"I'll leave for Martinique a week ahead of him," she continued. "I have the key. The house is empty. I'll do it in such a way that he finds me there. So he'll never be able to forget me."
157
MILAN KUNDERA
Agnes knew that Laura was capable of doing foolish things, and she was frightened when Laura said "I'll do it in such a way that he finds me there": she imagined Laura's motionless body in the middle of the tropical villa's living room, and the fact that this image was entirely realistic, conceivable, and quite in keeping with Laura terrified her.
To Laura, loving somebody meant delivering to him one's body as a gift; delivering it the way she had a white piano delivered to her sister; putting it in the middle of the house: here I am, here are my one hundred and twenty-five pounds, my flesh, my bones, they are for you and I will leave them with you. She regarded such a gift as an erotic gesture, because for her the body was sexual not only during exceptional moments of excitement but, as I said earlier, from the very start, a priori, continuously and in its entirety, with its surface and insides, asleep or wide-awake or dead.
For Agnes, the erotic was limited to a second of excitement, in the course of which the body becomes desirable and beautiful. Only this second justified and redeemed the body; as soon as this artificial illumination faded, the body became once again a dirty machine she was forced to maintain. That's why Agnes would never have been able to say "I'll do it in such a way that he finds me there." She would have been horrified by the idea that the one she loved would see her a mere body stripped of sex and enchantment, with a spastic grimace on her face and lying in a position she would no longer be able to control. She would be ashamed. Shame would prevent her from voluntarily becoming a corpse.
But Agnes knew that Laura was different: leaving her body stretched out dead in her lover's living room was quite consistent with her relationship to her body and her manner of love. That's why Agnes grew frightened. She leaned over the table and grasped her sister by the hand.
"I'm sure you understand me," Laura was saying in a soft voice. "You have Paul. The best man you could possibly wish for. I have Bernard. If Bernard left me, I'd have nothing, and I'd never have anyone else. And you know that I won't be satisfied with just a little. I won't watch the misery of my life. I have too high a conception of life. Either life gives
158
Immortality
me everything, or I'll quit. I'm sure you understand me. You're my sister."
There was a moment of silence, during which Agnes groped for an answer. She was tired. The same dialogue was repeated week after week, confirming again and again the uselessness of anything that Agnes found to say. Suddenly, quite improbable words broke into this moment of fatigue and powerlessness.
"Once again, old Bertrand Bertrand was thundering in Parliament against the escalating suicide rate. The house on Martinique is his property. Just imagine the pleasure I'm going to give him!" said Laura, laughing.
Even though the laughter was nervous and forced, it came to Agnes's aid like an unexpected ally. She began laughing herself, and the laughter quickly lost its original artificiality and all at once became real laughter, the laughter of relief, both sisters' eyes were full of tears, they felt that they loved each other and that Laura would not take her own life. They began chatting about this and that, still holding hands, and their words were those of sisterly love behind which was a glimpse of a villa in a Swiss garden and the gesture of an arm lifted in the air as though throwing a brightly colored ball, like an invitation to a journey, like a promise hinting at an undreamed-of future, a promise that may not have been fulfilled but remained with them as a beautiful echo.
When the moment of giddiness passed, Agnes said, "Laura, you mustn't do anything foolish. Nobody is worth suffering over. Think of me, and of my love for you."
And Laura said, "But I have an urge to do something. I must do something!"
"Something? What sort of something?"
Laura looked deep in her sister's eyes and shrugged her shoulders, as if to admit that for the time being a clear meaning of the word "something" still eluded her. And then she tilted her head slightly, covered her face with a vague, rather melancholy smile, and placed her fingertips between her breasts, and pronouncing the word "something," once again, she threw her hands forward.
Agnes was reassured: the expression "something" didn't suggest
159
MILAN KUNDERA
anything concrete to her, but Laura's gesture left no doubt: that "something" aimed to soar to beautiful heights and had nothing in common with a dead body lying down below, on the ground, on the floor of a tropical living room.
