I was a hotel devoid of memory, but I am beginning to remember. They were all dressed in formal attire, and engaged in polite murmured conversations while standing about decorously, in the unobtrusive manner of well bred people. It was a place of relaxation, no business was discussed, no projects were undertaken, no one ever talked about anything that might arouse the passions. No one is vulgar. No one is concerned about vulgar matters like money. They have no need of it. Nobody hurries. Here are people who worked no more. Leisured people. The whole of existence for these guests is leisure, repetitive, endless leisure. Their whole time is conversation and games, croquet, target shooting, ballroom dancing, taking the air, backgammon.

My thoughts seem to come slowly, solemnly and monotonously, and my imaginings seem as interminable as the architecture. My retrospections seem inchoate, but the atmosphere stirs something seemingly timeless, something nearly lost in my subconscious from long ago. Is memory so fallible? It is hard to be sure quite what happened that year at the hotel. Was it there, or somewhere else? It does not matter where. Memory is a private world. A world that seems like a dream. It all seems now so holographic in time, as if everything happened simultaneously with no beginning or end. Walking, waiting! Alone, I was waiting for you, very far away from this dark place where I feel you, beside me, still waiting for the man who will no longer come, who no longer threatens to come to separate us again, to enthrall you once again. Are you coming? The curtain falls to polite applause. Now, I seem to remember—a play, a production put on for the guests, it was so cold. Behind us, the silhouette of the castle grew menacingly larger against the dark night sky as we fled. The outside of this house was a kind of park à la francaise without any trees or flowers, without any foliage. A conceptually simple design with no organic shapes, geometric, angular. Gravel, stone, marble and straight lines marked out rigid spaces, surfaces with little mystery by day. It seemed, at first glance, impossible to get lost here. Straight paths extend into the distance, between lines of fantastic statues with frozen gestures casting grotesque shadows from their granite slabs… on, along, across, down, intersection after intersection… you are lost. There had to be a way, a strategy to solve the endless conundrum… Already lost yet the shadow of the house still envelopes you, lost forever, in a moonlit icily cold night, alone with me… alone evermore.

Are they conscious or only semi-conscious, living or dead? Can they remember? I cannot remember events perfectly, in a perfect sequence. Time seems jagged like a broken mirror. They leave and reappear. As if in a dream, they are in different places at the same time. I leave him by the grand staircase and enter the conservatory, and here he is again, smiling, challenging me… Let’s get one thing straight, memory is like myth, and myth is the basis of ritual. We ritualize things, and must then do them continually. Myth is like thoughts, it stands for what is continuous. Good and evil are always in conflict. Michael did not fight the dragon, he is always fighting it. Unceasingly. Myth tells us why, but represents actions that never cease. Dare we let them cease? If they were to cease, would life then cease too? Perhaps our habits are necessary. The wolf habitually howls to its god, the moon. Must he do it? But let us get one thing straight, here, questions have no meaning? In a rendezvous together in the stone avenues of the park, we discussed the sculptures there in the garden, impassively, abstractedly, emotionlessly, almost as if we were sculptures too. You asked me, What is your name? It does not matter. We have known each other since last year. You ask, Where would we have met? You seem to pretend we have never met. But we have. It was Frederiksbad. I have never been there, you protest. Well, then it was somewhere else. It was Karlstadt. No? It was Marienbad. No? You giggle. It was Baden-Salsa. No! Then is was here, in this salon.

What keeps the world working smoothly? What regulates the cosmic clockwork? Is the cosmos really so smooth, or is it all an illusion? Do we fail if our duty is to keep it so? Questions, always questions and problems surge through my mind. The answers will come. All of your thoughts are in your head together. Sometimes it is hard to keep them in the right sequence. Is there a right sequence? I think it was her. We had met before. I am sure it was her… … Why couldn’t you let me forget this… this catastrophe?! Why couldn’t you just let me sleep…forever?! …why?Are they conscious or only semi-conscious, living or dead? Can they remember? I cannot remember events perfectly, in a perfect sequence. Time seems jagged like a broken mirror. They leave and reappear. As if in a dream, they are in different places at the same time. I leave him by the grand staircase and enter the conservatory, and here he is again, smiling, challenging me…