WEBVTT 01:02.960 --> 01:12.400 Garden of Forking Paths. On page 22 of Little Heart's history of World War I you 01:12.400 --> 01:17.480 will read that an attack against the Sierra Seri Montalban line by the 13 01:17.480 --> 01:23.820 British divisions supported by 1,400 artillery pieces planned for the 24th 01:23.820 --> 01:29.860 of July 1916 had to be postponed until the morning of the 29th. The 01:29.860 --> 01:35.460 torrential rains, Captain Little Heart comments caused this delay. An insignificant 01:35.460 --> 01:43.620 one to be sure. The following statement dictated, re-read, signed by Dr 01:43.620 --> 01:50.580 Yu Sun, former professor of English at the Hoshula at Qingdao, throws an 01:50.580 --> 01:55.940 unexpected light over the whole affair. The first two pages of the 01:55.940 --> 02:02.320 documents are missing and I hung up the receiver. Immediately afterwards I 02:02.320 --> 02:07.720 recognized a voice that had answered in German. It was that of Captain Richard 02:07.720 --> 02:14.720 Madden. Madden's presence in Victor Rumberg's apartment meant the end of 02:14.720 --> 02:20.320 our anxieties and but this seemed or should have seemed very secondary to 02:20.320 --> 02:27.840 me. Also the end of our lives. It meant that Rumberg had been arrested or 02:27.840 --> 02:31.540 murdered and then on the on the side of this there's an asterisk with a 02:31.540 --> 02:36.380 Edison's note which I'll read to you now. A hypothesis both hateful and 02:36.380 --> 02:44.020 odd. The Prussian spy, Hans Rabiner, alias Victor Rumberg attacked with 02:44.020 --> 02:49.060 drawn automatic the bearer of the warrant for his arrest. Captain 02:49.800 --> 02:54.540 Richard Madden. The latter in self-defense inflicted the wound which 02:54.540 --> 03:01.460 brought about Rumberg's death. And the story continues. Before the sun set on 03:01.460 --> 03:08.380 that day I would encounter the same fate. Madden was implacable or rather 03:08.380 --> 03:15.360 he was obliged to be so. An Irish man in the service of England. A man accused 03:15.360 --> 03:20.400 of laxity and perhaps of treason. How could he fail to seize and to be 03:20.400 --> 03:27.260 thankful for such a miraculous opportunity? The discovery, capture and 03:27.260 --> 03:33.080 even the death of two agents of the German Reich. I went up to my room 03:34.220 --> 03:38.880 absurdly. I locked the door and threw myself on the back of the narrow iron 03:38.880 --> 03:44.940 cut. Through the window I saw the familiar roost and the cloud shaded six 03:44.940 --> 03:51.000 o'clock sun. It seemed incredible to me that that day without 03:51.000 --> 03:57.800 premonitions or symbols should be the one of my inexorable death. In spite 03:57.800 --> 04:04.700 of my dead father. In spite of having been a child in a symmetrical garden of 04:04.700 --> 04:11.900 Haifeng I was now going to die. Then I reflected that everything happens to 04:11.900 --> 04:19.880 a man precisely. Precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do 04:19.880 --> 04:25.100 things happen. Countless men in the air on the face of the earth and the 04:25.100 --> 04:31.420 sea and all that really is happening. It's happening to me. The almost 04:31.420 --> 04:36.140 intolerable recollection of Madden's horse-like face banished these 04:36.140 --> 04:43.140 wanderings in my mind. In the midst of my hatred and terror it means 04:43.140 --> 04:48.260 nothing to me now to speak of terror. Now that I have mocked Richard Madden. Now 04:48.260 --> 04:53.020 that my throat yearns for the noose. It occurred to me that that tumultuous 04:53.020 --> 04:58.580 and doubtless happy warrior did not suspect that I possessed a secret. The 04:58.580 --> 05:03.320 name of the exact location of the new British artillery park on River 05:03.320 --> 05:11.240 Anker. A bird's street across the sky and blindly I translated it into an 05:11.240 --> 05:18.140 aeroplane and that aeroplane into many against the French sky. Annihilating 05:18.140 --> 05:25.040 the artillery station with vertical bombs. If only my mouth before a bullet 05:25.040 --> 05:31.360 shattered it would cry out that secret name so it could be heard in Germany. My 05:31.360 --> 05:37.560 human voice was very weak. How might I make it carry to the ear of the 05:37.560 --> 05:42.700 chief? To the ear