was what motivated Sabina's distaste
for all extremism. Extremes mean borders beyond which life ends, and a passion
for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death.
In Franz the word "light"
did not evoke the picture of a landscape basking in the soft glow of day; it
evoked the source of light itself: the sun, a light bulb, a spotlight. Franz's
associations were familiar metaphors: the sun of righteousness, the lambent
flame of the intellect, and so on.
Darkness attracted him as much as
light. He knew that these days turning out the light before making love was
considered laughable, and so he always left a small lamp burning over
95
the
bed. At the moment he penetrated Sabina, however, he closed his eyes. The
pleasure suffusing his body called for darkness. That darkness was pure,
perfect, thoughtless, visionless; that darkness was without end, without
borders; that darkness was the infinite we each carry within us. (Yes, if
you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes!)
And at the
moment he felt pleasure suffusing his body, Franz himself disintegrated and
dissolved into the infinity of his darkness, himself becoming infinite. But the
larger a man grows in his own inner darkness, the more his outer form
diminishes. A man with closed eyes is a wreck of a man. Then, Sabina found the
sight of Franz distasteful, and to avoid looking at him she too closed her
eyes. But for her, darkness did not mean infinity; for her, it meant a
disagreement with what she saw, the negation of what was seen, the refusal to
see.
4
Sabina
once allowed herself to be taken along to a gathering of fellow emigres. As
usual, they were hashing over whether they should or should not have taken up
arms against the Russians. In the safety of emigration, they all naturally came
out in favor of fighting. Sabina said: "Then why don't you go back and
fight?"
That was not the thing to say. A
man with artificially waved gray hair pointed a long index finger at her.
"That's no way to talk. You're all responsible for what happened. You,
too. How did you oppose the Communist regime? All you did was paint pictures.
..."
96
Assessing the
populace, checking up on it, is a principal and never-ending social activity in
Communist countries. If a painter is to have an exhibition, an ordinary
citizen to receive a visa to a country with a sea coast, a soccer player to
join the national team, then a vast array of recommendations and reports must
be garnered (from the concierge, colleagues, the police, the local Party
organization, the pertinent trade union) and added up, weighed, and summarized
by special officials. These reports have nothing to do with artistic talent,
kicking ability, or maladies that respond well to salt sea air; they deal with
one thing only: the "citizen's political profile" (in other words,
what the citizen says, what he thinks, how he behaves, how he acquits himself
at meetings or May Day parades). Because everything (day-to-day existence, promotion
at work, vacations) depends on the outcome of the assessment process, everyone
(whether he wants to play soccer for the national team, have an exhibition, or
spend his holidays at the seaside) must behave in such a way as to deserve a
favorable assessment.
That was what ran through Sabina's
mind as she listened to the gray-haired man speak. He didn't care whether his
fellow-countrymen were good kickers or painters (none of the Czechs at the
emigre gathering ever showed any interest in what Sabina painted); he cared
whether they had opposed Communism actively or just passively, really and
truly or just for appearances' sake, from the very beginning or just since
emigration.
Because she was a painter, she had
an eye for detail and a memory for the physical characteristics of the people
in Prague who had a passion for assessing others. All of them had index fingers
slightly longer than their middle fingers and pointed them at whomever they
happened to be talking to. In fact,
for all extremism. Extremes mean borders beyond which life ends, and a passion
for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death.
In Franz the word "light"
did not evoke the picture of a landscape basking in the soft glow of day; it
evoked the source of light itself: the sun, a light bulb, a spotlight. Franz's
associations were familiar metaphors: the sun of righteousness, the lambent
flame of the intellect, and so on.
Darkness attracted him as much as
light. He knew that these days turning out the light before making love was
considered laughable, and so he always left a small lamp burning over
95
the
bed. At the moment he penetrated Sabina, however, he closed his eyes. The
pleasure suffusing his body called for darkness. That darkness was pure,
perfect, thoughtless, visionless; that darkness was without end, without
borders; that darkness was the infinite we each carry within us. (Yes, if
you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes!)
And at the
moment he felt pleasure suffusing his body, Franz himself disintegrated and
dissolved into the infinity of his darkness, himself becoming infinite. But the
larger a man grows in his own inner darkness, the more his outer form
diminishes. A man with closed eyes is a wreck of a man. Then, Sabina found the
sight of Franz distasteful, and to avoid looking at him she too closed her
eyes. But for her, darkness did not mean infinity; for her, it meant a
disagreement with what she saw, the negation of what was seen, the refusal to
see.
4
Sabina
once allowed herself to be taken along to a gathering of fellow emigres. As
usual, they were hashing over whether they should or should not have taken up
arms against the Russians. In the safety of emigration, they all naturally came
out in favor of fighting. Sabina said: "Then why don't you go back and
fight?"
That was not the thing to say. A
man with artificially waved gray hair pointed a long index finger at her.
"That's no way to talk. You're all responsible for what happened. You,
too. How did you oppose the Communist regime? All you did was paint pictures.
..."
96
Assessing the
populace, checking up on it, is a principal and never-ending social activity in
Communist countries. If a painter is to have an exhibition, an ordinary
citizen to receive a visa to a country with a sea coast, a soccer player to
join the national team, then a vast array of recommendations and reports must
be garnered (from the concierge, colleagues, the police, the local Party
organization, the pertinent trade union) and added up, weighed, and summarized
by special officials. These reports have nothing to do with artistic talent,
kicking ability, or maladies that respond well to salt sea air; they deal with
one thing only: the "citizen's political profile" (in other words,
what the citizen says, what he thinks, how he behaves, how he acquits himself
at meetings or May Day parades). Because everything (day-to-day existence, promotion
at work, vacations) depends on the outcome of the assessment process, everyone
(whether he wants to play soccer for the national team, have an exhibition, or
spend his holidays at the seaside) must behave in such a way as to deserve a
favorable assessment.
That was what ran through Sabina's
mind as she listened to the gray-haired man speak. He didn't care whether his
fellow-countrymen were good kickers or painters (none of the Czechs at the
emigre gathering ever showed any interest in what Sabina painted); he cared
whether they had opposed Communism actively or just passively, really and
truly or just for appearances' sake, from the very beginning or just since
emigration.
Because she was a painter, she had
an eye for detail and a memory for the physical characteristics of the people
in Prague who had a passion for assessing others. All of them had index fingers
slightly longer than their middle fingers and pointed them at whomever they
happened to be talking to. In fact,
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