Trotters

The reason of course, did not lie in Kotovsky and his trotters. The reason lay in Anna, in the elusive and inexplicable quality of her beauty, which from the very first moment had made me invent and ascribe to her a soul of profound and subtle feeling. I could not possibly have dreamed that an ordinary pair of trotters might be capable of rendering their owner attractive in her eyes. And yet it was so. The strangest thing of all, I thought, was that I assumed that a woman needs something else. But what might that be - the riches of the spirit?
I laughed out loud and two chickens walking along the edge of the road fluttered away from me in fright.
Now that was interesting, I reasoned, for if I were truthful with myself, that was precisely what I have thought - that there existed in me something capable of attracting this woman and raising me in her eyes immeasurably higher than any owner of a pair of trotters. But the very comparison already involved a quite intolerable vulgarity - in accepting I was myself reducing to the level of a pair of trotters what should in my view seem of an immeasurably greater value to her?My inner world? The things that I think and feel? I groaned out loud in disgust at myself. It was time I stopped deceiving myself, I thought. For years now my main problem had been how to rid myself of all these thoughts and feelings and leave mu so-called inner world behind me on some rubbish tip. But even if I assumed for a moment that it did have some kind of value, at least of an aesthetic kind, that did not change a thing - everything beautiful tat can exists in a human being is inaccessible even to the person in whom it exists. How could it really be possible to fix it with the eye of introspection and say: "There it was, it is and it will be?" Was it really possible in any sense to possess it, to say, in fact, that it belonged to anyone? How could I compare with Kotovsky's trotters something that bore no relation to myself, something which I have merely glimpsed in the finest seconds of my life? And how could I blame Anna if she refuses to see in me I have long ago ceased to see in myself? No, this was genuinely absurd - even in those rare moments of life when I have perhaps discovered this most important of things, I have felt quite clearly that it was absolutely to express it. It might be that someone utters a succinct phrase as he gases out of the window at the sunset, and no more. But what I myself say when I gaze out at sunsets and sunrises has long irritated me beyond all tolerance. My soul is not endowed with any special beauty, I thought, quite the opposite - I was seeking in Anna what had never existed in myself. All that remained of me when I saw her was an aching void which could only be filled by her presence, her voice, her face. So what could I offer her instead of a ride with Kotovsky on his trotters - myself? In other words, my hope that in intimacy with her I might discover the answer to some vague and confused question tormenting my soul? Absurd. Had I been in her position myself, I would have chosen to ride the trotters with Kotovsky.
(Victor Pelevin: The Clay Machine-Gun)