102 292
Mircea Cartarescu
102
the purl of the intestines
around it. At night, when I
watch the stars through the
latticed windows, I seem to
see the nervous ganglions
of the great woman I live
inside of. The creaking of the
old furniture and the floor
sounds to me sometimes, in
the middle of the night, like
the cracking of the vertebrae
of a huge spongy spine. I am
happy in my house. I got to
know its inner anatomy so
thoroughly. The rooms have
crooked walls and neither
has the same height as the
other. The cabinets go up
to the ceiling. Their wood is
spongy, seemingly swollen
by invisible currents. Lamps
of the same wrought iron
as the gratings at the doors
and windows hang from the
ceilings. The bathroom is
always damp, the oil paint
of the greenish walls is
faded, the iron of the taps
seems eaten by salt. The
bathtub is deep, one of the
old ones with lion paws. All
the porcelain on the bottom
is gone, like the enamel
of old teeth. Sometimes,
when I stand naked in front
of the bathtub filled with
grey water it seems to me
that I am in a world without
time, in a photograph: I
have always been like that,
I would always be like that:
stuck there, next to the rusty
toilet pipe, incapable of any
movement, looking at the
silent water I will never get
into.
My
house
has
tens,
hundreds or thousands of
rooms. I never know where
I’ll get when I open a door.
They are all silent, with huge
crocheted tablecloths, red