TZVETAN TODOROV
The Labor of Love
One of the most beautiful novels of the twentieth century, Selma Lagerlof's
The Emperor oj Portugallia,
opens with a scene presenting the birth of a lit–
tle girl seen through the mind of her father Jan, a wretched agricultural
worker, impoverished and generally a failure. Having married somewhat
late in life, he now must deal with his wife's pregnancy as it comes to term.
After a day spent waiting outside the door, he is now cold and tired, and
his mind comes to dwell on the cares that the little one will bring to his
household. Still, he enters the birthing room and into his arms is placed a
package out of which protrude a worn face and a pair of tiny hands. He
suddenly feels his heart beat so powerfully that he is terrified, and is on the
verge of asking the women present for help, but they quickly grasp his
predicament and burst out laughing. "Have you never cared for anyone
enough to set your heart throbbing?" asks the midwife. Jan mus t concede
that he has not, though he now begins to comprehend what is happening
to him. Selma LagerlOf comments that "One who feels his heart beat nei–
ther in sadness nor in joy cannot be considered a true human being."
The Emperor
if
Portugallia
is the story of a father's mad love for his
daughter. It does not take long for us to see that the stakes are not small,
either for protagonist or author: the issue to be decided is the question of
what makes a person truly human. The question of human identity can be
formulated in various contexts, leading to different answers. The findings
of the biologist, for example, who attempts to identifY the physiological
border between man and other animals, will not coincide wi th those of the
paleontologist identifYing the starting point for
homo sapiens sapiens.
Lagerlof's treatment is on yet another level which one might call anthro–
pological, and is contained in one word: Love. The capacity to love is what
makes a being human.
It
is easy enough to see the beauty or generosity in such a statement,
but can one go so far as to assert its truth? Before expressing an opinion
on this question, I would remind the reader of another attempt to locate
what is specifically human, one that unfolds on the same anthropological
level. In the nineteen-thirties, Alexandre Kojeve, a young emigre Russian
philosopher living in Paris, explained to a small but captivated audience the
meaning of the famous "dialectic of master and servant" in Hegel's
Phenomenology
if
the Mind;
after the war, a member of the audience-none
