Immortality

by Milan Kundera

  "I don't know what made you assume that she was beautiful. She was the cloakroom attendant in a brasserie I frequented every day; she came with a party of retired people to spend three days in Paris. When we recognized each other, we looked at each other with embarrassment. Almost with desperation, in fact, of the kind felt by a legless boy who wins a bicycle in a lottery. As if we both knew that we were given the gift of an enormously valuable coincidence that will do us no good whatsoever. It seemed that someone was laughing at us, and we were ashamed in each other's eyes."

  'This type of coincidence could be called morbid," I said. "But I am trying in vain to figure out into which category to place the coincidence by which Bernard Bertrand was awarded the title of complete ass."

  Avenarius replied in an authoritative tone, "Bernard Bertrand was awarded the title of complete ass because he is a complete ass. No coincidence was involved. It was simple necessity. Not even the iron laws of history described by Marx involve greater necessity than this title."

  And as if my question had irritated him, he rose from the water in all his threatening majesty. I rose as well. We got out of the pool and went to sit down at the bar at the other end of the gym.

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  E each ordered a glass of wine and took the first sip, and Avenarius said, "Surely it must be clear to you that everything I do is a struggle against Diabolum."

  "Of course I know that," I answered. "That's precisely why I asked you what the sense was of attacking Bernard Bertrand."

  "You don't understand a thing," said Avenarius, as if tired of my inability to grasp what he had already explained to me so many times. "There is no effective or sensible way to fight Diabolum. Marx tried, all the revolutionaries tried, and in the end Diabolum always managed to appropriate every organization whose original goal was to destroy it. My whole revolutionary past ended in disappointment, and now only one single question occupies me: what is a man to do when he realizes that no organized, effective, and sensible fight against Diabolum is possible? He has only two choices: to resign and cease to be himself, or to keep on cultivating an inner need for revolt and from time to time give it expression. Not to change the world, as Marx once wanted, justly and in vain, but because he is urged to do so by an inner moral imperative. Recently I've been thinking about you. It's important for you, too, not to express your revolt merely through the writing of novels, which cannot bring you any true satisfaction, but through action. Today I am asking you to join me at long last!"

  "All the same, it is still unclear to me," I said, "why an inner moral need drove you to attack a poor radio commentator. What objective reasons led you to do it? Why did you choose him and not someone else as a symbol of asininity?"

  "I forbid you to use the stupid word 'symbol,'" Avenarius said, raising his voice. "That's how terrorist organizations think! That's how

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  politicians think, who are nowadays nothing but symbol-jugglers! I have the same contempt for people who hang national flags from their windows as for people who burn them in public squares. Bernard is not a symbol for me. For me, nothing is more concrete than he is! I hear him talk every morning! His effeminate voice, his affectation, and his idiotic jokes get on my nerves! I can't stand what he says! Objective reasons? I don't know what that means! I declared him a complete ass on the basis of my most eccentric, most malicious, most capricious personal freedom!"

  "That's what I wanted to hear," I said. "You did not act like a god of necessity, but like a god of chance."

  "Be it chance or necessity, I am glad that you think of me again as a god," said Professor Avenarius, his voice back to its normal, quiet tone. "But I don't understand why you are so surprised at my choice. A person who jokes stupidly with his listeners and conducts campaigns against euthanasia is beyond all doubt a complete ass, and I cannot imagine a single objection that could be raised against that." || When I heard Avenarius's last sentence, I was appalled: "You are confusing Bernard Bertrand with Bertrand Bertrand!"

  "I am talking of Bernard Bertrand, who speaks on the radio and fights against suicides and beer!"

  I clutched my head: "Those are two different people! Father and son! How in the world could you have merged a radio commentator and a member of Parliament into one person? Your mistake is a perfect example of what we classified a moment ago as a morbid coincidence."

  For a moment, Avenarius was at a loss. But he soon recovered and said, "I am afraid that you aren't very knowledgeable about your own theory of coincidence. There is nothing morbid about my mistake. On the contrary, it clearly resembles what you called poetic coincidence. Father and son have turned into a single ass with two heads. Not even ancient Greek mythology came up with such a marvelous animal!"

  We drank up our wine, went to the locker room to get dressed, and then telephoned a restaurant to reserve a table.

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  At the very same moment that Professor Avenarius was putting on his socks, Agnes was remembering the following sentence: "Every woman prefers her child to her husband." Her mother said that to her, in a confidential tone (in circumstances now forgotten), when Agnes was about twelve or thirteen years old. The meaning of the sentence becomes clear only if we think about it for a while: to say that we prefer A to B is not a comparison of two degrees of love but means that B is not loved at all. For if we love someone, he cannot be compared. The beloved is incomparable. Even if we love both A and B, we cannot compare them, because in making the comparison we are already ceasing to love one of them. And if we say publicly that we prefer one over the other, it is never a question of proclaiming our love for A (in that event, it would be sufficient to say merely, "I love A!"), but of making it discreetly yet unmistakably clear that we don't care for B.

