Most of that afternoon he mooned around. There was a soft, lyrical breeze; there were pale, lettuce-coloured streamers of light above the indolent harbour. The mood he was in, and the prospect of a new job, prompted him to extravagance: he took the little ferry to Kirribilli. The voyage was so gently soothing he almost fell in love with poor bloody Nance. He would have liked to feel her thigh against his as the ferry rocked them. He could even have put up with some of her marshmallowy ideas.
On the way back a wind sprang up. The sea grew metal scales, and over the charred city an angry light reminded him of what he was. All his fellow passengers looked so soft and vulnerable. Nance, if present, would have suffered worst of all.
— Patrick White, The Vivisector, 1970
XXX
Today the self-destroying anger.
The inner violence so close to the
surface of the mind. The terrible
images of wilful destruction.
The blood beating behind clouding
eyes. It was the constant heat of the
day began it. The blood cooking
within, the pores streaming and the
rage to be otherwise than meat
moving; to tear away the caul
of fantasy; to see blind and
whole as Oedipus the blank of
self; to walk slowly, feeling
the air with outstretched hands, feet
scuffing pebbles in the mountain’s
ruined sanctuary; to taste
life in air upon the ravaged
face and make of it the true
words of suffering and of love:
the real prayer that takes a life
to utter.
“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers that cannot be given, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, 1903
