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Requiem

“Dio è il silenzio dell’universo, e l’essere umano il grido che dà un senso a tale silenzio”

José Saramago

Sinfonia in Sol

Solo alla solitudine del sole solevo assolarmi

La magica creazione

We never discussed, John Shade and I, any of my personal misfortunes. Our close friendship was on that higher, exclusively intellectual level where one can rest from emotional troubles, not share them. My admiration for him was for me a sort of alpine cure. I experienced a grand sense of wonder whenever I looked at him, especially in the presence of other people, inferior people. This wonder was enhanced by my awareness of their not feeling what I felt, of their not seeing what I saw, of their taking Shade for granted, instead of drenching every nerve, so to speak, in the romance of his presence. Here he is, I would say to myself, that is his head, containing a brain of a different brand than that of the synthetic jellies preserved in the skulls around him. He is looking from the terrace (of Prof. C.'s house on that March evening) at the distant lake. I am looking at him, I am witnessing a unique physiological phenomenon: John Shade perceiving and transforming the world, taking it in and taking it apart, re-combining its elements in the very process of them up so as to produce at some unspecified date an organic miracle, a fusion of image and music, a line of verse. And I experienced the same thrill as when in my early boyhood I once watched across the tea table in my uncle's castle a conjurer who had just given a fantastic performance and was now quietly consuming a vanilla ice. I stared at his powdered cheeks, at the magical flower in his buttonhole where it had passed through a succession of different colors and had now become fixed as a white carnation, and especially at his marvelous fluid-looking fingers which could if he chose make his spoon dissolve into a sunbeam by twiddling it, or turn his plate into a dove by tossing it up in the air.

Vladimir Nabokov, Fuoco Pallido, Adelphi, 1962, pp.28-29

Verrà la morte ed avrà il tuo vestito

"Fra il gruppetto ad un tratto si fece largo una giovane signora; snella, con un vestito marrone da viaggio ad ampia tournure, con un cappello di paglia ornato da un velo a pallottoline che non riusciva a nascondere la maliziosa avvenenza del volto. Insinuava una manina guantata di camoscio fra un gomito e l'altro dei piangenti, si scusava, si avvicinava. Era lei, la creatura bramata da sempre che veniva a prenderlo: strano che così giovane com'era si fosse arresa a lui: l'orario di partenza del treno doveva essere vicino. Giunta faccia a faccia con lui sollevò il velo, e così, pudica, ma pronta ad esser posseduta, gli apparve più bella di come mai l'avesse intravista negli spazi stellari. Il fragore del mare si placò del tutto."

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo, 245-6

I comandamenti di Jethro

1. In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him.
2. And Man gave unto God a multitude of names, that he might be Lord of all the earth when it was suited to Man.
3. And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good.
4. And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind.
5. And these lesser men were cast into the void; And some were burned, and some were put apart from their kind.
6. And Man became the God that he had created and with his miracles did rule over all the earth.
7. But as all these things came to pass, the Spirit that did cause man to create his God lived on within all men: even within Aqualung.
8. And man saw it not.
9. But for Christ's sake he'd better start looking.

Il Banchiere

Ti ho prestato le esperienze, quelle di cui necessitavi. Te le ho date perché ti fidi di me, perché io ho premura del tuo essere. Su di esse hai costruito, sei cresciuto, le hai elaborate in pensieri...preziosi pensieri. Ora ti chiedo di restituirmele, insieme a parte dei tuoi pensieri, perché io non ho premura di nessuno, perché a me importa il mio avere, perché io vivo di profitto. Ed ora corri, fuggi via a lamentarti di quanto sia terribile ed angusto il potere, di quanto siano ingiusti il mondo e le persone come me. Ma vuoi sapere la verità? Il potere, il giusto, il mondo, sono concetti che puoi permetterti perché io te li concedo; sono espressioni che non avresti se non fossi mio schiavo. Il potere sono io. Il giusto sono io. Il mondo sono io, e tu come mia estensione.