I observe Hana who is fall of vitality and looking forward to her new work. I realize that I love her. I'm capable of leaving her for a while, but I couldn't abandon her. I think about the other woman and realize that I am capable of being without her most of the time, but I couldn't abandon her either.
The awareness of my duplicity is a constant torment to me, but what if it is simply the human lot? Maybe we have confined our nature with
more commandments than we are able to fulfil and then we torment ourselves with feelings of guilt.
I was surprised to find Eva singing a lot just lately and playing happy tunes on the piano, such as Janacek's Nursery Rhymes. 'I'm playing to him, of course, 'she told me, indicating her tummy that is already swelling slightly.
We have the same conversation over and over again. She believes that as soon as Petr returns from prison he will begin a new life. Petr has promised her. He writes her long letters every week, she even reads out some sentences from them: a whole lot of beautiful phrases, promises and resolutions. Eva thinks Petr will feel responsibility for the child. After all, he suffered so much himself from not having a father and growing up without love.
Perhaps. What is more likely is that he will take fright at the responsibility and flee from it, either literally or metaphorically. She oughtn't to forget that drugs weren't his only escape, he also made several attempts at suicide.
She explains to me that he was unhappy. Nobody loved him.
We end up with me trying to persuade her not to marry him, but to wait and see how he'll behave after his release, when action will be needed, not words. Talking is easy, I told her, it's living that is terribly difficult sometimes.
But that goes for everyone, she objected.
I said nothing. It goes for me too, of course.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Alois announced to me that he would like to marry Marika. 'What would you say to it, Reverend?'
I told him it mainly depended on the two of them and I asked him whether they were having to get married. Alois assured me this was not the case, but that they loved each other.
If you love each other and think you're old enough, why not?
He told me the main reason he was asking me was whether it mattered. . for a moment he was lost for words, but then remembered what some of his mates from the building site had told him. He said they laughed at him for going with a gypsy girl and prophesied that they would have thieves for children.
I convinced him that was nonsense. That cheered him up.
Then I asked him about the date, and he replied: some time next month, but we haven't agreed on an actual day yet.
I almost envied him his easy-going, irreproachable love.
Nietzsche in chapter 42 of Antichrist: 'The type of the redeemer, the doctrine, the practice, the death, the meaning of the death, even the sequel to the death — nothing was left untouched, nothing was left bearing even the remotest resemblance to reality. Paul simply shifted the centre of gravity of that entire existence beyond this existence — in the lie of the "resurrected" Jesus. In fact he could make no use at all of the Redeemers life — he needed the death on the Cross. . ' And in chapter 43: 'If one shifts the centre of gravity of life out of life into the 'Beyond'— into nothingness — one has deprived life as such of its centre of gravity. The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all naturalness of instinct — all that is salutary, all that is life-furthering, all that holds a guarantee of the future of the instincts henceforth excites mistrust. '
Every lie destroys one's soul. If everything we believe in is a lie what happens to our soul then?
My father would have said: The soul? No such thing. All we have is a brain — a higher nervous system. And the brain is the first thing to rot after death.
Martin called me to ask if I'd heard about the death of Jaroslav Berger, the Secretary for Church Affairs in the district we were both exiled to for a time. I hadn't heard about his death. From time to time he would call me in for a ticking-off. 'Reverend Vedra, you are in breach of our laws. You're welcome to preach the Bible, but don't go addling people's brains, and particularly not our youngsters'. Do you think we don't know how
many of them come to your meetings on the first Monday of the month?' On occasions he was tipsy and once he was totally drunk. 'Reverend,' he said to me on that occasion, 'you're a fortunate man, you don't have to be afraid of death. When you die you'll go somewhere, to heaven or whatever. I, on the other hand, will die just like a dog. ' If I'd heard about his death in time, I would have gone to his funeral, in the same way he came to fitka's.
Magda has reached a beautiful age. She still retains her girlish directness and likes to giggle and play childish tricks, but at the same time she is beginning to assert her individuality. She draws well and writes wittily, and apart from that she seems to have obvious acting talent. Sometimes I catch her standing in front of the mirror making faces.
The other day I came into her bedroom and noticed a diary lying open on her bedside table.
'You're not to read it, Daddy!'
'I'm not. '
She consulted the diary herself. 'Here's a bit you can read. There's nothing in if. '
On one page there was quite a good caricature of one of her teachers, on the other, a text of some kind.
The writing was childishly uneven and didn't manage to stay on the line. Maybe her longsightedness has something to do with it.
I've just hoovered the front hall and the washing-up, Mum tidied the living room. The Partridge is completely loopy today she wrote in Zuzana's record book: You daughter was lacqering her nails and was determined to continue with this activity even in my presence. Then I did an imitation of her and made the class laugh. What makes me laugh are words like maggot or worm. .
I said: 'How many is a maggot to the fifth minus a worm to the two and a halfth?'
And she burst into merry laughter and for a moment I was happy too. Irreproachably happy, I'd even say.
An extremely odd thing happened to me. I was sitting in my office writing something. Suddenly there was a loud bang on the window and I just managed to catch sight of a bird's body dropping to the ground beyond the window pane.
I ran out in front of the house and saw a blackbird lying paralysed, as I thought, in the grass. I leaned over to pick it up and see what had happened to it, but to my surprise it revived and with some difficulty flew across the lawn and hid behind the blackcurrant bush.
The following day, almost at the same hour, there came the same bang, even louder than on the previous day.