Der Zauberberg - Day 9

I get so slowly to the idea that my little world will circulate now somewhere between Paris, Amsterdam, Oxford and Heidelberg. A walking distance. 
I start to dream again about mahogany bookcases, and new books to put on them, not those that remained in Kraków. They were tiny old things; I deserve better. It doesn't make sense to read them all in Polish, while I need to make my English expression slender and elegant. There are also other languages to cultivate, French, Dutch, Arabic. Truly I have no more time for my Polish books. 
Books, books, books, the last thing that remains to care about, as if the virus could bite at them. But they give me the feeling of normalcy on an occasion in which my horizon hardly stretches beyond the end of next month, and I have with me only a bundle of old clothes, a pair of shoes, as if I came straight from Bissau. 
​They say anosmia is an early indicator of contagion. I'm still healthy, 36,8, and I open a flask of cosmetic jelly to feel its smell. I close my eyes, and I'm back in Leiden, in the Breestraat, in the Haarlemmerstraat, searching for little items in Hema and Normaal. Everything in such a great abundance, colourful and fragrant. And the Saturday market, with such a profusion of fruits and flowers. My husband sent me a clip on WhatsApp, how they were removing tons of unsold flowers from the auction in Aaalsmeer. It made me suffer more than any glimpse of the current pandemic. I have fruits also here, in Lisbon, oranges and pears and tomatoes. I'm not missing anything, the events have left me unscathed. I just miss to be back in Leiden, in that suspended time, among books and dreams, in the Garden.
​
Des meubles luisants,
Polis par les ans,
Décoreraient notre chambre ;
Les plus rares fleurs
Mêlant leurs odeurs
Aux vagues senteurs de l’ambre,
Les riches plafonds,
Les miroirs profonds,
La splendeur orientale,
Tout y parlerait
À l’âme en secret
Sa douce langue natale.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté...

Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde ;
C’est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde.
– Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D’hyacinthe et d’or ;
Le monde s’endort
Dans une chaude lumière.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté...

Is the country and the city still there, with its channels and its water lilies? I've only heard Hungary is no more...