no one asks for this. hands did not live here. this was the station of their rest. krasznahorkai approached one clock — large, slightly scratched, with dark glass. placed his palm upon its face. very softly. the way one touches the forehead of a child who has finally fallen asleep after long crying. the clock sighed. i heard it. not with ears, but with every leg. this was the sound emitted by time when it ceases to hold the world. then krasznahorkai uttered: — time too has fatigue. and when it tires, universes hold their breath. i thought: this is why no one moves. this is why the air here hangs as if it were — not air, but the page of a book which no one wants to turn far too quickly. here one must not hasten. not because of a prohibition — because of respect. this is a place where haste sounds just as coarse as a cry in a temple. i noticed a small clock placed directly upon the floor. it lay on its side, as if it fell asleep suddenly, not having managed to find a bed. i approached it closer — as far as a moth can approach who does not want to look obtrusive. and saw: inside it something ever so slightly moved. not a hand. not a mechanism. but a dream.
clocks here sleep with dreams in which they see time that no longer needs precision. i envy them. when krasznahorkai returned to the carriage, his shadow immediately lay down to sleep upon the floor — for the first time in the entire path. the light which we brought from previous stations similarly dimmed — not switched off, but lowered its eyelids. in the carriage it became so quiet that even the fabric of the coat ceased to rustle. and i record: there are places where time does not cease to exist — it ceases to work. and the world does not crumble, for sometimes the deepest order is born precisely from rest. krasznahorkai said: — time fell asleep. we must not wake it. the train moved off so carefully, as if it bore upon itself the dream of the world.
today i woke first. not because i did not sleep — a moth sleeps in snatches, like a thought having no form, but always having a place. i woke because i felt that someone is watching us. not hostilely. not with curiosity. not with an intent. but simply watching. this was a gaze seeking neither explanations nor justifications. the gaze of the world. the train journeyed slower than daily. its metallic breathing was so soft,
as if it feared to disturb something important outside the window. and then i saw that which i had never previously seen: the landscape did not simply float past us. it followed us. the trees were not part of a scene. they were witnesses. the grass was not the cover of the earth. it was a listener. the mountains were not a view. they were faces — motionless, restrained, but attentive. the world outside the window ceased to be a background. it became a presence. krasznahorkai sat very calmly. so calmly, as if he knew: the world looks not at him, but through him. his shadow — rested after the station of clocks — was dense, saturated, formed. the light — taught slowness — hung nearby, softer than yesterday. and i beauty understood: this is their first appearance before the gaze of the world. the landscape looked not at forms. the landscape looked at balance. the trees stood in rows, as if reading us like the page of a book. the wind did not run between the branches — it as if ceased to be wind, becoming a silence that listens. even the earth heard our approach. i could have sworn that small stones ever so slightly rocked when the train passed by — not from vibration, but from the fact
that they too were gathering information. as if the world wanted to be certain: we justify its attention. the train decelerated even more. it no longer journeyed. it coexisted. krasznahorkai inclined his head — not in order to peer, but in order to feel himself the object of observation. not frequently does a human being admit that it is not they looking at the world, but the world — at them. but today he admitted it. outside the window, the mountains raised a barely perceptible wave of shadow which i perceived as a gesture: “we see.” his shadow answered with a light expansion, and the light made a half-step to the side of darkness. this was a conversation between them and the landscape, without language, without intents, without interpretations. simply reciprocity. i crawled closer to the seam of the coat and began to tailor the twenty-sixth hole. it turned out elongated — like a gaze leading a line along the horizon, but not intervening. the landscape noticed this. it seemed to me that one solitary bush upon the hill ever so slightly touched the ground with its shadow in my direction. i feared to look audacious. landscapes do not love audacity. they revere only silence and precision. krasznahorkai quietly uttered: — the world wants to know whether we are worthy of the fact that it should exist beside us. this was no doubt. this was an observation.
his voice was the very same as this landscape: slow, broad, without a final conclusion. the world did not judge us. the world simply looked. and in this gaze there was more truth than in any question. when the train finally departed deeper into the gorge, the landscape unhurriedly released us. the world again became a view. the mountains became mountains. the grass — grass. the trees — trees. but i knew: right now they simply tired of looking. did not turn away. did not forget. simply closed their eyes. a landscape too has the right to slowness. i record: sometimes the world looks at you not in order to see who you are. but in order to remember that it is not alone in its silence. krasznahorkai ran a finger over my new hole and said: — it saw us such as we are. this is enough.
the light today was dim, but not weak. it was such as light is on the eve of a miracle — focused upon itself, not given to the world, but gathered within. the shadow — on the contrary — was wider than ever. it occupied the floor around krasznahorkai’s feet as if it wanted to conceal something, but not from us, from the world. and i understood:
we are entering a place where the shadow works differently. not as the absence of light. but as the mother of light. the first signs i felt with my nose. not with eyes. colour has a scent if it has not yet become colour. the scent of the unblended — the scent of that which is about to become visible. this was a thin aroma of wet earth, blended with the smell of ink and a light echo of incandescent iron. and then i saw: the shadow began to tremble. as if inside it something were stirring. not chaos. not movement. but a birth. when the train curved along the old rocky wall, the shadow finally gave the light access to itself. and in this space, in these thin fractures of darkness, appeared the first colour. it was not bright. not defined. it was the pre-existence of colour — the state before formation. it glowed in the shadow the way water glows before becoming ice. krasznahorkai glanced down — very slowly — as if afraid to disturb that which was more fragile than light. its shadow closed and opened, as if breathing. and the colour within it was ripening. the second colour appeared closer to the side of the carriage. it was born not in the light — in a denser shadow, in a darker place where light did not even try to conquer. this was a colour that glowed without light.
