“Il est difficile de se dépouiller en quelques semaines de trente ou quarante ans de foi dans le monde. Ancrés dans nos conceptions du droit, nous croyions en l’existence d’une conscience allemande, européenne, universelle, et nous étions persuadés qu’il y avait un certain degré d’inhumanité qui s’eliminait de lui-même et une fois pour toutes devant l’humanité. Comme je m’efforce ici de demeurer aussi sincère que possible, je dois avouer que nous tous, en Allemagne et en Autriche, n’avons jamais jugé possible, en 1933, et encore on 1934, un centième, un millième de ce qui devait encore éclater quelques semaines plus tard. Assurément, il était clair d’emblée que nous autres, écrivains libres et indépendants, avions à nous attendre à quelques difficultés, à quelques désagrements, à quelques inimitiés. Dès après l’incendie du Reichstag, je dis à mon editeur que c’en serait bientôt fait de mes livres en Allemagne. Je n’oublierai jamais son ébahissement. « Qui pourrait bien interdire vos livres ? » me dit-il alors, en 1933, encore tout étonné. « Vous n’avez jamais écrit un mot contre l’Allemagne et ne vous êtes jamais mêlé de politique. » On le voit : toutes les monstruosités telle que les bûchers de livres ou les fêtes du pilori, qui devait déjà être des réalités quelques mois plus tard, étaient encore tout à fait au-delà du concevable, même pour des gens prévoyants, un mois après la prise du pouvoir par Hitler.”

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Bărbatul care i-a dictat scrisoarea o ia din mâna lui și o presară cu nisip. Nisipul usucă cerneala și cuvintele sunt învestite acum cu putere.

Rubashov said nothing and looked at Gletkin with renewed interest. What was that? Was the Neanderthal opening his soul? But Gletkin sat stiffly on his chair, his eyes as expessionless as ever.

‘You may be right about many things,’ Rubashov said at last. ‘But you provoked me. What use is it to be constantly searching out scapegoats, when the real problems are fundamental, and rooted in the causes you have just described so convincingly?’

‘Experience teaches,’ said Gletkin, ‘that the masses need to be given simple explanations for complicated connections that are difficult to understand — explanations that are easily grasped. From what I’ve learned of history I see that mankind has never managed without scapegoats. I believe this has always been an indispensible institution; your friend Ivanov taught me that its origins lie in religion. As far as I remember he explained that the word comes from a custom of the Israelites, who several times a year would make a sacrifice to their god of a goat that had been ritually burdened with their sins.’ Gletkin paused and adjusted his cuffs. ‘Incidentally history also has examples of voluntary scapegoats. When I was the same age as you were when you were given your watch, the priest taught me that Jesus Christ called himself a lamb and took all the sins of the world. I never understood how it was supposed to lighten the fate of mankind if someone declares he is letting himself be crucified in its name. But for two thousand years people have considered this entirely natural.’

Rubashov looked at him, What was Gletkin getting at? What was the point of this conversation? In what logical labyrinth had his Neanderthal logic lost its way?

‘Even so,’ said Rubashov, ‘it would be more suited to our view to tell people the plain truth rather than populate the world with saboteurs and devils.’

‘If the people of my village,’ said Gletkin, ‘were told that they were sluggish and backward despite the revolution and the factory, nothing would be attained. If they are told that they are heroes of labour, more diligent and efficient than the Americans, and that everything bad is solely due to the devils and saboteurs, then at least something can be achieved. What is true is what serves mankind, and whatever harms it is a lie. The party’s primer of world history published for use in the adult night schools makes a point of saying that during its first centuries, the Christian religion brought some measure of objective progress for humanity. No reasonable person is interested in whether Christ was lying or speaking the truth when he claimed he was the son of a god and a virgin. People said this was symbolic, but the peasants took it literally. We have the same right to invent useful symbols that the peasants take literally.’

‘Your logic,’ said Rubashov, ‘sometimes reminds me of Ivanov’s.’

