Approaching a town unfamiliar to him, a certain traveler was met by a fantastic glow on the horizon.
“What is this,” he asked his fellow companions on the train, who, it would seem, where more
enlightened than he, in that they confered on this glow no particuar attention.
“The incinerating of the morning papers,” they replied to him. In this town, a popular belief
prevailed that the truth does not perish in the flames, so they will only read that which is left
after the burning.
“And is there anything left?” the traveler, a foreigner it must be, uttered in astonishment.
“Practially nothing,” they said, “but as they burn, the hieroglyphs produce such a wondrous flame that gazing at them while they are blazing up replaces for the local residents their meditation upon the truth.”
After this explanation, our traveler decided not to detrain at this station to purchase the day's
newpapers so as to leave unperturbed, as it were, the sparks necessary for this town's everyday
deliberations upon the eternal truths.
Translated by Alex Cigale