In the light of day he never would dare ask anyone out loud, but now from behind his hands he did ask.
Locked inside the friendly darkness of the old car he felt secure.
It was a special pleasure that the question he addressed to Klára Vay referred to the giant.
With whom can’t one talk of such things, what one calls philosophy.
He would have to leave him, and reflect and meditate on him with the woman. Philosophy must be a painful activity, then. Had he told himself forever, he could not have borne his pain, infidelity, and betrayal of the giant without Klára’s noticing it.
She must not notice it.
So he tried to keep some of the cheerfulness he had appropriated from the giant.
And he managed to surprise Klára with it; she was unprepared for it after his serious questions; she stammered — a bit mockingly and not completely free of her earlier banter — as she took a new hard look at the young man, seeing him as for the first time, at the height of his physical and mental powers, at the border of insanity, perfectly composed.
Have you gone out of your mind, she asked angrily, but her eyes flashed with joy when she heard the splendid questions.
Why would I have gone out of my mind, moaned the young man, and for a moment he looked out from between his fingers.
Klára Vay had inherited her improbably large eyes as well as her persistent and neutral attention from her father.
And what if I’ve gone mad, so what, he added so as not to sound too childish.
How did he know from whom Klára had inherited the physical texture of her eyes. And the organic world was presumably based on these silly resemblances and relationships.
Your response depends on it, Klára replied, beaming, and now it was she who ignored Kristóf Demén’s banter and disregarded his viewpoint — and in her great excitement didn’t realize she was addressing him in the familiar.
First of all, you should be able to formulate your response, she corrected herself, speaking formally.
But I’m the one who’s asking, I’m the one asking the questions, cried Kristóf in the darkness, at least this once I am.
To show what your viewpoint is, whether you’re a determinist — in which case the world is a strict system with no room for faith or chance, that’s the question you have to answer — or maybe the opposite.
How should I know what my viewpoint is, the reason I’m asking is because I don’t know.
Do you think that vital life processes, or life’s phenomena, even your own, are absolutely and exclusively in a causal relation with one another. Or in your view is there no such relationship among them. That’s another big question.
The young man lifted his head from his hands, looked out at the pavement glistening in the rain as the moving car gradually devoured it; amazed at how many stones he had tried to move in his great spiritual quest, he preferred to remain silent.
First he must answer these questions, after that they could talk about anything.
Klára answers questions with other questions, he replied, dissatisfied; this was too trite even for a trick.
Why should she need a trick, or what sort of trick did he have in mind.
To avoid things, to go around them.
He may not be aware of this, but asking questions is a classical method used in philosophy.
Then he’d rather take back his dangerous questions.
Does he believe in predestination, answer that one quickly. What does he base his faith on. Does he believe in free will or believe that the Almighty conceived and decided everything well in advance.
With the same effort she might as well have asked whether he believes in free fall.
Exactly, because he can imagine the universe as a gaping void, with not a living godhead anywhere, a kind of desolate metaphysical wasteland, and in this void he would attribute greater significance to contingency or chance than to will, decision, necessity, and so on.
He doesn’t know; how would he know.
Doesn’t he understand that people must talk over these things among themselves, people have to show one another the way and make one another realize things, why doesn’t he want to understand this.
He often has the feeling that one acts before thinking, though it would probably make sense to do things the other way around, Kristóf continued after a brief silence. At any rate, he says things first and then thinks about them, and as a result he justifies them only later, which makes his whole life kind of laughable.
Klára did not respond for a while, but clicked her tongue admiringly.
Perhaps she was busy with the car, with the driving and the empty streets, or perhaps she liked and enjoyed the thought.
Later they could not have said when they started in again or how many times they stopped.
How would he know what the order of things should be.
Kristóf had to know this for himself, and she could not decide it for him.
They were approaching Dürer Ajtósi Row, where they’d have to turn.
He should name the reference points of his personal perspective, the so-called pivotal points.
He has no personal perspective.
But of course he does.
He’s one big knot of feelings, nothing else, he’s a nobody. That things might have pivotal points — what an idea.
Enough of this maudlin stuff. They should be talking more sensibly.
It’s Klára who’s talking to him like a strict schoolmarm.
And right now I’m being relatively gentle, I’ll have you know.
Klára should stop sounding so high and mighty too.
Sensing the possibility of falling back to pointless mockery and teasing, they both had to tamp down their aggressiveness.
It’s not about categories that he wants to talk with Klára.
Does he think that world affairs will slowly become knowable and, once they are, can be sorted out in line with his admirable views. Like pralines, candy, dragées, and bonbons. These here are the ones with fillings, those over there are without; or sorted according to the kind of filling, caramel or hazelnut cream, raisins or almonds.
You’re joking again.
It’s easy to joke, but at the store they must perform this thankless sorting job at least once a week because even when one takes great care and pays close attention things have a way of becoming mixed up, and it’s no laughing matter, not at all.
He doesn’t understand why this haughty contempt. Does Klára disdain everyone this much, or are there exceptions. Why did she become suddenly so haughty.
If he could successfully sort out each thing that suits him and separate it from all other things and be aware of boundaries, his response would sound very different than if he thought world affairs were unfathomable, their individual phenomena inseparable or having no difference or connection among them. Because that would mean there were no borders, no such thing as a person’s character; people would have no traits, will, or ethical justification for their actions, at best only arbitrariness and blame or resignation or habit, and so on.
Ridiculous.
Why ridiculous.
Somehow he too had to make a decision, unless he wanted to consider himself an exception in the universe.
In any event thinking comes first — for the sake of the official definition, first comes thinking in the descriptive mode, and only after does one begin to speak. Which is not so exceptional. One surveys the possibilities, reviews what are one’s own or other people’s favored viewpoints. It’s hardly worth mentioning.
But why would this be important or interesting.
Because you are not alone and alone you can’t get anywhere, you’d be a laughingstock if you didn’t know about these things, or if you ignored them or failed to coordinate them with others. Thinking is not a solitary activity.