‘Citizen Ivanov,’ said Gletkin, ‘belonged like you to the old intelligentsia, so that in conversations with him I was able to acquire historical knowledge I never had due to inadequate schooling. The difference is that I take pains to think logically in the service of the party; Citizen Ivanov, however, was a cynic.’

‘Was?’ asked Rubashov, taking off his pince-nez.

‘Citizen Ivanov,’ said Gletkin, fixing his expressionless eyes on Rubashov, ‘was shot last night following an administrative proceeding.’

“He made me feel like I’d met the ultimate in evil. I don’t think anything will really scare me, after him.”

“Ges Vorrutyer? He was just a little villain. An old-fashioned craftsman, making crimes one-off. The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful silk rooms, who deal with death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present — they are real.” His voice fell, as he spoke, so that by the end he was almost whispering.

“Epoca sovietică...” Cuvântul avea un statut sacru, magic. Și, din inerție, în bucătăriile intelectuale încă se vorbea spre Pasternak, făceai supă fără să lași din mână volume de Astafiev sau de Bîkov, dar viața demonstra mereu că lucrurile astea nu mai aveau importanță. Cuvintele nu înseamnă nimic. În ’91... Am internat-o pe mama în spital cu o pneumonie gravă și ea s-a întors de-acolo eroină, nu închisese gura o clipă. Povestise depre Stalin, despre asasinarea lui Kirov, despre Buharin... Ar fi ascultat-o zi și noapte. Pe atunci oamenii voiau să li se deschidă ochii. De curând însă a fost din nou internată în spital și, cât a stat acolo, a tăcut. N-au trecut decât vreo cinci ani, și realitatea deja a împărțit altfel rolurile. De data asta eroina a fost nevasta unui mare om de afaceri... Toți se minunau de povestirile ei... Ce casă are — trei sute de metri pătrați! Câți servitori: bucătăreasă, bonă, șofer, grădinar... Se duce în concediu cu soțul în Europa... Muzee — firește, dar buticurile... Buticurile! Un inel avea atâtea carate, celălalt... Pandantive... Clipsuri de aur... Avea un succes de public imens. Despre Gulag sau despre alte asemenea, nici un cuvânt. Bine, toate astea or fi fost cândva. Dar ce rost are să te mai cerți cu bătrânii?

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Barbara inquired. It was 1968 again.

‘Of course.’ He had been dozing.

‘If you’re going to act like a child, maybe we’ll just have to treat you like a child.’

‘This isn’t what happens next,’ said Billy.

‘We’ll see what happens next.’ Big Barbara now embraced herself. ‘It’s awfully cold in here. Is the heat on?’

‘The heat?’

‘The furnace—the thing in the basement, the thing that makes hot air that comes out of these registers. I don’t think it’s working.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Aren’t you cold?’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Oh my God, you are a child. If we leave you alone here, you’ll freeze to death, you’ll starve to death.’ And so on. It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.

Children, however magical, are not immune to their parents; and as the prejudices and world-views of adults began to take over their minds, I found children from Maharashtra loathing Guajaratis, and fair-skinned northerners reviling Dravidian ‘blackies’; there were religious rivalries; and class entered our councils. The rich children turned up their noses at being in such lowly company; Brahmins began to feel uneasy at permitting even their thoughts to touch the thoughts of untouchables; while, among the low-born, the pressures of poverty and Communism were becoming evident... and, on top of all this there were clashes of personality, and the hundred squalling rows which are unavoidable in a parliament composed entirely of half-grown brats.

