The Clock Tower

   "I stood there quietly contemplating the clock tower, the low balcony and the tiny square. No one else was there, and it seemed as though time had stopped. Then a cat appeared and walked slowly and deliberately towards the balcony; it then stopped and lay down beneath it. A few moments later, I heard the sound of footsteps, and a man emerged from one of the narrow streets and came into the square; his presence there seemed to increase the stasis of the scene and he stood out alone against his surroundings, seemingly isolated from them.

As I stood there, I remembered another sight in the ancient city of Patan, near Kathmandu in Nepal, where there is also a square. The pagodas and palaces which enclose it have curved roofs which stand out against the blue sky and the snows of the Himalayas in the distance. The square is decorated with golden statues, and the buildings are covered with wood carvings representing scenes of love. When I was there, the courtyards and the narrow streets which led into the square were heaped high with yellow grain drying in the sun. Then suddenly, a woman covered with a black shawl came into the square from one of the narrow lanes. She was wailing inconsolably, and her cries echoed across the clear morning air.

The difference between the two scenes was that the woman of Patan was a part of the landscape. Despite her tumultuous weeping, she seemed not to exist, but to be part of the collective mind. She belonged to the tradition, was connected to the hot soul of myth and to the blood of her gods. By contrast, the scene in the old square of Zürich was one of complete desolation. The man, with his hands in his overcoat pockets, was disconnected from everything, standing apart from his own landscape. He was the very image of the forlorn; he represented the persona and its fear of death. He was like a scrap from a morning newspaper which by noon was already out of date.

Nevertheless, there was an undeniable beauty in the European scene. It formed a delicate but profound pattern: the Cathedral in the square, the balcony, the cat and the man. This was the dramatic beauty of individuality, mortality and the yearning for eternity."