Laszlo Krasznahorkai - Seiobo There Below

She lay recumbent and he pulled the sheet off her, so he could see the whole of what Augustine had become, when his heart, shattered by the pain, nearly stopped in his chest; he pulled off the sheet, because he is used to doing this in other cases as well: when he sits outside on the slope of the Grammont, or at Chexbres in the heights of Saint-Prex, and his brain, his soul utterly tautened, he pulls the sheet down from the landscape, and he sets to looking above the blank canvas, then to take up evenly, from left to right, with a thick brush or ever more frequently with the painting knife itself, the blue, the violet, the green, and the yellow, namely, when he begins to work on a canvas, or to make it even more plain; for years now he has been painting a single picture where only the canvas is exchanged, but the picture is almost always the same, where the colors too, and the parallel planes, and the proportions of sky and water and earth, too, in the picture are, in their essence, the same — he pulled the sheet off, and he saw what remained, what there was, and this lasted for a long while, as he watched with his tautened brain; until he can smooth the sheet back into place; and he feels not only his heart but his mind is shattering from the loss, because he must think, and his mind very nearly shattered in the thinking, during the entire previous evening, which he spent next to the dead woman, and it will shatter again, he determines with his clattering brain here before the ticket desk, for as much as he knows that he is really within the proximity of what he sees, he still does not however see it in its final form in that picture — its essence constructed according to already inviolable principles — he knows that he still has to modify something, maybe the yellow has to be a little more dirty, maybe the blue a little harsher, something somehow has to be modified from what it has been until now, with Lake Geneva he’s headed in the right direction, but to know exactly where to now, what is to be the next step, for that he needs that brain in his head, and he would need the ticket already, which he can’t manage to get to as he is still standing here in front of the ticket counter and there are still four people in front of him.

Valentine, too, is going to die, the thought lacerates through him suddenly as he stands in line, Valentine will also lay recumbent, the dreaded thought slashes through him, and he will not be able to bear that either, then so it shall be, Valentine as well, that inconceivably beautiful, immeasurably alluring, maddeningly sensual, exquisite woman, his current lover, to whom he is rushing with this loss and with his mind tautened in pain; she too will end up like everyone and everything, recumbent in the blue strip, falling into bed, becoming gaunt, her skin drying up, her face falling in, her chest caving in, and that marvelous flesh will come off her down to the bones, just as it did with Augustine, just as with his mother and his father and his siblings and his relatives in his beloved Bern, exactly the same, exactly the same as every dead person here and there and everywhere, but first, the news will come, if it indeed happens like that, and finds one in the midst of this atrocious life, and he will start to go to her again and again, maybe with the number one express every afternoon, just as he did with Augustine since September, to always be there, so as to be there beside her bed, day in and day out, just so that she would not have to die alone; if the time comes maybe everything will be exactly the same as with Augustine — he just stands in line, there are still four people in front of him, and he tries to brush off the thought, but it doesn’t work — Augustine and Valentine — it throbs in his brain, and he sees them already, the two of them dead, one atop the other, stretched out at length, like the strips of color on his canvases, like the beginning and end of existence in the Cosmic Whole, two bodies emaciated to skeletons with sunken-in eyes, tapering noses, lying stretched out above each other as the water lies above the ground, the mighty sky lies above the water, swimming in the blue of death.

