It’s very probable that I’ve read those words several times, because I’ve noticed that words are like announcements: they have to be repeated, otherwise they don’t catch your eye or stay in your mind.
There’s a reason why things happen like that: some thoughtful words appear first somewhere in a book, then in a magazine and finally in a newspaper. But the order of appearance might be the opposite: first in a paper, then in a journal and finally in a book – as a serious scientific study or a respected novel which schoolchildren have to read.
For as education grows from year to year, people are writing clever things all over the place, so that you hardly know any more what you should take up to read. So for an educated person the only intellectual relaxation and treasure house is the cinema, which doesn’t make you yawn or put you to sleep.
And yet the written word must have some importance in the future, there’s no denying it, or at least for now, and until educational institutions have been completely reformed. Since ancient times they’ve seen it as their duty to get young people used to reading boring books – only boring ones of course, on the correct assumption that the interesting ones will be read anyway, like it or not.
Apart from that, strangely enough, there are still people in the world who like to read books and other writings only when they’re bored. Even their tastes have to be satisfied.
And my last point: the written word is important for recording those things that don’t stick in your mind: such as the first sentence of these lines, so that everyone can look back at will and see who used it the first, second, third time and so on. Such a record could accommodate the names of all the films in the world, so that an educated person won’t have to go and see the same film again for the tenth time.
I wrote the above lines yesterday. I spent nearly half a day composing them. Actually I wanted to write something else, but that’s what came out. I realised once again that writing is a complex activity: I’m doing the writing, but someone else is doing the guiding.
Moreover, the lines I wrote don’t deal with the matter at all, but they might as well be left in. They could be left out too, it’s a matter of indifference – except to me, for whom those lines would be lost.
If I leave them in, my excuse may be the fact that the novel is a realm where one talks about what doesn’t concern the principal themes of the book. This is especially true of psychological novels.
Every novel has its own story, plot and psychology. The story is what is told, but might also be left untold, as has often happened recently. The plot is what is considered or meant by the story, or what is said intentionally or unintentionally. The psychology, though, can include everything that comes to mind in the telling.
So my lines from yesterday are part of the psychology, because they came to mind – except that they came to mind even before I started to tell my story.
But the reader shouldn’t infer that I definitely want to write a novel – let alone a psychological one. I am of the opinion that if novels in general were to die out tomorrow, only the authors would feel the loss, including their royalties and sometimes a few prizes that some people might count as royalties.
As for my intention to compose some sort of novel with its own story, its own plot and its own psychology, there are special reasons for that, which I will set about explaining shortly, in an attempt to be as precise and factual as my inexperience allows.
I am at present twenty-five years old, of average height and with blue eyes which are not large or expressive. There is no beard or moustache to speak of, since I either get shaved or do it myself when forced to, although I don’t like doing it myself, as shaving can be painful.
My hair is black, but with a sort of indefinite tinge that makes it different. I won’t speak of my eyebrows, because I’m not sure of them these days. One might also say the same about my hair. Generally speaking of colours it would be most correct only to specify whether they are natural or artificial.
The general shape of my skull is oval, but with a certain inclination or pressure toward the back of the neck, which is said to be the seat of reason – something that so far I haven’t made much use of. The jaws have a musculature as if fate had marked me to be a biter, though I don’t actually have an urge to sink my teeth into anything. Today, for instance, it’s now past twelve o’clock, but I haven’t eaten yet and I don’t know when or where I’ll get anything. It might seem strange to some people, even incredible, but nevertheless this is the case: I have jaws and teeth, I have a stomach and an appetite, which would like to put food in the stomach, but there is no food. At the same time the market is piled high with foodstuffs; I went there yesterday to take a look, because I had a cent or two in my pocket. I walked through row after row of stalls selling berries to admire their abundance and freshness, and sniff their almost entrancing smell. In some places I even asked the price, where the garden strawberries were especially fresh and plump. When an old woman wanted to measure some out for me, I said I’d have to take a further look at the market and the prices, because I needed to buy a large amount. I chose the plumpest and most appetising strawberries, and I asked the old lady what they cost because I wanted a taster, so I would know later where to buy them from. She couldn’t sell berries for less than a cent, she said. I gave her two and moved on. The woman shouldn’t have been thinking about the money; no, it was only a question of knowing what the berries tasted like. That’s what it should be. But a beautiful berry eaten on an empty stomach just seemed sickly-sweet and plain watery. I felt very sorry to have wasted my two cents.
When I had suitably distanced myself from the rows of berries, I went to where they sell bread – black, brown and white – from tables behind which stood large carts or vans piled with supplies. In my pocket I counted out a handful of money to work out what to buy and how much. In the end, however, I didn’t buy anything here either, because it occurred to me there would be no point in carrying all that bread home, when right by the courtyard at home there is a shop where you can buy the same thing just as cheaply.
Generally it isn’t appropriate or polite for an educated young man in the street to carry a little packet whose shape reveals to everyone that it contains a piece of bread. It’s a different matter if your packet contains sweet buns, cakes or a tart – quite a different matter, because that implies certain relationships, acquaintances, adventures, delicacy and love. A piece of bread only speaks of hunger, which everyone considers to be a vulgar and crude thing demeaning to everyone who encounters it.
So I headed home and bought from the shop – not the one by the courtyard, because I have very old bills there, but another one, a bit further away, around the corner – four hundred grams of dark bread and a herring, which I took between two fingers and held like a carcass away from myself, so as not to soil my clothes. Then I hurried half-running up to my room, locked the door behind me, sat down on a chair and munched on both the bread and the herring. True, there was a mouthful of bread left over – that I devoured dry in the middle of the night, when I was already lying down.
In winter, when my landlord’s family are at home and live on the first floor below me, it’s possible for me at least to get boiled water from their kitchen, but now when everyone is on their summer holiday apart from my landlord, whom I rarely see, I have to be content with cold tap water. Even in winter, getting the boiling water wasn’t just a matter of going and asking, or taking, for I had to enter into a friendly relationship with the maid which sometimes required more obligations than I was willing to take on. Never mind, one way or another I was able to arrange it and quite often she came up from the kitchen with the water and something hot or cold to eat, food that she found off-putting. I objected with all my heart to these additional things – I say really with all my heart, because it was humiliating and repulsive to me – I was angry with the girl, I cursed her, but it didn’t help. In the end I had to give in and swallow the pill.