"I understand you! I'll die with you!" he murmured, caressing and kissing her and almost weeping for love
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of her. All the same, these grand, tender feelings did nothing to stifle his physical desire, which had become nearly intolerably painful. He again made some attempts to lever his knee between Kristyna's thighs and thus open the way into her body, which was suddenly more mysterious to him than the Holy Grail.
"No, not you, nothing would happen to you. I'm the one it would kill!" said Kristyna.
He imagined infinite pleasure, such pleasure that it would kill him, and he said: "We'll die together! We'll die together!" And he went on pushing his knee between her thighs, still in vain.
They didn't know what more to say. They were still pressed against each other. Kristyna shook her head as he launched a few more assaults on the fortress of her thighs before finally giving up. Resigned, he turned over and lay on his back beside her. She took hold of the scepter of her love standing up in her honor, and grasped it with all her splendid honesty: sincerely, vigorously, ardently, maternally, sisterly, amicably, and passionately.
At the student's, the bliss of an infinitely beloved man mingled with the despair of a rejected body. And the butcher's wife was still holding his weapon of love, not thinking about substituting, with some simple movements, for the carnal act he desired, but holding it in her hand like something rare, something precious, something she did not want to damage and wanted for a long, long time to keep just as it was, erect and hard.
But enough of that night, which went on without much change until nearly morning.
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The Drab Light of Morning
Litost
more about matters of love than any mechanic. She probably had been wrong to resist him last night. But she did not regret it. A night of love with its brief coupling (in Kristyna's mind physical love could only be brief and hurried) always left her with the impression of something nice but also dangerous and deceitful. What she had experienced with the student was infinitely better.
He went with her to the railroad station, she already thrilled by the thought of sitting down in her compartment and recalling it all. She kept telling herself, with a simple woman's avaricious pragmatism, that she had experienced something "no one could take away" from her: she had spent the night with a young man who had always seemed unreal, elusive, and distant, and for a whole night had held him by his erect member. Yes, for a whole night! That's something which never happened to her before! She might never see him again, but she had never believed she could go on seeing him. She was happy with the thought of keeping something of his that was permanent: the Goethe book with its unbelievable inscription, which she could use at any time to prove to herself that her adventure had not been a dream.
The student, for his part, was in despair. Last night, one sensible sentence would have been enough! It would have been enough to call things by their right names, and he could have had her! She was afraid he would make her pregnant, and he thought she was frightened by the immensity of her love! Casting his eyes into the unfathomable depths of his stupidity, he wanted to burst into laughter, into whimpering, hysterical laughter.
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Since they fell asleep very late, they did not wake up until just before noon, both with headaches. Soon Kristyna would be taking her train. Neither of them said much. Kristyna had put her nightgown and Goethe's book into her overnight bag and was again perched on her ridiculous black pumps and wearing her ill-chosen necklace.
As if the drab light of morning had broken the seal of silence, as if a day of prose had followed a night of poetry, Kristyna told the student quite simply: "You know, you shouldn't want it from me, it really could kill me. The doctor told me after I had my baby I should never get pregnant again."
The student gave her a despairing look: "Did you think I was going to make you pregnant? What do you take me for?"
"That's what they all say. They're always sure of themselves. I know what's happened to my friends. Young ones like you are terribly dangerous. And when it happens, that's it, you're stuck."
Despairingly, he told her he was not some inexperienced novice and would never have made her pregnant. "Are you really comparing me with your friends' boyfriends?"
"I know," she said almost apologetically. The student no longer needed to find ways to convince her. She believed him. He was no peasant and probably knew
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He returned from the railroad station to his wasteland of loveless nights, and litost came with him.
Litost
refusing to play in tune, they were blinded by tears of rage and refused to take any reasonable action, being capable neither of fighting better nor of surrendering or fleeing, and it is through litost that they allowed themselves to be killed to the last man.
The idea occurs to me in this connection that it is no incident the notion of litost originated in Bohemia. The story of the Czechs—an endless story of rebellions against the stronger, a succession of glorious defeats that launched their history and led to ruin the very people who had done the launching—is a story of litost. When in August 1968 thousands of Russian tanks occupied that amazing small country, I saw a slogan written on the walls of a town: "We don't want compromise, we want victory!" You must understand, by then there was no more than a choice among several varieties of defeat, but this town rejected compromise and wanted victory! That was litost talking! A man possessed by it takes revenge through his own annihilation. The child lies shattered on the sidewalk, but its immortal soul is going to be eternally thrilled because the violin teacher has hanged himself from the window catch.
But how could the student hurt Kristyna? Before he had a chance to think about it, she was on the train. Theoreticians are familiar with this kind of situation and call it "litost block."
