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If there are angels they probably don't read our novels about disappointed hopes. I'm afraid -- unfortunately -- that they don't read our poems, either, which are full of grudges toward the world. The shrieks and twitches of our plays must -- I suspect -- bore them. In their breaks from angel-work, or rather non-human work they prefer to watch our comedians from the age of the silent movies. |
More than the lamenters who tear their clothes and gnash their teeth they appreciate, I think, the poor wretch who grabs the drowning man by his toupé or who eats his own shoelace out of starvation. From the waist up: breasts and aspirations and below a frightened mouse in his pant leg. Oh, yes this must heartily amuse them. Ring-around-the-rosies transforms into running from the pursued. The light in the tunnel turns out to be the eye of a tiger. A hundred catastrophies are a hundred amusing sommersaults above a hundred abysses. |
If there are angels, they should be convinced, I hope, by merriment swinging above terror, not even calling "help, help" because all this happens in silence. I dare suppose that they are clapping their wings and that tears are flooding their eyes, especially tears of laughter. |