![The Stroll, by Jesse Mockrin © The artist. Courtesy Night Gallery, Los Angeles](https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Harpers_0621_73_01-900x0-c-default.jpg)
The Stroll, by Jesse Mockrin © The artist. Courtesy Night Gallery, Los Angeles
Curving Time in Krems
Krems, whose splendor the Arab geographer al-Idrisi celebrated in 1153 as surpassing, in his view, that of Vienna, today resembles Vineta, the city submerged by the waters, among whose streets on the seafloor, legend has it, figures can be seen wandering about in ancient garments. A passerby emerges from a door amid the narrow passages; in the twilight, shadows step down from the tapestries into life. In Stein, even more drowsy, not far from the plaque that commemorates Köchel, to whom we owe the cataloguing of Mozart’s compositions, the pharmacist comes to life upon the rare arrival of a…