It was the beginning of that long bifurcation that became my life: Obey and hate yourself, survive. Disobey, redeem yourself, perish.
When you are not allowed to do something, it often becomes very important.
History has taught us that the nature of man is evil, sublimely so. Good is not perfectible, but evil is.
We have all, of course, heard the story of the invention of the croissant, the tribute of a Parisian pastry chef to Vienna’s victory over the Ottomans. The croissant, of course, represented the crescent moon of the Ottoman flags, a symbol the West devours with coffee to this very day.
But sometimes a man who is very good thinks, I am very bad, and it – destructs his life, everything. Because he does not believe that he has any right to do something, so he does less and less.
Didn’t Catholicism deal with blood and resurrected flesh on a daily basis? Wasn’t it expert in superstition? I somehow doubted that the hospitable plain Protestant chapels that dotted the university could be much help; they didn’t look qualified to wrestle with the undead. I felt sure those big square Puritan churches on the town green would be helpless in the face of a European vampire. A little witch burning was more in their line – something limited to the neighbors.
I wondered if a novel could have the power to make something so strange happen in actuality.
Old women who live long enough mainly count the bodies, whether we want to or not.
This corner of history was as real as the tiled floor under our feet or the wooden tabletop under our fingers. The people to whom it had happened had actually lived and breathed and felt and thought and then died, as we did – as we would.
It was the beginning of that long bifurcation that became my life: Obey and hate yourself, survive. Disobey, redeem yourself, perish. I thought later how simply and quickly they had introduced that concept to me, as easily as breaking a little finger.
I understood in a flash that I must keep my mind safe, whatever came next. I believe now that it was not only enormous luck that brought me this understanding the very first day, but also my habit of living closely with my own mind, alone with it while I practiced.
He was simply gone, and he took all our peace with him.
Obey and hate yourself, survive. Disobey, redeem yourself, perish.
Politicians who talk about purity usually end up deciding who is pure and who is not.
We went on growing food and eating and sleeping and I cooked for a big crowd here every day, all my family. What else could we do? You just go on, if you have to.
I’ve retrained myself since childhood into a kind of diligent goodwill toward life. Life and I became friends some years ago – not the sort of exciting friendship I longed for as a child, but a kindly truce, a pleasure in coming home.
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history.
Didn’t Catholicism deal with blood and resurrected flesh on a daily basis? Wasn’t it expert in superstition?
Life and I became friends some years ago – not the sort of exciting friendship I longed for as a child, but a kindly truce, a pleasure in coming home every day to my apartment. I have a moment now and then – as I peel an orange and take it from kitchen counter to table – when I feel almost a pang of contentment, perhaps at that raw colour.
Pushing out through the doors, I experienced that mingled relief and disappointment one feels on departure from a great museum – relief at being returned to the familiar, less intense, more manageable world, and disappointment at that world’s lack of mystery.