The last glass of water

[Dürer - Paixão]

Did she take her time, contemplatively holding the pill bottle in her two hands before emptying the contents into her palm and slowly swallowing them with her last glass of water, with the last taste of water ever?

Philip Roth, Everyman

Não saem. Secaram. Já não há sal. Nem dor. Nem cor. Só o vazio. Outra vez. Tremendo. E agora eu não sei se.

The tides

[Dürer - Auto-retrato com 28 anos]

«How much time could you spend staring out at the ocean, even if it was the ocean you'd loved since you were a boy? How long could he watch the tides flood in and flow out without his remembering, as anyone might in a sea-gazing, that life had been giving to him, as to all, randomly, fortuitously, and but once, and for no known or knowable reason?»

Philip Roth, Everyman

Só um bocadinho

[Hopper - Rooms by the sea]

He ran barefoot and wet and salty, remembering the mightiness of that immense sea boiling in his own two ears and licking is forearm to taste his skin fresh from the ocean and baked by the sun.

Philip Roth, Everyman

Se os dias corressem mais depressa. Mas só um bocadinho. Porque eu não quero que passem a correr. Só um bocadinho mais depressa. Mas não demasiado. Assim. Aos bocadinhos. Em vez de um dia durar um dia inteiro durava um bocadinho menos. E assim não custava tanto. Porque enquanto o Sol me beija o corpo salgado o meu pensamento não está aqui. Mas se passassem a correr eu não teria tempo de saber que. Tu sabes. Depois quando chegares queria mostrar-te que tenho treinado. Todos os dias. Em frente ao espelho. Como me pediste.

Gobbling down the pills

[Rembrandt - Lucrécia]

«When he'd awakened in the night and turned on all the lights, he drank some water and threw open a window and paced the apartment to restore his stability, but despite himself he was thinking about only one thing: how it had been for her to kill herself. Did she do it in a rush, gobbling down the pills before she changed her mind? And after she'd finally taken them, did she scream that she didn't want to die, that she just couldn't face any more crippling pain, that all she wanted was for the pain to stop - scream and cry that all she wanted was for Gerald to be here to help her and to tell her to hang on and assure her that she could bear it and that they were in it together? Did she die in tears, mumbling his name? Or did she do it all calmly, convinced at long last that she was not making a mistake? Did she take her time, contemplatively holding the pill bottle in her two hands before emptying the contents into her palm and slowly swallowing them with her last glass of water, with the last taste of water ever? Was she resigned and thoughtful, he wondered, courageous about everything she was leaving behind, perhaps smiling while she wept and remembered all the delights, all that had ever excited her and pleased her, her mind filled with hundreds of ordinary moments that meant little at the time but now seemed to have been especially intended to flood her days with commonplace bliss? Or had she lost interest in what she was leaving behind? Did she show no fear, thinking only, At last last the pain is over, the pain is finaly gone, and now I have merely to fall asleep to depart this amazing thing?»

Philip Roth, Everyman

Muscle through

[El Greco - Retrato de senhora]

«"You know what would help?" she said. "The sound of that voice that's disappeared. The sound of the excepcional man I loved. I think I could take all this if he were here. But I can't without him. I never saw him weaken once in his life - then came the cancer and it crushed him. I'm not Gerald. He would just marshal all his forces and do it - marshal all his everything and do whatever it was that had to be done. But I can't. I can't take the pain anymore. It overrides everything. I think sometimes that I can't go on another hour. I tell myself to ignore it. I tell myself it doesn't matter. I tell myself 'Don't engage it. It's a specter. It's an annoyance, it's nothing more than that. Don't accord it power. Don't cooperate with it. Don't take the bait. Don't respond. Muscle through. Barrel through. Either you're in charge or it's in charge - the choice is yours!' I repeat this to myself a million times a day, as though I'm Gerald speaking, and suddenly it's so awful I have to lie down on the floor in the middle of the supermarket and all the words are meaningless. Oh, I'm sorry, truly, I abhor tears."
"We all do," he told her, "but we cry anyway."»

Philip Roth, Everyman

Aquilo que não se pode contar . 2 . O medo

[Bosch - Tentação de Santo Antão (pormenor do painel central)]

Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear.
Philip Roth, The plot against America

se é prudente dizer estas memórias que não me deixam. Que me sangram alma e corpo. E eu já não tenho força nos músculos amedrontados. O remédio é fácil. Eu sei. Mas eu não. Não. Não tenho coragem. Tenho medo. Mais ainda do que daquilo. E entre dois medos me morro. Pudesse eu arrancar este buraco e as memórias que dele escorrem. Todas as noites. Quando me deito. E não consigo fechar os olhos. Só queria fechá-los. Mesmo que não pudesse voltar a abrir. Não há-de ser pior do que isto. Mas tenho medo. Tanto. A minha vida. As minhas noites. Há ali qualquer coisa. Indefinível. Mas ali. Medonhamente ali. Porque mo diz o buraco na minha omoplata. Na esquerda. E eu sei. É quando me dói. Devagarinho. Como se não doesse. Mas dói. Tanto. Não fecha. Não pára de crescer. E eu não consigo fechar os olhos quando me deito. Inundado de um suor frio aterrorizado que nunca antes tinha experimentado. E depois há aqueles pontos brilhantes

Cogito ergo insanio

[Halswelle - Estudo de nuvens]

... I discovered the whitewashed wall beneath the window slick and syrupy with an abundance of goo. Since I didn't know what masturbation was, I of course didn't know what ejaculate was. I thought it was pus. I thought it was phlegm. I didn't know what to think, except that it was something terrible. In the presence of a species of discharge as yet mysterious to me, I imagined it was something that festered in a man's body and then came spurting from his mouth when he was completely consumed by grief.

Philip Roth, The plot against America

Sandeu por fim. Havia de chegar o dia. E eu que não estava preparado. Et pourtant par terre. Porque achava que já não ensandecia. Ou já estava sandeu. E pensava que eram os outros não era eu. Não. Se calhar agora não estou. Porque agora vejo tudo tão claro. Tão tão. Sandeu. Cogito ergo insanio.