by Péter Zachár
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was an American-born poet, critic and playwright, but later he moved to England. His literary work was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in 1948. He was a highly educated son of the modern times, which fact left its mark on his work. His poetry as well as his criticism tell us about disappointment and dissatisfaction with the modern capitalist system, bourgeois individualism and the dominance of commercial and material interest. During his university studies, he acquired a sense and respect toward tradition and classical values, and an aversion against the lingering traces of Romanticism. This is what his essays are about and his poetry is concerned with. He had a rather pessimistic view of the modern world: he sees it as chaotic, lacking order and falling into fragments.
Such an existence naturally cannot be described and expressed directly and logically. Therefore his poems use the ’logic of imagination:’ events and situations put together without any explanation. By this way he also intended to renew poetry. Another formal innovation of his was the ’mask persona,’ which was not a character or symbol, but a sort of a collective ego, and it was to express the age universally. This idea naturally brings impersonality, which is also enhanced by the large number of references and quotations employed in his poems — a mark of his admiration of the past. The simple language and the clarity he tends to use remind us of the classical forms, but underneath the intellectual and impersonal surface, there are very personal tragic feelings, fear and bitterness.
One of his first published poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, is an outstanding example of how Eliot thought about poetry and life. The poem does not follow a logical order, but consists of various images appearing at random. The reader is taken on an imaginary journey of a dull and frustrated life by being shown flashes of it only. The tone is very pessimistic, full of resignation and irony. This approach is present in the title already: the romantic form of a love song implies great emotions, personality and perhaps passion. On the other hand, the name Prufrock, and the middle-aged, urban man behind it, represents the dullness and emptiness of modern societies. Apart from the very slight hints by few references to partnership, nothing in the poem speaks about love. Instead, we are introduced the doubts, uncertainty and lack of self-confidence of the speaker of the poem.
The choice of the motto from Dante is not obvious. The classic theme of the importance of life ironically contradicts the futility the poem talks about, but it is also far from the theme of love indicated in the title. We can see how different Prufrock’s attitude to the ultimate questions is from that of Dante’s at the end of first stanza: ’Oh, do not ask, ˝What is it?˝ .’ The rejection of responsibility and challenges of his own life is the main motive. The most important tool of Eliot’s for this is the constant irony and the frequently used bathos.
The first stanza begins with a suggestion, addressed not so much to the supposed lover, but more to himself, as Prufrock says: ’Let us go then.’ Where?, we would ask, expecting a philosophical answer.The dignity of the second line (’When the evening is spread out against the sky’) heightens our expectations, but the whole matter is pulled down to the ground with a grinning simile: ’Like a patient etherized upon a table.’ The twist that turns such a sensitively chosen poetic image into the cruelty of raw and materialistic reality is the first example for bathos in the poem. Many others follow later. Their purpose is to break the tone in order to emphasize the valuelessness of questions, answers and life itself. The answer to our above question comes from the third line: let us go through the scenes of an ordinary, boring, unheroic and typically modern life. These scenes may recall the energy and enthusiasm of youth and love (’restless nights in one-night cheap hotels’), but it is followed by the expressions of weariness straight away: ’a tedious argument’ and ’insidious intent.’ Such contradiction can only enhance the hesitance. Instead of asking and answering the questions, ’Let us go and make our visit,’ which expresses the will of postponement.
This stanza is followed by a couple of lines without any visible connection to the foregoing: ’In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo.’ The rhythm of the two lines and their second appearance later give them a refrain-like role. However, they only appear twice, painting a picture of the hectic but shallow life, which is the basic experience of the speaker. They are snapshots with no depth.
The depressing image of the unhealthy autumn night in the city, which is described in the second stanza, is a symbol of sexuality. It is very interesting that here again we are not shown the positive aspects of partnership, such as conforming intimacy or redeeming passion. In contrast to the ideality of physical love, expressions like ’yellow fog’ and ’yellow smoke’ talk about heaviness. There is disgust haunting in the actions, too: ’rubs its back,’ ’rubs its muzzle’ and ’licked its tongue.’ There is also a sign of defencelessness against all this; through the windowpanes we might be being watched and constantly watched over by an invisible beast that ’curled once about the house, and fell asleep’.
