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178 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
Sometimes Happiness, trapped in a solid block in a book, hits a whole population... Modest, docile, peaceful people who up till then had managed by good-will to remain within the safety of recognized, intangible Happiness, one fine day received this parcel bomb...
(pg. 66)
You said... it was crazy... "Listen, I wanted to ask you... Do you, inside yourself, well, in your inmost depths, do you have the impression... bu I really do mean: - in your innermost recesses, that you can manage to see yourself with some degree of clarity... do you have the impression that you know who you are..."
Remember how his "frank," "open," "kindly," gaze... a look which had actually encouraged that kind of question... how it became even more open... "What did you say? Have I misunderstood you? You're asking me whether I know who I am? Must I tell you?" "Oh yes..." "Well, I'm a man of fifty, the father of a family, of Irish origin... My profession..." "No, not that, not that sort of thing, I too know that about myself... What I wanted to know was... it's hard to explain... whether you feel that you are a very compact and unified whole, endowed with such and such qualities and, of course, defects... but forming a whole... a clearly-defined whole that you can look at from outside... well, that you project in front of yourself..." "Ah, that, yet. And when I observe myself carefully, I always see in myself... you see, it's quite complicated... there are two men in me, sometimes I'm the one and sometimes the other, not both at the same time... I get that from my grandfather, he always used to say: 'There's a monk and a banker in me'... "That's right. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two contradictory beings..." "Yes, although I have to admit that as regards a Mr. Hyde in me... obviously nobody's perfect... but I don't believe..." "Oh, that wasn't what I meant, I just wanted to point out that there were two people in you... That's very few..."
You remember his astonishment... "That's few? Are there more in you?"And you, shamefacedly... "Oh yes, there are as many... as there are stars in the sky... others are always appearing whose existence no one suspected... So you see, Iv'e given it up, I am the entire universe, all its virtualities, all its potentialities... the eye can't perceive it, it extends to infinity..."
(pg. 9-10)
But all that as if going without saying...
As our existence goes without saying... When we're in good health, do we notice our breathing, the movement of our blood, the play of our muscles?
Yet there were moments...
Seen from outside, they would have seemed unimportant...
When something... how to describe it?...
Was it a colour, a line, a barely perceptible nuance, an intonation, a silence... but that can't let itself...
That could never be captured by any word...
(pg. 127)
"What he said wounded me. Yes, I was upset. Why exactly? Oh, I don't really know. What's certain is that I found it unpleasant."
Now there's a way of speaking that's instantly recognizable...
That's the way someone who loves himself speaks to himself...
Yes, we here, among ourselves... we don't use those words, "me," "I"...
Or rather let's say we don't use them any longer... We still did, after that "You don't love yourself" hit us and caused such a great upheaval in us, when we realized more clearly than ever that we had broken into a multitude of disparate "I's"... whom could we love in all that? For a time, several "I's" "me's" "you's" were still questioning each other within us: "How could you have done that?"...
And then these "I's," these "me's," these "you's" disappeared...
(pg. 85-86)The person who loves himself splits himself in two... projects his double outside... places it at a certain distance from himself...
So that it can fulfill certain functions...
And this time, the double hasn't fulfilled its function...
But what function was it, exactly?
That of frontier guard... you remember how he was keeping watch, seeing them coming from a distance, the people who were getting ready to go beyond the limits...
And now this ever-vigilant guard, she looks for him in vain... where has he gone?
He's gone over to the other side, he's joined the vulgar...
He, her double, has gone to demean himself, to mingle with his inferiors who are clumsy, ill-bred, incapable of controlling their movements, of using their ten fingers properly...
(pg. 144)
Yes, but if it were me, I wouldn't attache any importance to...
If it were me, in spite of that I'd find room for...
If it were me, I wouldn't hesitate to dismiss...
If it were me, I'd hand out...
If it were me, I'd keep...
If it were me, I'd be on my guard...
If it were me, I'd keep quiet...
If it were me, I'd admit...
If it were me, If it were me, If it were me...
(pg. 150)
Delight... was that actually the word he used? it's hard to remember...
Yes yes, it actually was delight. "A delight to see so much courage, independence..."
That could only have been said in a tone vibrant with sincerity... a tone that ought to have made him feel that what we said "came from the heart"...
Then all of a sudden that movement he made as if to protect himself... that cutting, glacial "Thank you very much" that he pressed on us...
His look, which quickly rounded us up and compressed us into one... an then he eyes this "one" with scorn... What's that? Who is this individual who has dared to trespass... uninvited...
(pg. 170)