The Oath Read Free

Life too.”
    “And death too?”
    “Yes. Death too.”
    And lowering his voice, the old man continues: “But you will never see Kolvillàg. So you have nothing to fear. You have been spared the worst.” And in an even lower voice, almost a whisper: “I am not telling you not to despair of man, I only ask you not to offer death one more victim, one more victory. It does not deserve it, believe me. The most beautiful of deaths is hardly that; there is no beautiful death. Nor is there a just death. Every death is absurd. Useless. And ugly. Is that your wish? To add to the ugliness of the world? I am telling you to resist. Whether life has a meaning or not, what matters is not to make a gift of it to death. All you will get in return is a corpse. And corpses stink—I know something about that. Stay, I tell you. Stay on the threshold. Like myself. And like myself you will avenge Kolvillàg …
    “Kolvillàg: you don’t know what it is. A melodious, enticingname, don’t you think? You wouldn’t think of a slaughterhouse. And yet, and yet. But I must stop. Don’t worry, my dead friends: I shall not repudiate you, I shall not allow a stranger to desecrate your sanctuary. I shall be careful. The event shall remain whole. I shall tell neither cause nor effect. I shall not reveal the enormity of the secret, I shall only indicate its existence. I shall show only the spark. One glimmer will be enough. If afterwards you still want to die, my young friend, you will at least know why.
    “What I saw in Kolvillàg, not only during its last night, was the eruption of total violence, the rule of madness in the absolute sense, as though the absolute had become unhinged. As though the Creator, in a fit of joyous and destructive rage, had granted full freedom to His creatures, from the greatest to the most insignificant; and these creatures, crazed by their burden of divinity, driven to madness and nothingness, suddenly resembled one another in their passionate hatred and vengefulness.
    “Caught in the turmoil, adolescents and parents, beggars and rich men, wise men and fools uttered the same unheeded cry. Slayers and victims foundered in the same well, condemned to the same anonymity. Good and evil fought over the same role, the same privileges. At one point, had I dared, I should have cried out: ‘Woe to us, God is not God! Woe to man, the Master of the Universe has gone mad!’ But I dared not. And then, there was my promise, my pledge. I tightened my lips, bit them till they bled; I did not shout. Sheltered by the woods, high above the valley, I watched the conflagration spreading, approaching by huge leaps. I didn’t run, I didn’t panic; I didn’t even move. I thought: What for? And also: Let him come, the avenger, I am expecting him, I’ll relinquish this tree, thisforest of trees to him, I shall give them to him as an offering, I shall gladly yield to him both the mountain and the valley. And the rest with it.”
    Suddenly the old man shivers. “And you, aren’t you cold?”
    “No.”
    A foolish question, but the old man is always cold. Old age? Lack of sleep? Even in summer he wears two shirts.
    “Are you hungry?”
    “No.”
    “Thirsty?”
    “No.”
    Speak, the old man thinks. The best way. Make him speak. Speak to him. As long as we keep speaking, he is in my power. One does not commit suicide in the middle of a sentence. One does not commit suicide while speaking or listening. Nor in the middle of a meal. Make him eat, drink, get drunk. But nothing interests him. And yet, and yet. He should be roused, shaken. Go on speaking? How long? On whose behalf, on behalf of what? On behalf of the dead. What business is it of mine? And yet, and yet. One must act, do something, anything, invoke a certainty, any certainty. To hell with principles, vows. The true contest must take place on the level of the individual. It is here, in the present, that the Temple is reclaimed or demolished. It is not by legitimizing