The Day I Killed My Father by Mario Sabino Read Free Book Online Page A

started developing theological systems to escape the dreariness around him.’
    â€˜Don’t confuse things, Antonym. Boredom never moves great men. What propels them is the Idea — which is the same as the Absolute, the unity of subjectivity and objectivity. And what are these concepts if not a philosophical expression of God in all His plenitude?’
    â€˜That’s the Hegelian right-wing point of view. For the left, that’s not the way it works. And the Hegelian left won, father. At least in that, the left won.’
    â€˜One must choose a side, son. And I am always on the side of those who have faith in God, even if they’ve been defeated. Have you read Hegel, son?’
    â€˜Very little. I edited the cultural pages of the newspaper I worked on. Hegel in a newspaper, imagine …’
    â€˜Anyway, it is God who leads great men to achieve their feats. But never through boredom; rather, through the desire to know God.’
    â€˜Isn’t it ambition that moves them?’
    â€˜Even the personal ambition of great men obeys His plan. Come with me to the sacristy after lunch. I’m going to give you a text by Hegel that I think is very enlightening — although, as a priest, I cannot agree with the Hegelian conclusion that the destiny of all religion is atheism.’
    â€˜Well, well. So Hegel really was left wing …’
    â€˜Such sarcasm, Antonym. Don’t you know philosophers can speak truths without arriving at the Truth? Many get lost along the way.’
    â€˜And what about lies? Could they serve as the basis for the Truth?’
    Farfarello smiled.
    â€˜Antonym, you have yet to grasp the full extent of what you just said merely to be ironic. Let’s go, I must be quick.’
    A full day, this one , thought Antonym. I fucked a whore, chatted with a priest, and am about to go home with a piece of German philosophy tucked under my arm .

V
    Every so often, Antonym tried to digest some late-afternoon melancholy with a packet of cornstarch biscuits. He used these moments to make more or less free associations. Any old fact could spark a run. One of the sequences he’d been most chuffed with was inspired by a stumble:
    I tripped and almost fell. If I’d fallen, I would have hurt myself. If I’d hurt myself, I’d be resting in bed. A doctor would come to examine me and give me medicine. Many ancient medicines were made with Eastern drugs. According to Aristotle, the winds are born in the East. Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was lord of the world. The Greeks believed the world was held up by Atlas. Atlas was strong. Strength is symbolised by columns. Columns hold up buildings. Buildings are made by labourers. Labourers are directed by engineers. Engineers work from architects’ sketches. Sketching is part of painting. Painting is an art. There are seven liberal arts. Seven is the number of sages who studied eloquence. The goddess of eloquence is Minerva.
    A week after his meeting with Farfarello, Antonym was munching on cornstarch biscuits while making a series of associations that, having started with scouring powder, had already reached superconductors. But he didn’t get to what might have been the end of this chain of thoughts.
    â€˜I’m so useless. Bernadette was right to leave me.’
    Antonym left the packet of biscuits in the kitchen and went to the bedroom. The text Farfarello had given him had been lying on the nightstand for a week — and he hadn’t read it.
    â€˜Would Hegel have made associations as banal as mine?’
    Antonym decided to take the priest’s advice to read Hegel’s text. It was a compilation of phrases by Hegel that summed up the notion that all great men in history were propelled by the World Spirit, despite the fact that their actions appeared to stem, even in their own eyes, from personal ambitions alone. Such great men — who could be