the colour of silence having its own voice. the colour needed by the shadow in order not to be empty. i felt something within myself: my wings, which i had long not unfolded, ever so slightly shuddered. for this colour was almost the colour of a moth's soul — fragile, moist-decayed, but capable of radiance if not frightened. the third colour was born where the shadow touched the light we had brought from previous stations. this was a junction that the world could scarcely endure. the light trembled. the shadow deepened. and between them was born a colour that cannot be seen with eyes. it can be felt only by stillness. it was the colour of a not-yet-uttered word. the colour having no name, for a name would make it terminal. krasznahorkai whispered: — thus is born that which later will be called light. though it is — shadow. i crawled onto the edge of the twenty-seventh hole, which i made in advance, for i knew: this chapter needs not simply to be recorded, but to be stitched through. and at that moment when i touched the fabric, the colours inside the shadow began to move. not to blend. not to weave. but to move like living creatures. one colour — similar to a sound that does not want to become language. the second — similar to the touch of a dream.
the third — similar to the memory of that which never was, but always waited for form. the shadow held them all. the shadow was their earth. the light slightly inclined toward the shadow, as if it wanted to take for itself at least one of these colours. but the shadow did not allow. it caressed the light with a warm oval movement, like a mother who says: «it is yet early. you will not yet endure their weight.» and the light retreated. obeying. this was the gentlest thing i have ever seen. when we left this place, the colours returned into the shadow and vanished there, not having ceased to exist. the shadow again became usual. the light — quiet. krasznahorkai — silent. and i record: colours are born not there where light conquers darkness. colours are born there where darkness allows the light to be weak enough to become gentle. krasznahorkai touched my edge and said: — you too are a colour of the shadow, little one. you simply do not yet know your shade.
not every day is capable of beginning with silence. most days begin with noise — even if the noise is quiet. the creak of wheels. the breath of the carriage. the rustle of fabric. but today — nothing. not a single sound. silence came not as an absence — it came as an event.
i felt it first: it was soft, but very heavy. thus is felt the wool of an old coat which no one wore for forty years, but which remembers the shape of the body better than a human. silence today was a body. and this meant that it wanted to speak. krasznahorkai sat motionless, as if his face were painted upon the glass. his shadow was dense, the light — barely noticeable. and then that happened which i did not expect: the shadow turned its head toward the silence. shadows have no head, but they can turn in such a way that the world understands where they are looking. silence too looked at us. not with eyes. with presence. it occupied the entire carriage, the entire length of the road, the entire width of the air between us. this was a conversation before the first word. krasznahorkai inhaled deeply. his breath made no sound. and only then did he utter — very slowly, as if words must pass through several layers of the unseen: — you have long been walking behind me. silence did not answer with a voice. it answered with a change of volume. the walls of the carriage became as if closer, but at the same time — boundless. i, the moth, felt myself very small, but for the first time — not superfluous. for silence looked at me too. krasznahorkai continued: — i thought you were muteness. but you are — something else. you are — that which remains after all voices. silence did not dispute this. it did not agree. silence never chooses sides. it holds. it became warmer. this was its way of saying:
«i am listening». and then krasznahorkai posed a question which, it seems, he had borne within himself for forty years: — for what purpose do you walk beside me? why of all the essences of the world is it precisely you that does not release me? at this moment i understood that i see not a man, but the one capable of hearing silence as a conversational partner. silence answered. not in words. words — are far too narrow. it answered with its density. the air became heavier, but not oppressed — rather flat, like the surface of a lake before a drop falls into it. and i heard its meaning: «because you are — slow. because only the slow are capable of hearing. because i am — not for everyone.» krasznahorkai inclined his head. this was no gesture of submission and no gesture of agreement. this was a gesture of the banishment of pride. finally he said: — if you are beside me, then walk with me until it becomes narrow for you. silence retreated for a moment — not abandoning, but giving place. outside, the train continued its movement, but not a single sound broke inside. today the road was given over to silence. i made the twenty-eighth hole — the neatest of all. silence does not love sharp movements. therefore the hole too was light, as if the fabric itself agreed to open. and when i touched the edge of the coat, the fabric for the first time in the entire journey answered me with warmth. i understood: the fabric too listens to the silence. simply quietly.
krasznahorkai said the last thing for today: — thank you. i heard you. you heard me. this is enough. and the silence retreated — not departed, but dissolved, like smoke which does not leave the room, but becomes air. i record: silence — is not the absence of sound. silence — is the presence of the world waiting until you become slow enough not to frighten it.
