“I've ceased even to wonder how I got here,” he says, with a laugh that echoes mine.
He leans back in his chair, and I in mine, and the absurd parody of our attitude strikes us both.
“Well?” we say, simultaneously, and laugh together.
I will confess this meeting is more difficult even than I anticipated.
§ 2
Our conversation at that first encounter would do very little to develop the Modern Utopia in my mind. Inevitably, it would be personal and emotional. He would tell me how he stood in his world, and I how I stood in mine. I should have to tell him things, I should have to explain things—.
No, the conversation would contribute nothing to a modern Utopia.
And so I leave it out.
§ 3
But I should go back to my botanist in a state of emotional relaxation. At first I should not heed the fact that he, too, had been in some manner stirred. “I have seen him,” I should say, needlessly, and seem to be on the verge of telling the untellable. Then I should fade off into: “It's the strangest thing.”