"The Hour-Glass Sanatorium" "Set:" "With:" "Music:" "Images:" "Directed by:" "We're nearly there." "How will I find it?" "You'll find the way yourself." "I've come a long way." "I booked a room here." "Who should I see about it?" "Everyone's asleep." "I'll tell the doctor later." "But it's not night-time for a while yet." "They're always asleep here." "Didn't you know?" "Besides, it's never night-time here." "You'd better wait downstairs..." "In the restaurant." "The doctor will see you now." "Where is he?" "We received your telegram yesterday." "We sent our coach to the station but you must have arrived in another train." "To the station?" "Unfortunately, the train service isn't very good." "How are you feeling?" "Is my father alive?" "Certainly." "That is, within the limits imposed by the situation." "For your homeland and the point of view of your country" "is that your father's dead." "You know as well as I that this can't entirely be remedied, his death casts a certain shadow, on his existence here." "But father doesn't know, or guess?" "Don't worry" "Our patients don't suspect" "You probably want to see him now." "I'll take you." "We've reserved a bed for you in your father's room," "As you requested." "The whole trick is that we put back the clock." "by a certain interval of time which we can't precisely define." "The whole thing is a question of relativity." "Here, you father's death is yet to occur, in your country," "that same death has already struck him..." "In that case, my father is dead, or is about to die?" "You don't understand" "Here we reactivate time past with all its possibilities, including the possibility of recovery." "We allow our patients to sleep long hours, to spare their vital energy." "Besides, they have nothing better to do." "You should lie down too." "That's all you can do now." "Goodbye." "Bye." "I've come to talk to you." "What's the purpose of all the lies and gossip you spread about father?" " What lies?" " I know they come from you." "No." "I didn't lie." "You remember very well how he'd already begun to go missing for days." "He avoided us, and who knows whether he's still alive somewhere." "I have to know the truth." "Stop tormenting me." "You know how hard it is to talk to him now." "How can I cope with all by myself?" "How can I answer all the questions which God keeps asking me?" "It's beyond my endurance." "The gravity of his complaints terrifies me." " Don't cry." " I have a migraine." "You won't go to school today." "To school, Mother?" "I'm not a little boy any more." "Yes, you are." "Look at your ink-stained hands, and bruised knees." "You're a naughty and obstinate boy." "God knows where you loiter." "Go and wake those good-for-nothings, those parasites." "The shop should be open soon." " But..." " Stop tormenting me." "I've already told you that Father travels around as a salesman, within the country." "You know he sometimes returns home at night, only to go even further away before dawn." "But I'm sure he'll return." "Stop coming and going, sit down." " Yawning for a little while..." " And having a rest again." "And after you rest, go to the ant's house to learn wisdom." "From an ant?" "Go to hell." "That ant of yours doesn't have a teacher, a master or a boss." "but she's well-off." "What's he talking about?" "I was walking on the a lazy man's field..." "I was walking across a stupid man's vineyard..." "That's not written anywhere." "Our Lord never said it." "Don't listen to it." "It became all overgrown with nettles and thorns covered all his land, and the stone wall fell to pieces..." "Clap your hands and call His name" "In a happy voice" "Call his name in happy hymns and with the sound of the trumpet." "Accompany your praisings" "Praise Him on a harp." "Praise Him on a zither." "Praise Him on drums and in dance." "Praise Him on strings and flute." "Praise Him with the sweet tones of cymbals." "Praise Him resoundingly with cymbals." "Let every spirit praise Him." "Alleluia!" "Clap your hands and sing." "Sing." "Sing for the ones of poor spirit." "In his dream he saw a ladder standing on the ground, it's top reaching heaven and God's angels ascending and descending it." "Is it possible?" "Our little Jozef!" "You probably got lost on your way to school." "Well..." "Rascals!" "They're everywhere." "When I go down to buy bread in the morning" "I can't even... open the door." "They push through, the smallest gaps." "They try to get into the kitchen." "They cajole me." "They almost wag their tails." "And they go mad when they see a fire." "They clap their hands and dance like savages." "They're hopeless at putting out fires." "They're good only for parades." "Who are you talking about?" "Those idle firemen." "They become lazy and sleepy at the end of autumn." "They can sleep standing up." "I think you're prejudiced, they're nice lads." "An old stove maker once told me that