| Ivan Ilyitch's chief torment was a lie, -- the lie somehow
accepted by everyone, that he was only sick, but not dying, and that he needed only to be
calm, and trust to the doctors, and then somehow he would come out all right. But he knew
that, whatever was done, nothing would come of it, except still more excruciating
anguish and death. And this lie tormented him; it tormented him that they were unwilling
to acknowledge what all knew as well as he knew, but preferred to lie to him about his
terrible situation, and made him also a party to the lie. This lie, this lie, it clung to
him, even to the very evening of his death; to the same level as visits, curtains,
sturgeon for dinner -- it was horribly painful for Ivan Ilyitch. And strange! many times,
when they were playing this farce for his benefit, he was within a hair's breadth of
shouting at them: "Stop your foolish lies! you know as well as I know that I am dying, and so at least stop lying." But he never had the spirit to do this. Tolstoy |
I was alone in that cemetery overlooking the village when a
pregnant woman came in. I left at once, in order not to look at this corpse-bearer at
close range, nor to ruminate upon the contrast between an aggressive womb and the
time-worn tombs -- between a false promise and the end of all promises. The advantages of a state of eternal potentiality seem to me so considerable that when I begin listing them, I can't get over the fact that the transition to Being could ever have occurred. Existence = Torment. The equation seems obvious to me, but not to one of my friends. How to convince him? I cannot lend him my sensations; yet only they would have the power to persuade him, to give him that additional dose of ill-being he has so insistently asked for all this time. E.M Cioran 'Hic est locus ubi mors gaudet succurso vitae.' Inscription on autopsy rooms worldwide |
| He fumbles at your Soul As Players at the Keys Before they drop full Music on -- He stuns you by degrees -- Prepares your brittle Nature For the Ethereal Blow By fainter Hammers -- further heard -- Then nearer -- Then so slow Your breath has time to straighten -- Your brain to bubble Cool -- Deals -- One -- imperial -- Thunderbolt -- That scalps your naked Soul -- When Winds take Forests in their Paws -- The Universe -- is still -- Emily Dickinson |
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