Maybe everything truly does happen exactly in the same way — Kienzl finally steps forward one place in line — because every story repeats itself, life unto life, and at the end of course: death unto death, he thinks with a clouded countenance, well he is not the painter of death, he says, but of life, and now he even speaks the words aloud, nearly comprehensibly for those who are standing in close proximity to him, he doesn’t know, nor is he even interested, if they hear what he is mumbling, the painter of life, he repeats it several times, of life, which he loves unspeakably, he loved it in Augustine and he loves it in Valentine, that is why he has painted even its tiniest vibration for these long years now, that is why it is so important, finally a matter of life and death, to place the most decisive emphasis on this vibration, in Augustine and in Lake Geneva, to give it emphasis, if he sees it in the local death, this is his task and so he does it, because it is right, he cannot do otherwise, he must be the painter of oneness, thus, well, he must give himself over to death, but nothing can compel him not to find a place for that mere wisp of a fact, the presence of life, its eternal rebirth, in the green and gold — not to put it up there where it flashes, he will search for a place for it, and he will put it up there, thinks Kienzl, and now in his horrifically tautened brain, a picture appears from the Geneva material, painted not long ago, in which the gray-blue of the water extends toward a strong, earthy yellow strip below, in layers of color that follow and distance themselves from each other, giving depth and majesty to the scene; then there is the opposite shore of the lake, depicted with a thin green, a pale violet, and a more poisonous green: all of this is below, enclosed in the lower third of the canvas, so that then he can paint the sky into the gigantic space, into the two-thirds of the canvas extending above it, above the horizon of the far shore, some kind of weak, paler than pale sunlight, declining in gold with its swirling fog, then high above, just the pure blue of the pure sky, repeating clusters of white clouds following upon each other, accordingly, then, roughly twelve layers placed above each other: and with these roughly twelve layers placed above each other, with these crude twelve deathly parallels, is flung down there, as coarsely as possible: This is your Cosmos, this is Complete, the Whole, in roughly twelve colors: EVERYTHING, from Kienzl — and now — he stands shifting from one leg to the other in the line — it is yours.

There are three people in front of him, and now he simply doesn’t believe his eyes, such slowness as this cannot exist, the old man, the railway official selling tickets behind the window, he sees clearly from here, is slowing down the process in every possibly conceivable manner, after the destination has been stated, he repeatedly asks in confirmation, Morges, really? Nyon, yes? well that is wonderful, I wish you the very best, that truly promises to be a pleasant trip, so then you will want a ticket to Céligny, is that right? If I may ask, in which class of carriage does the gentleman wish to travel? First-class, that is simply marvelous, a demonstration of truly excellent taste, and I can assure you that it shall be exceptionally comfortable, so then, Morges? Nyon? Céligny? Lausanne? in a word it goes like that all the way up the line, in the most roundabout fashion possible, again and again bringing things to a complete halt through some discreet question, or through gushing inanities, in addition to which, Kienzl now realizes, his face reddening in rage, the people standing in front of him even visibly enjoy and appreciate it, what a sweet old man, someone notes, ticket in hand, as they turn away from the counter, passing by Kienzl — this blithering oaf, he shakes his head in disbelief, yes, Morges, he mutters loudly to himself, yes, Nyon, yes, yes, Céligny, and Lausanne, don’t you hear, my good man, what they are saying? — Morges, Nyon, Céligny, yes, give them the tickets already, that should be your worry, to hell with it, and he flings all of this into the discreet silence, no one reacts, everyone tries to look as if they haven’t heard anything, and as if they wouldn’t even understand why Monsieur Kienzl is so impatient, for there is surely much time left before the train departs, and certainly not even three minutes have passed since he got into line, they don’t understand, but they don’t even really dare to contemplate the matter lest something be visible on their faces, because Monsieur Kienzl seems invariably and inexpressibly dangerous, the glances are turned away, the eyes cast down, then a tiny cough or two, then not even that, just the silence, and the patient waiting, and some kind of general agreement and forgiveness — which just infuriates him, Kienzl, all the more — for everyone knows what happened yesterday, that Mademoiselle Augustine Dupin, Mr. Kienzl’s former model from the slums, died, and they know what this poor lady could have suffered, and what Monsieur Kienzl himself must be suffering, and how magnanimously he behaved with that poor pariah, he, the celebrated painter of the city, who in the space of a couple of years had become a millionaire, providing her with the very best, sitting every day — and for hours! — by the dying woman’s bed, thus giving proof of his strong, faithful nature, for he certainly did not abandon her in any way, she who in his one-time destitution was not only his model, but in the most intimate sense of the word, his companion, moreover the mother of their little boy, in a word the city knew everything, but everything about the events of yesterday and the events proceeding yesterday, and of course here among the people waiting for a ticket, the situation was no different, they, however, also recognized and knew well that it would be better not to confront his vehement nature, namely that he was increasingly giving evidence of being incapable of mastering his pain, and one inappropriate word would be enough and he might just hurl himself at one of them, and finally, out of the present-day gentleman — the wealthy and dignified artist — the former ill-mannered, scruffy vagabond of Bern, just as familiar to everyone there, will burst out.