DIE SCHERE #44: Notes 1

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DIE SCHERE #44:  Notes by Gary Kern

It seems to me that certain problems of this section clear up
when you read the cited passage in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's THE
IDIOT (part II, chap. XI, a page from the end).  FD describes
the light as hard to see through, even though it is a white
night in St. Petersburg.  EJ's calls the light "durchlässig," a
word which the dictionary tells me can refer to the
penetrability of a substance or to the transmission of light. 
Either it means that under the impact of death one cannot see
through the light or that the dim light is transmitting
information through the dark.  EJ might have said which, but he
likes to be cryptic.  Similarly FD writes that the longer the
Prince looked, the quieter it seemed to become; I think this is
what the curious "die Stille versickert" ("seeps out") means
here.  "Umkreis des Todes," as I see it, does not mean in the
vicinity of death, but rather in the immediate presence of it: 
Nastasya lying in bed, her white foot barely detectable in the
dark.  The Russian is interesting as regards the phrase "toten
Schweigen":  it is "v mertvom molchanii."  This means "in the
dead silence," but the word "silence" (molchanie) means "keeping
quiet, not speaking."  That is, it is silent because the person
is dead, not speaking.  I suppose the German captures this
pretty well.  As Günter notes, the curious "heart beats against
the wall" does not occur in FD; it is EJ's invention.  I think
the translation should leave it as such, unexplained.

In the second paragraph EJ writes that time stands still, but
also "brandet an."  I think the idea is that it heaves, like
water that crashes on the shore, rather than water that runs
down a river, which is what time was before it stopped still. 
I do not have the story by Thomas Wolfe, but will try to
remember to look it up at the library.

So what does it all mean?  The experience of witnessing a dead
person cuts the ground out from under you:  the silence is
"bodenlos" and time is "abgründig."  The normal commotion of
life ceases, or rather goes on but seems frozen and meaningless. 
Literature can transmit such moments, so it does not belong to
the false world of noise and bustle, the world of denial.  It
and EJ put you in contact with the other side.