"Grandpa, can you read ants ? "
He laughed quietly, and then stroked my disheveled hair.
"No, my child, they can't read.
- But why ? When they're gathered, they completely look like Turkish characters.
- It's just an impression.
- But I've seen them ! " I insisted one last time.
I puffed on my cigarette, wondering to what purpose ants could have been created, if we couldn't read them like books.
All those thoughts came up pell-mell to my mind, as I was climbing, leaving behind me the house of the old gunner, Avdo Babaramo. It was the only house to be erected at the foot of the citadelle. Then, I walked back down, accross the bushes. The narrow path seemed to have been displaced again. Fragments of memories, sections of sentences and words, parts of events with no importance were intersecting, pushing themselves, were catching one another by the ear or the nose in a brusque manner that would emphasize at the rate of the speed of my steps.
Chronicles in stone
Ismaïl Kadaré
He laughed quietly, and then stroked my disheveled hair.
"No, my child, they can't read.
- But why ? When they're gathered, they completely look like Turkish characters.
- It's just an impression.
- But I've seen them ! " I insisted one last time.
I puffed on my cigarette, wondering to what purpose ants could have been created, if we couldn't read them like books.
All those thoughts came up pell-mell to my mind, as I was climbing, leaving behind me the house of the old gunner, Avdo Babaramo. It was the only house to be erected at the foot of the citadelle. Then, I walked back down, accross the bushes. The narrow path seemed to have been displaced again. Fragments of memories, sections of sentences and words, parts of events with no importance were intersecting, pushing themselves, were catching one another by the ear or the nose in a brusque manner that would emphasize at the rate of the speed of my steps.
Chronicles in stone
Ismaïl Kadaré