Such circumstances should awaken resistence and heroism, we would think. But Prufrock is to disappoint us again: ’And indeed there will be time,’ he says, meaning apathy and resignation. There will be time to learn to be impersonal and untouched (’To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet’). There is time for the meaninglessness of social engagements, which are contrasted with the worthy labour described in Hesiod’s work. There is time so that we can put the ultimate question further off (’And time yet for a hundred indecisions,/ And for a hundred visions and revisions’), so that we can retreat behind the lines of everyday life routine: ’Before the taking of a toast and tea,’ which is another ironic twist in the style, e.g. bathos.
The fourth stanza is concerned with the question of the motto. The reference to Dante and to the myth of Orpheus (’time to turn back and descend the stair’) is also very profaned, though. The theme of travelling through life and the nether world is repeatedly disrupted by worries about others’ opinions and the bodily signs of aging. These are matters which should be despised in the presence of those ancient questions, but which are most natural in a world of Prufrocks, therefore in our world. The reaction here again is doubt: ’Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?’ And the answer is: only if there is a chance to turn back anytime; only with no existential responsibility (’In a minute there is time/ For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse’). The repetition of the line ’There will be time’, sustaining the song-like rhythm, is the main motive of the first part of the poem: postponement. The next part will be concerned with hesitance.
The following three stanzas are attempts to give explanations, or we would rather say: excuses for this attitude. They speak about physical and spiritual experiences which, instead of refining the soul, only show and prove the admitted worthlessness of Prufrock’s life. First, there is a hint at the heros of history, compared to whom the speaker’s pettiness is undeniable: ’I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,’ instead of great acts. Then, we can see that the direct confrontation with the ’overwhelming question’ is referred to as a most painful experience: ’I am pinned and wriggling on the wall.’ Being tortured, by the interrogating eyes of existence itself, he cannot be expected to recall ’the butt-ends’ of his life, which might be able to show the dearness of this seemingly worthless comedy. Finally, we find out how sexuality drives one away from true commitments: ’Is it perfume from a dress/ That makes me so digress?’ Even emotions are turned inside out by the indifferent observation when the attractive ’arms that are braceleted and white and bare’ turn out to be ’downed with light brown hair.’ All three pictures lead to the same conclusion: ’How should I presume?’ This question is the ’rhythm-line’ of the second part of the poem, expressing the awareness of the importance but the lack of capability of realising values in life.
This is followed by a few broken lines with an admittedly miscarried suggestion (’Shall I say…’). Responding with a random impression (the lonely walk among self-occupied strangers) is no answer, but it is all one can think of when being so examined. The notion of such uselessness is carried by the parallel of the backward-moving crab (’I should have been a pair of ragged claws’), which can be the symbol of futility.
In the third part of the poem, the idea of hesitance and unwillingness is expounded further, but from a different view and through a different image. The third scene is the home and the bedroom, where the questions take the form of a fictitious dialogue again. The picture of a peaceful moment is to justify the decision that decisions should not be made yet: ’Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,/ Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?’ – as if such engagements would spoil the fragile moments of comfort. Awareness versus determination is what awakes tension again. Awareness of mortality, inevitable fear and fate are presented as visions, and with Biblical references. The weakness and cowardice to evaluate and commit himself to the uncertain truth are formulated as opposites of the vocation and martyrdom of the prophets John the Baptist and Lazarus. The speaker claims to have experienced all the critical stages of life, expressed by the use of the perfective forms: rises (’I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker’) and falls (’I have seen my head … brought in upon a platter’). Even death appears in the character of ’the eternal Footman.’ To all this, there is a disillusioning answer, a complete rejection: ’I am no prophet,’ says Prufrock. What’s more, he continues: ’and here’s no great matter.’ So he is not only admitting his weakness, but also his lack of concern and interest. He simply gives everything up before beginning it. This reaction is again present in the language of the poem, too: the severed head is ’growing slightly bold’ and the Footman is ’snickering.’ The irony of bathos creates the same distance from the seriousness of the topic as the contrast of the repeated lines of the third part, the question of the speaker: ’would it have been worth it…’ and the supposed answer from the supposed lover: ’That is not what I meant at all.’ Excuses for the hesitance here are the unwillingness to disturb the peace of the moment, which is described through pictures of everyday life again (cups, marmalade, porcelain, dooryards, skirts etc.), the danger of destroying the solemnity and depth of the issue (’To have bitten off the matter with a smile’), and the risk of the obtuseness and the lacking interest of the partner (’…settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl/ And turning toward the window…’). In conclusion, he says: ’It is impossible to say just what I mean.’ But we know that the ability is blocked because of half-heartedness and underestimation.