when he repairs chimneys, he finds them attached to the vents motionless like larvae." "They sleep there drunk with raspberry cordial." "and whine imploringly:" ""Sugar, sugar"..." "I need only cast a glance at them and their faces immediately swell with obscene red meat." "In that way, they strengthen their inner spirit and renew the colors:" "which firemen expel as fireworks." "rockets and Bengali lights." "I won't give them any cordial anyway." "I didn't ruin my complexion cooking it on the oven, just so those rascals could drink it all now." "Unfortunately, Adela, you never understood things which rise above the mundane." "Look at this." "Is it possible to grow ones hair to the ground?" "You look completely different, splendid!" "The captain of the rascals." ""I, Anna Csilag, born in Moravia had poor hair growth..."" "I wish mine was like hers." "Would you like some cordial?" " Raspberry?" " No, thanks." "Never mind." "By divine will she had been cursed with poor hair growth." "But with ardent prayers and penance, the curse was removed from her head, and she was graced with enlightenment." "She received signs and concocted that miraculous nostrum." "Look here." "These are the brothers, cousins and friends." "Who's he?" "A friend." "She brought happiness to the whole town." "Really?" ""Elsa, fluid with a swan."" "It's a miraculous nostrum, for all illnesses, and infirmities." "Where did you find this book?" "It's been here all the time, just lying around." ""You're Free To Smoke..." "Sexual Neurosis."" "Every day we tear out pages to wrap meat for your father's lunch." "Such degradation of the holy source!" "You're late." "There's no more cordial." "There's only some rose preserve." "Serve yourself." "Thank you." "It's not a preserve." "It's sweet all the same." "Is your name Jakub?" "No, I'm Jozef." "My father's name is Jakub." "I see." "That's all right." "Can you get out of there?" "We can't talk like this." " Excuse me a minute." " It's all right." "An important consignment has arrived, where can I find your father?" "I'm looking for him too." "Let me introduce you." ""Honduras"" "and "Nicaragua", come closer." "Spotted" "That's right, it's spotted A perishable item." " Birds of Paradise." " And more." "Belgian hens are best for hatching them." "Or you can hatch them yourself." "I think I can see your father." "Over there." "Don't you think he's behaving strangely?" "He's demonstrating." "Father!" "Beware of these things, narrow-mindedness, pedantry and dull pettiness." "Have you never noticed swallows rising from between the lines of certain books, whole stanzas of quivering swallows?" "One should read the flight of these birds..." "Father, listen to me, I've found the source." " The Source?" " That's right." "Have a look yourself." "Worthless rubbish!" "the book..." "It's just a myth my son, a myth we believe when we're young which we stop believing as we get older." "In fact, many mere books can be given a borrowed life." "Each of them has only one moment, a moment when it soars, screaming like a phoenix." "All its pages aflame." "Look." "For that single moment we love them ever after, although they soon turn to mere ashes." "I wonder why nobody offers us goldfinches from the Harz mountains..." ""The book is a myth my son."" ""It soars like the phoenix..."" "Hyderabad," "Guatemala," "Tasmania, Santo Domingo," "Sierra Leone," "Labrador, Barbados, Trinidad, Salvador," "Borneo, Sumatra, Pernambuco." "Hipporabundia." "You're talking nonsense." "You could just as well say Panphibrass." "Halleleevah..." "Abracadabra..." "Why do I feel as if I've already been here?" "A long time ago." "Don't we, in fact know in advance every landscape we see during our lives?" "Can something completely new... ever happen?" "Do you understand me?" "Something we haven't anticipated?" "Answer me." "Did it really happen, or not?" "Yes and no." "There are things that can't entirely happen." "They're too great, too splendid to fit into an event." "They just try to happen." "But tell me whether she really existed." "She did exist, and nothing can destroy my certainty." "Don't be afraid." "She can't hear us." "This is my dead mother who lives here." "She's full of ghosts and phantoms, larvae and chrysalises." "She sleeps with them and takes them into her dreams." "wakes half-conscious at dawn, and remembers nothing." "Because she has to live so many lives on her own." "That's why she's so sad." "Do you know the tale which time can't change?" "Among all the tales there is one, which you haven't heard and which the night reclaimed long ago." "Have you enough patience to listen to it?" "Someone will walk across the sky... constantly on his way, a perpetual traveler." "He'll pass us, taking long steps." "It will always happen." "over and over... and over again." "Count on me, Bianca." "To the last drop of my blood." "Then?" "A puzzle." "What about