The telephone rings; the Tortoise picks it up.
Tortoise : Hello, Achilles. This is Tortoise.
Tortoise : Not well, I’m afraid. I am suffering from a severe torticollis.
Tortoise : I guess it was because I held my neck sideways for some time.
Tortoise : Oh, hours and hours. It seems I have been doing it for ages.
Tortoise : I was looking at the creatures around me ; there were so wondrous many of them that I could not keep my turn my head away.
Tortoise : All kinds, Achilles. Elephant and fish, camel and snail, frog and rooster, and many amazing animals, some phantasmagorical beats, even !
Tortoise : Well, creatures that exist only in myths, legends, stories and paintings, creatures brought to life by visionaries and artists. Wherever I looked, one such creature would appear; they seemed to fill up all the available space, cover all the available ground.
Tortoise : Not at all terrifying, really. There was a kind of quiet harmony in all of them. In the midst of it all, a Zen monk was meditating. And there was the peaceful guitar, of course.
Tortoise : Fiddle. It makes a big difference, you know.
Tortoise : To be precise, one has no frets.
Tortoise : Thank you for your kind invitation, Achilles. I would love to drop in, Achilles, to listen to Bach’s sonatas for unaccompanied violin. Unfortunately, I have a severe headache too.
Tortoise : I have tried to, but I can’t find any sleep.
Tortoise : I’ve even tried counting crab. But there’s this puzzle, Achilles, that’s been really distracting me. It just doesn’t seem to go away. I think I can find rest only when I have the solution.
Tortoise : It’s simple : find a word with the letters ‘A’, ‘D’, ‘A’, ‘C’ consecutively inside it.
Tortoise : Of course you’re right : it fulfills the conditions, but it’s a sort of "backward" solution. There’s another solution which should come to mind.
Tortoise : I’ve been trying this for hours and hours.
Tortoise : The Zen monk I mentioned, he came up with this "infernal riddle" .
Tortoise : Well, he didn’t tell me. I heard it from the snail; I believe the monk used to say this before he started meditating. Then one day, he said "Aha!" and started meditating.
Tortoise : In the state that I am in, I guess it can’t do any harm if I hear one more puzzle.
Tortoise : A word that begins with the letters "HE" and also ends with "HE" ¼ Hmm ¼What about "HE" ?
Tortoise : But it does meet the conditions you set.
Tortoise : What I have in my mind is a headache. Aha !
Tortoise : I was thinking of MY headache.
Tortoise : I think I have the solution for that, too.
Tortoise : I’ll give you a hint, if you don’t mind.
Tortoise : The hint is : figure and ground.
Tortoise : Do you know Escher’s Mosaic II ?
Tortoise : That’s excellent. On the print on the wall, can you see all the black animals ?
Tortoise : Can you also see how the negative space defines the white animals ?
Tortoise : Well, if one is the figure , then the other is the back-ground or ground. Either can be considered as the figure and the other as ground.
Tortoise : Ah!- the puzzles are also figure and ground. You can figure out the right answer to MY puzzle, using the figure-ground hint, relating it to YOUR puzzle.
Tortoise : I was wondering if I could come over.
Tortoise : Oh, MY headache is over, thanks to you. I will be able to drop in a short while.
Tortoise : I’d love to listen to your new recording of the sonatas for unaccompanied violin by Bach. After all, he’s my favourite composer.
Tortoise : I have even invented a theory about these pieces.
Tortoise : Yes, I believe that they are not truly solo and were originally meant to be accompanied by another instrument.
Tortoise : A harpsichord, actually.
Tortoise : Well, it gives the listener a choice ; it can be heard both ways.
Tortoise : As always, Achilles, you ask the most interesting questions. I have been debating this for a long time. It is possible, I sometimes think, to deduce the accompaniment from the original piece. And then, sometimes, I think, maybe Bach never had any accompaniment in mind at all. But it is best, I believe, to leave it to the listener’s imagination.
Tortoise : Indeed, they are wonderful as they are. I look forward to hearing them again.
Tortoise : Yes, I’ll come over at once. Good-bye, Achilles.