Interlude 5

Nesmrtelnost

"....the picture of a man with a bloody face, slowly lifting himself off the pavement. Who was that man? What had happened to him? Probably an insignificant street accident...a wrong step, a fall, a photographer unexpectedly present. Not sensing anything unusual the man got up, washed his face in a nearby café and went home to his wife. And at the same moment, intoxicated by its birth, his image separated itself from him and walked off in the opposite direction after its own adventure, its own destiny.

A person may conceal himself behind his image, he can disappear for ever behind his image, he can be completely separated from his image: a person can never be his image."¹

¹ M. Kundera, Immortality, pp. 361-362, Faber and Faber 1992 (Abridged).