Blindly (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) Read Free

spray against walls of cloud. There’s quite a bit of shouting, alone or in a crowd—no, you’re never alone, someone’s always on your back—but there’s never anyone to answer when you ask for something you need. They all keep quiet then, like Sir George who remains silent when he receives my entreaties to forward my Petition for Pardon to London, after so many years in the penal colony down here.
    I even mention Achilles and Agamemnon in there—as I read in that book I wrote, I bring them up saying that only kings and heroes like them require a Homer to sing their deeds—in order to make an impression on the governor and those at the Van Diemen’s Land Company. They should get it through their heads, and keep in mind, that not only can I handle an axe to repair the blade of an oar or cut a road through the forest—even better than many other convicts—but I can also wield a pen; it’s true that I set sail when I was fourteen years old on an English collier carrying coalfrom Newcastle to Copenhagen and sailed for four years between London and the Baltic, but I’ve read my share of books—and even written them—and I know the ancients maybe even better than our chaplain Bobby Knopwood knows the Bible.
    But with this lot it’s a waste of effort. The only books they’re capable of reading are the company ledgers, with those fine profits resulting from its monopoly, and the Admiralty’s registries. Comrade Blasich—Professor Blasich, who taught high school—was a swine and sent me to that hellhole Goli Otok on purpose I think, but at least, with his Greek and Latin, he was able to appreciate culture; besides, the Party has always admired intellectuals and taught us to admire them, even when it silenced them, maybe forever.—But what difference does it make now, why are you asking me about Blasich, that’s a different story, what do I have to do with it, let me catch my breath, don’t confuse me, I’m confused enough as it is, like everyone else, for that matter ...
    Just let me finish, I was talking about Achilles and Agamemnon, who have a Homer conveniently at hand to sum up their exploits, while I have to do it all on my own, live, fight, lose and write. And it’s only fitting. It would be unseemly if they had to also start recapping the day—what with their battles, divine apparitions and the downfall of lineages and cities; it would be like requiring them to personally aid the wounded and bury the dead. They have slaves devoted to Aesculapius and gravediggers for that, just as they have stewards who cut their meat for dinner, and a bard who sings at the end of the meal and puts their lives in order, while they listen to him all sluggish and somnolent.
    Right, somnolence is a regal quality. Things drift away, muffled as though under a blanket of snow; do whatever has to be done, even kill or die, but indifferently. The rich, the powerful, possess thisbeatific unconcern, and we scum of the earth are here to shatter it for them, yet I too possess this sovereign virtue, and that’s why I’m still here, regardless of all the things that have fallen upon me, always, since I was a child, like the ceiling of the Hall of Knights, the walls and heavy portraits enveloped by flames in the fire at the Royal Palace of Christiansborg in Copenhagen, and there I am, indifferent to the blaze and the destruction, to the Black Tower that collapses with a roar, to the embers raining down on me; a child, but already regally lethargic amid the bedlam of the catastrophe, I who later reigned in Iceland for three weeks, indifferent as well to the ridiculous brevity of my reign, king only by virtue of this somnolence, which has protected my heart from the sharp hostility of things ... What’s that? No, Doctor, don’t delude yourself, those pills and medications of yours have nothing to do with it, this calm is my own doing—as for the rest, however, galley slave, common seaman, convict, sentenced to manage the sails,