WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.750 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.750 --> 00:00:02.387 align:middle line:90% Tall Windows. 00:00:02.387 --> 00:00:06.130 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.130 --> 00:00:14.290 align:middle line:84% All day you didn't cry or cry out and you felt like sleeping. 00:00:14.290 --> 00:00:17.050 align:middle line:84% The desire to sleep was light bulbs dimming when 00:00:17.050 --> 00:00:19.840 align:middle line:90% a powerful appliance kicks off. 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:21.940 align:middle line:90% You recognized that. 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:24.340 align:middle line:84% As in school, it was explained to you 00:00:24.340 --> 00:00:29.230 align:middle line:84% that pus was a brave army of white corpuscles hurling 00:00:29.230 --> 00:00:33.640 align:middle line:84% themselves at the virulent invader and dying. 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:36.070 align:middle line:84% Riding through the Netherlands on a train, 00:00:36.070 --> 00:00:38.320 align:middle line:84% you notice that even the junk was neatly 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:40.720 align:middle line:90% stacked in the junkyards. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:44.500 align:middle line:84% There were magpies in the fields beside the watery canals, 00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:48.220 align:middle line:84% neat little houses, tall windows. 00:00:48.220 --> 00:00:51.520 align:middle line:84% In Leiden, on the street outside the university, 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:55.960 align:middle line:84% the house where Descartes lived was mirrored in the canal. 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:58.120 align:middle line:84% There was a pair of swans in a sense 00:00:58.120 --> 00:01:02.860 align:middle line:84% that without haste or anxiety, all the people on the street 00:01:02.860 --> 00:01:07.210 align:middle line:84% were going to arrive at their appointments punctually. 00:01:07.210 --> 00:01:10.780 align:middle line:90% Swans and mirrors and Descartes. 00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:14.830 align:middle line:84% It was easy to see how this European tranquility might 00:01:14.830 --> 00:01:19.090 align:middle line:84% produce a poet like Mallarmé, a middle class art-like 00:01:19.090 --> 00:01:20.680 align:middle line:90% symbolism. 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:24.580 align:middle line:84% And you did not despise the collective orderliness, 00:01:24.580 --> 00:01:26.560 align:middle line:84% the way the clerks in the stores were 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:29.500 align:middle line:84% careful to put bills in the cash register 00:01:29.500 --> 00:01:33.160 align:middle line:84% with the Queen's face facing upward. 00:01:33.160 --> 00:01:36.310 align:middle line:84% In the house next to the house where Descartes lived, 00:01:36.310 --> 00:01:40.570 align:middle line:90% a Jewish professor died in 1937. 00:01:40.570 --> 00:01:44.380 align:middle line:84% His wife was a Dutch woman of strict Calvinist principles 00:01:44.380 --> 00:01:46.225 align:middle line:90% and she was left with two sons. 00:01:46.225 --> 00:01:49.690 align:middle line:90% 00:01:49.690 --> 00:01:53.950 align:middle line:84% In 1939, when the Nazis came, she went to court 00:01:53.950 --> 00:01:56.440 align:middle line:84% and perjured herself by testifying 00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:59.860 align:middle line:84% that her children were conceived during an illicit affair 00:01:59.860 --> 00:02:01.780 align:middle line:90% with a Gentile. 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:05.920 align:middle line:84% And when she developed tuberculosis in 1943, 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:08.889 align:middle line:84% she traded passports with a Jewish friend 00:02:08.889 --> 00:02:11.200 align:middle line:84% since she was going to die anyway 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:15.370 align:middle line:84% and took her place on the train to the camps. 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:21.610 align:middle line:84% Her sons kissed her goodbye on the platform, eyes open. 00:02:21.610 --> 00:02:24.100 align:middle line:84% What kept you awake was the feeling 00:02:24.100 --> 00:02:28.630 align:middle line:84% that everything in the world has its own size. 00:02:28.630 --> 00:02:32.200 align:middle line:84% That if you could find its size among the swellings 00:02:32.200 --> 00:02:36.340 align:middle line:84% and diminishings, it would be calm and shy. 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:39.640 align:middle line:90% 00:02:39.640 --> 00:02:42.990 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:42.990 --> 00:02:46.000 align:middle line:90%