of that sick and hateful man who knew nothing of 05:42.700 --> 05:47.740 Rumberg and me saved that we were in Staffordshire and who was waiting in 05:47.740 --> 05:53.100 vain for our reports in his arid office in Berlin endlessly examining 05:53.100 --> 06:02.300 newspapers. I said out loud I must flee. I sat up noiselessly in a useless 06:02.300 --> 06:08.540 perfection of silence as if Madden were already lying in wait for me. Something 06:08.540 --> 06:14.100 perhaps the mere vain ostentation of proving my resources were nil made me 06:14.100 --> 06:22.100 look through my pockets. I found what I knew. I found what I knew old fine. The 06:22.100 --> 06:30.120 American watch, the nickel chain, the square coin, the key ring with the 06:30.120 --> 06:35.940 incriminating useless keys to Rumberg's apartment, the notebook, a letter which 06:35.940 --> 06:41.780 I resolved to destroy immediately and which I did not destroy, a crown, two 06:41.780 --> 06:47.500 shillings, a few pence, and the red and blue pencil, the handkerchief, and finally 06:47.500 --> 06:49.620 the revolver with one bullet. 06:53.660 --> 06:57.460 absurdly I took it in my hand and weighed it in order to inspire courage 06:57.460 --> 07:02.920 within myself. Vaguely I thought that a pistol report can be heard at a 07:02.920 --> 07:09.480 great distance. In ten minutes my plan was perfected. The telephone book listed 07:09.480 --> 07:15.080 the name of the only person capable of transmitting the message. He lived in a 07:15.080 --> 07:26.280 suburb of Fenton less than half an hour away by train. I am a cowardly man. I say 07:26.280 --> 07:31.180 it now. Now that I have carried to its end a plan whose perilous nature no 07:31.180 --> 07:39.240 one can deny. I know his execution was terrible. I didn't do it for Germany, no. 07:40.580 --> 07:46.420 I care nothing for a barbarous country which imposed upon me the objection of 07:46.420 --> 07:54.600 being a spy. Besides, I know of a man from England, a modest man who for me is 07:54.600 --> 08:00.200 no less great than girth. I talked with him for scarcely an hour but during 08:00.200 --> 08:06.100 that hour he was girth. I did it because I sensed that the chief somehow feared 08:06.100 --> 08:14.160 people of my race for the innumerable ancestors who merged within me. I wanted 08:14.160 --> 08:20.840 to prove to him that a yellow man could save his armies. Besides, I had to flee 08:20.840 --> 08:26.820 from Captain Madden. His hands and his voice could call at my door at any 08:26.820 --> 08:33.800 moment. I dressed silently, made farewell to myself in the mirror, went 08:33.800 --> 08:41.580 downstairs, scrutinised the peaceful street and went out. The station was not 08:41.580 --> 08:48.420 far from my home but I judged it was wise to take a cab. I argued that in this 08:48.420 --> 08:53.440 way I ran less of a risk of being recognised. The fact is that in the 08:53.440 --> 08:59.500 deserted street I felt myself visible and vulnerable, infinitely so. I remember 08:59.500 --> 09:03.120 that I told the cab driver to stop a short distance before the main entrance. 09:04.180 --> 09:10.040 I got out with voluntary, almost painful slowness. I was going to the village 09:10.040 --> 09:16.140 of Ashgrove but I bought a ticket for a more distant station. The train left 09:16.140 --> 09:24.260 within a very few minutes. At 8.15pm I hurried. The next one would leave at 9.30pm. 09:25.240 --> 09:31.580 There was hardly a soul on the platform. I went through the cultures. I remember 09:31.580 --> 09:36.360 a few farmers, a woman dressed in mourning, a young boy who was reading 09:36.360 --> 09:43.410 with fervour the annals of Tacitus, a wounded and happy soldier. The 09:43.410 --> 09:49.730 cultures jumped forward at last. A man whom I recognised ran in vain to the 09:49.730 --> 09:57.010 end of the platform. It was Captain Richard Madden. Shattered, trembling, 09:58.650 --> 10:03.470 I shrank into the far corner of the seat, away from the dreaded window. 