her?" "She's all gray." "The touch of her hand must be indescribable." "But what did you see there?" "It was colorful and colonial and cast glances." "Kidnappings, chases, betrayals." "A story about a princess who is kidnapped and changed." "Exaggeration and invention." "Java," "Sumatra," "Borneo." "If you want I'll propose you as a co-regent." "Anonymously of course." "With the stamp album we'll form a triumvirate, on which rests the burden for this impenetrable affair." "With the stamp album?" "What a naive question!" "It's a universal book." "It's a compendium" "A compendium of all human knowledge." "That's why this story will be interspersed with dashes, dots and sighs." "But it requires some shrewdness and imagination." "Your words are becoming gibberish and nonsensical." "I still had some remnant of regard for you." "as the owner of the stamp album, but your envious outbursts set me against you." "Don't forget that you're dependent on me." "I have to get to the other side." "Her father is a ship's doctor." "A small steam boat with wheels on the sides, awaits her at the pier every night." "All its lights are off." "Don't go there." "I have bad feelings." "Don't worry." "Though I appear excited," "I'm also worried." "Isn't it safer to leaf through the stamp album?" "You haven't seen my New Mexico there." "The main thing is to remember that no Mexico is final." "Any Mexico hides another of them." "Their death is only superficial." "Their breath is short." "These creatures won't be characters in novels." "They're only temporary, created for one occasion." "They were caught red-handed, at the moment when their obsession, their madness, became the truth." "In other words, a new man was created, in the image of a mannequin." "The Anarchist Luccheni, assassin of the Empress Elizabeth." "And that's Draga, the demonic Queen of Serbia." "Over there are Edison and Bismarck." "Leatherstocking." "This is a young genius, the pride and hope of his family." "but ruined by addiction to masturbation." "Unfortunately, they're not authentic." "But we put a lot of effort into their appearance." "They're pale with the feverish flush of the illnesses from which they died." "Now please look at emperor Franz Jozef." "In his face a certain combination of wrinkles." "gives him the appearance that he smiles" "Close up, this smile is unmasked." "As a grimace of bitterness and prosaic plainness." "He had a younger brother with entirely different ideas and cast of mind." "The unfortunate antagonist bore the name of Archduke Maximilian." "The Emperor loved him while secretly plotting his downfall." "First, he appointed him Commander, in the hope that he'd drown miserably." "But he soon concluded a secret alliance with Napoleon III... (here he is)" "who drew him by deceit into the Mexican adventure." "The young man, full of fantasy and imagination." "abdicated as heir of the Habsburgs to fall in the trap of the french liner "Le Cid"." "According to one version he was only a cousin." "According to another, he was never born, and was only suggested by the fears and ravings." "of the Emperor." "We had great problems putting him back together." "and covering the wounds after his execution in Vera Cruz." "Unfortunately, he still suffers from amnesia." "I had to teach him about his life again, but I've only succeeded in making him react to..." "Franz Josef." "He reaches for his sword." "He even hurt Victor Emanuel when he didn't evade quickly enough." "Bianca and Maximilian." "It's a simple mechanical trick." "Suitably wound up, he acts as he did when alive." "A simple mechanical trick, damn it." "A cynic in the tropics." "No, a tropical cynic." "Rudolf said I exaggerate and invent..." "They should be in their beds, having taken their medicine." "They shouldn't be kept up so late on uncomfortable pedestals." "I can smell curare." "Would you like to see my collection of weapons?" "Well, my intuition has not led me astray." "Here, in the midst of apparent legality things can make ones hair stand on end." "Who really is Bianca?" "Her mother was a Creole girl, whom Archduke Maximilian called Conchita." "and with that name she entered history through the back door." "Wasn't it her grandmother?" "No, the mother." "After Maximilian's fall," "Conchita left with her small daughter for Paris where she lived on a widow's pension." "There, history lost track of that touching figure." "And now, let me finish for you." "These matters are confidential." "You'd better watch out and control yourself." "100,000 pesos." "My business isn't doing well." "You see what an expensive enterprise it is." "In 1900 a certain Mme de V... a lady of exotic beauty, left France with her daughter and husband on false passports and proceeded to Austria." "In Salzburg, when changing trains for Vienna, the whole family was arrested," "It was remarkable that Mr de V. was freed but he made no attempt