Well, where does the Danube has its origin?
It seems that, against the age-old controversies between specialists, it stems from the source of the river Breg, but the water that irrigates the meadow from which the Breg rises comes from a pipe, planted straight into the ground.
An old woman who lives in a house on top of the meadow has attached a hollow trunk to the pipe, which forms a kind of gutter. Is it therefore necessary to conclude that the Danube originates from a gutter? In this matter the first foundation is missing, the base that holds everything together; even the gutter that feeds the spring is fed by the spring]
Anonymous
The Danube that both is and is not, that is born in several places of several parents, reminds us that, thanks to the complex, hidden fabric to which we owe our existence, each of us is a Noteentiendo [a form of not understanding you], as are the people from Prague with German names or the Viennese with Czech ones. But on this evening, along the river which they tell us sometimes disappears in summer, the step which treads with mine is as unmistakable as that watercourse, and in the flow of it, as I follow the curve of the banks, perhaps I know who I am.
Claudio Magris, Danube, 1986
What if we are looking for the source of a river and we find out that it is a gutter, collecting rainwater?