A few days later Laura visited the France-Africa society, whose chairman was Bernard's father, and volunteered to collect street-corner contributions for lepers.
The gesture of longing for immortality
Bettina's first love was her brother Clemens, who was to become a great Romantic poet; then, as we know, she was in love with Goethe, she adored Beethoven, she loved her husband, Achim von Arnim, who was also a great poet, then she went mad for Count Hermann von Puckler-Muskau, who was not a great poet but wrote books (it was to him, incidentally, that Goethe's Correspondence with a Child was dedicated), and then, when she was already fifty, she harbored maternal-erotic feelings toward two young men, Philippe Nathusius and Julius Doring, who didn't write books but exchanged letters with her (parts of them were also published by her), she admired Karl Marx, whom she forced to accompany her on a long evening stroll while visiting his fiancee, Jenny (Marx didn't feel like going, preferring to be with Jenny, not Bettina; but not even a man capable of turning the whole world upside down was able to resist a woman who had been on familiar terms with Goethe), she had a weakness for Franz Liszt, but only fleetingly because it upset her that Liszt had only his own glory in mind, she tried passionately to help the mentally ill painter Karl Blechen (for whose wife she had the same contempt she had once felt for Frau Goethe), she initiated a correspondence with Karl Alexander, heir to the throne of Saxony and Weimar, she wrote a book for the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm, The King's Book, in which she explained a king's duties toward his subjects, followed by The Book of the Poor, in which she showed the terrible misery of the poor, then she again turned to the King with a request to free Wilhelm Schleefel, who
160
161
MILAN KUNDERA
had been accused of taking part in a communist plot, followed by another plea to the King on behalf of Ludwig Mierostawski, one of the leaders of the Polish revolution, who was awaiting execution in a Prussian jail. She had never personally met the last man she worshiped: Sandor Petofi, the Hungarian poet who died at the age of twenty:six as a soldier in the 1848 uprising. She thus not only introduced the world to a great poet (she called him Sonnengott, Sun God), but along with him she also called attention to his homeland, of which Europe had been virtually ignorant. If we recall that the Hungarian intellectuals who in 1956 rebelled against the Russian Empire and inspired the first great anti-Stalinist revolution called themselves "the Petofi circle" after this poet, you will realize that through her loves Bettina is present throughout the long march of European history, reaching from the eighteenth century all the way to the middle of our own. Brave, stubborn Bettina: the nymph of history, the priestess of history. And I am justified in calling her priestess, because for Bettina history meant (all her friends used this metaphor) "an incarnation of God."
There were times when her friends reproached her for not thinking enough about her family or her financial circumstances, for sacrificing herself unduly for others without reckoning the cost.
"I'm not interested in what you're telling me! I am not a bookkeeper! Here, this is what I am!" And she placed both hands on her chest in such a way that the two middle fingers touched the precise midpoint between her breasts. Then she gently inclined her head, put a smile on her face, and threw her hands energetically and yet gracefully upward.
During this movement the knuckles of her hands touched, and only at the end did her arms move apart and her palms turn forward.
No, you are not mistaken. This is the same gesture that Laura made in the previous chapter when she announced that she wanted to do "something." Let's review the situation:
When Agnes said, "Laura, you mustn't do anything foolish. Nobody is worth suffering over. Think of me, and of my love for you," Laura answered, "But I have an urge to do something. I must do something!"
When she said that, she had a vague idea of going to bed with another man. She had often thought of this already, and it didn't
162
Immortality
contradict her longing for suicide. They were two extreme and quite legitimate reactions of a humiliated woman. Her vague dreaming about infidelity was rudely interrupted by Agnes's unfortunate attempt to make everything clear:
"Something? What sort of something?"
Laura realized that it would have been ridiculous to admit a longing for infidelity right after having talked of suicide. That's why she became flustered and only repeated the word "something." And because Agnes's gaze demanded a more concrete answer, she tried to give that vague word some meaning, if only by a gesture: she put her hands to her breast, and threw them forward.
