Aliss at the Fire

...because if there was one thing he didn't like it was big words, they just lied and covered things up, those big words, they didn't let what really was live and breathe but just carried it off into something that wanted to be big, that's what he thought...

... he walks into the hall and the old walls there settle into place all around him and say something to him, the same way they always have, he thinks, it's always like that, whether he notices it and thinks about it or not the walls are there, and it is as if silent voices are speaking from them, as if a big tongue is there in the walls and this tongue is saying something that can never be said with words ...

.... that first time they met, completely by accident, and it wasn't hard, it wasn't frightening, no, it was like it was obvious, like there was nothing to do about it, it was certain....

desde a primeira vez em que ela o viu chegar, e então ele olhou para ela, e ela ficou lá parada, e os dois se olharam, sorriram um para o outro, e foi como um encontro entre velhos conhecidos, como se os dois se conhecessem desde sempre, de certa forma, e como se fizesse um tempo infinito desde o último encontro, e por isso a alegria foi tão grande, aquele reencontro deixou os dois tão alegres que a alegria tomou conta, levou-os, a alegria levou-os um na direção do outro, como se fosse uma coisa que tivesse estado ausente e faltado durante a vida inteira, mas agora estava lá, finalmente, agora estava lá,

and she looks at him and then she looks away from him into the emptiness and then she lays both her hands on her stomach and she folds her hands and I hear Signe say Dear Jesus, help me, you have to help me, you

... and then he sees the eyes sort of find a voice and what he hears is like a howl, first a howling from one eye and then a scattered howling from lots of eyes and then the huge howl becomes one with the flames rising up and it disappears into the darkness and the voices in the eyes rise up and are smoke that you can't see and he keeps walking and now it's so cold that he has to go home ...