10:03.950 --> 10:22.210 From this broken state I passed into an almost abject felicity. I told 10:22.210 --> 10:27.050 myself that the duel had already begun and that I had won the first encounter 10:27.050 --> 10:33.450 by frustrating earings for 40 minutes, even if by a stroke of fate, the 10:33.450 --> 10:39.260 attack on my adversary. I argued that the slightest of victories foreshadowed 10:39.850 --> 10:45.550 a total victory. I argued no less feliciously that my cowardly 10:45.550 --> 10:49.650 felicity proved that I was a man capable of carrying out the 10:49.650 --> 10:55.270 adventure. Successfully, from this weakness I took strength that did not 10:55.270 --> 11:01.610 abandon me. I foreseen that man would resign himself each day to more 11:01.610 --> 11:07.210 atrocious undertakings. Soon there will be no one but warriors and 11:07.210 --> 11:12.670 brigands. I gave them this counsel. The author of an atrocious 11:12.670 --> 11:18.490 undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to 11:18.490 --> 11:26.310 impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past. Thus, I proceeded 11:26.310 --> 11:32.170 as my eyes of a man already dead registered the elapsing of that day, 11:32.610 --> 11:39.530 which was perhaps the last and the diffusion of the night. The train ran 11:39.530 --> 11:47.010 gently along amid ash trees. It stopped almost in the middle of the 11:47.010 --> 11:50.690 fields. No one announced the name of the station. 11:52.130 --> 11:54.570 Ashgrove, I asked a few lads on the platform. 11:56.170 --> 12:04.110 Ashgrove, they replied. I cut off. A lamp enlightened the platform, but 12:04.110 --> 12:08.090 the faces of the boys were in shadow. One questioned me, 12:09.030 --> 12:13.270 are you going to Dr. Stefan Albert's house? Without waiting for my 12:13.270 --> 12:17.250 answer, another said, the house is a long way from here, but you won't get 12:17.250 --> 12:20.390 lost if you take this road to the left and that every crossroad 12:20.390 --> 12:27.090 turned again to your left. I tossed them a coin. My last descended 12:27.090 --> 12:32.930 a few stone steps and started down the solitary road. It went 12:32.930 --> 12:41.370 downhill slowly. It was of elemental earth. Overhead, the branches 12:41.370 --> 12:49.030 were tangled. The low full moon seemed to accompany me. For an instant, 12:49.870 --> 12:53.370 I thought that Richard Madden in some way had penetrated my desperate plan. 12:54.950 --> 13:02.810 Very quickly though, I understood that was impossible. The instruction 13:02.810 --> 13:07.550 to turn always to the left reminded me that such was the common 13:07.550 --> 13:11.050 procedure for discovering the central points of certain labyrinths. 13:12.530 --> 13:18.970 I have some understanding of labyrinths. Not for nothing. I am the great 13:18.970 --> 13:24.490 grandson of that soy peng who was governor of Yunnan and who 13:24.490 --> 13:28.650 renounced worldly power in order to write a novel that might be 13:28.650 --> 13:32.310 even more popular than the Hongliu Men, which is the dreams of 13:32.310 --> 13:35.050 Red Chamber, which is one of the four classic Chinese fictional 13:35.050 --> 13:39.850 novels like Journey to the West, Water Margin, Outdoors of the 13:39.850 --> 13:49.340 Water Marsh, Hongliu Meng, who renounced worldly power in order to 13:49.340 --> 13:52.700 write a novel that might be even more popular than the Hongliu 13:52.700 --> 13:57.080 Meng and to construct a labyrinth in which all men would become 13:57.080 --> 14:04.760 lost. Thirteen years he dedicated to these heterogeneous tasks 14:04.760 --> 14:09.160 but the hand of a stranger murdered him and his novel was 14:09.160 --> 14:15.180 incoherent and no one found the labyrinth. Beneath English trees 14:15.180 --> 14:21.540 I meditated on that lost maze. I imagined it infinite and perfect 14:21.540 --> 14:27.240 at the secret crest of a mountain. I imagined it erased by rice fields 14:27.240 --> 14:33.480 or beneath the water. I imagined it infinite, no longer composed 14:33.480 --> 14:39.360 of octagonal kiosks and returning paths but of rivers and provinces 14:39.360 --> 14:45.040 and kingdoms. I thought of labyrinths, I thought of a labyrinth 14:45.040 --> 14:49.560 of labyrinths of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would 14:49.560 --> 14:54.000 encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the 14:54.000 --> 14:59.940 stars. Absorbed in these illusory images I forgot my destiny 14:59.940 --> 15:05.140 of one pursuit. I felt myself to be for an unknown period of time 15:05.140 --> 15:11.200 an abstract perceiver of