How did this gesture occur to her? It's hard to say. She had never used it before. An unknown someone prompted her to do it, the way a prompter prods an actor who has forgotten his lines. Even though the gesture did not express anything concrete, nevertheless it suggested that doing "something" meant to sacrifice oneself, to give oneself to the world, to send one's soul soaring toward the blue horizon like a white dove.
The idea of standing in the Metro with a collection box would have seemed totally foreign to her just a moment before and evidently would never have occurred to her had she not put her hands to her breast and thrown her arms forward. It was as if that gesture had its own will: it led her and she merely followed.
The gestures of Laura and Bettina are identical, and there is certainly some connection between Laura's desire to help distant blacks and Bettina's attempt to save a condemned Pole. Nevertheless, the comparison doesn't seem convincing. I cannot imagine Bettina von Arnim standing in the Metro with a collection box and begging! Bettina was not interested in charitable acts! Bettina was not one of those rich women who organize collections for the poor because they have nothing better to do. She was nasty to her servants, forcing her husband, Arnim, to chide her ("Servants are also human beings, and you mustn't drive them like machines!" he reminded her in one of his letters). What impelled her to help others was not a passion for good deeds but a longing to enter into direct, personal contact with God, whom she
163
MILAN KUNDERA
had been accused of taking part in a communist plot, followed by another plea to the King on behalf of Ludwig Mieros-tawski, one of the leaders of the Polish revolution, who was awaiting execution in a Prussian jail. She had never personally met the last man she worshiped: Sandor Petofi, the Hungarian poet who died at the age of twenty-six as a soldier in the 1848 uprising. She thus not only introduced the world to a great poet (she called him Sonnengott, Sun God), but along with him she also called attention to his homeland, of which Europe had been virtually ignorant. If we recall that the Hungarian intellectuals who in 1956 rebelled against the Russian Empire and inspired the first great anti-Stalinist revolution called themselves "the Petofi circle" after this poet, you will realize that through her loves Bettina is present throughout the long march of European history, reaching from the eighteenth century all the way to the middle of our own. Brave, stubborn Bettina: the nymph of history, the priestess of history. And I am justified in calling her priestess, because for Bettina history meant (all her friends used this metaphor) "an incarnation of God."
There were times when her friends reproached her for not thinking enough about her family or her financial circumstances, for sacrificing herself unduly for others without reckoning the cost.
"I'm not interested in what you're telling me! I am not a bookkeeper! Here, this is what I am!" And she placed both hands on her chest in such a way that the two middle fingers touched the precise midpoint between her breasts. Then she gently inclined her head, put a smile on her face, and threw her hands energetically and yet gracefully upward. During this movement the knuckles of her hands touched, and only at the end did her arms move apart and her palms turn forward.
No, you are not mistaken. This is the same gesture that Laura made in the previous chapter when she announced that she wanted to do "something." Let's review the situation:
When Agnes said, "Laura, you mustn't do anything foolish. Nobody is worth suffering over. Think of me, and of my love for you," Laura answered, "But I have an urge to do something. I must do something!"
When she said that, she had a vague idea of going to bed with another man. She had often thought of this already, and it didn't
162
Immortality
contradict her longing for suicide. They were two extreme and quite legitimate reactions of a humiliated woman. Her vague dreaming about infidelity was rudely interrupted by Agnes's unfortunate attempt to make everything clear:
"Something? What sort of something?"
Laura realized that it would have been ridiculous to admit a longing for infidelity right after having talked of suicide. That's why she became flustered and only repeated the word "something." And because Agnes's gaze demanded a more concrete answer, she tried to give that vague word some meaning, if only by a gesture: she put her hands to her breast, and threw them forward.
How did this gesture occur to her? It's hard to say. She had never used it before. An unknown someone prompted her to do it, the way a prompter prods an actor who has forgotten his lines. Even though the gesture did not express anything concrete, nevertheless it suggested that doing "something" meant to sacrifice oneself, to give oneself to the world, to send one's soul soaring toward the blue horizon like a white dove.