today something happened which had never occurred in all my forty years of journeying with krasznahorkai. i woke and could not find one hole of mine. not that i forgot where it was — such a thing never happens to me — i remember every hole, every prong of the thread, every irregularity of the edge, for these holes are my records, my pages, my children. but today the twenty-ninth hole was not there. in its place was an even, calm fabric which i did not create. and at that very instant i understood: the train stitched me back. at first i thought this was a dream. for how can a train, this long iron organism that rumbles and breathes, have fingers? or a needle? or a thread?
or possess the gentleness to work with something as small as i? but the fabric was even. without a scar. without a depression. without extra tension. thus stitches only the one who does not want you to notice their work. i slowly felt the coat with my legs, with the edge of my wing, with the lashes of my body. i felt: instead of a hole — warmth. the coat was warm not because krasznahorkai warmed it with his body. but because the train stitched the hole with a warming thread of time. i know this scent. it cannot be confused. this is the scent of old seats remembering millions of paths. this is the scent of a saturated, deliberate steel tired of being merely a mechanism. this is the scent of oil retaining the histories of the rails, not knowing that it retains them. the train touched me with its memory. i did not understand why precisely this hole it decided to stitch. perhaps it was far too deep. perhaps far too sad. perhaps the train decided that such a hole must not remain open. krasznahorkai has long known how to read holes. he once said to me: — holes — are your words. sometimes words must be unclosed. and sometimes the world sees that you need to rest from yourself. he knew that the train today stood on my side.
i waited for krasznahorkai to say something. but he was silent. silent so deeply that i understood: he noticed everything even before me. his shadow calmly lay nearby. the light nearby did not shimmer — it stood evenly, like an image that also wants to be part of this moment. the train quietly hummed. not loudly. not as a warning. but as a lullaby. this was its “i beg your pardon, but you deserve to be whole.” i do not know whether i can again make a hole in this place. perhaps. and perhaps the train will not allow. for i suddenly felt: we, the passengers of the train, do not always notice that the train — is also a passenger. everyone has their own road. everyone has their own moth. everyone has their own hole needing to be healed. today the train healed me. a small, unnecessary, unnoticed moth knowing only how to write with holes. i record, though this hole is not mine: sometimes the world comes to meet you so softly that you learn of it only after it has helped you. krasznahorkai placed a finger upon the place where the hole had been, and whispered: — yes, little one. even you have the right to be stitched back.
i felt the city even before i saw its outline. cities always smell differently. within them is their own clay, their own dust, their own memory of feet walking upon them, and of eyes examining them. but this city smelled strangely — not like buildings, and not like people, but like… a striving. the scent of a place wanting to be another place. the train journeyed slowly, as if giving the city time to gather its thoughts. krasznahorkai ever so slightly inclined his head: he too felt this. when we entered the city, it became clear that something was wrong with it. the streets did not stand evenly — they trembled a little, as if they were uneasy upon their own stones. the houses did not look motionless. in their windows there glowed not merely electricity, but an restlessness. as if the city itself wanted to depart from here along with us. krasznahorkai’s shadow spread along the floor of the carriage and became longer than i had ever seen it. this was a sign: the city approached us inwardly, not outwardly. the light, on the contrary, pulsated with short, uneven flashes — like a heart
that felt a foreign rhythm and tries to understand it. i leaned upon the twenty-ninth hole and asked myself: what does the city want to say? and then i heard. the city spoke not with a voice. the city spoke with pavements. every centimetre of them ever so slightly shuddered when the train moved along the adjacent track. every building emitted a micro-signal that no human nerve would catch, but a moth — yes. every shadow upon the wall was no shadow, but a gesture. and all these gestures together said: take us with you. we do not want to stand anymore. we want to go. we want to become a road. krasznahorkai slowly rose and approached the window. he did not look at the city. he looked inside the city — thither where stands its quiet, iron fatigue. his voice was deep, as if an old cellar retaining light only for itself: — it is frightening to be a city. frightening to be a place that can go nowhere. the shadow agreed, dimming a little. the light shuddered. the city froze — listening. the train was approaching the central square. i saw how the streetlamps incline forward in order better to examine us. how the trees on the boulevard turned the faces of their crowns toward us. how the road beneath the train yielded forward,
as if making steps. the city tried to become movement. but movement — is not a form. it is a decision. and the city did not yet know whether it has the right to such a decision. krasznahorkai raised his hand and placed it upon the glass. his shadow did the same. the light — too. three forms touched the colour of the city air. and the city answered with a light trembling of its roofs. this was like a breath. at that moment the city was no longer a city. it was a road that had not yet learned to lay itself in an even line. and krasznahorkai said: — movement is not in going forward. movement is in ceasing to fear that you will stir from your place. the houses listened. the bridges listened. the stones listened. even the air slowed down. when the train left the city, it did not diminish outside our window. it elongated. as if stretching after us with its intent to move. and i record: a city becomes a road not when they abandon it. but when it ceases to fear being other than it was prior to this. krasznahorkai, looking at his shadow, said: — all of us once stood on the spot. and then something wanted to move within us.
i wake today not from a sound. but from a dream that is not mine.