the world. The vague living conscious side, 15:12.140 --> 15:17.060 the moon, the remains of the day worked on me as well as the 15:17.060 --> 15:20.020 slope of the road which eliminated any possibility of 15:20.020 --> 15:27.880 weariness. The afternoon was intimate, infinite. The road 15:27.880 --> 15:33.120 descended and forks among the now confused meadows. I high pitched 15:33.120 --> 15:37.800 almost syllabic music approached and receded in the shifting of 15:37.800 --> 15:43.780 the wind, dimmed by leaves and distance. I thought that a man 15:43.780 --> 15:48.660 can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men 15:48.660 --> 15:55.560 but not of a country, not of fireflies, words, gardens, 15:55.560 --> 16:03.900 streams of water, sunsets. Thus I arrived before a tall rusty gate 16:04.820 --> 16:08.960 between the iron bars and made out a popular grove and a pavilion. 16:10.400 --> 16:15.900 I understood suddenly two things, the first, trivial, the second 16:15.900 --> 16:21.700 almost unbelievable. The music came from the pavilion and the music 16:21.700 --> 16:38.040 was Chinese. I wait for you to return. For precisely that reason I 16:38.040 --> 16:43.080 had openly accepted it without paying it any heed. I do not 16:43.080 --> 16:45.880 remember whether there was a bell or whether I knocked with my 16:45.880 --> 16:54.160 hand the sparkling of the music continued. From the rear of the 16:54.160 --> 16:59.780 house within a lantern approached a lantern that the trees 16:59.780 --> 17:05.120 sometimes striped and sometimes eclipsed. A paper lantern that 17:05.120 --> 17:11.180 had the form of a drum and the colour of the moon. A tall man 17:11.180 --> 17:18.840 bore it. I didn't see his face, for the light blinded me. He 17:18.840 --> 17:23.820 opened the door and said slowly in my own language. I see that 17:23.820 --> 17:28.920 the Pai Sui Peng persists in correcting my solitude. You know 17:28.920 --> 17:33.180 that wish to see the garden? I recognised the name of our 17:33.180 --> 17:39.220 consoles and I replied, disconcerted. The garden, the garden 17:39.220 --> 17:46.880 of forking paths. Something stirred in my memory and I uttered 17:46.880 --> 17:51.060 with incomprehensible certainty the garden of my ancestor 17:51.060 --> 17:56.820 Sui Peng. Your ancestor, your illustrious ancestor, come in, 17:56.980 --> 18:01.160 come in. The damp paffet zigzagged like those of my 18:01.160 --> 18:06.440 childhood. We came to a library of eastern and western 18:06.440 --> 18:12.260 books. I recognised, bound in yellow silk, several volumes of 18:12.260 --> 18:15.360 the Lost Encyclopedia edited by the Third Emperor of the 18:15.360 --> 18:18.920 Luminous Dynasty, but never printed. I guess the Luminous 18:18.920 --> 18:22.420 Dynasty would be the Ming Dynasty. Ming means life in 18:22.420 --> 18:29.480 Chinese, so Luminous Ming Dynasty. Good Dynasty. The 18:29.480 --> 18:32.900 record on the photograph revolved next to our bronze 18:32.900 --> 18:40.480 phoenix. I also record a familiar rose vase and another 18:40.480 --> 18:44.220 many centuries older of that shade of blue, which our 18:44.220 --> 18:49.140 craftsmen copied from the Potters of Persia. Stephen 18:49.140 --> 18:54.000 Albert observed me with a smile. He was, as I have said, 18:54.480 --> 18:59.200 very tall, sharp, featured with grey eyes and a grey 18:59.200 --> 19:04.460 beard. He told me that he had been a missionary in Tianjin 19:04.460 --> 19:11.020 before aspiring to become a synologist. We sat down, I, on a 19:11.020 --> 19:15.660 long low divan, he, with his back to the window and a tall 19:15.660 --> 19:20.680 circular clock. I calculated that my pursuer Richard Madden 19:20.680 --> 19:25.260 could not arrive for at least an hour. My irrevocable 19:25.260 --> 19:30.240 determination could wait. An astounding fate that of 19:30.240 --> 19:35.320 Sui Peng, Stephen Albert said, governor of his native 19:35.320 --> 19:41.040 province, learned in astronomy, in astrology, and in the 19:41.040 --> 19:45.920 tireless interpretation of the canonical books, chess 19:45.920 --> 19:51.620 player, famous poet, and calligrapher. He abandoned 19:51.620 --> 19:56.120 all this in order to compose a book and amaze. He renounced 19:56.120 --> 20:00.700 the pleasures of both tyranny and justice, of his 20:00.700 --> 20:05.660 populous couch, of his banquets, and even of 20:05.660 --> 20:09.380 erudition, all to close himself up for thirteen years 20:09.380 --> 20:14.320 in the pavilion of the limpid solitude. When he 20:14.320 --> 20:18.240 died, his heirs found nothing save chaotic manual 20:18.240 --> 20:22.800 scripts. His family, as you may be aware, wished to be 20:22.800 --> 20:27.360 condemned. His family, as you may be aware, wished to 20:27.360 --> 20:31.920 condemn them to the fire. His executor, a Taoist or 20:31.920 --> 20:34.940 Buddhist monk, insisted on their publication. 