Sacred and Terrible Smell
What was that sacred and terrible, elusive smell in the air this time? My name is Ambrosius Saint-Miro, the locals call me “Ambrosius Pyhä-Mirä” and in Graad they call me “Svjata-Mira”. “Diduska?” they ask, their eyes wide with affection, but I answer them: “No. I am not your diduska.” I am Ambrosius Santa-Mira from Mesque, Ambrosio Hagiamira, I
Sayfa 60 - Unofficial English TranslationKitabı okudu
But is it not already an insult to call chess anything so narrow as a game? Is it not also a science, an art, hovering between these categories like Muhammad's coffin between heaven and earth, a unique yoking of opposites, ancient and yet eternally new, mechanically constituted and yet an activity of the imagination alone, limited to a fixed geometric area but unlimited in its permutations, constantly evolving and yet sterile, a cogitation producing nothing, a mathematics calculating nothing, an art without an artwork, an architecture without substance and yet demonstrably more durable in its essence and actual form than all books and works, the only game that belongs to all peoples and all eras, while no one knows what god put it on earth to deaden boredom, sharpen the mind, and fortify the spirit?