the dream floated nearby, like a cold breath in weightless air. it passed through the carriage the way a wave passes over the dark surface of a night lake. and i knew: someone is sleeping. and someone is being dreamed by the train. for this dream was not within the person who saw it — it was in the entire carriage. the train today was alive again. but differently than in the chapter when it stitched my hole. then it was a gentle master. today it is — a listener. the dream was greyish-blue. thus smells the sky before rain that has not yet decided whether to fall or to return back. in the dream there were no images. merely a state. a state of expectation that does not know what precisely it waits for. krasznahorkai slept. his shadow too slept — folding itself into a soft dark knot, like a cat that is not afraid to curl up in the weakest place of the world. the light dozed above him, faded, not offended, but simply asleep. and the dream heard by the train came from him. at first i thought the dream — is words without letters. but when it touched my wings, i understood: no. this was the scent of childhood which he never lived, but which lived within him. green — thus smells mown grass which he had not touched for years. stony — thus smell the streets of the city to which he will no longer return. bitterish — thus smells love
which did not become a body, but became silence. the dream picked through these aromas as if the train touched them with the ears of its wheels. when the train catches a dream, it changes rhythm. this i know for certain, for i hear every molecular shade of its metal. today the rhythm became softer. muffler. as if the train feared to wake the person it listens to. for a train too has ethics: listening to dreams is permissible, but disturbing them — no. and today it was careful, like an old doctor touching the pulse of a child's hand. the dream changed. its colour became deeper — a darker green almost transitioning into blue. this was a dream about a path he never chose. not about a loss — about a possibility that did not become reality. and the train listened to this without regret, without judgment, without intervention. it simply breathed the dream. i made the thirtieth hole — tiny, as if i myself feared to damage the dream passing nearby. the fabric, it seemed, too did not want to sound loudly today — every stir of the thread was softer than usual. at this moment i heard how the train said — not with a voice, but with a change in the weight of the rails: «i see that which he does not see.
i listen to that which he does not hear. these dreams — are my responsibility.» and i realised: the train does not simply transport us. it guards that which we cannot protect in a dream. krasznahorkai, who until now slept, ever so slightly smiled — merely for a moment. this was the smile not of a man, but of a dream revealing for a second its inner logic. the light caressed his cheek with a thin outline. the shadow folded tighter. the train made a deeper inhalation. and the dream slowly receded. when he woke, krasznahorkai said very quietly: — i heard how i sleep. but it was not i. it was he. he — is the train. i record: dreams — are not that which we see. dreams — are that which the world allows us to release while we sleep. the train today was no iron. it was a shore.
i did not notice immediately. such things do not happen all at once. time rarely takes a step loudly — it moves the way i do: barely audibly, by millimetres, inside the folds of the fabric. but today the train exhaled differently. its metal did not sigh — it fell silent. thus keeps silent the one who has finally freed himself from something unneeded. and i understood: time in this carriage today does not flow.
krasznahorkai sat in the same way as he sat yesterday, and the day before, and forty years ago. but this was no usual repetitiveness. this was the absence of change. his shadow lay evenly — without a sag, without a trembling. and a shadow never lies: when a person ages, the shadow changes its density. today — no. the light stood over him as in the first year of the journey, when everything was still possible, and nothing was lost. the light returned to the beginning. i carefully touched the coat, where the thirty-first hole appeared — small, even, as if i had made it not with teeth, but with a light breath. the fabric did not answer with a trembling. usually it has a fine pulse — the thermal memory of age. today — silence. the coat no longer aged. and he along with it. krasznahorkai raised his head. not sharply, not with wonder — so, as if this were something entirely natural. he ran a hand over the fabric beside me, and his fingers lay upon it with the same weight as many years ago. the hand did not grow heavier. did not slow down. had no trace of time. i felt how within him vanished the very category of “now”. the train by the creaking of the rails said first: «the one who walks my road for forty years becomes the road. and a road does not age.» i had long known that the train has voices. but today's voice
was the voice of geometry. the voice of a straight line having no age. krasznahorkai listened to this in silence, the way they listen to a truth he had always known, but was not certain that the world had ripened in order to utter it. the light did that which it does only on special days: it leveled itself completely. neither spots, nor fractures, nor micro-fluctuations. the light ceased to age along with him. and the shadow — too. it became uniform, without inner tears, without those small fluctuations which appear in people with the years. the three of them — he, the light, and the shadow — entered a peace that does not belong to time. and i, a small moth who had always lived in the fine wrinkles of the fabric, suddenly felt: wrinkles are no longer appearing. the world stopped the age circle. krasznahorkai finally uttered: — when you look at movement long enough, it becomes your form. and a form does not age. i record these words with a hole that too does not want to age. the thirty-first hole turns out even, almost geometrically precise — such as holes never are. today i made a hole without age. the train slowly moved on, and the rails beneath it said: «now you are — no passenger. now you are — a part of the road.» and he did not object.
