II

I met a man in the library. He was reading a book on chess pieces through the centuries. I recognized him as the obscure writer V. who has written a small volume of realistic stories I liked. I was glad to see him for I had always wanted to ask him this one question. And that was why he wrote in a foreign language and not in his mother tongue, which was also mine. ‘How could I! How could I possibly write in my own? It is being plundered and abused all day long around me! Imagine a world where people communicate not by the spoken and written word but by sounds made on a violin. Now imagine how a violinist – a musician you see –feels when all day long, people do to their violin what they now do to their language…’