Văzând că el rămâne tăcut, dus pe gânduri, tresări speriată şi începu să-l smucească apoi ca un copil, spunându-i : “Stătea întinsă pe spate cu braţele desfăcute, ca într-o sfârşeală din dragoste de atâta voluptate timpul i se părea de bună seamă fără sfârşit şi cânta, mai mult în suspine, un cântecel oarecare. While it is death that must still strike down the others, though they may have spent all their lives in a sickbed – for even though they would have gone down by themselves long ago from their own weakness, they nevertheless hold fast to their loving, very healthy relatives by blood and marriage – he, this bachelor, still in the midst of life, apparently of his own free will resigns himself to an ever smaller space, and when he dies the coffin is exactly right for him.” The farther he moves away from the living, for whom he must still – and this is the worst mockery – work like a conscious slave who dare not express his consciousness, so much the smaller a space is considered sufficient for him. He moves incessantly, but with predictable regularity, from one apartment to another. A cold breeze breathes upon him from within and he gazes inward with the even sadder half of his double face. But everyone knows his condition, can detail his sufferings. He walks around with his coat buttoned, his hands in the upper pockets of his jacket, his arms akimbo, his hat pulled down over his eyes, a false smile that has become natural to him is supposed to shield his mouth as his glasses do his eyes, his trousers are tighter than seem proper for his thin legs. To you also, honored Members of the Academy, I have only made a report.“The unhappiness of the bachelor, whether seeming or actual, is so easily guessed at by the world around him that he will curse his decision, at least if he has remained a bachelor because of the delight he takes in secrecy. I am only imparting knowledge, I am only making a report. In any case, I am not appealing to any man’s verdict. But do not tell me that it was not worth the trouble. On the whole, at any rate, I have achieved what I have set out to achieve. By day I cannot bear to see her for she has the insane look of the bewildered half-broken animal in her eye, no one else sees it, but I do, and I cannot bear it. ![]() When I come home late at night from banquets, from scientific receptions, from social gatherings, there sits waiting for me a half-trained chimpanzee and I take comfort from her as apes do. Nearly every evening I give a performance, and I have a success that could hardly be increased. My manager sits in the anteroom when I ring, he comes and listens to what I have to say. With my hands in my trouser pockets, my bottle of wine on the table, I half lie and half sit in my rocking chair and gaze out of the window: If a visitor arrives I receive him with propriety. There was nothing else for me to do, provided that freedom was not to be my choice.Īs I look back on my development and survey what I have achieved so far, I do not complain, but I am not complacent either. There is an excellent idiom: to fight one’s way through the thick of things that is what I have done, I have fought through the thick of things. In itself that might be nothing to speak of, but it is something insofar as it has helped me out of my cage and opened a special way out for me, the way of humanity. ![]() With an effort which up till now has never been repeated I managed to reach the cultural level of an average European. But I must also confess: I did not overestimate it, not even then, much less now. That progress of mine! How the rays of knowledge penetrated from all sides into my awakening brain? I do not deny it: I found it exhilarating. As I became more confident of my abilities, as the public took and interest in my progress and my future began to look bright, I engaged teachers for myself, engaged them in five communicating rooms, and took lessons from all at once by dint of leaping from one room to the other. Fortunately he was soon let out again.īut I used up many teachers, several teachers at once. My ape nature fled out of me, head over heels and away, so that my first teacher was almost himself turned into an ape by it and was taken away to a mental hospital. One stands over oneself with a whip one flays oneself at the slightest opposition. ![]() Ah, one learns when one has to one learns when one needs a way out one learns at all costs.
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