  This analysis, of course, was not within the capabilities of little Agnes. And her mother surely counted on that; she needed to confide in someone yet at the same time did not want to be fully understood. But the child, even though she was not able to understand everything, sensed nevertheless that the sentence did not favor her father. And she loved him! She therefore did not feel flattered that she was given preference, but rather saddened that someone she loved was being wronged.

  The sentence imprinted itself on her mind; she tried to imagine what it meant, in all concreteness, to love someone more and someone else less; before sleeping she lay in bed wrapped up in her blanket, and this scene floated before her eyes: there is her father, each of his hands holding a daughter. They are facing an execution squad that is only

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  waiting for the order: aim! fire! Her mother goes to beg the enemy commander for mercy, and he gives her the right to save two of the condemned. And so just before the commander gives the order to fire, her mother runs up, tears her daughters out of her husband's hands, and in terrified haste leads them away. Agnes is dragged by her mother, and her head is turned back, toward her father; she turns her head so hard, with so much determination, that she feels a cramp in her neck; she sees her father gazing at them sadly, without the least protest: he is reconciled to her mother's choice because he knows that maternal love is greater than conjugal love and that it is his duty to give up his life. Sometimes she imagined the enemy commander giving her mother the right to save only one of the condemned. She never doubted for an instant that her mother would save Laura. In her mind's eye she saw the two of them left behind, she and her father, face-to-face with the firing squad. They held hands. At that moment Agnes was not at all interested in what had happened to her mother and sister, she did not gaze after them, but she knew that they were rapidly moving away and that neither one had looked back! Agnes, on her little bed, lay wrapped up in a blanket; her eyes were full of hot tears, and she felt inexpressibly happy to be holding her father's hand, to be with him and to die with him.

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  Perhaps
Agnes would have forgotten the execution scene if the two sisters hadn't quarreled one day when they surprised their father standing over a pile of torn photographs. Watching Laura shout at him, Agnes recalled that this was the same Laura who had left her alone with her father to face a firing squad and had left without looking back. She suddenly realized that their conflict went deeper than she had been aware, and for that reason she never mentioned the quarrel, as if afraid to give a name to something that should remain nameless, to wake something that should remain asleep.

  And so when at that distant time her sister departed, angry and in tears, and she remained alone with her father, she felt for the first time a strange sensation of fatigue that came from the surprising discovery (it is always the most banal discoveries that surprise us the most) that she would always have the same sister for the rest of her life. She might be able to change friends, to change lovers, if she wished she would be able to divorce Paul, but she would never be able to exchange her sister. Laura was a constant in her life, which was all the more tiring for Agnes because from childhood on their relationship had been like a chase: Agnes ran in front, with her sister at her heels.

  Sometimes she thought of herself as the princess of a fairy tale she remembered from childhood: the princess, on horseback, is fleeing an evil pursuer; she is holding a brush, a comb, and a ribbon. She throws the brush behind her, and a thick forest springs up between her and the pursuer. She gains some time this way, but soon the pursuer is again in sight; she throws the comb behind her, and immediately it turns into sharp rocks. And when he is once more at her heels, she drops the ribbon, which unwinds behind her into a broad river.

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  And then Agnes had only one thing left in her hand: dark glasses. She threw them to the ground and became separated from her pursuer by a field of broken glass.

  But now her hand is empty, and she knows that Laura is the stronger one. She is stronger, because she has turned weakness into a weapon and into moral superiority: she is being wronged, deserted by her lover, she is suffering, attempting suicide, while the happily married Agnes throws her sister's glasses on the floor, humiliates her, forbids her to enter the house. Yes, for nine months, since the episode of the broken glasses, they haven't seen each other. And Agnes knows that Paul doesn't approve, even though he has never said so. He feels sorry for Laura. Her run is nearing an end. Agnes hears her sister's breath close at her back, and she knows she is about to lose.

  The sensation of fatigue is growing stronger. She no longer has the ilightest desire to continue her run. She is not a racer. She never wanted to race. She didn't choose her sister. She wanted to be neither her model nor her rival. A sister is as much an accident in Agnes's life as the shape of her ears. She chose neither her sister nor the shape of her ears, and yet she is chained to this nonsensical coincidence all her life.

  When she was little, her father taught her to play chess. She was fascinated by one move, technically called castling: the player moves two chessmen in a single move: the castle and the king exchange their relative positions. She liked that move: the enemy concentrates all his effort on attacking the king, and the king suddenly disappears before his eyes; he moves away. All her life she dreamed about that move, and the more exhausted she felt, the more she dreamed it.

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  ver since her father died and left her some money in a Swiss bank, Agnes had gone to the Alps two or three times each year, always to the same hotel, and she tried to imagine staying permanently in that part of the world: could she live without Paul and without Brigitte? How could she know? A solitude of three days, which is how long she generally stayed at the hotel, a "trial solitude" of that kind taught her very little. She kept hearing the word "Leave!" like the most wonderful temptation. But if she really left, wouldn't she soon come to regret it? It was true that she longed for solitude, yet she was quite fond of her husband and daughter and cared about them. She would need to have news about them, she would need to know that everything was all right with them. But how could she be alone, separated from them, and at the same time know all about them? Then, too, how was she to arrange her new life? Would she look for a new occupation? That would not be easy. Would she do nothing? Yes, that was appealing, but wouldn't she suddenly feel like a retired person? When she thought about it all, her plan to "leave" seemed more and more artificial, forced, impractical, resembling one of those Utopian illusions of someone who knows in the depths of his heart that he is powerless and will do nothing.

