Why should I know?

 

(pause)

 

SECOND WATCHER This land is so sad ... It was less sad in the land where I used to live. At day’s end I spun thread by the window. The window looked out onto the sea, where sometimes I could spot an island in the distance ... Sometimes I didn’t spin; I looked at the sea and forgot to live. I don’t know if I was happy. I’ll never go back to being what perhaps I never was ...

 

FIRST WATCHER I’ve never seen the sea except from here. And we see so little of it from that window, which is the only one through which we can see it at all ... Is the sea of other lands beautiful?

 

SECOND WATCHER Only the sea of other lands is beautiful. The sea we can see always makes us long for the one we’ll never see.

 

(pause)

 

FIRST WATCHER Didn’t we say we were going to tell our past?

 

SECOND WATCHER No, we didn’t.

 

THIRD WATCHER Why is there no clock in this room?

 

SECOND WATCHER I don’t know ... But this way, with no clock, everything is more distant and mysterious. The night belongs more to itself ... Perhaps, if we knew what time it is, we couldn’t talk like this.

 

FIRST WATCHER In me, sister, everything is sad. It’s December in my soul ... I’m trying not to look at the window, through which I know hills can be seen in the distance ... I was once happy beyond some hills ... I was a little girl. Every day I picked flowers and asked, before going to sleep, that they not be taken from me ... There’s something about this that’s irreparable and that makes me feel like crying ... This happened—it could only have happened—far away from here ... When will the day dawn? ...

 

THIRD WATCHER What does it matter? It always dawns in the same way ... Always, always, always ...

 

(pause)

 

SECOND WATCHER Let’s tell each other stories. I don’t know any stories, but there’s no harm in that ... Only life is harmful ... Better not even to brush it with the hems of our dresses ... No, don’t get up. That would be an action, and every action interrupts a dream ... I wasn’t having a dream right now, but it’s nice to imagine that I could have been ... But the past—why don’t we talk about the past?

 

FIRST WATCHER We decided not to ... Soon day will break, and we’ll regret it.