You'd find here gullies in which pebbles and stones roll and clink together; stretches of level ground where driving rains have spread crumbled clumps of dirt; long runners of soft moss, or patches where the layers of fallen leaves are so thick that their decaying mass cloys even the wild mushrooms; you could walk here, though not quite unimpeded, because the natural passageway may unexpectedly be blocked by a bush rising out of a warm spot in a pool of sunlight, or by a thick trunk of a fallen tree, or a huge, pointed, smooth lava rock, ingeniously called a "findling," conjuring in our imagination something between a found object and a foundling; according to local legend, giants of the northern seas strewed these rocks about the flat coastland where, after the battles had subsided, these peaceful forests arose.
Deep-green dimness.
Occasional scraping sounds, a thud, a crack.
One cannot tell how time passes here, but so long as you can hear the twigs snapping under your feet and you feel that it's your silence that is being disturbed by each snap, that means you're not quite here yet.
So long as you wish to get somewhere, to a place that is yours — though you don't know what that place is like — so long as you refuse to be led by the paths opening up before you, you are not quite here yet.
Behind the loose curtain of the thicket a tree seems to move, as if someone who'd been standing behind it now stirred, just as you keep stirring from behind something and then being covered again by the thicket.
Until it all looks beautiful to you.
Everyone can see you — anyone, to be more precise — and yet you are still covered; no, I couldn't succeed in describing the forest; I would have liked to have talked about the feel of the forest.
So long as you carry with you the turns and bends, forks and obstacles of the trails you've left behind, you can find your way back to where you started from, and in your fear you look at the plants as you would at human faces, taking them as signposts, assigning them shape, character, and histories of their own, hoping that in return for that they'd lead you back — so long as you do that, you are not quite here yet.
And you are not quite here yet even when you realize you are not alone with them.
I would have liked to have talked about the creatures of the forest as Köhler did of his snails; I would have borrowed his style.
When you are no longer aware of yourself or, more precisely, when you know time has passed but not how much or how little, and you don't really care..
And you stand there without knowing you are standing; you look at something but don't know what; and for some reason your arms are spread as if you were yourself a tree.
No, this story could never have been written successfully.
For you can feel what the tree in all probability cannot feel.
And you have heard all the rustling and scraping sounds but did not realize you were hearing them.
When you know that you are here, but not when you got here, because you have lost all the clues.
But so long as you keep listening for and trying to remember lost clues, you are not quite here yet, because you believe you are being watched.
And then it flits by, between two trees, and quickly vanishes, a flash of blue in a field of green.
You start off, unaware of having started off, but you cannot find it.
So long as you make a distinction between trees and colors, so long as you look to the names of things for guidance, you are still not quite here.
So long as you think you only imagined seeing the flitting creature as a blue flash in a field of green, and you follow it, cautiously, and no longer care about the path, about branches slapping you in the face, you don't hear the crunch of your footsteps, don't notice you've fallen, you get up and run after it, nettles sting you, thorns prick and scratch you, but all you want is to catch it, yes, the one that keeps disappearing but always reappears, to make sure you see it, though it occurs to you that you shouldn't yield to the temptation.
So long as you still want to make a decision, so long as you are thinking about it, you won't be able to catch anything; they'll keep eluding you, they can smell your sour odor from afar.
Now it's there, standing in a small depression, and if you don't move, then, among the silently stirring leaves, you can make out its eyes as they flash into yours, though this is no longer the same being but another, maybe a third one, someone, anyone, because you let time pass in the mutual gleam of your eyes while you notice that the creature is naked, and so are you.
So long as you wish to reach its nakedness and bend the branches to have a better look, so long as you want its nakedness to touch yours and thus make it your own, and for this purpose you are ready to move from your spot even though you have found the creature you've been after, then you are still not quite here.
It's gone.
And so long as you keep searching for them, yes, the ones you managed to alarm with your clumsiness and sour smell, so long as you hope to meet them again and all the while keep grumbling that you should have been more clever and more cautious, you are still not quite here, and nobody will be able to reach you.
But chance comes to your rescue, because you have come far enough inside to be a little bit here.
You turn around, and what you had seen in front of you before is now behind you; on the soft green mossy stream bank, the creature is lolling on its stomach; you let your eyes run over its back, rise on the curve of its round buttocks, and then roll down on its shapely legs; it nestles its head in its arms, looking out from there, and this gives you such joy that not only your mouth breaks into a grin but even your toes begin to smile and your knees laugh; and by then you don't feel like moving, because you've found your place here: that laugh is your place on this earth; and then you notice that the eyes are not looking into yours, that there is a third creature in the picture, there in that small depression in the ground, the one you thought had vanished completely, and they are looking at each other; they are the ones, you think to yourself, who could teach you what you need to know.
They are looking at you the way you'd like to be looking at them.
But you are still not you, you still let your thoughts stand in for you; until you learn not to do that, you are not quite here yet.
Your snooping startles them, they spring up and melt into the thicket.
Just as their gaze makes you take cover.
And then for a long time you see no one.
So long as you want to find them only for yourself, the forest remains silent.
But this is already a different kind of silence; this silence has eaten itself into your skin, and the laughter must reach your bones.
When even your smell becomes different.
Grass Grew over the Scorched Spot
The tiniest move could have broken this peacefulness, so I didn't even feel like opening my eyes; I was hanging on to something that had become final between us then, in the shared warmth of our bodies, and I didn't want her to see my eyes, to see how frightened I was of what was to come — it was good like this, let fear be mine! — of my body I felt only the parts her body could make me feeclass="underline" under the rucked-up silk dress the moist surface of her skin touching mine — that was my thigh; at the level of her neck my own breath mingling with the whiffs of stifling odor rising from her armpits; I felt the hard edge of a hip that may have been mine, its hardness the hardness of my bone; I felt my shoulder and back because of the weight of her arm as she very slowly lifted it away, but even then my shoulder and back still felt the arm, for somehow even the receding weight left an impression in the flesh and bones; and when she also raised her head a bit to take a better look at the bite mark on my neck, I was glad to be able to watch through barely raised eyelashes, not exposing my eyes; all she could see was the quiver of the lids, the flutter of the lashes; she couldn't imagine how scared I was, and we hadn't even begun, but I could see her in almost perfect clarity, looking at my neck, yes, I could fool her so easily; she looked at it long, even touched the spot with her stiff finger; her lips parted, edged closer, and kissed it where it still hurt a little.