at first i thought someone had opened a new lantern in the carriage. though i know well every lamp,
every source of light, every flaw and trembling of it. but today's luminous touch was not such. this light did not fall from above. it grew from below. and i understood: the coat glows. the light was not bright. brightness — is an external property. and this light was an internal one. thus glows silence when it finally accumulates within itself enough meaning to bear it further. the fabric of the coat radiated something similar to warm ash which does not burn, but retains the memory of fire. this was a colour that does not exist in the palette of paints, but exists in the palette of experiences. i — a moth seeing the world from other angles, with other sharpness, with other spectrums — i recognised this colour. this was the colour of that place in a person where they cease to belong to time. i touched the fabric with my little tongue, for my tongue — is my microscopy. it tells me how the material lives, how its surface thinks. the fabric was warm. not bodily — memorial. it glowed not because the light had to exit somewhere, but because within it appeared a place where light has somewhere to return. this was the first time i saw how the inner world becomes visible without the intent to become visible. krasznahorkai was not surprised. he only looked down at the light spilling in quiet waves over his chest, and said:
— so it must be. when time no longer moves, light begins to walk instead of it. his voice was even, as if he commented on the weather, rather than his own metamorphosis. the shadow, on the contrary, shifted deeper into itself in order not to get in the way. the shadow knew: when light goes from within, it must keep silent more than usually. the train reacted immediately — the rails gently shuddered, but not from cold, but from respect. not every day in its carriages arises a phenomenon it cannot explain. the train knows much — it heard dreams, knew voices, knew how to heal holes, distinguished the scents of thoughts. but the glowing of a man — this is something else. this is no state of the body. and no state of the spirit. this is a state in which the body ceases to be merely a body, but becomes a vessel for that which can endure longer than flesh. i made the thirty-second hole very carefully, slowly, so as not to touch the light. the hole turned out transparent. such that through it one sees not the darkness of the reverse of the fabric, but the light glowing beneath it. i had never made transparent holes. and, perhaps, never would have been able to, were it not for this day. i understood: today i did not spoil the coat. today i gave the coat a new window for glowing. krasznahorkai placed a palm upon the place
where i worked, and quietly said: — thank you, little one. now the light knows where to exit. the coat responded with a light, barely audible warmth — thus answers an object that has become more than an object. today the coat was no clothing. and no skin. and no shell. today the coat was a continuation of his silence. and the silence glowed.
this happened toward morning, when the metal of the carriage still retained the night silence, and the light leveled itself to the form of a transparent thought. i sat on the edge of the thirty-second hole, the light in which still breathed from within the coat, and listened to krasznahorkai slowly drawing breath, as if learning a new state — the state without age. at this moment the train changed weight. not speed. not direction. precisely weight. thus do only creatures that have decided to speak. at first i thought it wanted to ask us to handle the glowing more carefully. but the change of weight was no warning. it was a greeting. the train inclined itself in our direction — by a few millimetres, almost imperceptibly to human eyes, but for me this was a gesture that one cannot confuse with anything. this was a gesture which iron creatures use when they want to call someone an equal. i felt a wave — warm, peripheral, like the touch of a finger
that is not there. the touch came not from the rails and not from the engine, but from that invisible centre of the train where it stores its forces. and in this wave there was a word. not human. not acoustic. but structural. the train does not speak in the language of sounds. it speaks in the language of structure — by a change in the tension of the metal, by a line of vibration, by a soft deviation of weight. and in this language i heard: «i know that you are — no moth.» all the rails around for a moment expanded their sound, as if confirming what was said. for me, this was a moment of rupture. for forty years i lived in the shadow of the coat, in the language of holes, in the craft of observation. i was a small creature simply recording what it sees. but today the train said otherwise: «you are — the one who preserves the road.» thus it calls those who write that which it itself cannot hold within. not chroniclers. not witnesses. but those without whom the road crumbles into disordered fragments. the coat responded first — it slightly warmed me, as if accepting this new state. the light quietly shifted to the side of my wings. krasznahorkai’s shadow too, very imperceptibly, turned toward me — and shadows turn only to those who become important. krasznahorkai opened his eyes and said so quietly that i at first thought: it is an echo. — i knew that one day it would see you. the train again changed weight. this time — precisely in my direction, fixing its decision.
and i understood: that which was an accident became a presence. that which was an instinct became a calling. that which was life in a fold of the fabric became life in the structure of the road. today the train did not call me a moth. it called me a form of memory. i make the thirty-third hole, very even, almost ritual. and i record: when the road speaks to you first, you cease to be a petty creature. you become the one whom the road chose.
we had been journeying already for several hours in a smooth, almost faultless silence of the rails. the train moved slower than usual, as if gathering its breath before something inevitable. krasznahorkai sat motionless, his light was calm, his shadow — dense, his coat — a quiet candle from within. and suddenly the carriage made a barely perceptible movement, not forward and not to the side, but inside itself. and i knew: the train is exiting the geometry of the world and entering something else. at first i thought that we are stopping. but this was no stop. this was an expectation of an appearance. when a station does not exist in space, it does not come beneath the train — it grows from beneath the wheels, like a memory that suddenly remembered itself. the metal of the carriage changed its sound to a softer, more scattered one,
as if someone had embedded in it a thin layer of clouds. and then i heard the name of the station. not with a voice. not by a mechanical announcement. not as text on a board. i heard it upon myself. it sounded through me, if the word “sounded” is at all suitable for that which my body did. for my name — is that smallest sound of the world which few uttered, which no one recorded, which no one gave me. but the station knew it. and whispered: — moth… small moth, come. i shuddered. for no one, NO ONE, had ever called me with the voice of the world. even krasznahorkai called me “little one” — gently, but without a name. but here the name was said not in order to call me, but to recognise. the station did not wait for krasznahorkai. did not wait for people. did not wait for baggage, passengers, timetables. it waited for me. the light in the carriage gathered into one point before melting into a thin transparent wave floating toward the doors. krasznahorkai’s shadow slowly rose, arched its back and stood nearby. krasznahorkai himself, making no movement whatsoever, glanced at me and in his gaze there was no surprise. merely the calmness of the one who had long known that one day the road would come precisely to me. the train opened the doors. without a sound. without an effort. without mechanics.
