Burgmüller now spoke a few explanatory words about his new acoustic-utopian interior design of the sound of longing, whereby it seemed to him, when he was facing the caryatid, that he wasn’t just any acoustic interior designer, but rather an acoustic universe designer; it is my great hope, he said, that I will someday be able to pace off the boundary line of one of those stray dream-insight-districts as might occasionally happen to err in our direction, as one of the truly great dreams passes through on its travels, just a few steps, just briefly, without even noticing it itself, so that I might perhaps manage then to catch even a glimpse of its true magnitude, of which we can’t even dream, really, to any extent — and then of course one would have to hope as well that this unperceived, hypothetical, errant dream wouldn’t immediately smash to pieces on its return, just because its most fleeting outlines had briefly, when it was too close to you or to me for its own safety, been taken into our memory — that is what he would wish for more than anything else in the world, Burgmüller explained to the caryatid, as he temporarily took his departure from her. .
But do take your time, she replied, inviting him before his return to her to go ahead and carry out one of those research expeditions he had spoken of, so that he could better report back to her on everything, and, as he knew, the time of his absence, whether he was away now for a few hours or months or years, would in any case seem very short, just like the blink of an eye for her, and besides, too, as he would soon find out, she knew how to make certain she was always accompanying him in some manner. .
(After all, she had always been with him, they had always been together, it was only briefly that they’d ever been somewhat separated from each other, and now it had become high time that he once more. .
What? he asked, have I met you before? When was that?
I don’t know, she said, but I firmly believe it, I have a very definite feeling. .)
Everything seemed so different, as if it had been replaced, yes, much had changed, because the city had stepped right out of the shadows it had cast, was no longer knotted like a cummerbund around its previous existence; instead, it was clearly recognizable as nothing other than a negative image, a silhouette of a city previously unknown to him that no longer laced him in, but rather stretched itself out visibly before him.
This shadow, he asked himself, this shadow-snow, this shadow-snow-spark-shower now leaping out of all the alleyways, is it also the face of my beloved whom I have now found again, whose eyes accompany me everywhere, blinking into my face? and the silver-sound-lightning of the rain-guitars now hopping and squatting their way out of those cloud-gray houses, is that also her voice, the echo of her calling for me? and the swaying boats that hit against the hawsers in the river harbor, are they her breath, that carries the light toward the west?
When he looked across the roofs, their patterns were woven together into foothills that flowed into the forests at the edge of the city, from which a rustling calm passed over the houses. The towers were within reach, painted into the distant air, all the way up to the ceiling of this atmosphere-room, with complex light-beam constructions artfully stretched over it.
He made his way to the river. The trees were leaned against the shore, organized into avenues that flowed away with the stream, and they were either blown upward by the wind through the sky, or else they trickled away into the horizon.