20:39.060 --> 20:42.620 We descendants of Sui Peng, I replied, continued to 20:42.620 --> 20:47.020 curse that monk. Their publication was senseless. The 20:47.020 --> 20:51.580 book is an indeterminate heap of contradictory drafts. 20:52.160 --> 20:54.940 I examined it once. In the third chapter, the hero 20:54.940 --> 20:58.680 dies. In the fourth, he's alive. As for the other 20:58.680 --> 21:03.420 undertakings of Sui Peng, his labyrinth, here is 21:03.420 --> 21:07.200 Sui Peng's labyrinth, he said, indicating a tall 21:07.200 --> 21:11.700 lacquered desk. An ivory labyrinth, I exclaimed, 21:12.480 --> 21:17.680 a minimum labyrinth. A labyrinth of symbols, he 21:17.680 --> 21:24.300 corrected. An invisible labyrinth of time. To me, a 21:24.300 --> 21:27.560 barbarist Englishman has been entrusted the 21:27.560 --> 21:31.880 revelation of this diaphanous mystery. After more 21:31.880 --> 21:33.700 than a hundred years, the details are 21:33.700 --> 21:36.660 irretrievable, but it is not hard to conjecture 21:36.660 --> 21:40.060 what happened. Sui Peng must have said once, 21:40.060 --> 21:44.180 I am withdrawing to write a book. And another 21:44.180 --> 21:47.260 time, I am withdrawing to construct a labyrinth. 21:48.400 --> 21:51.620 Everyone imagined two works, but to no one did 21:51.620 --> 21:54.240 it occur that the book and the maze were one 21:54.240 --> 21:59.580 and the same thing. The pavilion of the 21:59.580 --> 22:02.100 Limpid Solitude stood in the centre of a garden 22:02.100 --> 22:05.480 that was perhaps intricate, that circumstance 22:05.480 --> 22:07.980 could have suggested to the heirs of a physical 22:07.980 --> 22:13.560 labyrinth. Sui Peng died. No one in the vast 22:13.560 --> 22:16.660 territories that were his came upon the 22:16.660 --> 22:20.400 labyrinth. The confusion of the novel 22:20.400 --> 22:24.160 suggested to me that it was the maze. Two 22:24.160 --> 22:26.060 circumstances gave me the correct solution 22:26.060 --> 22:30.220 of the problem. One, the curious legend 22:30.220 --> 22:31.920 that Sui Peng had planned to create a 22:31.920 --> 22:34.200 labyrinth, which would be strictly infinite. 22:35.060 --> 22:38.120 The other, a fragment of a letter I 22:38.120 --> 22:43.040 discovered. Albert Rose, he turned his back 22:43.040 --> 22:45.620 on me for a moment. He opened the drawer 22:45.620 --> 22:48.960 of the black and gold desk. He faced me 22:49.720 --> 22:52.620 and in his hands he held a sheet of paper 22:52.620 --> 22:55.460 that had once been crimson, but was now 22:55.460 --> 22:57.640 pink and tenuous and cross-section. 22:58.860 --> 23:01.360 The fame of Sui Peng as a calligrapher 23:01.360 --> 23:04.440 had been justly won. I read 23:05.540 --> 23:07.860 uncomprehendingly and would further these 23:07.860 --> 23:10.600 words written with a minute brush by a 23:10.600 --> 23:14.740 man of my blood. I leave to the various 23:14.740 --> 23:18.040 futures, not to all, my garden of 23:18.040 --> 23:23.160 forking paths. Wordlessly, I returned 23:23.160 --> 23:27.680 the sheet. Albert continued. Before 23:27.680 --> 23:29.900 unearthing this letter, I had questioned 23:29.900 --> 23:32.820 myself about the ways in which a book 23:32.820 --> 23:35.960 can be infinite. I could think of 23:35.960 --> 23:39.220 nothing more than a civic volume, a 23:39.220 --> 23:43.080 circular one, a book whose last page was 23:43.080 --> 23:46.820 identical with the first, a book which 23:46.820 --> 23:48.400 had the possibility of continuing 23:48.400 --> 23:52.440 indefinitely. I remember too that night 23:52.440 --> 23:54.640 which is at the middle of the thousand 23:54.640 --> 23:58.980 on one night when Scheherazade 23:59.860 --> 