“He felt dreary as an empty house; and tender memories mingling with the sad thoughts in his brain, addled by the fumes of the feast, he felt inclined for a moment to take a turn towards the church.”
Sayfa 41Kitabı okudu
I felt the passing of time, its essence in its repetitions. Remembering the present stretches time out even more. I remembered the smell of the rain at the end of the day when Heredia, without explanation, would disappear from the ranch. I would hear his horse gallop off on the dirt road, or would see a cloud of dust that drew farther away with the carriage.
I thought: He returns who knows when, at an hour when I am deep asleep. I hear the sound of his boots on the flagstones in the corridor. He knocks on my window to wish me good night. I hear him in my dreams. While I sleep, time interrupts its conventional rhythm. In lonely places sleep gets bound up with reality. It is like the imitation of a very long life, with its memories. I have been living at this ranch with Armando Heredia for five or six days and yet it seems as if I have been living here in this house for my whole life, that I have always heard this rain, that I have always seen the sunsets, that Armando has always knocked on my window to wish me good night in the middle of my dreams.
The truth is, I do feel abandoned. I miss my father. I miss my brothers. I miss my own house, which was old and shabby and stuffed with ancient furniture, but I knew every bit of it. It was safe and comfortable, with memories attached to every surface.
13. Bölüm|AidaKitabı okudu
The hold on my mind, my memories, the whole spell-lock cracked like an egg, and everything came flooding back.
My life.
My House.
My power. In my mind’s eye I saw me and Wrath, making love and training and battling wits and wills. Another memory: my twin scheming with me in our throne room. I saw Sursea coming to us with her plan, her need for vengeance fueling my sin. Then I was in the garden and I saw the look on Wrath’s face right before everything was torn away.
“It’s our memory of the unattained and something greater that leads us to construct architecture. But at the same time, architecture is the house of all our memories.”
All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
