paul griffiths
snippet of the week Midnightpiece from Selene
They sat in silence across from one another, each supporting his head on one arm, as the light burned low and the moon appeared wan, as if not daring to shine on a Christ by Guido Reni. For a long time they said nothing.
‘There is surely no immortality...’, Gustav asked at length and stretched, as if in a dream, though he moved not a muscle and it seemed he was asking himself.
The prince looked at him and said quickly: ‘Ah, you remain silent for so long.’
‘You're probably mad, Gustav’, he said after another long pause.
Outside great clouds moved across the sky, while in the west there was still a fiery glow in the heavens and the flowers spoke softly to each other. In the east a cold night storm dragged itself in; the wind blew out a window.
Gustav stood up quietly and went slowly to that window; the wind shook his hair wildly. ‘Mad...’, he said, and went on: ‘At least for any human being, being still alive.’
The prince made no response.
‘Gustav’, he sang out after a while. He took hold of him in a curious fashion and asked quietly: ‘Are you a human being?’
Gustav mutely nodded.
‘So why do you nod, you mummy? Today I had a reasonable idea, so I thought. If people believed that after death would come nothingness, their hearts would cry out. It must be a strange God who lets us live only to die but who gave us a voice. You go on living, so why do you not call out, Gustav?’
Gustav pointed at the clouds and said dully: ‘If you exist, God, why did you make people? And if you do not exist, why are we not gods?’
‘Because there are none’, said the prince. ‘Because there is no immortality, there is no god. Not so?’
Gustav made no reply. They left.
(Robert Schumann, November 1828)