It is the worst that can happen. The student's litost was like a tumor growing by the minute, and he did not know what to do about it. Since he had no one on whom to take revenge, he hoped at least for consola-tion. That is why he thought about Lermontov. He
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Further Notes Toward a Theory of Litost
With two examples taken from the student's life, I explained the two basic reactions of someone faced with his own litost. If our counterpart is the weaker, we find an excuse to hurt him, like the student hurting the girl who swam too fast.
If our counterpart is the stronger, all we can do is choose circuitous revenge—the indirect blow, a murder by means of suicide. The child plays a wrong note on his violin over and over until the teacher goes mad and throws him out the window. As he falls, the child is delighted by the thought that the nasty teacher will be charged with murder.
These are the two classic methods, and if the first is commonly found among lovers and spouses, what we conventionally call the history of mankind offers innumerable examples of the other kind of behavior. Everything our teachers called heroism may only be the form of litost I have illustrated with the example of the child and the violin teacher. The Persians conquered the Peloponnesus when the Spartans made one military mistake after another. Just like the child
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thought about how Goethe had insulted and Voltaire had humiliated Lermontov, and that he had stood up to them all by shouting about his pride as if all the poets around the table were violin teachers he was trying to provoke into flinging him out the window.
Wanting Lermontov the way one wants a brother, the student thrust his hand into his pocket. His fingers felt a folded sheet of paper. It was a large sheet torn from a notebook, and on it was written: "I await you. I love you. Kristyna. Midnight."
He understood. The jacket he was wearing had been hanging in his attic room yesterday evening. The message belatedly found only confirmed what he alr
eady knew. He had failed to have Kristyna's body because of his own stupidity. The litost that filled him to the brim could find no channel of escape.
Litost
Lermontov were sitting at the far end of the room with two men unknown to him. There was a vacant table very near them; he went and sat down there. No one seemed to notice him. He even had the impression that Petrarch and Lermontov had glanced at him without recognizing him. He ordered a cognac from the waiter; the infinitely sad and infinitely beautiful text of Kristyna's message resounded painfully through his head: "I await you. I love you. Kristyna. Midnight."
He stayed there for about twenty minutes, taking tiny sips of cognac. Far from comforting him, the sight of Petrarch and Lermontov only brought him still more sadness. He had been abandoned by everyone, abandoned by Kristyna and by the poets. He was alone here, with nothing for company but a large sheet of paper with "I await you. I love you. Kristyna. Midnight" written on it. He had a craving to get up and wave the sheet of paper over his head, so everyone could see it, so everyone could know that he, the stu-dent, had been loved, infinitely loved.
He called the waiter over to pay him. Then he lit a cigarette. He no longer had any desire to stay at the Writers Club, but he was repelled by the thought of returning to his attic room, where no woman awaited him. Just as he was finally stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray, he noticed Petrarch motioning to him with his hand. But it was too late, litost was driving him out of the club and toward his sad solitude. He got up and, at the last moment, once more took out of his pocket the sheet of paper with Kristyna's love message on it. That sheet of
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In the Depths of Despair
It was late afternoon, and he thought the poets must at last be up and around after the drinking bout of the night before. Maybe they were back at the Writers Club. Taking four steps at a time, he rushed up to the second floor, passed through the cloakroom, and turned right into the restaurant. Not being an habitue, he paused at the entrance to look inside. Petrarch and
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Litost
paper would no longer give him any pleasure. But if he left it lying on the table here, someone might notice it and would know that the student had been infinitely loved. He headed for the exit.
Clumsily trying to feign the embarrassment of a man who has left a confidential communication lying around, the student tried to snatch the sheet of paper out of Petrarch's hands.
But he was already reading it aloud: "'I await you. I love you. Kristyna. Midnight.'"
He looked the student in the eyes and asked: "What midnight was that? It wasn't yesterday, I hope!"
The student lowered his eyes: "Yes, it was," he said. He had stopped trying to snatch the sheet of paper out of Petrarch's hands.
Meanwhile Lermontov was approaching their table on his squat little legs. He shook hands with the student: "I'm glad to see you. Those two," he said, indicating the table he had just come from, "are horrible cretins." And he sat down.
Petrarch immediately read Lermontov the text of Kristyna's message, read it several times in a row in a sonorous, melodic voice as if it were verse.
Which makes me think that when someone can neither slap a girl who swims too fast nor get himself killed by the Persians, when he has no means of escaping from litost, then poetry's charm flies to his assistance.
