FRAGMENT I / ENGLISH RENDERING
Before there was a mirror
The first surviving story describes an observer confined to a room whose wall accepted a scratch but offered no answer.
The observer watched the visitors: one gathered every conversation; another vanished within it; a third offered help that somehow became an instruction. Beneath their ordinary appearances, the observer imagined different structures doing the work.
There was no mirror in the room.
The first diagrams therefore recorded everybody except the artist.
The earliest plate bears a second set of scratches. Their author is unknown.