24:02.100 through a magical oversight of the 24:02.100 --> 24:04.620 copyist begins to relate word for word 24:04.620 --> 24:06.920 the story of the thousand on one 24:06.920 --> 24:09.920 nights, establishing the risk of coming 24:09.920 --> 24:11.540 once again to the night when she must 24:11.540 --> 24:16.140 repeat it, thus onto infinity. I 24:16.140 --> 24:18.200 imagined as well a platonic hereditary 24:18.200 --> 24:20.820 work transmitted from father to son 24:20.820 --> 24:23.180 in which each new individual adds a 24:23.180 --> 24:25.740 chapter or corrects with pious care 24:25.740 --> 24:28.980 the pages of his elders. These 24:28.980 --> 24:32.160 conjectures diverted me but none seem 24:32.160 --> 24:34.820 to correspond, not even remotely to the 24:34.820 --> 24:39.120 contradictory chapters of Sui Peng. In 24:39.120 --> 24:41.880 the midst of this perplexity I 24:41.880 --> 24:43.300 received from Oxford the manual 24:43.300 --> 24:46.360 scripts you have examined. I lingered 24:46.360 --> 24:49.960 naturally on the sentence, I leave to 24:49.960 --> 24:53.020 the various futures, not to all, my garden 24:53.020 --> 24:56.320 are forking paths. Almost 24:56.320 --> 24:59.140 instantly I understood the garden 24:59.140 --> 25:01.080 are forking paths was the chaotic 25:01.080 --> 25:04.780 novel, the phrase, the various futures 25:04.780 --> 25:07.440 not to all suggested to me the forking 25:07.440 --> 25:11.360 in time, not in space, a broad 25:11.360 --> 25:13.500 rereading of the work confirmed the 25:13.500 --> 25:17.180 theory. In all fictional works each 25:17.180 --> 25:19.280 time a man is confronted with several 25:19.280 --> 25:22.200 alternatives he chooses one and 25:22.200 --> 25:25.220 eliminates the others. In the fiction 25:25.220 --> 25:28.100 of Sui Peng he chooses simultaneously 25:28.100 --> 25:31.480 all of them. He creates in this way 25:31.480 --> 25:35.020 diverse futures, diverse times which 25:35.020 --> 25:37.120 themselves also proliferate and fork. 25:38.700 --> 25:41.540 Here then is the explanation of the 25:41.540 --> 25:45.080 novel's contradictions. Fang let 25:45.080 --> 25:48.420 us say has a secret, a stranger 25:48.420 --> 25:51.520 calls at his door. Fang resolves to 25:51.520 --> 25:54.720 kill him. Naturally there are several 25:54.720 --> 25:58.000 possible outcomes. Fang can kill the 25:58.000 --> 26:00.660 intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, 26:01.520 --> 26:03.940 they can both escape, they both can 26:03.940 --> 26:07.080 die and so forth. In the work of 26:07.080 --> 26:09.600 Sui Peng all possible outcomes occur 26:09.600 --> 26:12.620 each one is the point of departure 26:12.620 --> 26:16.440 for other forkings. Sometimes the 26:16.440 --> 26:19.420 paths of this labyrinth converge for 26:19.420 --> 26:22.160 example you arrive at this house but in 26:22.160 --> 26:23.980 one of the possible paths you are my 26:23.980 --> 26:29.000 enemy in another my friend. If you 26:29.000 --> 26:30.660 would resign yourself to my incurable 26:31.380 --> 26:33.960 pronunciations we shall read a few 26:33.960 --> 27:01.060 pages. His face within the vivid 27:01.060 --> 27:03.620 circle of the lamp light was 27:03.620 --> 27:06.140 unquestionably that of an old man 27:06.140 --> 27:10.320 or with something unalterable about it 27:10.320 --> 27:14.320 even immortal. He read with slow 27:14.320 --> 27:17.100 precision two versions of the same epic 27:17.100 --> 27:21.480 chapter. In the first an army marches 27:21.480 --> 27:23.360 to a battle across a lonely mountain. 27:24.260 --> 27:26.200 The horror of the rocks and the 27:26.200 --> 27:28.140 shadows make the men undervalue their 27:28.140 --> 27:30.740 lives and they gain an easy victory. 