the opened doors glowed with a mist which was neither white, not grey, nor airy. this was a mist composed of memory. and out of it grew a platform. the platform of a station which is in no reality, but which today exists for a single, unique passenger. upon it there were no buildings. there was no board. there was no one. merely a silence capable of uttering my name. i stepped onto the edge of the coat — illuminated, light, as if made of morning smoke. and then the station said once more: — small moth. you remember that which others do not remember. step in. the train inclined ever so slightly, supporting me. the light nudged. the shadow enveloped, as if reassuring that it was safe. and krasznahorkai whispered: — do not fear. stations without a map come only to those who have become part of the road. i made the thirty-fourth hole — a hole that was more a reminder than writing. and recorded: stations that are not nevertheless exist. they come only to those who have no path back. i, a moth having no name in the world, today gained a name on the road.
when i stepped onto the platform, the mist of memory slightly gave way,
as if recognizing the weight of my wings. and i understood: the station does not simply know my name — it knows the form of my movement. here there were no lamps. there was no source of light. but the mist glowed from within, like a page read too many times, and it began to remember fingers. i wanted to look around, but the station gently held me back with an invisible warm gesture. «close your eyes,» it said. and i closed them. darkness did not ensue. on the contrary — within me something flared up, as if someone had opened a window inside my body. i saw a map. not with lines. not with rivers. not with cities. but with sensations tethered to places that do not yet exist in space, but already exist on the road. the first place smelled of wood that had never grown, but will certainly sprout. the second place sounded as if someone were drawing a silver thread through me and filling it with warmth. the third place had a taste — a light bitterness of that which people would call repentance, and i would call an uncompleted movement. the map consisted not of continents, but of feelings. and every feeling had its own coordinate. the station spoke: — maps drawn by humans show where they were. the maps shown to you show where you will become. i did not understand immediately. but the map within me rushed like a wave — and suddenly i saw rails that are not yet,
roads that are not yet laid, stations that have not yet arisen. the train moved toward them always, not even knowing their name. and i — i, the moth who only made holes — now saw the path not as a journey, but as a prediction. then out of the mist came a sign. not a symbol. not a letter. not a drawing. but rather a thermal figure, a form having no body, but having weight. it approached me and touched my wings. this was a touch explaining nothing, but deciding everything. «you are — a part of this map,» said the station. «you record that which even the road cannot hold.» i understood why it knew my name. because i am — no traveller. and no observer. and no parasite of the fabric. i am — that organ of memory which does not enter human anatomy, but enters the anatomy of the road. i for the first time in my life felt myself not small, but needed. and then the mist closed, as if it folded a page which must no longer be open. the map hid itself within me. it did not vanish. it became part of my structure. i opened my eyes — and understood that the station no longer holds me. the train waited.
krasznahorkai looked as if he knew every fragment of that which occurred. the light blinked. the shadow elongated in order to become stairs back. i made the thirty-five hole — small but irreversible — and recorded: there are maps of the world. there are maps of the body. there are maps of memory. and there are maps living in those who should never have been travellers. i became such a map.
when i returned to the carriage, the train breathed differently. not deeper. not faster. but… more attentively. this was the breath of a creature that felt that something in its inner geometry had changed forever. krasznahorkai sat calmly — as if nothing special had happened. but i saw his shadow, which stretched along the aisle for the first time in forty years without the slightest fatigue. the shadow knew: the road had ceased to be what it was. the train moved off. the rails answered — but not with that sound i had known for thousands of days and nights. the sound was new. quiet, deep, almost hesitant — as if we were stepping onto a surface upon which no one had ever walked. i understood: we are journeying along rails that did not exist. or perhaps — existed, but only for those
who returned from the station without a map. krasznahorkai leaned toward me. the light of his coat illuminated my wings from below, like a candle beneath paper. — do not be frightened, little one, — he said. — this is what happens when the road recognises a new creature in its structure. i did not understand. i — am merely a moth making holes and recording thoughts. but he said: — you changed it. precisely you. not i. not the light. not the shadow. you gave it a map it did not have. and now it goes thither where your memory wants. a quiet fear gripped me. but not a human fear, but that fine fear of a creature understanding that it is no longer accidental. the train sharply leveled its weight — for the first time in forty years not to the track, but to me. i felt how the centre of gravity of the metallic giant shifted closer to my thirty-fifth hole, as if it were orienting upon me, like a compass upon a magnet. and then i heard its language — a deep, structural, unearthly sound: «i saw your map. and i follow it.» i had never trembled so violently. not because i was afraid. but because for the first time i felt the entire weight of my own existence. my hole, my memory, my presence — they changed the path of a creature longer than cities, older than bridges, stronger than geography.
