"Noble, brooding, sorrowful, it helps one bear the world, and all fear of what may come in the sunless night.
Beloved Schubert, in your city I am adrift. I am consumed by past love; its germs, long embedded, half contained, have grown virulent again. There is no hope for me. I turned away four thousand nights ago, and the path was closed in by trees and brambles.
I am eaten by futile pity. I make too much of much.
From one city of shrunken power and lapsing music I travel now to another. Let there be some change in my state. Or let me live in a zone where hope is not a word. How can I long for what I do not grasp?"
...
Venice
"I stand on a little bridge over a side-canal, and view a landing-stage, its blue poles tipped with gold. Here is the watergate to the opera house: on it lie scraps of twisted metal, a wooden pallet, charred doors, a rusted bird. On the black walls graffiti proclaims: 'Ti amo. Patrizia'. This is the phoenix which burned down once before and this time has not risen. Surely what was lost so stupidly, so swiftly and in so short a time can be retrieved, redone, brought to life once more.
...
I have drunk too much prosecco; no doubt she will smell it on my skin. On the way to the vaporetto I stop by a bar to sober up, and drink a little more -- strong grappa this time. I find that it is past midnight.
No light slits out from behind the shutters. I can make noise in the apartment, but not light, for she is asleep, and her dreams could stall. I strip and lie down by her side. As the night progresses, for all the fractures of the day, we edge absently into each other's arms. Or so I assume, for that is how we awake."
— Vikram Seth, An Equal Music