The finale begins with a severe refusal of all questions discussed: ’No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.’ It is not his fate to face doubts and missions. The picture of the Shakespearian drama continues with the role of ’an attendant lord,’ who only has formal duties in a play, and who even acts as the Fool if it is necessary. Nothing matters, any second-hand role or mere substitution is acceptable if this way one can avoid responsibility and commitments. Since all heroism has been rejected, now the speaker feels relieved and returns to his only real concern: growing old. The ridiculously pityful images of his future self are so heavy with mockery that we feel that the picture of the Fool is being carried on: ’I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled./ Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?’ Another one of the great regrets of the old is the absence of desire and temptation, here symbolized with mermaids, which picture leads back to the sirens of Odysseus. Prufrock makes a resigned gesture when he says ’I do not think that they will sing to me,’ but again talks about experiences: ’I have heard the mermaids singing…’ and ’I have seen them riding…’ However many worlds he has been through, he remains within the choice of submission to empty reality: ’…Till human voices wake us, and we drown.’
What Eliot (and Prufrock) sensed almost a century ago is still present. But unlike Prufrock, we have to be able not only to recognize, but to realize values. If we had done so in time, there would not have been such madness as world wars, which followed shortly after the first publication of the poem. Knowing that Eliot later found some consolation in religion for the depressing chaos and vanity of modern life, we may conclude that values lie within humanity, and not in the material world. But we need to assume responsibility for them.
Bibliography:
Eliot, T. S.: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Ousby, Ian 1995. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
I belong to the lucky spruces who could grow up close to their mothers. I'm really happy not to be swept away by the wind. I had a beautiful childhood. My mother really loved me and as a late child I was her all. She told me stories and we conversed about the matters of the universe. At night if I coudln't sleep, I listened to her twigs rustling in the wind and I calmed down. I admired her; she was so large, magnificent, and calm.
One morning everything was white when I woke up. All my branches and those of my mum and all other spruces. It was amazing. My mother called it snow, I called it white wonder. We got more and more of it every day. I was happy, but my mother got troubled. She told me that every year when the snow had fallen, bad people come to our wood and kill the baby spruces. I couldn't imagine that anybody could come to our peaceful forest and do anything like that. But it happened really. One day the bad people came. I heard my little friends screaming and their parents crying. The people came nearer and nearer, and cut me down, too. The last thing I remember is my mother crying my name.
When I recovered consciousness I was in a big garden with lots of other little spruces. Earlier I had never seen so many children together. We all were afraid because we didn't know what would happen, but we had a nice time together. I made friends with everybody. My closest friends were two spruces who said they were twins, because their seeds had fallen from the cone at the same time.
Every day a lot of people came into the garden and took spruces away. A grey-haired man chose me. I said goodbye to my friends and let myself be carried through the town. We came to a big house. I was very curious, but the man put me in a dark cellar and shut the door. Now I really felt afraid and homesick. It seemed like an eternity until he came back. Now he took me up to the flat and stood me in water. I breathed a little more easily. After a while he brought big cartons and hung colorful knick-knacks on my twigs. I pricked him repeatedly with my needles but he didn't mind it. After he finished, he brought other cartons and laid them at my feet. Then he rang the bell and three children came into the room with their mother. They were so happy! They said, "Oh, Daddy, what a lovely tree!" and "Merry Christmas!" They looked up to me and smiled. It made me really feel all warm inside!
