![THE TIME BEING](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1710145158/articles/TZpG6b0j-1710250590175/THE-TIME-BEING.jpg)
My new friends contained the experiences of life in the way that novels did, with chapters involving marriages, careers, wars, intergenerational dramas, travels, dénouements, deaths. Their biographical force field was strong. They embodied the theme of time. Time was thematic. It was not yet a source of ever-worsening personal harm.
One of these older people was V. He was a white European, but my initial impression of him was not unlike the impression I would then gain of certain senior Black Americans, namely, that they were subjects of history. This was the year 2000. In the faces of older New Yorkers, or so I believed, you could spot the vestiges of Jim Crow—for that matter, of the Third Reich and the Iron Curtain and the Great Leap Forward. What Vojtech Bartolomaeus, whom everyone called V. or Mr. V., had been through, I didn’t know. But his bearing was that of the survivor. Mine was not such a bearing. I was not a subject of history. I would never be, I remember thinking.
V. lived in an apartment across the hallway. He had a dapper, churchgoing quality, even as he was often seen in an undershirt. Everything he undertook, from his smile of greeting to the unhurried locking and unlocking of his front door, was done with a touch of form. His social efficiency put me in mind of the extinct, indeed discredited, gestures of courtesy with which V. had presumably grown up: tipping one’s hat, opening the car door for a lady, writing well-wrought and openhearted letters. I never saw V. in a sour mood. He exuded stoicism, as well he might: he was of the cohort that had reflected deeply on the human condition, as the human condition used to be called.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 18, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 18, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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![THE SPACE BETWEEN](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/AYo294Tfw1718622018098/THE-SPACE-BETWEEN.jpg)
THE SPACE BETWEEN
\"Janet Planet.\" The first time we meet Janet in \"Janet Planet,\" a wondrous début feature from the celebrated playwright Annie Baker, she is standing on a rural road a little way from the camera.
![LABOR PAINS](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/vqyP1V-Pr1718621865533/LABOR-PAINS.jpg)
LABOR PAINS
Lucy Kirkwood's \"The Welkin\" assesses women's work.
![OFFLINE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/N7jBUt8z21718621703376/OFFLINE.jpg)
OFFLINE
Lizzy McAlpine on the power and pitfalls of viral fame.
![HEAT RISING](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/t6GJLOkfe1718621503212/HEAT-RISING.jpg)
HEAT RISING
The era of the line cook.
![UNSHATTERED](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/A9z0r-OKD1718621167218/UNSHATTERED.jpg)
UNSHATTERED
How the philosopher Charles Taylor would reënchant the world.
![THE PLAGUE DOCTOR](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/GE4QWDlXf1718620803481/THE-PLAGUE-DOCTOR.jpg)
THE PLAGUE DOCTOR
Anthony Fauci on what's ailing America.
![the buggy RODDY DOYLE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/kx-qUKW_A1718620154206/THE-BUGGY-RODDY-DOYLE.jpg)
the buggy RODDY DOYLE
There were people at the far end of the beach. Some adults, a lot of children.
![GHOSTS ON THE WATER](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/PK-axNOkV1718619184360/GHOSTS-ON-THE-WATER.jpg)
GHOSTS ON THE WATER
Glass eels are mysterious creatures—and worth a fortune to those who catch them.
![THE CRACKDOWN](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/hnCN_aa1s1718618000063/THE-CRACKDOWN.jpg)
THE CRACKDOWN
Fighting drug gangs, a young President declares war within his own country.
![SMALL WONDER](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1736039/DmwoJimse1718617463814/SMALL-WONDER.jpg)
SMALL WONDER
How will nanomachines change our lives?