In this way the Midnight Children’s Conference fulfilled the prophecy of the Prime Minister and became, in truth, a mirror of the nation; the passive-literal mode was at work, although I railed against it, with increasing desperation, and finally with growing resignation... ‘Brothers, sisters!’ I broadcast, with a mental voice as uncontrollable as its physical counterpart, ‘Do not let this happen! Do not permit the endless duality of masses-and-classes, capital-and-labour, them-and-us to come between us! We,’ I cried passionately, ‘must be a third principle, we must be the force which drives between the horns of the dilemma; for only by being other, by being new, can we fulfil the promise of our birth!’ I had supporters, and none greater than Parvati-the-witch; but I felt them slipping away from me, each distracted by his or her own life... just as, in truth, I was being distracted by mine. It was as though our glorious congress was turning out to be more than another of the toys of childhood, as though long trousers were destroying what midnight had created... ‘We must decide on a programme,’ I pleaded, ‘our own Five Year Plan, why not?’ But I could hear, behind my anxious broadcast, the amused laughter of my greatest rival; and there was Shiva in all our heads, saying scornfully, ‘No, little rich boy; there is no third principle; there is only money-and-poverty, and have-and-lack, and right-and-left; there is only me-against-the-world! The world is not ideas, rich boy; the world is no place for dreamers; the world, little Snotnose, is things. Things and their makers rule the world; look at Birla, and Tata, and all the powerful: they make things. For things, the country is run. Not for people. For things, America and Russia send aid; but five hundred million stay hungry. When you have things, then there is time to dream; when you don’t, you fight.’ The Children, listening fascinatedly as we fought... or perhaps not, perhaps even our dialogue failed to hold their interest. And now I: ‘But people are not things; if we come together, if we love each other, if we show that this, just this, this people-together, this Conference, this children-sticking-together-through-thick-and-thin, can be that third way...’ But Shiva, snorting: ‘Little rich boy, that’s all just wind. All that importance-of-the-individual. All that possibility-of-humanity. Today, what people are is just another kind of thing.’ And I, Saleem, crumbling: ‘But... free will... hope... the great soul, otherwise known as mahatma, of mankind... and what of poetry, of art, and...’ Whereupon Shiva seized his victory: ‘You see? I knew you’d turn out to be like that. Mushy, like overcooked rice. Sentimental as a grandmother. Go, who wants your rubbish? We all have lives to live. Hell’s bells, cucumber-nose, I’m fed up with your Conference. It’s got nothing to do with one single thing.’

It had already occurred to me that our family believed implicitly in good business principles; they expected a handsome return for their investment in me. Children get food shelter pocket-money longholidays and love, all of it apparently free gratis, and most of the little fools think it’s a sort of compensation for having been born. ‘There are no strings on me!’ they sing; but I, Pinocchio, saw the strings. Parents are impelled by the profit motive — nothing more, nothing less. For their attentions, they expected, from me, the immense dividend of greatness. Don’t misunderstand. I didn’t mind. I was, at that time, a dutiful child. I longed to give them what they wanted, [...]; I simply did not know how. Where did greatness come from? How did you get some? When?...

I dislike arranged marriages. There are some mistakes for which one should not be able to blame one’s poor parents.

Nobody was surprised that there were accidents ... well, there were a few voices saying, if this is the country we dedicated to our God, what kind of God is it that permits — but these voices were silenced before they had finished their questions, kicked on the shins under the tables, for their own sakes, because there are things that cannot be said. No, it’s more than that: there are things that cannot be permitted to be true.

Est-il terriblement idiot ou alors monstrueusement intelligent?

This particular last day of April falls in a year very nearly equidistant from 1689, the culmination of the English Revolution, and 1789, the start of the French; in a sort of dozing solstitial standstill, a stasis of the kind predicted by those today who see all evolution as a punctuated equilibrium, between those two zenith dates and all they stand for; at a time of reaction from the intemperate extremisms of the previous century, yet already hatching the seeds [...] of the world-changing upheaval to come. Certainly England as a whole was indulging in its favourite and sempiternal national hobby: retreating deep within itself, and united only in a constipated hatred of change of any kind.

After they had finished Doc lay back in the pine needles, and a fine peacefulness settled on him. The air, the softness of the needles, the odors of kelp and pine and yerba buena, the music of surf against wind-plucking pine needles, the fullness of belly, made a little room of contentment around him.

He said, “I’m surprised they don’t lock you up — a reasonable man. It’s one of the symptoms of our time to find danger in men like you who don’t worry and rush about. Particularly dangerous are men who don’t think the world’s coming to an end.”

