Chapter 13 secret miracle

Allah raised him up after one hundred years of his death and asked him, "How long have you been here?" "A day, or less than a day," he replied. Chapter Two, Section 261 On March 14, 1939, Jaromil Hladik, author of the unfinished tragedy "The Enemy", dreamed of a chess game played for a long time in an apartment on Zetna Street in Prague , also wrote The Eternal Debate and an account of Jacob Behm's indirect roots.It was not two individuals who played chess, but two prominent families; the chess game had begun centuries ago; no one could remember the prize money, but it was said to be large, even infinite; the pieces and board were placed on In a secret tower; Jaromil (in the dream) was the eldest son of one of two rival families; I can't afford the appearance of chess pieces and the rules of chess.At this moment, he woke up.The noisy rain and the dreadful bells had died away.Downstairs in Zettner Street came rhythmic and consistent sounds, occasionally mixed with some passwords.

On March 19, the authorities received a tip; that evening, Jaromir Hladik was arrested.He was taken to a sterile, whitewashed barracks across the Vltava.He could not deny any of the charges against him by the Gestapo: his mother's surname was Yaroslavsky, he was of Jewish ancestry, his research on Bem was evidence of Judaism, a statement protesting the German annexation of Austria Has his signature. In 1928, he translated "Sefir Yezra" for Hermann Basdorf Publishing House; the publisher's exhaustive book catalog exaggerated the translator's reputation for commercial purposes; One of the officers, Julius Roth, looked through the catalog.Men are prone to credulity in anything but their own profession; two or three adjectives printed in the German alphabet were enough to convince Julius Roth that Horadric was no fool, and decided to use "demagogy" sentenced him to death.The execution date is set at 9:00 am on March 29.This delay, the importance of which the reader will soon see, was due to the administration's desire to proceed as objectively and systematically as the growth of plants and the motions of the heavenly bodies.

Horadric's first feeling was nothing but horror.He did not think that hanging, beheading, or execution would frighten him, but execution by shooting was intolerable.He kept telling himself that it was the sheer and general act of death that was terrible, not the specific details.He imagined the details tirelessly: an absurd attempt to exhaust the variations.He endlessly pre-conceived the whole process, from the dawn after a sleepless night to the mysterious moment when the guns were fired.Before the day appointed by Julius Roth, he had died hundreds of times in his imagination. The execution places had various geometric shapes, and the execution soldiers were of different shapes and numbers, sometimes standing tall. Very far, and sometimes very close.He faced those imaginary executions with real fear (and perhaps real courage); each lasting a few seconds at a time; and when the cycle was over, Jaromil returned endlessly to his uneasy dying eve.Reality, he thought later, could not always coincide with foresight; he deduced with cunning logic that a specific detail could be prevented from happening by anticipating a specific detail.He believed in that unreliable magic, invented some unbearable features in order to prevent them from happening; and naturally feared that those things had to be real.He torments himself at night, trying to affirm the fleeting nature of time.He knows that time is running day and night toward the dawn of the 29th; and he says to himself: It is the night of the 29th, and I am alive; as long as tonight (six nights) last, I will not Death, no one can do anything to me.In his imagination those dreamy nights were deep, dark pools in which he could hide.Sometimes he grew impatient, hoping that the final volley would be fired quickly, so that he could get rid of his dreams at least. On the 28th, when the last rays of the setting sun shone on the high bars, the image of his script "The Enemy" diverted those humble thoughts.

Horadric was over forty.Apart from a few friends and many habitual things, his life was dominated by questionable literary activities; like all writers, he judged the achievements of others by what they had already done, but asked Others judge himself by the work he conceived or planned.In examining the works of Mu, Abu Nasra, and Flood, he is chiefly dedicated; in translating Sefir Yezra, he is chiefly characterized by negligence, boredom, and speculation.He may have thought that the Eternal Arguments had fewer defects: the first book deals with every kind of eternity one can imagine, from the static reality of Parmenides to the mutable past of Hinton; Francis Bradley) denies that everything in the universe forms a temporal series.He proposes that the possible experiences one encounters are not infinite, and that a single "repeat" is enough to prove that time is an illusion... Unfortunately, the arguments for that illusion are equally false; Horadric often browses through the those arguments.He also wrote a series of expressionist poems; what he didn't understand was that these poems were included in an anthology published in 1924, and later anthologies were also included.Horadric hopes to use the poetic drama "The Enemy" to change the false name of the past. (Hladik admired poetry because it kept the audience from forgetting the unreality of art.)

The play follows the unity of time, place, and plot; the story takes place in the library of Baron Römerstadt, in Hradchany Castle, on an afternoon at the end of the nineteenth century.Act I, Scene 1 A stranger visits Römerstadt. (The clock strikes seven, the setting sun shines fiercely on the window panes, and the rapid familiar sound of Hungarian music is heard in the air.) The stranger was followed by other guests; Römerstadt did not know those who disturbed him , but wondered where, maybe I saw them in a dream.Those without exception flattered him, but in the eyes of others—first of all the spectators at the theatre, and secondly the Baron himself—they were secret enemies plotting his life.Römerstadt managed to prevent or disrupt the complex plots of these people; the conversation mentioned his girlfriend Yulia Dweideneuf, and also mentioned a man named Yaroslav Kubin who asked Yu Leah is a gallant.The man is now deranged and thinks he is Römerstadt... The danger intensifies; at the end of the second act Römerstadt has to kill a conspirator.The third and final act begins.The incoherence gradually increases: actors who seem to have been excluded from the plot return; the man killed by Römerstadt also returns once.Someone pointed out that it was not yet dusk: the clock struck seven, the setting sun reflected on the high glass windows, and there was a rush of Hungarian music in the air.The first interlocutor enters the scene, repeating what he said in Act I, Scene 1.Römerstadt was not surprised when he talked to him; the audience understood that Römerstadt was the unfortunate Yaroslav Kubin.The plot doesn't develop at all: it's just Kubin's ruminations going round and round.