to get his wife and daughter released." "He returned to France and all trace of him was lost." "The discovery will be mine." "I'll succeed in identifying that man." "150,000 pesos." "You're intractable." "What exactly do you want?" "Your decision will show me if you understood the new situation." "I demand facts" "Stop!" "I think Bianca's origin is proven." "Negroes, crowds of Negroes!" "Where are they from at this time of year?" "The barometer must be at a catastrophic low..." "Bianca?" "I thought you'd never come." "Sit down." "No, Infanta." "I want to keep the role fate has given to me," "I want to fulfill my task." "Have you brought me something to read?" "Decrees to be signed." "Daisy, Daisy, tell me the answer, do..." "Only barrel-organs!" "Technical miracles." "They may come in handy." "I've gone so far, become so involved, in the dynastic affairs of the greatest monarchs." "We may have problems." "Plan some betrayal." " Betrayal?" "Really?" " Yes." "Yes or can you think of something better?" "I don't understand." "It must be a wonderful feeling to plumb the depths of villainy, and eliminate consciousness of self." "Think of it, wouldn't you like to be so defiled and repulsive for a moment but completely renewed?" "Do it, do it." "You'll become one of them one of the dark Negroes." "You induce me to betrayal now, at this decisive moment." "You're ridiculous with your inflexible loyalty and missionary zeal." "What if I chose Rudolf?" "I prefer him to you, you boring pedant." "He would be obedient, and follow me into crime, into self-destruction." "Rudolf, obedient?" "Do you remember Lonka?" "You played with her as a child." "Lonka, was me." "I was a boy at the time." "Did you like me then?" "Bianca, Bianca..." "I feel things are getting confused." "Must you disappoint me too?" "Tickets, please." "Conductor." "What's going on here, for goodness sake?" "Calm down." "Let's not panic." "We can settle it within our own terms of reference." "Ordinary facts are arranged within time, strung along its lenghts" "as on a thread." "This is important for any narrative and succession." "That's fine, but... what can be done with events that have no place of their own in time, events that have occurred too late, after the whole of time has been allocated?" "Could time be too narrow to encompass all events?" "There are branch lines of time." "Somewhat illegal and suspect." "But when dealing with events that can't be recorded, one cannot be too fussy." "Perhaps even now, while we mention it." "the doubtful manoeuvre is already behind us and we are proceeding into a cul-de-sac." "But how can one get out of here?" "You can try again under the bed." "Excuse me, I have to go." "Coward." "I hope to come back here again." "Coward!" "It's you." "You don't look too well." "Everything is muddled up, Father." "One needs such patience to find the right meaning... in this tangle." "It can be achieved by a careful grammatical analysis." "Can be very useful." "Phrases and grammar..." "I, you, he, we, you, they." "Father, I remember!" "To find ones grain of time, one must eliminate the seductive cross chatter of the birds," "their pointed adverbs and prepositions." "their skittish pronouns, and slowly make oneself a grain of time." "A healthy grain of time" "Books of legends, books that have never been written, enormous epics, pale and monotonous." "novels without a title, giants without a face, dark texts written for the drama of the evening clouds." "Wandering and lost books... in partibus infidelium..." "You've had so much work lately." "I've seen your light on late at night." "Try, maybe you can do it." "Fascinating." "The most beautiful one I've ever seen." "Remember, Paradisea Apoda." "or The Bird of Paradise." "Cardinalis cardinalis." "Chrysolophus Pictus." "Upupa epops." "I'd like you to take something with you..." "Whatever, take just a pinch of something and run it in your blood make it part of your life, save it." "And live with it." "Come in, come in!" "Go now." "They're looking for you." "I don't want them to disturb me." "Go now." "Look at you, all covered in spider-webs." "Your coat torn." "You've been in the attic again." "The shop assistants are thieves." "we sell only on credit, and you don't care." "Take it to the shop, Father must be hungry." "To the shop!" "They're looking for you." "It's hot." "Who's looking for me?" "The shop assistants, especially Teodor." "They'll climb the ladder again, up and down." "Oh, Jozef!" "I wish you had been born earlier." "Come on." "Show it to them." "Show it to them." "Scare them." "But Holofernes was a man." "I kept her in bortsch so she'd look good." "I'll buy her." "It's not for sale." "If the head's in the shop it's for sale." "I'll buy it." "Father." "Take it away." "There's no room here." "Stop bothering me." "I'm too busy." "Jakub merchant." "Father." "Wake up Jozef." "I know you're