Telegrams of the Soul

Elevator

The elevator is still a great mystery to me.

I am not so dumb as to spoil the thrill of the blessings of modern culture by allowing myself to get too accustomed to them!

I still feel it as something wonderful, this secret stair-transcendence, this preservation of my knee joints, of my heart, of my oh! by no means costly time.

The door of my elevator closes slowly, automatically, which proves to be downright annoying to people with packages or baskets, albeit rather pleasant for a writer.

I have no idea by what mechanical devices my elevator dangles. I am merely informed every now and then by the super that something’s not quite right today and that the electrical fitter is there. And while I don’t understand just what kind of catastrophe was in the making, or what an electrical fitter does, both seem to be linked to a possibly life-threatening situation.

It’s awful to ride up with a stranger. You feel compelled to initiate a conversation and obsess on it from one floor to another. You suffer a delayed tension like that of the baccalaureate exam. Your face takes on a frozen glower. Finally you say: “Goodbye!” with a kind of intonation as if you you’d just ended a friendship for life. That’s why, so as to sidestep all these unpleasantries, I never get home before six in the morning. At that hour the elevator isn’t up and running yet.