17
" The past has a future, something it becomes, and that transforms it. Like the facts themselves, the person, the "I", who experiences it and looks back on it discovers that it is not singular, but plural. Traveling through those places marked down in those epic chronicles of thirty years ago, one gets the impression of slicing through paper-thin, invisible barriers, different levels of reality, still present and with us even though not discernible to the naked eye, infrared or ultraviolet rays of history, images and instants that at this point cannot print an image on the celluloid, but which nonetheless are, and exist in the same way for tangible experience as electrons which elude our grasp. "
― Claudio Magris , Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea
19
" A História só adquire a sua realidade mais tarde, quando já passou, e as ligações gerais, instituídas e escritas nos anais anos depois, conferem a um acontecimento o seu alcance e o seu papel. Recordando a derrocada búlgara, acontecimento decisivo para o desfecho da Primeira Guerra Mundial e portanto para o fim de uma civilização, o conde Károlyi escreve que, enquanto o vivia, não dera conta da sua importância, porque, «nesse momento, “esse momento” não se transformara ainda “nesse momento”». "
― Claudio Magris , Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea
