The young man was talking and talking: Well, when I paraphrase so many others by saying “nulla dies sine fabula,” I certainly do not expect any lasting comfort from this. There is no accomplishment here. Nothing like that is even suggested by my motto. It means only that I am compelled daily, by a mechanism utterly foreign to me, to make up for the lack of that unity which characterizes real writing. I am not even sure that this is correct, but for some reason I believe that writing is supposed to provide a connection between your days. This connection seems to be quite essential. It implies a purpose, whereas I am driven. Namely, it hinges on the difference between writing and being written. And it is not love that propels me either, as the term “amateur” would suggest, but something even more fundamental than love. I cannot say clearly what that could be. Whatever comes to mind is completely foolish…

The only thing I know for sure is that when I am overcome by restlessness, when I feel bereft, a page or two of words that fit together, that form a whole, relieve me temporarily and let me breathe for a short while. “Nulla dies sine fabula” is akin to a doctor’s prescription: it is salutary, but it has nothing to do with health. Thus my motto reminds me of medieval incantations used for the purpose of healing, of witchcraft. The words themselves do not even have to imply anything meaningful. The content is without almost any significance. There must exist a beginning and an end. The rest is immaterial. The only difference here is that my incantations must be made up again and again. What I wrote yesterday does not serve almost any purpose, except to remind me that it is most likely that I will be able to write again. Maybe even today? My motto reassures me only of this: if I could put words together yesterday, there is no reason to fear prematurely the fact that I cannot do the same thing right now. In due time the words will come out again. They must, I bolster my morale every so often. Consequently, “nulla dies sine fabula” is an incantation as well. It invokes a modicum of comfort only because I have failed to comprehend it. Some words have a power of their own, but only to the extent that they remain on the tip of your tongue. That is their proper place.

When it appeared that the young man exhausted himself with indiscretions such as these, the other man nodded. The age difference did not really matter, however. The young man miscalculated. By merely attempting to confess, to be as open as was within the bounds of good manners, he achieved nothing. Put differently, there was nothing to confess. That was the only thing the other man understood from all this, but it occurred to him almost from the very beginning that he should not even mention it. That would be inopportune, to say the least, and thus he managed to adopt a smile suggesting mild empathy. When they parted that evening, they promised each other to meet again soon, as soon as possible. They were both aware of an unexpected awkwardness with which they danced around each other the last few minutes, as they avoided any physical contact that might separate them forever.

Addendum (January 15, 2000)

The young man was I, predictably enough. If I remember correctly, the old man was Mišo Jezernik, my old friend from Ljubljana. This piece must have been written in memory of one of our conversations. For some reason, our friendship did not survive my return to the States. We did meet once again in the mid-1980s, on one of my expeditions to the Alps, but I have not had any desire to see Mišo on my recent visits to Ljubljana. If he was in his fifties in the late Seventies, he must be in his seventies now. Perhaps I simply prefer to remember him as he was way back, when we were quite inseparable for a couple of years.