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Schrijversbloed kruipt .8 (einde)
Hij begon te lezen. Het werd muisstil. Hij vergat haast dat er anderen aanwezig waren, zo ging hij op in het verhaal dat hij zelf al jaren niet gelezen had. Het was weer helemaal nieuw voor hem.
"The first thing Andrew noticed about his fellow students was their smugness and their contemptuous indifference towards him. He didn't seem to exist for them, but remained almost unnoticed, shut out from the various little groups of people huddled together over morning coffee. And as they didn't bother him, making no effort to include him in their conversation, he soon ceased to care and just drifted aimlessly, preoccupied with his own thoughts.
He should never have come to the university - certainly not to read Law. He had no real friends amongst the other students. There seemed to be nothing he could have done that would have made him one of them. When in their presence he had wanted to appear cheerful like everyone else the forced fire in his voice would scorch his own throat and people would look rather frightened. There had been one or two students of course, the more serious-minded types, who had not glanced up with the same kind of distrust in their eyes; they had even come to accept him in a way. But sometimes, when they spoke to him to involve him in one of their interminable political or philosophical discussions, his own thoughts would come in a kind of mechanical clatter of words to which he himself would listen in helpless dismay. Then he would again sink down into a kind of silent fluid world where he would live like a creature under the sea, until after a while his lungs would stiffen with longing and he just had to break the silence and come up gasping for air. He could never remain under for long or his lungs would burst. He needed to breathe, he needed to live in the human world.
So, at night in his room, Andrew would sit with his head in his hands, the veins throbbing at his temples, listening to the silence, not thinking of anything, looking out at nothing.
He remembered that essay, the essay he'd written for that woman. The topic of the essay - "The Moral Validity of the Law" - had been suggested by her. For three whole months he had brooded over it, and when finally a curt little note from his lecturer informed him that his essay was very much overdue, he gathered up all the stray bits of knowledge and odd bits of homespun philosophy into one shapeless piece of writing and confronted the woman who lectured on the subject.
She was in her middle-thirties, reminding him of one of the teachers he'd had at primary school. She could hardly conceal her annoyance for his failure to submit his work on time. Nevertheless, she would allow him to read it to her and answer any questions she might want to ask about his work. He had not expected this - to have to read it out loud! At first the words and phrases stuck in his throat like crossed sticks and he could say nothing. At last, with a strangled voice, he began to read.
`The essence of individual morality,' he had written, `is the endless inner inquiry into the meaning of one's own life.' How absurd, how absolutely trite, how utterly meaningless it all sounded now. He looked up at the woman who sat opposite him behind the large impressive desk. She looked thoughtful and nodded for him to continue.
He went on, now more and more uncertain of himself. With every paragraph, every sentence, he became increasingly aware of the fact that all his labours had amounted to nothing. For three whole months, night after night, he had been splashing about in the midst of all the crosscurrents of conflicting thoughts and interpretations tugging him each and every way, and all the time he had tried to fashion something, something like a makeshift raft, to improvise something out of whatever bits of flotsam drifted within reach of his wildly thrashing arms. And all for nothing.
When he finally came to the end of his essay he looked up and saw her look calmly, but somewhat curiously at him. He sat uncomfortably on his chair and waited for her comments. He folded the bundle of papers lengthwise and held it firmly in both hands. Her cool eyes, which made her appear so competent, so professional, regarded him a moment longer; as if she was still considering the best way to deal with the whole situation. Her calmness, her composure, made her seem so very aloof.
At last she spoke, choosing her words with the utmost care and precision. She told him that his essay showed evidence of a lot of confused thinking, that he had obviously allowed himself to be carried away by his own strong emotions, and that he had strayed hopelessly into irrelevancy. Objectivity was what his work clearly lacked.
Andrew, who had looked down in embarrassment while she spoke, opened up the pages he held in his hands and tried to find the one or two places where, in his opinion, he had come to some logically valid conclusions about so vague and subjective a notion as individual morality.
"You seem to have strayed rather far afield into something... er... something rather personal, something too personal, I feel..." the woman continued. "Preoccupations of such an unusually personal nature, such personal self-revelations as the ones you have given here, are not really what we require of our students, pursuing as they do a purely academic - and therefore impersonal, dispassionate, objective - line of enquiry. In another context perhaps, certainly not at the university, but in the therapeutic setting between patient and psychiatrist, for instance, your observations might be of considerable value. They may help you deal with some of the underlying personal problems..."
