Читать книгу Solace of Lovers. Trost der Liebenden - Helena Perena - Страница 13

“We don’t master the ways, we are impostors,

we are not the game, we are the pack;

we are the brush in the painter’s hand,

we ourselves know not what we are.”

Molavi (1207–1273)

A light fall of wind-blown snow has set in; my gaze wanders over rocky ridges to small groups of poplars on the mountain slopes opposite, which are covered by patches of field. On the right the bluish-black rock face, partly overhanging, on whose narrow, elongated plateau Alamut is situated. Scree, sharp-edged fragments of stone and muddy, black earth; now and again, sparse vegetation consisting of thistles, mosses and a strange plant with thick, fleshy leaves. Several times on the way back, I start to pull off one of the leaves so that I can take it with me. But something makes me hesitate, holds me back. Is it this tenacious shape, which feels like a child’s clumsy hand, that makes it impossible for me to pull hard and pinch the leaf off with my fingernails? I have a strange feeling of wounding a living being. Would blood then flow from these strange leaves, whose shape reminds me of a tongue? I feel the same about the small shrubby willows, which are better protected with thorns. Here, too, I soon abandon what were never anything more than half-hearted attempts. The track ascends in a long arc. All is silence. A majestic calm that tolerates no interruption; even the minor gusts of wind that sweep across my face seem silent. The contours blur in the driving snow. Patches of mist and vague outlines. The world meanders and glows cold in all the slate-grey, snow-white colours of rock, leaden grounded nuances and watery highlights. In slow steps, groping carefully forward, I circle the black block of the fortress, which lingers constantly above my head. A dark ship, towering up into the grey snow cloudy sky. Then we reach the entrance, a wooden gate above which, in calligraphic ornamentation, a sign announces: “This is a house of God.”