06 December 2010

More words from a master

It is claimed that there is such a moment of stooping, 
of summoning our strength, holding our breath, 
a moment of outward silence above the greatest internal
tension that exists between two human beings. 
There is no way of saying what takes place in that moment. 
It is, so to speak, the shadow that passion casts ahead of itself. 
An organic shadow; a relaxation of all earlier tensions 
and at the same time a new and sudden state of bondage
which contains the whole of the future; 
an incubation concentrated on the point of a needle . . . 
And on the other hand it is a nothing, 
a dull, vague feeling, a weakness, an anxiety . . .

Robert Musil
The Confusions of Young Törless

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