They sang Christmas songs and opened the cartons. Especially the children were glad. They were sitting on the carpet and playing with their new toys the whole evening.
Next day guests came and they were sitting in front of me. I was very proud when somebody said I was beautiful. The children often came to me and ate the chocolates hanging from my twigs. I was looking at them when they were playing and having fun. I saw couples hand in hand and the old grandmother hobbling with her stick. The human world was very interesting.
After a few days the grey-haired man came to me with the cartons and took his knick-knacks from my twigs. Then he carried me out of the house.
Since then I have been living on the rubbish heap. I feel miserable. I'm nothing but branches and twigs. I can't speak with anybody--although there is a silver fir within earshot. He is already old and stone deaf.
So I meditate all day about the matters of the universe and at night if I can't sleep, I listen to his twigs rustling in the wind. I think of my mother and of our peaceful wood and I calm down.
by Krisztina Wágner
Once upon a time there lived three dirty little pigs. One fine day they decided to take their places in society and bear the difficulties and responsibilites of enterprise. Two dirty little pigs did not like working and found market research terribly tiresome and boring. They agreed that time should not be wasted on trivialites such as business plans, studies, research and budgets, which in their opinion was a waste of precious money-making time. One of them therefore decided to establish a charity fund for the needy calves of the village who had foot and mouth. "What a good idea! I must do something equally easy and profitable," said the other dirty little pig. So he decided to run for village mayor in the elections, which he indeed won.
The third dirty little pig decided that he would become a lawyer and, after taking the university entrance exam, he was admitted. He learned and learned for years, and was so poor that he could hardly make ends meet. Meanwhile, the other two dirty little piglets were well established. The one which set up the charity fund collected millions and millions of dollars by campaigning and convincing people and companies to donate to a worthy cause. The dirty little pig who became mayor also worked very diligently in the field of finance, collecting money provided through local taxation and government benefits.
One day Mrs. Daisy Moo made a complaint that neither she nor her calves had received any financial help to buy medicine, in spite of the fact that they had foot and mouth. Hearing the complaint, the other cattle realised that they had not been given a cent by anyone either, so they all stampeded to the charity office to demand money. The dirty little pig lied calmly and confidently. He told the cattle about the aide programme which he had launched and all the money which had been spent to help the cattle in need, and could not understand why the bulls in the herd darted at him with their heads held down.
The unsuspecting animals in the village were also growing extremely impatient. The paths leading along the main road needed repair, the old animals demanded the an old animal's home, and the school needed new classrooms, because there were too few.
The dirty little pig who was mayor of the village spoke of all the administrative difficulties and how the Wise Owl Party had undermined his innovative plans, forcing him to start a law suit which cost millions. He also spoke of how expensive it was to run the institutes of the village and that there was not much money left. Hearing this news, a snorting, grunting, mooing and neighing broke out among the crowd, which began to behave in an uncivilised, animal-like manner, convinceing the dirty little pig to step back, while showers of cow manure started to fly in his direction, not to mention the obscene words which were squealed by the disorderly crowd.
The angry procession made its way to the local police station, where they reported their suspicions to sergeant Eagle. The sergeant therefore proceeded in his duties and arrested the two dirty little pigs, remanding them in custody.
Meanwhile, the third dirty little pig had finished his studies and was called to represent the two dirty little suspects. The dirty little pig who had become a lawyer had learned and learned for years and years, so now the time had come to earn more and more, and to become richer and richer.