This accusation struck him in the face like a brick. Was this, then, all these pages written straight from the heart as it were, was this search for answers to some of the most fundamental questions of life, was all this then so unacceptable, so offensive or distasteful a matter that she could not bear to have an open discussion about them - but refer him to a psychiatrist! At last he spat out a mouthful of choking words.
"What's wrong with it?" he asked feverishly. "What's wrong with trying in all honesty to establish for oneself the meaning of morality and of moral life. It is a personal question, certainly, but without any personal involvement your so-called academic enquiry is worthless..." He stopped abruptly and was immediately aware of her expression of calm superiority. She looked at him as if she didn't quite know what to make of him, but would do her best to cope with the situation.
"You haven't really tackled the topic, which was after all The Moral Validity of the Law, and which calls for a reasonably abstract treatment. Surely you must see that. What you have done instead is to write, not about the law, not about the rules of society, or the individual's duty to obey them, but about yourself, about the duty you feel you have towards yourself only, which reads almost as if it were some kind of confession meant for the ears of a priest. You have presented some of your own moral - personal is perhaps a better word for it - at any rate moral or personal or psychological ... er... dilemmas, and your own attempted analysis of them. You've even used the first personal singular pronoun `I' throughout the essay..."
"But that is all one ever can do", Andrew asserted blindly. "To write in the first person singular of what one knows. There is no other way. One must confess. The meaning of one's whole life is in one's confession - the sum total of all that one is willing to reveal about one's self. The truth about oneself, the naked truth, is discovered only by stripping, by taking off all those fine, elegant, or comfortable clothes and by standing naked before the mirror of one's soul. It is one's duty to oneself - one's only duty. The rest is meaningless - vapid abstractions about society..."
He was breathless. He didn't know what he was saying anymore. Nor did he give a damn.
"Oh come now!" said the startled woman.
"No, I will not come..."
"Do you really think that a person with any intelligence would make such wild assertions, such silly remarks..."
"Ah, intelligence," he shouted hoarsely. "Your person with intelligence, intelligence sharp as a razor-blade, and probably just as thin, that's the sort of person who'd never find out what life is all about. And you know why? Because he's quite comfortable, thank you, with all those abstract notions that represent, that merely represent, real experience. The sort of person afraid to experience anything more upsetting than a common cold or an infected wisdom-tooth. That's the sort of person that can't ever be shaken, can't be moved or disturbed, can't ever be flung into doubts about anything - the sort of person that's always so damned sure. So fat-arsedly certain about everything."
"Oh come now," the woman protested again. "Don't you think you should perhaps see one of the student counsellors - they are all qualified psychologists, you know. They could perhaps help you..."
But by now Andrew felt too burnt and frayed to stay a moment longer. Flames of hot despair and anger shot up in his throat. He could think of only one thing now, to get away from the woman, to get away from the whole situation, and from himself. He quickly left the room, clutching his essay.
For days afterwards he had known nothing but confusion. He would picture the whole scene again, sometimes repeating to himself aloud what she had said to him and what he had said to her and what he really should have said to her had he thought of it at the time. In the end he had grown tired of it all and had ceased to care. It was no use wearing out your mind like that, like a pair of shoes on which you walked round and round in circles never getting anywhere. Why had she been so revolted at his self-revelations or confessions, call it what you will? What was so obscene about revealing part of your soul, part of your inner life? Obscene? Anyone would think he had taken out his private parts there in front of her and waved them in her face.
Andrew could now look back on that whole year, his first year at the university, on all that unlived life, and know that nothing, absolutely nothing had any value or meaning for him now."
Na afloop van het verhaal pauzeerde hij, nam een slok water en zei: "Zo is het genoeg geweest. Jullie hebben waar voor je geld gekregen zou ik zo zeggen. Schrijvers in spe roep ik nogmaals op om aan te dringen op creatieve writing cursussen op de universiteit. Als jullie nog vragen hebben dan graag straks in de koffiekamer. Het is jullie laatste kans, want zoiets als vandaag doe ik nooit weer. Dit was eenmalig. Een knap iemand die me hierna nog vanachter m'n schrijftafel vandaan krijgt."
feedback van andere lezers- Dora
"So fat-arsedly certain about everything."
Ik heb ervan genoten.. Je snijdt door "zekerheden" heen als door natte ontbijtkoek. Dat mag ik wel...
Goede karakterisering zit er in het vroege werk
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