Horadric never examines whether this absurd tragi-comedy is petty or brilliant, rigorous or languid.As can be seen from the brief introduction to the plot, the fictional method is best suited to cover up the faults, develop the strengths, and make it possible (symbolically) to retell the main experiences of his life.One of the first and third acts was already written; the metrical nature of the libretto enabled him to continually refine the hexameter lines even when the original manuscript was not at hand.There were two acts left, he thought, but he was going to die soon.He prayed to God in the dark.I exist anyway, I am not one of your repetitions and omissions, I exist as the author of The Enemy.That screenplay can be a testament to me and to you, and it will take me another year to finish it.Century and time belong to you, please give me a year of days.It was the last night, the most difficult night, but ten minutes later, the dream drowned him like black water.

At dawn he dreamed that he was in the reading room of the Clementino Library.A librarian in dark glasses asked him what he was looking for.Horadric replied to God.The administrator said to him: God is in a certain letter on a certain page of a certain volume in the 400,000 volumes of the Clementino Library.My parents, my parents' parents looked for the letter; I looked for it myself, and I was blinded.He took off his glasses, and Horadric realized that he was indeed blind.A reader came in to return an atlas.This atlas is useless, said the steward, handing the atlas to Horadric.Horadric flipped through it casually.He was dazed to see a map of India.He suddenly felt blessed and pointed to one of the letters. ~A ubiquitous voice says: Your requested working hours have been approved.Horadric woke up suddenly.

He remembered that the dreams that people have belonged to God, and that Maimonides had said that words in a dream were divine if they were clearly discernible and the speaker was invisible.He dressed; two soldiers entered the fourth room, and bade him go with them. In Horadric's imagination, there was a labyrinth of corridors, stairs, and pavilions outside the door.The reality was not so colorful; they descended the only iron ladder into a backyard.Several soldiers—one with his uniform unbuttoned—checked a motorcycle, chattering.The sergeant major looked at his watch: eight forty-four.Have to wait until nine o'clock.Feeling more lost than unhappy, Horadric sat down on a pile of firewood.He noticed that the soldiers were avoiding his eyes.The military chief handed him a cigarette to while away the waiting time.Horadric didn't smoke; but out of politeness and humility, he took it.When he lit a cigarette, he noticed that his hands were shaking violently.The sky was overcast; the soldiers murmured as if he were dead.He tried to imagine what the woman representing Yulia Deweideneuve looked like, but he couldn't remember...

The firing squad stood in a row.Horadric stood with his back against the wall of the barracks, waiting to be fired.Someone worried that the walls would be stained with blood; the prisoner was ordered to take a few steps forward.Horadric absurdly imagines the photographer telling his subjects to pose.A drop of rain fell heavily on one temple and trickled down his cheek; the sergeant-major yelled his final orders. The material world froze. The guns focused on Horadric, but the soldiers who were about to kill him did not move.The Sergeant Major's raised arm froze in an incomplete gesture.The shadow of a bee on the tiles in the backyard is also fixed.The wind stopped at attention.Horadric tried to shout, made a sound, twisted his hand.He knew he couldn't move.He cannot hear the slightest sound of the contained world.He thought: I am in hell.I'm mad.Time has stood still.Later, he thought, if this is the case, then his thinking should also stagnate.He has an experiment: he recites (lips do not move) Virgil's enigmatic fourth idyll.He imagined that the distant soldiers must be as anxious as he was; he longed to communicate with them.What surprised him was that he didn't feel tired or dizzy after staying so motionless for so long.After some time, he fell asleep.When I woke up, the world was still motionless and silent.He still has that drop of rain on his face; the shadow of a bee on the floor tiles; his smoke is still in the air and will never go away.By the time the Horadric understood, another "day" had passed.

In order to finish the work at hand, he asked God to give him a full year, and the Almighty God granted him a year.God had wrought a mysterious miracle on him: the German bullets should have ended his life at the definite moment, but in his mind the interval between the issuing of the order and its execution lasted a full year.First confusion and consternation, then endurance, and finally sudden gratitude. He had no papers at his disposal but his memory; each added line of hexameters he memorized by heart, thereby attaining an accuracy and rigor of those who conjure up whole stanzas at a stroke and then forget them. unattainable.He’s not writing Smoke for posterity, or God for he’s ignorant of God’s literary preferences.With all his energy, motionless, and secretly, he created an invisible labyrinth in the field of time.He rewrote the third act twice.Removed some overly obvious symbols: such as repeated bells and music.There are no distractions.In some places, deletions and deletions were made, in some places it was expanded; sometimes the original idea was restored.He even developed a fondness for the backyard and the barracks; a face among the soldiers made him change his conception of Roemerstadt's character.He finds that the homophones, which Flaubert so abhorred, are mere visual fetishes: the weakness and trouble of the written word, which the spoken word has no such problems... He ends the play: only one qualitative adjective is missing.Finally found the word; raindrops were streaming down his cheeks.With a wild cry he turned his face away, and four bullets knocked him to the ground.

Jaromir Hladik died at 9:02 am on March 29. 1943