Traveler of the Century

It's the same with books, you see mounds of them in bookshops and you want to read them all, or at least to have a taste of them. You think you could be missing out on something important, you see them and they intrigue you, they tempt you, they tell you how insignificant your life is and how tremendous it could be.

We lose the fear of letting go of our baggage, but also the certainty that what is in them belongs to us.

But isn't that what love is, the old man said, being happy to stay?

...(Places are constantly changing, haven't you noticed the branches, the river?) No one notices those things,...everyone walks around without seeing, they become accustomed, accustomed to their houses, their jobs, their loved ones, and in the end they convince themselves that this is their life, there can be no other, it's just a habit.

I don't know how long it will all last either, and for now I don't care. Today it is thus, we both agree, and with you it is always today.

When I was young, because I was young once like you, I heard many organ grinders play, and I can assure you no two tunes ever sounded the same, even on the same instrument. That's how it is, isn't it? The less love you put into things the more they resemble one another. The same goes for stories, everyone knows them by heart, but when someone tells them with love, I don't know, they seem new.

Everyone's life, Álvaro declaimed in a comic voice, is both insignificant and tremendous.

Packing a bag doesn't make you aware of changes, rather it compels you to postpone the past, and the present is taken up with concerns about the immediate. Time slides over the travelers' skin.

Travelers come here, people who have lost their way or were headed somewhere else, lone wolves. And they all end up staying here, Hans. You'll get used to it. I don' thin' sso, said Hans, I'm p-passing through. You'll get used to it, Álvaro repeated, I've been passing through here for over ten years now.

Farewells are so strange. There’s something terrifying, deadly, about them, and yet they awaken a desperate urge to live. Perhaps farewells create new territories, or they send us back to the only territory that truly belongs to us, that of solitude. It is as though we needed to go back there from time to time, to draw a line and say: I came from here, this was me, what sort of person am I?

History shows that people are as changeable as rivers.

Well, this is how I see it - every tune tells a tale, nearly always a sad one. When I turn the handle I imagine I'm the hero of that tale and I try to feel at one with its melody. But at the same time it's as if I'm pretending, do you see?

La gente silenciosa tiene mucho que decir, sobre todo cuando no habla. Existen muchas clases de silenciosos. El silencioso avaro, que se reserva sus opiniones para repasarlas con mordacidad y detalle en cuanto se queda a solas. El silencioso resignado, que jamás se plantea la posibilidad de tomar la palabra porque está convencido de que no tiene nada que decir. El silencioso perverso, cuyo mayor placer es disfrutar de la curiosidad que su mutismo despierta en los demás. El silencioso impotente, que quisiera decir algo pero nunca encuentra el momento y es, en realidad, un hablador frustrado. El silencioso estricto, que ni siquiera cede a la tentación de confesarse a sí mismo sus secretos.

…en serio, pienso que para saber dónde quiere estar uno necesita ir a lugares distintos, conocer cosas, gente, palabras nuevas (¿eso es viajar o escapar?,preguntó el organillero), buena pregunta, déjeme pensar, a ver, es las dos cosas, también se viaja para escapar, eso no es malo. Tampoco es lo mismo huir que mirar hacia delante

Importuna razón, no me persigas; en vano tu voz áspera murmura; si en ley de amor, si a fuerza de ternura no domas, no contrastas, no mitigas; si atacas al mortal y no lo abrigas, si (conociendo el mal) no le das cura, déjame demorarme en mi locura, importuna razón, no me persigas; es tu intento, tu fin llenar de celo esta alma, la víctima de aquella a quien, cambiante, en brazos de otros veo: tú quieres que me aparte de mi bella, la acuse, la desdeñe; y mi deseo es morder, delirar, morir por ella.

I don't know what it is about this city. ...First you appeared, ...and then her, there's always some reason for me to delay my journey. Sometimes it feels as if I've just arrived in Wardernburg; other days I wake up with the sensation of having lived here all my life. When I go out I look at the coaches and say to myself: Go on, climb aboard, it's very simple, you've done it a thousand times. Yet I let them go by, and I don't understand what's happening to me.

And I couldn't help wondering where the hell the fatherland was, what exactly were we fighting for? Did I find out? Ah, that's a good point. It may sound strange, but from talking to the other militiamen I realised it was our childhood memories we were fighting for.

What time is it? What! said Álvaro, astonished. Do you mean to tell me you don't wear a watch? The fact is, I don't see any point in watches, said Hans, they never give me the time I want. Well, Álvaro smiled, this is what is known as a cultural exchange -- I resemble a German and you a Spaniard.