  Then suddenly one day the resolution to this problem came from outside, quite unexpectedly and at the same time in the most ordinary way. Her employer was starting a branch office in Bern, and because it was common knowledge that her German was as good as her French, they asked her whether she would like to direct research there. They knew that she was married and therefore didn't count too much on a positive reply; she surprised them: she said "yes" without an instant's hesitation. And she also surprised herself: that spontaneous "yes"

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  proved that her longing to leave was not a comedy she was playing for herself without really believing it, but something real and serious.

  That desire eagerly seized the opportunity to be not merely a roman-tic daydream and to become a part of something completely prosaic: career advancement. When Agnes accepted the offer she acted like any Ambitious woman, so that nobody could suspect the real reasons behind her decision. For her, everything suddenly became clear; it was no longer necessary to do tests and experiments and to try to imagine "what it would be like if only..." What she had been longing for was suddenly here, and she was surprised that she was accepting it as an unambiguous and unblemished joy.

  It was a joy so intense that it awakened a sense of shame and guilt in her. She couldn't find the courage to tell Paul about her decision. That's why she took that one last trip to her hotel in the Alps. (The next time she would already have her own apartment there: either in the Bern suburbs or in the nearby mountains.) In the course of those two days she wanted to think through how to break the news to Brigitte and Paul, so as to convince them that she was an ambitious, emancipated woman, absorbed by her professional career and success, even though she had never been such a person before.

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  Dusk had already fallen; her headlights on, Agnes crossed the Swiss border and found herself on a French route, which always made her nervous; disciplined Swiss drivers obeyed the rules, whereas the French, shaking their heads in short horizontal motions, expressed their indignation at those who would deprive people of their right to speed and turned highway travel into an orgiastic celebration of human rights.

  She started to feel hungry and scanned the highway for a restaurant or motel where she could have a meal. Three huge motorcycles passed her on the left, making a terrible noise; in the glare of the headlights she could see the drivers; their outfits, like space suits, gave them the appearance of inhuman, extraterrestrial beings.

  At that very moment a waiter was leaning over our table to remove the empty appetizer dishes, and I was just saying to Avenarius: "The very morning that I started the third part of my novel, I heard a report on the radio I cannot possibly forget. A girl went out on the highway at night and sat down with her back to the oncoming cars. She sat there, her head resting on her knees, and waited for death. The driver of the first car swerved aside at the last moment and died with his wife and two children. The second car, too, ended up in the ditch. And the third. Nothing happened to the girl. She got up, walked away, and nobody ever found out who she was."

  Avenarius said, "What reasons do you think could induce a girl to sit down on the highway at night and wish to be crushed by a car?"

  "I don't know," I said. "But I would bet the reason was disproportionately small. Or to put it more precisely, seen from the outside it would seem small to us and quite foolish."

 
Immortality

  "Why?" asked Avenarius.

  I shrugged my shoulders. "I cannot imagine any substantial reason for such a terrible suicide, as for example an incurable disease or the death of someone close. In such a case nobody would choose this terrible end, making other people die! Only a reason deprived of reason can lead to such an unreasonable horror. In all languages derived from Latin, the word 'reason' (ratio, reason, ragtime) has a double meaning: first, it designates the ability to think, and only second, the cause. Therefore reason in the sense of a cause is always understood as something rational. A reason the rationality of which is not transparent would seem to be incapable of causing an effect. But in German, a reason in the sense of a cause is called Grund, a word having nothing to do with the Latin ratio and originally meaning 'soil' and later 'basis.' From the viewpoint of the Latin ratio, the girl's behavior, sitting down on the highway, seems absurd, inappropriate, irrational, and yet it has its reason, its basis, its ground, Grund. Such a Grund is inscribed deep in all of us, it is the ever-present cause of our actions, it is the soil from which our fate grows. I am trying to grasp the Grund hidden at the bottom of each of my characters, and I am convinced more and more that it has the nature of a metaphor."

  "Your idea escapes me," said Avenarius.

  'Too bad. It is the most important thought that ever occurred to me."

  At that point the waiter brought us our duck. It smellcd delicious and made us forget the preceding conversation completely.

  At last Avenarius broke the silence: "What are you writing about these days, anyway?"

  'That's impossible to recount."

  "What a pity."

  "Not at all. An advantage. The present era grabs everything that was ever written in order to transform it into films, TV programs, or cartoons. What is essential in a novel is precisely what can only be expressed in a novel, and so every adaptation contains nothing but the nonessential. If a person is still crazy enough to write novels nowadays and wants to protect them, he has to write them in such a way that they