252
ISE BALAsz-RAK6CZY
it up for you."
"Reason is heartless. In his library, my father had the complete works
of Voltaire, bound in green. And also the
Encyclopedie,
for which he
must have paid a great deal of money. He had a puerile love of
knowledge - like a little boy. Hoarding his facts greedily like the trea–
sures in a small boy's pocket. My room, too, is full of treasures. On the
chimney piece are Katje's Meissen magpies, and between them an old
clock I salvaged from the house. Chronos, like Atlas, carries an orb en–
circled by the hours, while above him the Fates spin. The clock is bro–
ken, but [ see very few patients and have no need to guard my time."
"Above it is a portrait by W ojnakowski in pastels - a pretty young
girl with a goldfinch. When [ asked Katje who she was, her face grew
unusually grave. 'That,' she said, 'is Mademoiselle Sophie. She was per–
haps seventeen or eighteen when Bonaparte's armies came through and
two officers were billeted in the house. One of them was particularly
handsome and filled with the ideals of republicanism. Sophie had just
spent her first, disillusioning season at court after a childhood among the
Carmelites, and had not yet had time to come to terms with things as
they are. She was ripe to have her head turned. When the army moved
on to the invasion of Russia, little Sophie followed her officer.
As
you
can see, she was a delicate, carefully tended child, quite unable to look
after herself. She had the courage to leave her cage, but none of the re–
sources to survive. She was taken outside Moscow and raped repeatedly,
the SnOw around her body turning pink with her blood. The officer
eventually wrote
to
the family and, to his credit, shot himself in the
mouth.' "
"Katje told this as a tragedy, which, of course, it was. And yet ...
she
escaped,
little Sophie; she had her moment of free flight. She loved
passionately and was loved. What more does it take to complete a life?"
[ grew silent at this point, and Freud did not interrupt. Eventually, I
resumed.
"I know you don't care for religion . Nevertheless, I find myself vis–
ited by faith - a fact for which [ will not apologize and that [ cannot
explain . Yet, that gift alone makes life good . Whatever can be
willed
or
figured out turns out in the end to be trivial. Sometimes, prayer bursts
out of me . [ call it by that conventional name but, really, it is just an
overflowing. Although [ cannot ever explicate what I've said, these
words seem to be my only true ones: 0 heart, 0 pulsing 0 beating
heart, 0 wounded 0 weeping heart 0 heartworld 0 my heart!"
"Three years ago, [ was suffering from severe palpitations. They
would last for hours and leave me washed out and terrified. Then, one
day, as [ was looking at that old picture, these words came out of me.
