And he would have agreed easily: — Very true. But I wonder if you have to distinguish so precisely between means and end. Wouldn't it be all right to use the definitions as need dictates?
— No, no, that wouldn't do at all. You can't spend time vertically. It's an accepted fact that time really goes horizontally.
— What happens if you try spending it vertically? — You're a mummy if you do!
He chuckled and took off his shoes. Indeed, time did seem to run horizontally. He could not stand the sand and sweat that had collected between his toes. He took off his shoes and socks and stretched his toes, letting the air in between them. Hmm, why did places where animals live have such an unpleasant smell? Wouldn't it be fine if there were animals that smelled like flowers! No. It was the smell of his own feet. A curious feeling of friendliness welled up in him when he realized this. He recalled that someone had said that there was nothing that tasted so good as one's own ear wax, that it was better than real cheese. Even if it weren't that bad, there were all kinds of fascinating things one never tired of smelling… like the stink of a decaying tooth.
The entrance to the house was more than half blocked with sand, and it was almost impossible to see in. Was it the remains of an old well? It would not be so strange if a shack had been built over a well to protect it from the sand. Of course, you could hardly expect to find water in a place like this… He tried to look in, and this time he was enveloped by the real smell of dog. Animal smell is beyond philosophy. He remembered a socialist saying that he liked a Korean's soul but he couldn't stand his smell. Well then, if time did run horizontally, it had better show him how fast it could run… Hope and uneasiness… a feeling of release and impatience. He found it most unbearable to be tantalized this way. He put the towel over his face and lay down on his back. It might be his own smell, but he was not about to pay it compliments.
Something was crawling fitfully up the instep of his foot. Its manner of walking could hardly be like that if it belonged to the beetle family. He decided it must be some kind of ground bug, for it drew itself along with difficulty on its six weak legs. He didn't even feel like finding out. Supposing for the time being it did belong to the beetle family; even, so he still hesitated, wondering whether he really felt like going after it or not. He was apparently incapable of a definite decision.
A breeze flipped the towel from his face. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a ridge of dunes glistening and golden. A smoothly rising curve cut off the line of gold and abruptly slipped away into the shadows. There was something strangely tense in the spatial composition, and he shuddered with an uncanny loneliness for people. (Yes, this certainly is a romantic landscape… A setting like this would be a great attraction for young tourists these days. Precious, gilt-edged stock it is… I can guarantee its future development as someone who's experienced in this profession. But if you're going to develop it, first you've got to advertise! Even flies won't come if you don't advertise. The place might just as well not be here if no one knows about it. It's like having a precious stone and not finding a practical use for it. Well then, what shall we do? I'll put the thing in the hands of a first-rate photographer and have him make me up some good-looking picture postcards. In the old days you used to find a beauty spot and then have your postcards made. But now, it's common sense to have the cards made first… and afterwards think up a beautiful place. I have brought along two or three samples, if you'd care to look them over.) The poor postcard salesman had come with the intention of taking the villagers in, but he had been the one to be taken in, and in the end he had got sick and died. But then, he certainly could not imagine that the card man had been particularly eloquent. He had probably been surprisingly sincere in his hopes for the place and had doubtless staked all he had on the business. What in heaven's name was the real essence of this beauty? Was it the precision of nature with its physical laws, or was it nature's mercilessness, ceaselessly resisting man's understanding?
Until yesterday the very thought of this landscape had filled him with nausea. He had actually thought, in a fit of spleen, that the holes were just right for swindlers like picture-postcard vendors.
However, there was no reason to think of the life in the holes and the beauty of the landscape as being opposed to each other. Beautiful scenery need not be sympathetic to man. His own viewpoint in considering the sand to be a rejection of the stationary state was not madness… a 1/8-mm. flow… a world where existence was a series of states. The beauty of sand, in other words, belonged to death. It was the beauty of death that ran through the magnificence of its ruins and its great power of destruction. No. Just a minute. He would be in a spot if he were criticized for holding on to his round-trip ticket and not letting go of it. You like movies of wild animals and of war because you find that the same old day, following the same old yesterday, is waiting for you as soon as you come out of the movie house… you even like the films that stick so close to reality they nearly give you a heart attack. Is anybody really foolish enough to go to the movies with a real gun, loaded with real bullets? Certain kinds of mice that are said to drink their own urine in place of water, or insects that feed on spoiled meat, or nomadic tribes who know only the one-way ticket at best, can adjust their lives to the desert. If from the beginning you always believed that a ticket was only one-way, then you wouldn't have to try so vainly to cling to the sand like an oyster to a rock. But nomads have gone so far as to change their name to «stock breeders,» so… Yes, perhaps he should have spoken about this scenery to the woman. Perhaps he should have sung her the song of the sands, which has absolutely no room for a round-trip ticket, even though he might have sung it badly. At best he had given a poor imitation of a gigolo trying to catch a woman by dangling the bait of a different kind of life. But with his face pressed in the sand, he had been like a cat in a paper bag.
The light on the ridge suddenly vanished. The whole landscape sank into darkness before his eyes. Unnoticed, the wind had died down, and now the mist was coming back strongly. That was probably why the sun had set so abruptly. Well then, let's go!
25
He would have to escape by passing through the village before the basket gangs began their work. Judging by experience, there should be about an hour left or, to be on the safe side, forty-five minutes. The spit of the promontory, as if embracing the village, gradually curved in toward the land, reaching as far as the inlet on the east side and squeezing the village road into a single lane. There the sheer cliffs of the promontory ended in what seemed to be slightly elevated, washed-out dunes. If he went straight ahead, keeping the mist-shrouded lights of the village on his right, he could expect to come out just about where the cliffs stopped. It would be a little over a mile. And beyond that lay the outskirts of the village. He could not remember any houses, only occasional plots of peanuts here and there. If he could just get across the dunes, then it would probably be safe to walk down the road. At least the roadbed was red clay, and if he were to run with all his might it would take him about fifteen minutes to get to the highway. If he could get that far, then he would have won the game. Buses would be running, and people would be in their right minds.