"The voyage comes to an end."
Процитирую еще из "The Insufferable Gaucho" Боланьо. Я, собственно, хотел другой отрывок привести, но начал читать это, и it's just so beautiful, по-моему.
ILLNESS AND TRAVEL
Traveling makes you ill. In the old days, doctors used to recommend travel, especially for patients suffering from nervous illnesses. The patients, who were generally wealthy, complied and set off on long trips that lasted months and sometimes years. Poor people who had nervous illnesses didn't get to travel. Some, presumably, went crazy. But the traveling patients also went crazy, or, worse still, acquired new illnesses as they moved from one city or climate or culinary culture to another. Really, it's healthier not to travel; it's healthier not to budge and never leave home, warmly wrapped up in winter, only removing your scarf in summertime; it's healthier not to open your mouth or blink; it's healthier not to breathe.
But the fact is, we breathe and travel. Myself, for example, I began traveling very young, at the age of seven or eight. First in my father's truck, on lonely Chilean highways that had a post-nuclear feel to them and made my hair bristle, then in trains and buses, until at the age of fifteen, I boarded a plane for the first time and went to live in Mexico. From that moment on, I was constantly traveling. Consequence: multiple illnesses. In childhood: major headaches, which made my parents wonder if I had a nervous illness, and whether it might be advisable for me to undertake, as soon as possible, a long therapeutic voyage. In adolescence: insomnia and problems of a sexual nature. As a young man: the loss of my teeth, which I left here and there on my way from country to country, like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs; a bad diet, which gave me heartburn and then gastritis; excessive reading, which weakened my eyes, so I had to wear glasses; calluses on my feet from long, aimless walks; and an endless string of lingering colds and flus. I was poor, lived rough, and thought myself lucky because, after all, I was free of life-threatening illnesses. My sex-life was immoderate but I never caught a venereal disease. I read immoderately, but I never wanted to be a successful author. I even regarded the loss of my teeth as a kind of homage to Gary Snyder, whose life of Zen wandering had led him to neglect dental care. But it all catches up with you. Children. Books. Illness. The voyage comes to an end.
ILLNESS AND TRAVEL
Traveling makes you ill. In the old days, doctors used to recommend travel, especially for patients suffering from nervous illnesses. The patients, who were generally wealthy, complied and set off on long trips that lasted months and sometimes years. Poor people who had nervous illnesses didn't get to travel. Some, presumably, went crazy. But the traveling patients also went crazy, or, worse still, acquired new illnesses as they moved from one city or climate or culinary culture to another. Really, it's healthier not to travel; it's healthier not to budge and never leave home, warmly wrapped up in winter, only removing your scarf in summertime; it's healthier not to open your mouth or blink; it's healthier not to breathe.
But the fact is, we breathe and travel. Myself, for example, I began traveling very young, at the age of seven or eight. First in my father's truck, on lonely Chilean highways that had a post-nuclear feel to them and made my hair bristle, then in trains and buses, until at the age of fifteen, I boarded a plane for the first time and went to live in Mexico. From that moment on, I was constantly traveling. Consequence: multiple illnesses. In childhood: major headaches, which made my parents wonder if I had a nervous illness, and whether it might be advisable for me to undertake, as soon as possible, a long therapeutic voyage. In adolescence: insomnia and problems of a sexual nature. As a young man: the loss of my teeth, which I left here and there on my way from country to country, like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs; a bad diet, which gave me heartburn and then gastritis; excessive reading, which weakened my eyes, so I had to wear glasses; calluses on my feet from long, aimless walks; and an endless string of lingering colds and flus. I was poor, lived rough, and thought myself lucky because, after all, I was free of life-threatening illnesses. My sex-life was immoderate but I never caught a venereal disease. I read immoderately, but I never wanted to be a successful author. I even regarded the loss of my teeth as a kind of homage to Gary Snyder, whose life of Zen wandering had led him to neglect dental care. But it all catches up with you. Children. Books. Illness. The voyage comes to an end.