Events proceed in different localities.
In Florence Visconti is producing Troilus and Cressida.
This is simultaneous with my agony in Rome.
But Visconti operates with his own system of co-ordinates
and I with mine, and the word simultaneous
has a doubtful meaning.
I am distressed by the fear of stammering when I speak.
Perhaps Visconti is distressed by the fear of failure to produce
a great spectacle.
Both of us fear people: I of speaking to people,
Visconti of what people will say.
These fears are supposed to be co-existent in time.
Humility could be the cure of each. If I were humble enough to be unconcerned:
if Visconti were humble enough to be unconcerned.
But pride tortures both.
We are supposed to be co-existent in time.
Events make time: when events are so different, how
can time be the same?
When events are so. Time. System.
The very words begin to drop out of their meanings.
(Perhaps my life has done enough good when I open
the doors of a state asylum for my sister, if only for three days
a week, in a place called Lead Wood, Missouri.)