The cowherds pulled her out when they watered the cattle at dawn. By the time we arrived there on our way to school, she was lying on the thin ice formed by the water which had been spilt from the well. Under this covering the black clods of earth, the pieces of straw and dung glinted and sparkled like rare jewels under glass. There she lay with open eyes in which, like the small objects under the ice, was frozen the broken terror of a startled glance. Her mouth was open, her nose rather haughtily tilted, and on her forehead and beautiful cheeks there were huge scratches which had either occurred during her fall, or had been made by the cowherds as they let down the bucket before they caught sight of her among the ice-patches in the dark winter dawn. She was barefooted, she had left her boots in the assistant farm-manager’s room, by the bed from which she had suddenly leapt and dashed straight as an arrow to the well.

I first read these words ten years ago, on a hot day in February. Early in the morning of that day I had closed the window of this room and had pulled down the blind in order to keep out the sunlight and the north wind. I had then taken a book down from one of the shelves and had sat at this table and begun to read.

The name of the book that I read on that hot day has already been written on one of these pages. I had taken the book down from the shelf in the morning because I wanted to read a book about grasslands. Even then, ten years ago, I had grown tired of most of the books on my shelves. Each year I had read fewer books. The only books I was still interested in reading were books about grasslands.

Until that hot day in February I had never opened the covers of the book containing the words that I wrote on this page fifteen minutes ago. I took down the book from the shelf on that hot day because I understood that one of the words on the cover of the book was the word for grassland in the Magyar language.

Ten years ago I believed that any person named or referred to in a book was already dead. The person named on the cover of the book might have been alive or dead, but any person named or referred to inside the book was unquestionably dead.

On the hot day when I first read in a certain book the words beginning, The cowherds pulled her out when they watered the cattle at dawn...I did not at once cease to believe what I had believed all my life concerning the people named or referred to in books. What I did was to write on a page.

Of the many hundreds of pages I have written in this room, the first page I wrote was a letter. After I had written the letter I addressed it and posted it to a woman who had once lived in a street named Daphne in the district where I was born. Then I went on writing on other pages, every one of which is still lying somewhere around me in this room. On every day while I was writing on pages, I thought of the people referred to or named in the book with the word for grassland on its cover.

At first while I was writing I thought of those people as though they were all dead and I myself was alive. At some time while I was writing, however, I began to suspect what I am now sure of. I began to suspect that all persons named or referred to in the pages of books are alive, whereas all other persons are dead.

When I wrote the letter which was the first of all my pages, I was thinking of a young woman who was, I thought, dead while I was still alive. I thought the young woman was dead while I remained alive in order to go on writing what she could never read.

Today while I write on this last page, I am still thinking of the young woman. Today, however, I am sure the young woman is still alive. I am sure the young woman is still alive while I am dead. Today I am dead but the young woman remains alive in order to go on reading what I could never write. (Inland)