CITIES & MEMORY 2
When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city.
Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases
encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made,
where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where
cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the betters. He was thinking of all
these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his
dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he
arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old
men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are
already memories.
