Translation:The Man Who Lost a Button/II.
II.
[edit]But he was happy.
“That man is crazy”, some would say.
“Some sage or poet”, others would remark.
He didn't listen; he didn't care.
He walked a lot, searching for clearings and peaks from where the sky was best seen, and he got into the habit of always holding the top button of his coat. With his hand on his chest, it was somehow easier for him to walk and to gaze. When his admiration was the highest, his grip would be the tightest, and the more he would twist the button between his thumb and forefinger. And so the thread slowly began to give way.
And so it happened one evening that the man noticed that his button was lost. He had a new one sewn on; but the dawn of that early spring day seemed gray to him, the clouds without form, the sun just an ordinary ball of fire, unbearable to gaze upon, the stars cold and distant, and the moon resembling a silver wasteland.
The man replaced the button.
But now, it was even worse.
He didn’t save on buttons. He bought buttons of bone and metal, noble and poor, but all in vain. He grew disheartened; he withdrew even further from everyone. He felt that his life would become something pitiful and barren, far worse than death. The sky would close before his gaze; and he would be more miserable than others, because they could not grieve for something they had never known. In his misery, nothing remained for him but one thing: the only thing that could still help.
He resolved to search for the lost button.