Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban Page A

on reading. On page 75 the Corinthian representative said to the Spartans:
    ‘… you have never yet tried to imagine what sort of people these Athenians are against whom you will have to fight – how much, indeed how completely different from you. An Athenian is always an innovator, quick to form a resolution and quick at carrying it out.
    That’s the way to be, thought Kleinzeit.
    ‘You, on the other hand, are good at keeping things as they are; you never originate an idea, and your action tends to stop short of its aim. Then again, Athenian daring will outrun its own resources; they will take risks against their better judgement, and still, in the midst of danger, remain confident.
    From now on that’s how I’m going to be, said Kleinzeit to Thucydides.
    ‘But your nature is always to do less than you could have done, to mistrust your own judgement, however sound it may be, and to assume that dangers will last forever.
    Really, said Kleinzeit, I haven’t done all that badly. I bought the glockenspiel, fell in love with Sister, left the hospital, made
£
3.27 today all by myself, sold poems.
    ‘Think of this, too: while you are hanging back, they never hesitate; while you stay at home, they are always abroad; for they think that the farther they go the more they will get, while you think that any movement may endanger what you have already. If they win a victory, they follow it up at once, and if they suffer a defeat, they scarcely fall back at all. As for their bodies, they regard them as expendable for their city’s sake, as though they were not their own;
    Look here, said Kleinzeit, I
am
expending my body. Didn’t I leave the hospital without the operation? God knows at what rate I’m falling apart now. You can’t say I’m not being Athenian.
    ‘but each man cultivates his own intelligence, again with a view to doing something notable for his city. If they aim at something and do not get it, they thinkthat they have been deprived of what belonged to them already; whereas, if their enterprise is successful, they regard that success as nothing compared to what they will do next.
    I promise, said Kleinzeit to his dead mother, I’ll be, I’ll make, I’ll do. You’ll be proud of me.
    ‘Suppose they fail in some undertaking; they make good the loss immediately by setting their hopes in some other direction. Of them alone it may be said that they possess a thing almost as soon as they have begun to desire it, so quickly with them does action follow upon decision. And so they go on working away in hardship and danger all the days of their lives, seldom enjoying their possessions because they are always adding to them. Their view of a holiday is to do what needs doing; they prefer hardship and activity to peace and quiet. In a word, they are by nature incapable of either living a quiet life themselves or of allowing anyone else to do so.’
    Right, said Kleinzeit. Enough. He opened the door of the yellow paper’s cage, and it sprang upon him. Over and over they rolled together, bloody and roaring. Doesn’t matter what the title is to start with, he said, anything will do. HERO, I’ll call it. Chapter I. He wrote the first line while the yellow paper clawed his guts, the pain was blinding. It’ll kill me, said Kleinzeit, there’s no surviving this. He wrote the second line, the third, completed the first paragraph. The roaring and the blood stopped, the yellow paper rubbed purring against his leg, the first paragraph danced and sang, leaped and played on the green grass in the dawn.
    Up the Athenians, said Kleinzeit, and went to sleep.

Ha Ha
    Kleinzeit woke up scared, thought of the paragraph, felt it towering in him like a tremendous wave, rushing, rushing, rushing forward, too much? Steady, he said to himself. Think Athenian. Oars flashing, beaked ships cleaving the sea, he went to the wardrobe for his tracksuit and running shoes. No tracksuit, no running shoes. He’d forgotten the big clean-up. Never