My grandfather once told me: "When I was young, I dreamed of impossible things, but that did not discourage me from living with all my heart and strength, and very soon I found myself doing impossible things, too. Of course, what I aspired to and what I ended up doing were different, and I did not delude myself the one was anything more than a compromise for the lack of the other. But my point is this: I understood very early in life that there was a place where dreams and action meet; that is the improbable place in which identities are created, and I was there long before anyone; I was in the front row, sober, with a quick mind and a ready pencil. Perhaps my advantage was fortuitous, or perhaps it was hereditary; I don’t know. Some say that Germany is of the intellect, and France is of the soul, and so, sharing the stock of each, I hold them in proportion; but pronouncements like these, while well-intentioned, give no explanation for the blood that used to flow within my veins. For example, the first time I met your grandmother, I propositioned her in a very cruel way, and I do not know why I did that, or why she let me do it. Then one day we were married and the rest of life happened; that's just the boring bit, and you can fill in the blanks." And then he blinked several times very slowly, as if he wasn't sure if he were asleep or awake, and added: "I don't know where that person came from, or where he went to, and today there's nothing I can do to bring him back. He was the one who lived, not I. I am just the carrier of the casket, now, and even the mourners hide their faces.”