In front of this wall was a slope in which was embedded a stone that
jutted out--my stone. Often, when I was alone, I sat down on this
stone, and then began an imaginary game that went something like this:
"I am sitting on top of this stone and it is underneath." But the stone
could also say "I" and think: "I am lying here on this slope and he is
sitting on top of me." The question then arose: "Am I the one sitting on
the stone, or am I the stone on which he is sitting?" This question
always perplexed me, and I would stand up, wondering who was what now.
The answer remained totally unclear, and my uncertainty was accompanied
by a feeling of curious and fascinating darkness. But there was no doubt
whatsoever that this stone stood in some secret relationship to me. I could
sit on it for hours, fascinated by the puzzle it set me.
Thirty years later I again stood on that slope. I was a married man,
had children, a house, a place in the world, and a head full of ideas and
plans, and suddenly I was again the child who had kindled a fire full of
secret significance and sat down on a stone without knowing whether it
was I or I was it. I thought suddenly of my life in Zürich, and it
seemed alien to me, like news from some remote world and time. This was
frightening, for the world of my childhood in which I had just become absorbed
was eternal, and I had been wrenched away from it and had fallen
into a time that continued to roll onward, moving farther and farther away.
The pull of that other world was so strong that I had to tear myself violently
from the spot in order not to lose hold of my future.