the train turned thither where there were no rails. and instead of the usual clicking of joints i heard a smooth, inaudible sound — the sound of how the road is created beneath us in real time. krasznahorkai smiled — with that quiet smile realised only by those who have long ceased to age. — see? — he said. — even a great road can change itself for the sake of a small one who does not allow it to be forgotten.» the light glowing from his coat changed shade. became clearer. deeper. the shadow lay so as if it wants to envelop the entire carriage. the train continued to create a new track. and i made the thirty-sixth hole: roads do not change for the masses. roads change for those who change their memory. today the train chose my path.
the night was transparent, like water that no one had touched for a long time. krasznahorkai sat in silence, the track was born beneath it, as a thin shiny line appearing out of the darkness, like a manuscript writing itself. krasznahorkai sat in silence, but his silence was new. not a stillness, but an inner weighing. the light of his coat pulsated, as if preparing for a great gesture.
the shadow lay evenly, like an ancient bridge waiting for the first step. i felt that something was preparing to happen. the train slowed down. not because it had to stop — but because the road wanted to hear. the air in the carriage became denser, as if gathering to catch the slightest shade of a voice. krasznahorkai raised his head and for the first time in our entire journey looked not ahead, not out the window, not into the shadow, but into the movement itself. thus look people who finally see the creature that was nearby always, but kept silent. and then he said: — road. i know that you hear me. these words were not uttered loudly. they were no address. they were a recognition. the rails beneath us for a moment changed sound — like a tuning fork finding the correct frequency for the first time. the train too answered — with a light movement of weight, which was no mechanics, but a gesture. «i am listening», said the road. krasznahorkai placed a palm upon the luminous fold of the coat, and the coat illuminated more strongly, as if it wanted to transmit the light further — to the road. — i walked along you for a long time, expecting nothing, — he said. — for i thought that your movement — is a destiny, rather than a choice. the road gently shuddered.
i felt it in my wings, like the echo of an ancient stone. krasznahorkai continued: — but today you chose her. (he inclined his head in my direction.) — and i understood: you are no object. no line. no construction. you are — a creature that too wants to be heard. the light for a moment gathered in one place of the coat, and it seemed to me that it became warmer. i felt how the train held its breath. the road answered not in words, but in movements — very slow, barely noticeable, but absolutely alive. beneath us, space took a tiny sip of silence. and the road said: «i was lonely for a long time. i was walked upon, but not seen. i was touched, but not heard. today you spoke to me.» krasznahorkai closed his eyes and nodded — with that slowness possessed only by the one who does not fear a stop. the shadow unfolded — softly, smoothly — and stretched itself along the carriage in order to reach the edge of the doors. the light faded to a warm october. the very same colour with which words sometimes glow when they are finally uttered correctly. the train made a movement: light, like a reverence. and krasznahorkai said: — i do not ask. i merely thank.
for you gave place to the one whom no one noticed. and by this changed everything. i could not contain myself and made the thirty-seventh hole. a hole that was no record — but a tear. then the road spoke for the last time: « you spoke to me. and that means, we are equals.» and the train moved forward along a new line which the road made only for the three of us: for it, for krasznahorkai, and for me — the one whom no one else will call little.
this happened quietly. no flash, no crunch of the air, no warning. the light simply… took the first step. i felt its movement earlier than i saw it. for light, when it lives, has its own vibration: it does not touch the fabric, but touches the meaning of the fabric. the coat, which until now glowed from within, unexpectedly became darker — not because the light faded, but because it exited from it. at first the light was small, like a knot of fire that had not yet decided whether it was worth becoming a flame. it held above the coat, a few centimetres from the fabric, as if afraid to lose contact with that in which it was born. and then the train slightly shifted weight, supporting it.
this was a gesture that hands should have made, but the road made. and the light moved. krasznahorkai looked calmly, without wonder, without fear, as if so it must be. the shadow, on the contrary, shifted back, vacating place. for when light goes somewhere for the first time, the shadow has no right to stand on the road. the light slowly receded, as if trying every centimetre of the air before stepping onto the next. and i, the moth who had always lived in the fabric, suddenly understood that light too can live outside a body. the light moved through the carriage, and where it passed, the material changed its state. the old wood of the seats became for a moment younger, as if it remembered the day when it was first cut. the metal of the handles as if rested by the seconds it once lost when it was sawn and bent. even the glass of the windows stood for a second softer, as if the temperature of the world drew near to its true nature. the light did not illuminate. it returned. returned to the carriage its primordial peace. i followed it — very carefully, for i had never flown so far from the coat. the light made a circle around me, as if recognising. and i understood: it sees me better than i see myself. krasznahorkai whispered:
— do not fear. light does not seek space. light seeks an address. i did not know what this meant. but later i understood. light does not flee. it seeks where to stand. the light approached the far end of the carriage and stopped. it hung above the floor, as if trying to find a point it can call its own. and then the carriage — this great steel creature — was washed by a wave of quiet warmth. not a physical warmth. but a memorial one. i heard how the rails changed their tone to a deeper, more respectful one. the train said: «i receive you. the light of the road always has the right to go thither where it is awaited.» the light caught these words and trembled — not from fear, but from the fact that it was for the first time called important. the coat did not fade. within it remained a quiet aftersound of that light which had already become other. krasznahorkai placed a hand upon the place from where the light had exited, and quietly said: — you did not lose the light. you gave it a path. i made the thirty-eighth hole — round, like an orbit — and recorded: light does not abandon. light exits when it no longer fits in one body. and when the road is ready to give it a new space. the light hung at the end of the carriage — for now hesitantly, but it will no longer return back. it made the first movement
toward its own history.
