NORMAN MANEA
539
much the American sentences expressed the American mythology of
renewal. The natural and the sudden surprises, the regeneration of the
daily travesty, the complete changing of one's appearance, personality,
preferences, the need to "get ahead," at any cost. Avoiding lament,
accepting challenges, no matter how unfavorable, but not defeat.
Assuming destiny individually, yes, one could say so, as his new fellow
American countrymen were saying.
Throughout this crisis Berenger is concerned, not with the human condition,
but with his own. The people of his village transforming into Rhinoceroses
affects Berenger's own life.
Yes, it was true, I knew how it was when Rhinoceroses multiply
around the solitary man.
He maintains that, had it happened elsewhere ("if only it had happened some–
where else"), it could have been discussed logically and rationally. There was
even the potential for it to become instructive and educational in its sensibilities.
Indeed, had it happened elsewhere...it would have been a logical,
instructive discussion, but encircled, under siege, one barely has the
strength
to
breathe.
However, because it involves Berenger on such an immediate level, he is unable
to deal with the situation on any basis of integrity. His fear of the disruption of
his own existence blocks out his ability to be rational.
Yes, it blocks it, perhaps. It would have been reasonable to give up
everything, to run finally,
to
free himself from everything and from
himself, to start all over again in a new world and in a new life.
Integrity... integrity had existed, though! The isolation, the contrac–
tion in the narrow cell of the room preserved integrity-at least partly.
One must not forget that! No, one cannot forget the sacrifices and risks
of solitude, that's what the professor was thinking.
His fear of the disruption of his own existence blocks out his ability to be ratio–
nal. ..the concept of structural unity and of independent responsibility for choice,
that lays the foundation for democracy, would be obsolete...again we are shown
Berenger's character to be one lacking the strength to sustain his own moral free–
dom. He is certainly no advocate who would sustain the freedom of society.
