Elias Canetti, “Hermann Broch” February 2, 1975 You wouldn’t recognize your music room, Véronique. Your piano is still there, and your table, where I come to write to you, your photograph and your furniture – and the maple tree still grows outside your window. But since his third birthday, which he wanted to celebrate here, opening his gifts and playing games with “my own friends” for the first time, David has in a sense taken over your room. At first, he would quite naturally come with a toy and Lamby, telling him for everyone to hear that they were going to play in “our other playroom.” Without saying anything, he would always leave the toy there, so that by the end of two weeks, practically his whole world had been moved, and organized in his own order, which we don’t disturb except when his things start to overflow anarchically all over the furniture and the floor, literally preventing us from walking across it. So we (Mama or I) tidy up, we set aside well-defined areas: the doggies on the chairs, nicely arranged, the other animals in their farm or forest (usually under the table), the little cars in their garage, the games, drawings and books in a bookcase we’ve turned over to him.
