“Imagine if, after having seen the town on the mountain, we were to say to each other, ‘This is all very fine, but let’s go and get something to eat.’ (One’s mind is perfectly capable of saying this; it’s the heart that revels in the silence of the huge meadowlands down below the glaciers.) We arrive at the inn. You say to me, ‘Don’t you think the people here seem terribly strange?’ I say to you, ‘Why, yes, they really are. I hadn’t noticed it until just now. Hold on.’ And I ask them, ‘Where is our table, and what will we be having to eat this evening?’ I ask them in the most natural way I can, you know, looking playful, rubbing my hands together in anticipation. I try to make it seem like I don’t see their long mustaches, which hang all the way down to the ground. They’ve made knots and braids in them, so they won’t get in their way. But, all the same, they are, you might say, tangled up in their mustaches from head to foot. And in spite of the fact that I’ve spoken to them, they look at me, and they look at you, and they look at each other . . . and they don’t answer. Then they do answer, but now it’s incomprehensible: a sort of mustache-talk that nobody can understand. You say to me. . . .Well, no. You don’t say anything to me. You drop your arms in defeat. We do our utmost to make them understand: This is an inn, here’s a table, we want to eat. . . . No. I show them with sign language: We want to eat. . . . No. So then they start looking at us with their eyes popping out like marbles. They’re munching on their mustaches while they check us out in every detail. They’re munching ferociously on their mustaches!

“Then I say to you, ‘Let’s get out of here. There must be a town over there. Let’s go.’ We go. On the way, I stop for a moment to point out to you that the path to the town is really lovely.

“You speak English. I speak English. But, when it comes to English-speakers in this particular world, there’s only us. We can’t be apart anymore. The path is very lovely. But in the town, it’s the same thing: full of mustachioed men. What in heaven’s name have we gotten ourselves tangled up in? Really, things weren’t this way just a short time ago. We got off the Bristol Mail. We set out on foot through a meadow—the kind the English are so fond of walking on—and look at us now! . . . Yes, but what about the membrane in the air, the one that burst when we passed through? What on earth are we going to be able to do now? I don’t mean only for this evening but for the rest of our lives. Because it’s settled: We’re in this now for good. What’s more, this town is quite lovely. But we’re going to have to do something to survive. For my part, I’m a good sailor. But if it comes to sailing, I’ll be leaving you behind. And that’s out of the question. And, besides, do they even have a sea, these people? What do you say about that?”