Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera Page B

is excessively satisfied, sleep comes as a reward. Xavier smiled and fell into a deep sleep, into a beautiful sweet night in which gleamed two chilled eyes, two frozen moons. . . .
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    Xavier didn't merely live a single life that extended from birth to death like a long, filthy string; he didn't live his life, he slept it; in this life-sleep he leaped from dream to dream; he dreamed, fell asleep while dreaming, and dreamed another dream, so that his sleep was like a box into which another box is fitted, and in that one still another box, and in this one another still, and so on.
    For example, at this moment he is sleeping at the same time in a house by the Charles Bridge and in a mountain chalet; these two sleeps resound like two prolonged organ tones; and now these two tones are joined by a third:
    He is standing and looking around. The street is deserted, with once in a long while a shadow passing and vanishing around a corner or into a doorway. He too doesn't want to be noticed; he follows suburban side streets as the sound of gunfire is heard from the other end of the city.
    At last he enters a house and descends the stairs; there are several doors in the basement; after a brief search for the right one, he knocks; three times, then once, then three times more.
    The door opened and a young man in blue overalls invited him in. They went through several rooms filled with odds and ends, clothes on hangers, as well as rifles propped in corners, and then down a long passage (they must have gone far beyond the building's perimeter) into a small subterranean room, where twenty or so men were seated.
    He sat down on an empty chair and scrutinized them; he knew some of them. Three men sat at a table near the door; one of them, wearing a peaked cap, was speaking; he was saying something about an approaching secret date when everything would be decided; according to plan, everything had to be ready by then: leaflets, newspapers, radio, post office, telegraph, weapons. Then he asked each man whether, to ensure success that day, he had executed the task assigned to him. Finally he turned to Xavier and asked him if he had brought the list.
    That was an excruciating moment. In order to make sure that it would not be discovered, Xavier a while ago had copied the list on the last page of his Czech notebook. This notebook was in his schoolbag, along with his other notebooks and his textbooks. But where was the schoolbag? He didn't have it with him!
    The man in the peaked cap repeated his question.
    My God, where was that schoolbag? Xavier thought feverishly, and then from the back of his mind a vague and elusive memory emerged, a sweet breath of happiness; he wanted to seize this memory in flight, but there was no time because all the faces were turned toward him waiting for his answer. He had to admit that he didn't have the list.
    The faces of the men he had come to as a companion among companions hardened, and the man in the peaked cap said to him icily that if the enemy were to get hold of the list, the date on which they had placed all their hopes would be ruined and be just another date: a date empty and dead.
    But Xavier had no time to respond. The door discreetly opened, and a man appeared and whistled. It was the alarm signal; before the man in the peaked cap could give an order, Xavier spoke up: "Let me go first," he said, knowing that the route awaiting them now was dangerous and that the first one out would be risking his life.
    Xavier knew that because he had forgotten the list he must atone for his guilt. But it was not only a feeling of guilt which drove him into danger. He detested the pettiness that made life semilife and men semimen. He wished to put his life on one of a pair of scales and death on the other. He wished each of his acts, indeed each day, each hour, each second of his life to be measured against the supreme criterion, which is death. That was why he wanted to march at the head of the column, to walk on a