exhausted, but only a few more steps..." "You're sick and you're not looking after yourself." "He's coming." "Can you hear?" "I know him very well since my childhood." "I remember him in school, he disgusted me that egoist, devouring dozens of buttered rolls." "Go and meet him." "So he doesn't think I ignored him." "If I'm not mistaken this is Jakub's son, Jozef." "Let the sky over your heads be always blue and the ground under your feet moist with dew." "I didn't need to say it." "You can hear them buzzing like in a beehive." "It's only deception and regrettable mystification." "Mother complains that people buy only on credit." " What did he say?" " Credit..." "I must have misunderstood." "They sell on credit." "I don't want to hear that word." "Why do you keep bowing?" "Lend us your ear listen to the wise men, and give your heart to my knowledge." "I sold only for cash." "We must help others, but also carefully avoid letting ourselves fall." "Your land will enjoy seven years of prosperity." "It was Seipel, the christian, if I am not mistaken, and his sons." "Spinners and mechanical weavers." "A rich man who works gathering assets, rests surrounded by his riches." "A poor man who works scavenging for food, becomes a pauper in the end." "Come on..." "She stopped coming to the park." "They smelled the danger, they must be guarding her." "It's a complete lie!" "Extraterritorialism." "Maximilian." "Mexico, plantations." "Stop!" "Who told you that?" "The files concerning that plot were never released." "After all, I'm the owner of the stamp album, and I won't lend it to you again." "I must admit this story seems improbable." "Even unbelievable." "What do you think, Rudolf?" "Whose mind conceived that evil idea, exceeding all imaginable fantasies?" "I'm amazed myself." "End of partnership." "I'll manage without you" "I undertook to prove to myself that it was all true." "Where's Mr de V?" "He's gone away." "We'll see if this is so." "Where's the Infanta?" "Her Highness left too." "They've all gone away." "I have no doubt." "Get out." "Someone must have betrayed me." "A horse, gentlement, in a horse." "Gentlemen, I've troubled you unnecessarily." "These people are free, and can proceed freely and unmolested." "In my blindness I undertook to comment on the text, to be the interpreter of God's Will." "In my false belief I pursued scanty evidence and related it to an unspecified person." "Allow me, my friend." "Noble gentlemen, and you, Infanta!" "I'm giving up the regency in favour of Rudolf," "I'm abdicating completely." "You're free, gentlemen." "I thank you in the name of our idea... our dethroned idea... which, in spite of everything..." "Hurry up!" "Hurry!" "Father!" "Father!" "Call Garibaldi, an old hand." "He knows about wounds." "Bianca." "Bring a stretcher!" "Hurry, the stretcher!" "This night is truly fatal." "I hadn't foreseen it." "In reality, a noble heart beat in his chest." "I have wronged him." "It's your duty, Rudolf, to comfort Bianca, to redouble your love, to replace her father." "Yes." "You'll no doubt want to take him." "Let's form a procession." "Form a procession!" "Form a procession!" "One more thing, Rudolf." "It should be my task to provide for these homeless heroes in their old age." "but unfortunately I'm a pauper." "How much?" "10.000." " 5.000?" " No." "12.000." "Gentlemen, after what's happened no board at any waxworks, will ever admit you." "As you have no practical skills." "my friend has made a donation for the purchase of twelve barrel organs." "You will play for people all over the world for their pleasure." "And now, dear friends and noble gentlemen, join me in this wish, for the newly married." "Long live the bridal couple!" "Farewell Gentlemen, and heed the warning in what you're about to see." "Never attempt to guess at divine interventions." "Ignorabimus, gentlemen." "Ignorabimus." "Are you Jozef, Jakub's son?" "I think so." "Haven't you, some time ago, dreamed the usual dream of the biblical Jozef?" "Perhaps." "Do you know that the dream has been severely criticized in the highest places?" "I wont answer it." "Yes, Sir." "You're under arrest in the name of His Majesty." "I'm at your disposal." "His Majesty's Bureaucracy is very slow." "I have surpassed that early dream." "With more serious actions which I wanted to expiate by suicide." "Yes this obsolete dream is going to save my life." "Don't cry." "I have a migraine." "Come on, I'll get some tea." "Is Adela at home?" "She went away for America." "Went away..." "She went by ship, and it sank." "Everyone died." "We've heard nothing of her since then." "And Father..." "Where is he?" "He left many times but always temporarily never finally." "It had its benefits." "That's how he prepared us for his ultimate departure." "Take me to him." "All right." "I also think it's time you saw him." "The shop is gone too." "I still go there sometimes to