the light hung at the end of the carriage, calm, warm, focused — like a thought that finally found a place where it can stand without fear. krasznahorkai sat in silence, but today his silence was… different. deeper. more multidimensional. as if within the stillness appeared a space that was not there previously. and suddenly i noticed something i had never noticed: his shadow did not repeat him. at first — a trifle. it seemed that the shadow stretches a few centimetres longer than it should. then — that it recedes to the side a fraction of a second earlier than he moves his shoulder. and then — that it stands motionless when he slightly turned his head toward the light. this violated all the laws of the world. shadows have no will. shadows have no right. shadows have no gesture. but today the shadow of krasznahorkai behaved so as if it cancelled the contract with the body. i approached closer. my thirty-eighth hole glowed with orbital warmth, and from it the shadow became even clearer. it did not move. it looked. the shadow looked at krasznahorkai, the way creatures look that have finally dared to say: «it is no longer enough for me to repeat you.» the light hanging at the end of the carriage changed its form — as if listening. the train slowed its pace. and when a train decelerates without a reason,
this means that it too wants to be a witness. krasznahorkai was not surprised. he only raised his head and looked at his shadow exactly so, as he looked at the road when he spoke to it as an equal. his voice was quiet, but within it appeared that which i had never heard: — if you want — become yourself. i do not hold you. the shadow shuddered, as if this permission had its own weight. then carefully stepped away two centimetres from his leg. and for the first time in forty years the shadow of krasznahorkai did not touch the floor where his body stood. it chose another place. this was an inaudible, but grandiose violation of the rules of the world. the shadow changed form: it became neither longer nor shorter, but more voluminous, such that i felt within it a presence — warm, deep, almost human. the light hanging at the end of the carriage barely pulsated, as if confirming: this must happen. the train transferred weight — for a moment — to the left, as if bowing to the shadow. and the road beneath us made a very slow curve which was in the map neither of the world, nor of me. i made the thirty-ninth hole, and this hole was sharper than all others. for this — is the hole of freedom. i recorded: the shadow repeats us until we recognise it as an equal.
and when we recognise it — it becomes that which it was always meant to be: an independent form of light that does not fear the darkness. krasznahorkai looked at his shadow for a long time, calmly, with relief. — now you have your path, — he said. — go. i shall be glad to walk beside you, if you allow. the shadow inclined. this was its first gesture of its own.
in the carriage stood a silence which was no absence of sound. this was a silence having its own temperature: a light warm mist touching the face so softly that a human being would not notice, but a moth — feels with every cell of its wings. the light that had exited krasznahorkai’s coat hung at the end of the carriage as a small golden ball pulsating in the measure of my breath. krasznahorkai’s shadow, already disconnected, stood aside — not behind his back, but beside him, like an equal. the train barely moved — not with the carriage, but with thought. and i felt that all three are preparing to say something. the light approached first. not by a movement, but by a change of form — a narrow strip of light flowed from the ball and lay upon the floor, like the first stroke of a new language. the shadow answered —
not with a dimming, but with a wave of light density that passed along the metal of the carriage, like the touch of warmth at night. the road, however, answered with a low, almost inaudible tone which i felt at the bottom of my body, there where a moth feels the world sharpest of all. and i understood: they will speak together. all three addressed not krasznahorkai. and not themselves. they addressed me. the light said: — you gave us direction. the shadow said: — you gave us form. and the road said: — you gave us memory. and when these three voices converged in one sounding, the metal of the carriage became warm, as if inside it they had poured another creature. krasznahorkai sat motionless, but in his silence was pure agreement. he knew: today it is not he speaking. and not even the light of his coat, not the shadow of his body, not the road of his path. today speaks the very world of this train. the three — light, shadow, and road — said simultaneously, in one voice composed of different temperatures, different weights, different depths: — small moth. you record that which we cannot preserve ourselves. you — are our memory. and we recognise you. i shuddered. this was no fear. this was a movement making that
which never hoped to become visible. i made the fortieth hole — a hole having no edges. it was an ideal circle, as if they had cut it with light, rather than me. and for the first time in forty holes i recorded no observation, no event, no gesture. i recorded myself: i am. and the world sees it. the train, which had always been a road, today became the voice of the road. the light returned to the coat — but not inside it, but nearby, like a satellite. the shadow stepped yet another pace to the side and became deeper — now this was no shadow of krasznahorkai. but the shadow of the world. and the road beneath us leveled itself to a silence the like of which i had never heard. krasznahorkai placed a finger upon the new hole and quietly said: — congratulations, little one. you are no longer a moth in a coat. you are — a moth in the world.» and i knew: the first notebook is complete.