The Symmetry Teacher Read Online Free PDF Page A

although, not everyone has the gift, either …
    “‘Take a look, however, at this highly curious photograph: a box with the head of Mary, Queen of Scots. I can vouch for its authenticity. Both the box and the head. No, no, it’s not just the box for the head. At the moment it was photographed, the head was inside. Calm down, don’t get so upset! Just imagine, in the spirit of fantasy, albeit poor, of the H. G. Wells you do not approve of, that such a thing is possible, that I am the inventor of a time machine … Can you imagine the difficulties one runs up against before one achieves anything? A dearth both of parts and of finances. No livelihood. They kick you out of your apartment. On the pilot flight you don’t even have an amateur camera, let alone a professional one. No money even for a sandwich to take along for sustenance! Ah, at last. Here it is. But I warn you—no, on second thought, I’d rather you didn’t see it. I shouldn’t have insisted, you’ll take it the wrong way.’
    “I was already clutching the photograph when he tried to snatch it out of my hand again. I grew really angry. I was on the verge of punching the lights out of this impertinent gentleman.
    “‘Oh, no, young man, let’s not succumb to brutality. Or else I might decide not to show you. But have it your way. I won’t go back on my promise, if you will be so kind as to hear me out and remember what I am about to say to you. And it is mandatory that you believe me. And I swear on I-don’t-know-what, since you seem to reject everything about me, that I am not deceiving you. I am holding a photograph of you. It is from your future, a not too distant one. When? I know, but I won’t tell you, for then you’ll be expecting it, and I don’t wish to spoil it ahead of time. You do have a future. I know both the year and the day. What do you mean, when? How impatient you young ones are! Well, not in five years, let’s say … You’re now just about twenty-one. You dream of love and glory. Oh, I know what kind! Top-notch. You have the right to it; and, what’s more, the opportunity is yours, now, and in the future. So, not in five years but fewer than ten, certainly … No, I’m not talking about success, I’m talking about this picture. It’s just as random and meaningless as the others you have seen. Just as authentic, but also just as random, as the others. You may consider me a poetry worshipper who was unable to hold out and depict you as you would one day become. All right. Here, take it … But mark my words. This is a random moment, not biographical fact. For your amusement, as it were…’
    “I no longer heard his admonitions. I fixed my eyes greedily on the image, which happened to be much clearer and sharper than Shakespeare’s legs or the Lake Poet bird. The face of an unfamiliar young man reflected in a shopwindow stared back at me. He was older than me by some ten years, perhaps a bit less, but he looked far more masculine. His face was attractive, albeit distorted by the kind of sorrow and shock that one rarely sees in a living face, much less one captured in a photograph. It was like a mask suited to a myth in which the hero turns to stone from an encounter with a monster. Perhaps even Medusa herself wore such an expression when she beheld her own reflection. In short, the reflection was striking, though it originated in the display window of an ordinary shop selling ready-made clothing, between two mannequins, male and female, who seemed to be striding toward one another with outstretched arms. Their arms, however, bracketed something horrible, something that the One Who Was Reflected saw, as well. The One Who Was Reflected saw Her. And She could not possibly have inspired that kind of horror. There was nothing horrible about Her. Nor was there anything benign.
    “Sometimes beauty can astound or shock. That’s what books tell us. That was not the case here. A pale moth—that’s what I said to myself in