The Symmetry Teacher Read Online Free Page B

was a client without a head, though wearing a coat of armor; then there was a single hand holding a glass; next there appeared a bush with one blurred branch, as if the picture depicted an attempt to photograph a bird as it flew away. ‘You are very observant,’ he said, continuing his search, ‘which is why I sat down beside you. It is uncommon for someone to spy a bird on that branch right off the bat. One has to be a born poet for that. And that happens no more than three or four times a century. Well, like you, for example, or … But you’re not an admirer of the Lake Poets, are you? By the way, it was precisely this bird that inspired … Well, never mind, it doesn’t matter. What I mean to say is that these are all absolutely random shots. They mean nothing at all. This one, for example, is Shakespeare. And don’t think it’s the moment when he wrote his “To be or not to be” monologue. Nor is it a meeting with the Dark Lady, or with Francis Bacon. Here he is, looking tired after a performance.’ In the photograph was a faience basin with a broken rim, certainly outmoded in shape; but from it protruded two ordinary naked feet, either crooked themselves, or placed crookedly in the vessel. One toe stuck out in such a way that it looked like the legs it belonged to were busy at something down there in the basin, and a stream of water was pouring from the upper-right corner of the photograph into the mouth of the vessel. That was all.
    “‘No, I am not a madman, still less a photographer or dreamer, which you have just suspected me of being. These pictures are, in fact, capable of far less than the actual possibilities of fantasy allow. These things I’m holding in my hands are historical originals, believe it or not. Ah, now you have hit upon a wonderful thought: Why should historical fact appear more precise or attractive than what I have in my hands? History happens right in front of our eyes, I must agree with you there.’ He was quite deft at guessing all my thoughts, and he did this just when I was either about to call him out and put him in his place, or simply stand up and leave, thus throwing off his unbearable obtrusiveness. But his angle on things, which you would later call the close-up shot, was very amusing from a poetic point of view. Here a line of poetry pecked its way out with heady facility: mud under the hooves of Alexander the Great’s troops, waves closing down over the Titanic , clouds floating past above Homer’s head … What did that mud know about the triumphant hoof? What did the water care about the treasures of the Spanish Armada? What need had the sky of verse?
    “‘And here is the chink in the floor where the light squeezes through,’ the purveyor of pictures muttered to himself, but simultaneously with the line that had just before entered my head. ‘Not bad. Not bad at all. You see? I knew you were the very one I could trust. Possibly the only one, in our day and age. No, this isn’t flattery. I am not your garden-variety medium or swindler. Honestly, what is so special about anyone’s head that it should be considered a miracle to guess what’s inside it? Then again, what would I gain from it? Indulge my own talents by leading astray a gullible mind? That is a consideration, of course, but I am not so petty in my conceit. I have more humble, though less romantic, models than a Mephistopheles or Cagliostro. Now science fiction is all the rage. H. G. Wells, for example— The Time Machine . No, you scoff because you are still young. His style isn’t bad at all. I would even go so far as to say its Englishness is quite pleasant to the ear. It’s rare nowadays. It’s a childlike pleasure … He’s no Dickens, of course. But then again, begging your pardon, you and I are no Dickens, either. What do you mean boorish, when it’s only the truth? But I must agree with you that there is always a tinge of vulgarity in the truth. Because not everyone has the right,