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Veronika decides to die :: Coelho Paulo
Страница: 95 из 115Igor realized he had gonetoo far and decided to change the subject.
“That doesn’t matter. What I mean is this: Everything indicates that you are not cured.”
Mari had years of experience in law courts, and she decided to put them into practice right there and then. Her first tactic was to pretend to be in agreement with her adversary, only to draw him immediately into another line of argument.
“I agree. My reason for coming here was very concrete: I was getting panic attacks. My reason for staying was very abstract: I couldn’t face the idea of a different way of life, with no job and no husband. I agree with you that I had lost the will to start a new life, a life I would have to get used to all over again. Further, I agree that in a mental hospital, even with its electric shocks—sorry, ECT, as you prefer to call it—rigid timetables, and occasional hysterical outbursts on the part of some inmates, the rules are easier to accept than the rules of a world that, as you say, does everything it can to conform.
“Then last night, I heard a woman playing the piano. She played superbly, in a way I’ve rarely heard before. As I was listening to the music, I thought of all those who had suffered in order to compose those sonatas, preludes, adagios: How foolish they must have been made to feel when they played their pieces—which were, after all, different—to those who held sway in the world of music then. I thought about the difficulties and humiliations involved in getting someone to fund an orchestra. I thought of the booing public who was not yet used to such harmonies.
“Worse than the composers’ suffering, though, was the fact that the girl was playing the music with such soul because she knew she was going to die. And am I not going to die? Where is my soul that I might play the music of my own life with such enthusiasm?”
Dr. Igor was listening in silence. It seemed that all his ideas were beginning to bear fruit, but it was still too early to be sure.
“Where is my soul?” Mari asked again. “In my past. In what I wanted my life to be. I left my soul captive in that moment when I still had a house, a husband, a job I wanted to leave but never had the courage to.
“My soul was in my past. But today it’s here, I can feel it again in my body, vibrant with enthusiasm. I don’t know what to do. I only know that it’s taken me three years to understand that life was pushing me in a direction I didn’t want to go in.”
“I think I can see some signs of improvement,” said Dr. Igor.
“I don’t need to ask if I can leave Villete.
“That doesn’t matter. What I mean is this: Everything indicates that you are not cured.”
Mari had years of experience in law courts, and she decided to put them into practice right there and then. Her first tactic was to pretend to be in agreement with her adversary, only to draw him immediately into another line of argument.
“I agree. My reason for coming here was very concrete: I was getting panic attacks. My reason for staying was very abstract: I couldn’t face the idea of a different way of life, with no job and no husband. I agree with you that I had lost the will to start a new life, a life I would have to get used to all over again. Further, I agree that in a mental hospital, even with its electric shocks—sorry, ECT, as you prefer to call it—rigid timetables, and occasional hysterical outbursts on the part of some inmates, the rules are easier to accept than the rules of a world that, as you say, does everything it can to conform.
“Then last night, I heard a woman playing the piano. She played superbly, in a way I’ve rarely heard before. As I was listening to the music, I thought of all those who had suffered in order to compose those sonatas, preludes, adagios: How foolish they must have been made to feel when they played their pieces—which were, after all, different—to those who held sway in the world of music then. I thought about the difficulties and humiliations involved in getting someone to fund an orchestra. I thought of the booing public who was not yet used to such harmonies.
“Worse than the composers’ suffering, though, was the fact that the girl was playing the music with such soul because she knew she was going to die. And am I not going to die? Where is my soul that I might play the music of my own life with such enthusiasm?”
Dr. Igor was listening in silence. It seemed that all his ideas were beginning to bear fruit, but it was still too early to be sure.
“Where is my soul?” Mari asked again. “In my past. In what I wanted my life to be. I left my soul captive in that moment when I still had a house, a husband, a job I wanted to leave but never had the courage to.
“My soul was in my past. But today it’s here, I can feel it again in my body, vibrant with enthusiasm. I don’t know what to do. I only know that it’s taken me three years to understand that life was pushing me in a direction I didn’t want to go in.”
“I think I can see some signs of improvement,” said Dr. Igor.
“I don’t need to ask if I can leave Villete.