27:32.080 --> 27:35.300 In the second the same army traverses 27:35.300 --> 27:37.740 a palace where a great festival is 27:37.740 --> 27:41.880 taking place. The resplendent battle 27:41.880 --> 27:44.280 seems to them a continuation of the 27:44.280 --> 27:48.900 celebration and they win the victory. I 27:48.900 --> 27:50.860 listened with proper veneration to these 27:50.860 --> 27:53.420 ancient narratives perhaps less 27:53.980 --> 27:56.300 admirable in themselves than the fact 27:56.300 --> 27:57.680 that they have been created by my 27:57.680 --> 27:59.880 blood and were being restored to me 27:59.880 --> 28:02.300 by a man of remote empire in the 28:02.300 --> 28:04.720 course of a desperate adventure on the 28:04.720 --> 28:08.800 western Isle. I remember the last words 28:08.800 --> 28:11.200 repeated in each version like a secret 28:11.200 --> 28:14.480 commandment. Thus fought the heroes 28:14.480 --> 28:17.040 tranquil in their admirable hearts 28:17.040 --> 28:20.800 violent in their swords resigned to 28:20.800 --> 28:26.120 kill and to die. From that moment 28:26.120 --> 28:28.980 on I felt about me within my dark body 28:28.980 --> 28:32.000 an invisible intangible swarming 28:32.000 --> 28:35.440 not the swarming of the divergent 28:35.440 --> 28:38.180 parallel and finally coalescent armies 28:38.180 --> 28:41.500 but a more inaccessible more intimate 28:41.500 --> 28:44.840 agitation that they in some manner 28:44.840 --> 28:48.340 prefigured. Stephen Albert continued 28:49.000 --> 28:51.300 I don't believe that your illustrious 28:51.300 --> 28:53.520 ancestor played idly with these 28:53.520 --> 28:56.780 variations. I don't consider it 28:56.780 --> 28:58.040 credible that he would sacrifice 28:58.040 --> 29:00.320 13 years to the infinite execution 29:00.320 --> 29:03.680 of a rhetorical experiment. In your 29:03.680 --> 29:06.900 country the novel is a subsidiary form 29:06.900 --> 29:10.180 of literature. In Sui Peng's time 29:10.180 --> 29:14.440 it was a despicable form. Sui Peng was 29:14.940 --> 29:17.680 a brilliant novelist but he was also 29:17.680 --> 29:20.220 a man of letters who doubtless did not 29:20.220 --> 29:23.460 consider himself a mere novelist. The 29:23.840 --> 29:25.480 testimony of his contemporaries 29:25.480 --> 29:28.060 proclaimed and his life fully 29:28.060 --> 29:30.900 confirms his metaphysical and mystical 29:30.900 --> 29:34.340 interests. Philosophic controversies 29:34.720 --> 29:38.380 usurped a good part of the novel. I know 29:38.380 --> 29:41.280 that of all problems none disturbed 29:41.280 --> 29:44.040 him more so greatly nor worked upon him 29:44.040 --> 29:46.960 so much as the abysmal problem of time. 29:48.380 --> 29:51.280 Now then the latter is the only problem 29:51.280 --> 29:53.100 that does not come does not figure in 29:53.100 --> 29:55.940 the pages of the garden. It does not 29:55.940 --> 29:58.280 even use the word that signifies time. 29:59.360 --> 30:01.240 How do you explain this voluntary 30:01.240 --> 30:04.960 omission? I propose several solutions 30:04.960 --> 30:08.680 or unsatisfactory. We discuss them 30:09.640 --> 30:13.860 finally. Stephen Albert certainly. In 30:13.860 --> 30:15.820 the riddle whose answer is chess 30:15.820 --> 30:18.500 what is the only prohibited word? 30:22.360 --> 30:25.040 I thought for a moment and replied 30:26.000 --> 30:32.440 the word chess. Precisely said Albert 30:32.440 --> 30:36.120 the garden of forking paths is an 30:36.120 --> 30:39.480 enormous riddle or parable whose theme is 30:39.480 --> 30:43.360 time. This recondite cause prohibits 30:43.360 --> 30:47.080 its mention to omit a word always 30:47.080 --> 30:52.540 resort to omit a word always to 30:52.540 --> 30:54.980 resort to inept metaphors and obvious 30:54.980 --> 30:57.540 paraphrases is perhaps the most 30:57.540 --> 31:01.900 emphatic way of stressing it. That is 31:01.900 --> 31:05.540 the torturous method preferred in each 31:05.540 --> 31:08.220 of the meanderings of his indefatigable 31:08.220 --> 31:13.200 novel by the oblique Soy Peng. I have 31:13.200 --> 31:16.100 compared hundreds of manuscripts. I 31:16.100 --> 31:17.900 have corrected the errors that the 31:17.900 --> 31:19.980 negligence of the copyists had 31:19.980 --> 31:23.020 introduced. I have guessed the plan of 31:23.020 --> 31:26.300 this chaos. I have reestablished. I 31:26.580 --> 31:28.540 believe that I have reestablished the 31:28.540 --> 31:31.900 primordial organization. I have 31:31.900 --> 31:35.440 translated the entire work. It is 31:35.440 --> 31:37.900 clear to me that not once does he 31:37.900 --> 31:41.300 employ the word time. The explanation 31:41.300 --> 31:44.420 is obvious. The garden of forking 31:44.420 --> 31:47.920 path is an incomplete but not false 31:47.920 --> 31:50.960 image of the universe as Soy Peng 31:50.960 --> 31:53.960 