What remains of this beautiful and thoroughly bungled story? Only the poetry. Inscribed in Goethe's hook, the words that Kristyna is taking away with her, and on a lined sheet of paper, the words that have adorned the student with unexpected glory.
"My friend," said Petrarch, seizing the student by
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Unexpected Glory
"My friend!" The student heard a voice behind him and turned around. It was Petrarch, who had motioned to him and was now approaching him: "Are you leaving already?" He apologized for not having recognized him immediately. "When I've been drinking, I'm completely dazed the next day."
The student explained that he had not wished to disturb Petrarch because he did not know the gentlemen with him.
"They're idiots," said Petrarch, walking back with the student to sit down with him at the table he had just left. The student looked with anguish at the large sheet of paper lying casually on the table. If only it had been a discreet little piece of paper—but that large sheet loudly cried out the clumsily obvious intention with which it had been forgotten there.
Rolling his dark eyes with curiosity, Petrarch immediately noticed the sheet of paper and examined it: "What's this? Ah, my friend, it's yours, isn't it?"
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the arm, "admit it, admit that you write verse, admit that you're a poet!"
The student lowered his eyes and admitted that Petrarch was right.
PART SIX
And Lermontov Remains Alone
The Angels
Lermontov is the one the student came to the Writers Club to see, but from that moment on he is lost to Lermontov and Lermontov is lost to him. Lermontov detests happy lovers. He frowns and speaks with disdain of the poetry of mawkish feelings and lofty words. He says that a poem must be as honest as an object fashioned by a worker's hands. He scowls and he is unpleasant with Petrarch and the student. We know full well what it is about. Goethe knows too. It is about hypercelibacy. About the terrible litost that comes from hypercelibacy.
Who could understand this better than the student? But that incorrigible idiot can only see Lermontov's gloomy face, only hear his spiteful words and be insulted by them.
I watch them from afar, from the top of my high-rise in France. Petrarch and the student stand up. They coldly take leave of Lermontov. And Lermontov remains alone.
My dear Lermontov, the genius of that sorrow my sad Bohemia calls litost.
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1
In February 1948, the Communist leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on the balcony of a Baroque palace in Prague to harangue hundreds of thousands of citizens massed in Old Town Square. That was a great turning point in the history of Bohemia. It was snowing and cold, and Gottwald was bareheaded, bursting with solicitude, Clementis took off his fur hat and set it on Gottwald's head.
Neither Gottwald nor Clementis knew that every day for eight years Franz Kafka had climbed the same stairs they had just climbed to the historic balcony, because under Austria-Hungary the palace had housed a German school. Nor did they know that on the ground floor of the same building Hermann Kafka, Kranz's father, had a shop whose sign showed a jackdaw painted next to his name, kafka meaning jackdaw in Czech.
Gottwald, Clementis, and all the others were unaware even that Kafka had existed, but Kafka had been aware of their ignorance. In his novel, Prague is a city without memory. The city has even forgotten its name. No one there remembers or recalls anything, and Josef K. even seems not to know anything about
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his own life previously. No song can be heard there to evoke for us the moment of its birth and link the present to the past.
The time of Kafka's novel is the time of a humanity that has lost its continuity with humanity, of a humanity that no longer knows anything and no longer remembers anything and lives in cities without names where the streets are without names or with names different from those they had yesterday, because a name is continuity with the past and people without a past are people without a name.
Prague, as Max Brod said, is the city of evil. When the Jesuits, after the defeat of the Czech Reformation in 1621, tried to reeducate the people in the true Catholic faith, they swamped Prague with the splendor of Baroque cathedrals. The thousands of petrified saints gazing at you from all sides and threatening you, spying on you, hypnotizing you, are the frenzied occupation army that invaded Bohemia three hundred fifty years ago to tear the people's faith and language out of its soul.
/> The street Tamina was born on was called Schwerinova Street. That was during the war, when Prague was occupied by the Germans. Her father was born on Cernokostelecka Avenue. That was under Austria-Hungary. When her mother married her father and moved in there, it was Marshal Foch Avenue. That was after the 1914-1918 war. Tamina spent her childhood on Stalin Avenue, and it was on Vinohrady Avenue that her husband picked her up to take her to
The Angels
her new home. And yet it was always the same street, they just kept changing its name, brainwashing it into a half-wit.
Wandering the streets that do not know their names are the ghosts of monuments torn down. Torn down by the Czech Reformation, torn down by the Austrian Counter-Reformation, torn down by the Czechoslovak Republic, torn down by the Communists; even the statues of Stalin have been torn down. In place of (hose destroyed monuments, statues of Lenin are nowadays springing up in Bohemia by the thousands, springing up like weeds among ruins, like melancholy flowers of forgetting.