“It’s coming to and end, all right,” the seer said. “That started the moment it was born.”

“I don’t know why they don’t put you in jail. It’s a crime to be happy without equipment.”

Dar ce dezamăgire și deziluzie mi-a adus universitatea, la care voiam să studiez științele politice! Tonul uzual al studenților, nivelul culturii lor generale și comportarea lor în societate, felul de a fi a unor profesori, ce mult contrastau toate acestea cu ceea ce mă obișnuisem la voi! Îți aduci aminte cum apăram odinioară lumea noastră împotriva celei a voastre și cum, făcând asta, lăudam adesea în gura mare viața naivă, nealterată. Dacă aceasta merita o pedeapsă, prietene, atunci eu am fost greu pedepsit. Căci această viață instinctuală, naivă, inocentă, această stare de copilărie și genialitate nedresată a celor naivi va fi existând poate pe undeva, la țărani poate sau la meșteșugari, ori altundeva, dar eu n-am reușit s-o văd la față sau să fiu părtaș la ea. Îți mai amintești, de asemenea, nu-i așa, cum criticam în luările mele de cuvânt prezumția și orgoliul castalienilor, această castă încrezută și moleșită, cu spiritul ei de castă și cu îngâmfarea ei aristocratică. Ei, bine, oamenii de lume nu erau mai puțini mândri de manierele lor grosolane, de cultura lor precară, de umorul lor grobian și zgomotos, de limitarea lor viclean-prostească la țeluri practice și egoiste, în naturalețea lor de oameni cu fruntea îngustă se socoteau nu mai puțin prețioși, iubiți de Dumnezeu și distinși decât ar fi putut s-o facă vreodată cel mai afectat elev-model de la Waldzell.

[...] nu aveam nicio istorie, așa că îmi confecționasem una, cam cum ar face un partid nazist într-o suburbie.

So refreshing, to find politeness and consideration in girls of that age. Too often [...] they display only thoughtless ingratitude. But thoughtless ingratitude is the armor of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past — the past of others, loaded onto their shoulders.

When once, not long before, you were a boat out on a sea, still watched, perhaps, by a parental eye from a distance, now overnight you become a harbour yourself, with a life-defining responsibility to a new boat, out on its own voyage.

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.

“It’s hardly early,” [...] “This is the tiresome part of the feast, where the conversation grows louder but no smarter, and the company drunken.”

“Many people consider that sort of thing enjoyable.”

“Many people, unfortunately, are idiots.”

“Cheshire Puss,” Alice began... “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

He’s a man for whom chewing is a form of thinking.

“So... we have what the people are interested in, and human interest stories, which is what humans are interested in, and the public interest, which no one is interested in.”

“Except the public, sir,” said William, trying to keep up.

“Which isn’t the same as people and humans?”

“I think it’s more complicated than that, sir.”

“Obviously. Do you mean that the public is a different thing from the people you just see walking about the place? The public thinks big, sensible measured thoughts while people run around doing silly things?”

“I think so. I may have to work on that idea too, I admit.”

Un bun exemplu îl oferă potopul chinezesc (japonezii, la fel ca africanii, nu cunosc existența Potopului). Acesta seamnă mai curând cu o catastrofă obișnuită — ceva mai pronunțată — decât un veritabil sfârșit al lumii decis de niște zei inaccesibili. Pe deasupra, lucru nemaiauzit, împotriva cataclismului se organizează o opoziție, dirijată de anumiți eroi mitici. Se ridică baraje, se sapă canale, iar, în cele din urmă, apele sunt obligate să se retragă. Fataliști, chinezii? Rămâne de văzut...

Incendiul universal se prezintă, și el, atenuat. Iată zece sori care se ridică deodată pe cer, amenințând să pârjolească Pământul. Dar arcașul Yi veghea; el luă la țintă astrele supranumerare. Nouă căzură, al zecelea rămase, cum era firesc... Imperiu bine organizat, Chinei îi repugnă ideea de haos sau dezordine.