GUIDE: The region gathers—just as if nothing were happening [gleich als ob sich nichts ereigne]45 —each to each and everything to everything else, gathering all into an abiding while resting in itself. Regioning is a gathering re-sheltering into an expansive resting in the abiding-while.
SCHOLAR: Thus the region is itself at once the expanse [die Weite] and the abiding-while [die Weile]. It abides into the expanse of resting. It expands into the abiding-while of what has freely turned toward itself. And in view of the accentuated usage of this word, we can also henceforth say “open-region” [Gegnet] instead of the familiar term “region” [Gegend].
GUIDE: The open-region is the abiding expanse which, gathering all, opens itself so that in it the open is held and halted, letting each thing arise in its resting.
SCIENTIST: This much I believe I see, that the open-region draws itself back, goes away from us [uns entgeht], rather than coming to encounter us [uns entgegenkommt].
SCHOLAR: Such that things, which appear in the region, also no longer have the character of objects [Gegenständen].
GUIDE: Not only do they no longer stand counter to us, they no longer stand at all.
SCIENTIST: Do they lie, then, or how are they situated?
GUIDE: They lie, if by that is meant the restful reposing [Ruhen] which was implied in our talk of resting in [Beruhen].
SCIENTIST: But where do things rest [ruhen], and in what does resting consist? [115]
45. Given that the gathering spoken of here recalls what Heidegger speaks of elsewhere as the “event of appropriation” (Ereignis), it is tempting to translate gleich als ob sich nichts ereigne as “just as if no appropriating event were taking place.”—Tr.