The idea of standing in the Metro with a collection box would have seemed totally foreign to her just a moment before and evidently would never have occurred to her had she not put her hands to her breast and thrown her arms forward. It was as if that gesture had its own will: it led her and she merely followed.
The gestures of Laura and Bettina are identical, and there is certainly some connection between Laura's desire to help distant blacks and Bettina's attempt to save a condemned Pole. Nevertheless, the comparison doesn't seem convincing. I cannot imagine Bettina von Arnim standing in the Metro with a collection box and begging! Bettina was not interested in charitable acts! Bettina was not one of those rich women who organize collections for the poor because they have nothing better to do. She was nasty to her servants, forcing her husband, Arnim, to chide her ("Servants are also human beings, and you mustn't drive them like machines!" he reminded her in one of his letters). What impelled her to help others was not a passion for good deeds but a longing to enter into direct, personal contact with God, whom she
163
MILAN KUNDERA
believed incarnate in history. All her love affairs with famous men (and other kinds of men did not interest her!) were nothing but a trampoline upon which she threw her entire body in order to be tossed upward to the heights where the God incarnate in history dwells.
Yes, all that is true. But careful! Laura, too, was not one of the kindhearted ladies on the boards of charitable organizations. She was not in the habit of giving money to beggars. She passed them by, and though they were only a few feet away, she did not see them. She suffered from the defect of spiritual farsightedness. Africans who were thousands of miles away from her and from whose bodies one piece of flesh after another was dropping off were closer to her. They were located precisely at that point beyond the horizon to which the gesture of her arms dispatched her aching soul.
All the same, there is certainly a difference between a condemned Pole and sick
Africans! What, to Bettina, was an intervention in history was to Laura merely a charitable deed. But that was not Laura's fault. World history, with its revolutions, Utopias, hopes, and despair, had vanished from Europe, leaving only nostalgia behind. That is why the French have made charitable actions international. They were not led (like the Americans, for example) by Christian love for one's neighbors, but by a longing for lost history, a longing to call it back and to be present in it if only in the form of a red collection box for blacks.
Let us call the gesture of Bettina and Laura the gesture of longing for immortality. Bettina, who aspires to grand immortality, wishes to say: I refuse to die with this day and its cares, I wish to transcend myself, to be a part of history, because history is eternal memory. Laura, though she only aspires to small immortality, wants the same: to transcend herself and the unhappy moment in which she lives to do "something" to make everyone who has known her remember her.
164
Ambiguity
F
ROM earliest childhood, Brigitte liked to sit on her father's knee, but I believe that by the time she reached eighteen she liked sitting there even more. Agnes was not disturbed by this: Brigitte would often climb into bed with both parents (especially late in the evening, when they all watched TV), and there was greater physical intimacy between the three of them than had been the case between Agnes and her parents. All the same, the ambiguity of the scene did not escape her: an adult young woman with big breasts and a big behind sitting in the lap of an attractive man still in the prime of life, touching his shoulders and cheeks with those aggressive breasts and calling him "Daddy."
Once, Agnes held a lively party at her house, to which she had also invited her sister. When everybody was in a very good mood, Brigitte sat on her father's lap, and Laura said, "I want to do that, too!" Brigitte moved over to one knee, and so both of them ended up sitting on Paul's lap.
This situation reminds us once again of Bettina, because it was she more than anyone else who raised lap-sitting to a classical model of erotic ambiguity. I said that she crossed the entire erotic battlefield of her life under the protection of the shield of childhood. She carried this shield into her fifties, then exchanged it for the shield of motherhood and in turn let young men sit on her lap. And again it was a marvelously ambiguous situation: a mother must never be suspected of sexual interest in her son, and for that very reason the position of a young man sitting (even though in a metaphoric sense) on the lap of a mature woman is full of erotic significance that is all the more forceful for being vague.
Immortality Page 16