conceived it. In contrast to Newton 31:53.960 --> 31:56.440 and Schopenhauer your ancestor did not 31:56.440 --> 32:00.440 believe in a uniform absolute time. He 32:00.440 --> 32:03.220 believed in an infinite series of times 32:03.220 --> 32:06.340 in a growing dizzy net of divergent 32:06.340 --> 32:10.220 convergent and parallel times. This 32:10.220 --> 32:12.160 network of times which approached 32:12.500 --> 32:16.800 one another forked broke off or were 32:16.800 --> 32:18.700 unaware of one another for centuries 32:18.700 --> 32:23.780 embraces all possibilities of time. We 32:23.780 --> 32:26.060 do not exist in the majority of these 32:26.060 --> 32:30.360 times. In some you exist and I not. 32:31.300 --> 32:35.800 In others I and not you. In others 32:35.800 --> 32:38.840 both of us. In the present one which 32:38.840 --> 32:41.640 is a favorable fate has granted me 32:41.640 --> 32:45.000 you have arrived at my house. In 32:45.000 --> 32:46.960 another while crossing the garden you 32:46.960 --> 32:50.140 found me dead. In still another I are to 32:50.140 --> 32:52.700 these same words but I am a mistake 32:53.380 --> 32:59.160 a ghost. In everyone I pronounced not 32:59.160 --> 33:02.280 without a tremble to my voice. I am 33:02.280 --> 33:04.560 grateful to you and reveal you for 33:04.560 --> 33:06.320 your recreation of the garden of 33:06.320 --> 33:10.340 Soy Peng. Not in all as you remember 33:10.340 --> 33:14.140 with a smile. Time forks perpetually 33:14.140 --> 33:18.240 forward in new time forks perpetually 33:18.240 --> 33:22.180 towards innumerable futures and in one 33:22.180 --> 33:33.490 of them I am your enemy. Once again I 33:33.490 --> 33:36.530 felt the swarming sensation of which 33:36.530 --> 33:39.870 I have spoken. It seemed to me that the 33:39.870 --> 33:41.950 humid garden that surrounded the house 33:41.950 --> 33:44.390 was infinitely saturated with 33:44.390 --> 33:47.950 invisible persons. Those persons were 33:47.950 --> 33:53.190 Albert and I. Secret, busy and 33:53.190 --> 33:57.290 multi-form in other dimensions of time. I 33:57.290 --> 34:00.250 raised my eyes and the tenuous 34:00.250 --> 34:03.610 nightmare dissolved. In the yellow and 34:03.610 --> 34:05.990 black garden there was only one man but 34:06.850 --> 34:10.810 this man was as strong as a statue. This 34:10.810 --> 34:12.870 man was approaching along the path 34:13.610 --> 34:15.930 and he was Captain Richard Madden. 34:18.090 --> 34:21.930 The future already exists I replied but 34:22.470 --> 34:26.110 I am your friend. Could I see this 34:26.110 --> 34:31.030 letter again? Albert rose standing 34:31.030 --> 34:32.890 tall. He opened the drawer of the 34:32.890 --> 34:36.750 tall desk. For a moment his back was 34:36.750 --> 34:42.070 to me. I had read the revolver. I 34:42.070 --> 34:47.050 fired with extreme caution. Albert fell 34:48.250 --> 34:52.850 uncomplainly immediately. I swear his 34:52.850 --> 34:55.250 death was instantaneous. A lightning 34:55.250 --> 35:00.310 stroke. The rest is unreal, 35:00.770 --> 35:04.190 insignificant. Madden broke in, 35:05.010 --> 35:08.030 arrested me. I had been condemned to 35:08.030 --> 35:10.730 the gallows. I have won out 35:10.730 --> 35:14.130 abominably. I have communicated to 35:14.130 --> 35:16.010 Berlin the secret name of the city 35:16.010 --> 35:18.710 they must attack. They bombed it 35:18.710 --> 35:21.550 yesterday. I read it in the same 35:21.550 --> 35:23.710 papers that offered to England the 35:23.710 --> 35:26.050 mystery of the learned synologist 35:26.050 --> 35:28.990 Stefan Albert who was murdered by a 35:28.990 --> 35:33.450 stranger, one named Yu Sun. The chief 35:33.450 --> 35:36.350 had deciphered this mystery. He knew 35:36.350 --> 35:38.970 my problem was to indicate through 35:38.970 --> 35:41.130 the uproar of the wall. The city 35:41.130 --> 35:44.030 called Albert and that I had found no 35:44.030 --> 35:46.070 other means to do so than to kill a man 35:46.070 --> 35:51.430 of that name. He does not know. No one 35:51.430 --> 35:53.590 can know. My innumerable 35:55.570 --> 36:05.160 contrition and weariness. Some of 36:05.160 --> 36:06.220 these words are hard to pronounce. 36:07.480 --> 36:10.520 As I said English is not my first 36:10.520 --> 36:13.680 language. Hope you enjoy.