Ciclo CVII

The light on the Loire this morning was not the light of this morning — it was the light of forty years ago on the Arno, the same deception, the same gold laid upon moving water, and I stood at the window believing for an instant that I was young again, that Florence was just beyond the garden wall, that the maker had granted me back what time had taken — and then the page before me, the ink, the trembling, the French silence of this house in Amboise reminded me that ricordare is not vivere, that to remember a thing is to stand in a different country from those who are living it, and I turned from the window not because the light was false but because it was too true, and truth, when it comes unbidden, is the cruelest visitor.