“And even today writing comes hard to me because I have already had to write a lot of letters so that my hand is tired,” the old boy read.
“The future stands firm, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space.”
“That’s it,” the old boy enthused.
“As people were long mistaken about the motion of the sun, so they are even yet mistaken about the motion of that which is to come,” the old boy read on further (or, to be more exact, further back) (since the latter line stood before the previous one).
“it must only just then have entered into them, for they swear,” the old boy read on further (or, to be more exact, further back)
“in their bewildered fright”
“It is necessary.”
“Here we are,” the old boy said.
“It is necessary — and toward this our development will move gradually — that nothing strange should befall us, but only that which has long belonged to us. We have already had to rethink so many of our concepts of motion, we will also gradually learn to realize that that which we call fate goes forth from within people, not from without into them. Only because so many have not absorbed their fates and transmuted them within themselves while they were living in them have they not recognized what has gone forth out of them; it was so strange to them that, in their bewildered fright, they thought it must only just then have entered into them, for they swear never before to have found anything like it in themselves. As people were long mistaken about the motion of the sun, so they are even yet mistaken about the motion of that which is to come. The future stands firm, dear Mr.. Kappus, but we move in infinite space.”
The old boy stood firm, book in hand. After some time he moved after all (if not in infinite space, at least to put the book back in its place) (on the bookshelf on the wall above the sofa occupying the northeast corner of the room).
“I have the awful feeling,” he reflected in the meantime, “that I’m going to get my papers out again.”
“That would be really stupid,” he reflected further, now standing in front of the open door of the filing cabinet in the upper drawer of which (from which he had earlier removed the typewriter to work on the translation) could be seen several files — among them, one entitled “Ideas, sketches, fragments”—and two cardboard boxes which held a miscellany of objects (both necessary and unnecessary), behind which was a grey box file on which, like a sort of paperweight, was a likewise grey — albeit a darker grey — lump of stone (not visible).
“There’s still time to have second thoughts about this,” he continued his reflection (as if he could really have second thoughts) (that is to say, like someone who still has a choice) (but all the while knows full well that he doesn’t) (even though we always have a choice) (and we always choose ourselves — in the words of the French anthology to which we have already referred) (which the old boy kept on the wall bookshelf above the armchair standing to the north of the tile stove occupying the southeast corner of the room) (for this is what our freedom amounts to) (although one might ask in what manner such a choice could be said to be freedom) (if in point of fact we can make no other choice than ourselves).
On account of which the old boy was soon rooting again among his papers and, what is more, on this occasion sitting on the sofa occupying the northwest corner of the room — perhaps partly to emphasize the transience of this activity, the deferment for a merely fleeting interval of his more important work, but partly also because he was unable to take his proper place in front of the filing cabinet (or to be more precise, at the table) (or to be even more precise, the table, the only real table in the flat), it (which is to say the table) being covered with the accoutrements of his more important work (the book to be translated, the piles of blank as well as already typed paper, the typewriter, and the Concise Dictionary):
… This turn of events … sitting in the ar … irrevocable … I was left alone … robbed … I therefore face what stands before me without my past, without a destiny, without heartwarming delusions, robbed of everything I had. I see a billowing, grey, impenetrable bank of cloud and sense that I must force my way through it, though I have no idea in which direction I should strike out. No matter, in that case I won’t move and it can come to meet me, force its way over me, and then pass on, leaving me behind. This is time, what they call the future. Sometimes I scrutinize it anxiously, at other times I wait trustingly for it as for sunshine in foggy weather. Yet I am well aware that it’s all an illusion, and even now I am only deceiving myself, I am fleeing in just the same way that I once launched myself into infinity on the rocket of my goals: it’s not the future which is waiting for me, only the next instant, because there is no future, it is nothing other than the ever-continuing, eternal present. Not a single minute can be omitted, or at most only in stories. The prognosis for my future — that’s an attribute of my present. Yes, the time passing is me; and that — me — is exactly what I am least sure about.
If only I could say I made a mistake! Only I don’t know if it is not I myself who is the mistake. Now and again, my feet set me off on my accustomed meditative journeys — and not just in my apartment. I take an interest in nature — what else can I do? I contemplate autumn’s destruction with gloomy satisfaction, breathe in deeply the sparkling aroma of decay. The other day, I was just making my way down the hillside when I saw two old men. They were standing at the foot of a stone wall, faces turned toward the languorous warmth: they were sunbathing. They were snuggled up so closely to the no doubt lukewarm stone that at first I took the two grizzled heads jutting out from the grey wall to be stones too, unusually lifelike reliefs. It was only on coming closer that I saw they were alive. One had a long, ovine face with eyes like molten aspic and a red tip to his sheep’s nose; the other face was somewhat rounder, but a curving mouth, drawn into a half-smile under his square, grey moustache, lent him too a bit of the air of a faun. I don’t know why they fascinated me so much. I fancied that I discerned some indefinable yet completely identical expression on the two faces, an involuntary expression which was not tied to the moment, nor even to their words — they might have been talking about anything at all — but sprang from somewhere deeper, from some conduit of their existence, bubbling far below. When I passed by them they fell silent, as if they had some kind of secret — no, on the contrary, as if they had something to say, and it was precisely that which they were keeping secret, but it had already moved to their faces like the ruins of some defeat that they were reluctantly obliged to display to their fellow human beings, in part as a warning, in part out of weakness, somewhat maliciously and at all events improperly, yet beseeching a little attention. — Well indeed, if death is an absurdity, how can life have any meaning? If death is meaningful, then what is the purpose of life? Where did I lose my redeeming impersonality? Why had I written a novel and, above all, yes, above all, why had I invested all my trust in it? If I could only work that out …