sell the remnants... but keep the shutters half closed." "Her was one of those men over whose sleeping face God passed His hand." "So that they know what they don't know." "They become speculative... and suspicious." "Under their closed eyelids pass the images... of distant lands." "And the man will go to the house of eternity." "And people will cry, wandering in the streets, until the silver rope breaks, and the golden ribbon shrinks." "And the bucket breaks over the water." "And the wheel of the well cracks." "The ashed will return to the earth from which they rose." "I'm so glad you've come, Jozef." "What a surprise!" "I feel so lonely here." "But I shouldn't complain in my situation." "I've been through worse things." "I must tell you something." "But don't laugh." "I've rented premises here for a shop." "Don't imagine anything grand." "Back home I'd be ashamed of such a stall, but here we've had to give up so many of our pretensions." "Don't you agree, Jozef?" "And so one manages to live somehow." "I must have broken the spring." "I see you're sleepy." "Go back to sleep, then." "You can't imagine how difficult it was to get credit." "How little the people here trust the old merchants." "Merchants with a respectable past!" "Do you remember the optician's shop in the market square?" "Our shop is right next door to it." "There's no sign over it yet, but you'll find it." "You'd better wear a coat." "I couldn't find it in my trunk, they forgot to pack it." "Please take my coat." "Sit down." "You're so sick, and you're not looking after yourself." "Don't interrupt me." "Can't you see I'm busy?" "There's a letter for you." "It's on my desk among the papers." "Imagine, on my very first day here" "I was served an excellent fillet of beef with mushrooms." "It was an hell of a piece of meat." "I must warn you." "Beware if they should ever serve you a fillet of beef." "The fillet of beef..." "I can still feel fire in my stomach." "And the diarrhoea after diarrhoea..." "I could hardly cope with it." "Take, for instance, a roast with a kind of paté stuffing in natural gravy." "We needn't do without anything here." "We can afford a feast as fine as any in the city." "An angel, a boy in a million." "You must admit he's charming." "Have you got a light?" "Even schoolgirls here wear their ribbons in a characteristic way." "If you just cast a glance at one of them." "you encounter that voluptuous look which thrills us with its delightful certainty." "I have to see the doctor immediately." "He's just gone to the restaurant." "I've just been there." "I meant to say he's in the operating theater." "It has to be admitted that we've been trapped." "The management of the sanatorium has not taken the trouble to give us even the illusion of proper care." "We're simply left to our own devices." "I can't get a bed, not to mention clean linen." "Your enigmatic and discreet looks are simply mystification." "I feel a strong desire to open each of those doors and expose the intrigue in which we've been involved." "You'd better have a sleep." "You can hardly stand." "Ah, Jozef, Jozef..." "I've been lying here without any attention." "The wires have been cut." "No one comes to see me." "No one can even... bring me a cup of tea." "And my own son has left his very sick father to run after girls in the town." "Jozef, you should come to the shop more often." "The shop assistants are robbing us." "The shop will go to ruin..." "It will be left to run itself." "Look how my heart is thumping." "I'm losing my energy." "Jozef, was there any mail from home?" "Doctor!" "You're not looking well." "Take off your jacket." "I'll examine you." "Your agitated state is quite understandable." "Your body and especially your nervous system have to adjust to the new conditions." "I was an idiot for letting myself, go misled by skillful advertising, of sending my father here." ""Have time be back..."" "It sounded good." "But what does it come to in reality?" "Here, does one get the full value of time?" "It's used-up time, worn out by other people, frayed." "It's regurgitated time secondhand time." "Whatever the conditions of your father's existence." "You are able to talk to him to be with him." "You should be infinitely grateful to the doctor." "Enough of this." "Space is for human beings." "You can swing about in space, turn somersaults jump from star to star, but please don't tamper with time." "The main problem is the quick decomposition..." "Time." "We all know that time, this undisciplined element," "only holds itself precariously within bounds," "thanks to increasing and meticulous regulation." "Free of this vigilance it begins to do tricks, doesn't it?" "You should take better care of yourself." "Wear warmer clothes." "To start with, you need more exercise, and then we'll see." "Well, chin up." "Luckily in fact, Father is no longer alive, so he can't really be reached."