A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas Read Free Book Online

undirected anxiety, an overwhelming cheerfulness, or a fitful longing—something would be cast up again, something that needs to be expressed, that might be the object of consideration or of a plan of action, but the power of emotions will not allow it; the sway of emotions is the force that holds everything together, enjoying its own ephemeral wholeness, for it knows no greater pleasure than the realization of non-becoming, the calming pause provided by the state of inconsonance.
    I have no way of knowing what effect these silences had on others, on Mother and Father, for example, but I know that during these silences I acquired experiences far more profound than my age entitled me to; in a peculiar way, I even surmised that this permanently transitional state of inconsonance would always be both benevolent and malevolent for me, and this frightened me, because I would much rather have resembled those who, landing on either side of this border region, managed to establish a firm foothold.
    In short, I had a premonition of my woeful future, and I cannot decide even now whether this happened because, faithfully following Dr. Köhler's instructions, I had actually reached the state his cure had promised, or, conversely, because I was able to comprehend the old man's exercises since my fate had predisposed me to this more reflective state of being; the latter possibility seems more likely, though my predisposition may have been colored and strengthened by my sense of duty, which along with my pedantry stemmed not from diligence or interest in an active life —this I realized even before the Heiligendamm vacations—but much more from a desire somehow to conceal from the world my deliciously obscure conditions, brought on by my lascivious indolence, letting neither my face nor my movements betray my whereabouts (Please, do not disturb!), so that retreating behind the partition of compulsively performed duties I might be free to daydream about what really interested me.
    I was born to lead two separate lives, or, I should say, the two halves of my divided life lacked harmonious congruity, or, to be still more precise, even if my public life had been the matching half of my secret existence, I would have felt an odd and jarring strain between them: it was the quagmire of a guilty conscience, something difficult to negotiate, because my self-imposed discipline in public resulted in a kind of dull and halting obtuseness for which I had to compensate myself by indulging in ever more fevered fantasies, and that, in turn, not only widened the gap between my two halves but made each of the two more isolated in its own sphere, rendering me less and less successful in rescuing anything from one and shifting it to the other, a process that in time became painful; the psyche would not tolerate my acts of self-denial, and the pain I experienced evoked a fervent desire to be like other people, who displayed no symptoms of a suppressed, tension-filled guardedness; I learned well how to read thoughts from facial expressions, how immediately to identify with these thoughts, but this mimetic ability to empathize, this desire for otherness, also led to bouts of mental anguish and brought no relief, for I realized I could not be another person, could only appear to be someone else, and total identification was as impossible as fusing my own two halves and making my secret life public, or, conversely, as impossible as freeing myself from my own illusions and compulsions and becoming like other people who are usually called hale and hearty.
    I could not but consider my nearly uncontrollable inclinations to be a disease, a peculiar curse, a sinful aberration, although in hopeful moments I saw them as nothing more serious than an autumn cold which —even if I felt utterly lost when suffering from it—some hot tea, a cold compress, a few bitter, fever-reducing pills, and honey-sweet compotes could easily cure, and which I always knew, and could tell