The two dirty little pigs were taken to court and despite the evidence brought up against them, they were acquitted and were left with all the money they had worked so hard for. Of course, the third little pig was given his well-deserved and generous fee, and they all lived happily ever after.
by Laci Buri
Honestly, I have never been there. Deep in my mind the place existed also for me, not only for the others who were supposedly so fortunate to get there, as it turned out later, quite often. On the basis of the most detailed--but somehow incredibly dim--hearsay I had got an abstract picture of the queer occurrences as well as the exact location of the place, which not only one time did lead me into temptation to follow the others on a mysterious trip. What prevented me from this was . . . humph, I don't really know. Someone who, on this miserable mudball, doesn't know the reasons of things happening around him might be silly . . . Yes! That's it . . . Back then, for my luck, I was just a young, silly boy as I still am.
That summer the fact that the population was decreasing from day to day remained hidden only for the blind. But do not think that the people died; they only disappeared from our sight. It seemed as if they had ceased to exist in both material and spiritual form, or travelled for a vacation to some distant land by an unreliable airline company. In fact, they were quite close. They didn't go anywhere, not even to the cemeteries. They were at home, locked like in a silent, chilly crypt. Within a lean month, more and more people developed a passion for vanishing from public life--so much so that few people were seen on the dirty streets, in the churches, or around the taverns any more. They were absent from the shops, the cinemas, and the morturaries as well. At that time I didn't think even for a moment that the death-like silence, which was absolutley not a characteristic of our settlement, had anything to do with that ancient place. With the ancient place, for which no one was old and wise enough to be able to tell any exact information about . . .
When I realized that my all-time favorite misanthropic visions were becoming useless with the lack of flesh and blood, semi-thinking creatures perfectly suitable for this exciting spare-time activity, I really felt a need at least to see some of them, including my only friend who sometimes deservedeven to be talked with. After not being called on for so long, I began worrying seriously for my feeble race, especially for the only person with whom I might have shared some mutual intrest. So, at last I decided to do something.
The something, however, proved to be the only thing I could do, and this was exactly the one that I would have done not for love or money before. I was sure that I had to meet a person who had myraid times more brain in his head than I, or if it's just the same amount, could know a better to use it. Even if he had two legs and two arms less . . .
Shivering with anxiety and uncertainty at how our first meeting would turn out, I rang the bell. No answer arrived, so I pushed open the door. Then I almost fell down at the appalling spectacle. The man, whom I had never seen but heard so much about, was sitting in front of me in a battered chair in a shady, middle-sized room and staring at me with his desparate eyes without a noticeable sign of surprise. It appeared as if he had been waiting for me, although I wasn't in the condition to think over this trifling thing at that time. I shuddered with horror for some moments, then I thoroughly glanced my future companion over. I couldn't believe all the gossip I had heard about this mysterious man, but now I had to admit that he surpassed all my expectations. He didn't have any limbs--indeed, he was a perfect incarnation of a disabled person. A trunk wrapped up in clothes and a head with dreadful expressions on its face--that was really him, but the pair of gleaming eyes made me think that the frightening clump of flesh hid an immeasurably immense intellect.
"Supposedly, you feel better now to have fulfilled your curiousity," said he in a pleasantly peaceful tone. "But what people get is not always what they expect or search for."
Not knowing what to answer, I just stood before him. Then he went on talking.
"People are greedy and selfish. They no longer possess any interest in their fellows. What made you come here is, however, not to gain some advance to your own prosperity by my advice, as I suspect."
"Well, it is really so. . . " I muttered after comrehending the real meaning of what he said. I remembered this man to be known as one who always gave advice to those who were really in need of it. I realized that his brain was the only thing people often called on him for.
"You may know the answer to what is going on here these days. . . " I risked a question. "People are getting strange and I have a bad feeling about this."
"Your feelings serve you well, little boy. There is really something that went wrong. But the answer is for you to find; it is out there."
"At that ancient place? I asked in an indiscreet manner that wanted any politeness. "Have you been there by chance?" As soon as I uttered this sentence, I immediately realized my rudeness. How this man without limbs could ever get there? But my excitement to meet somebody that has been there was stronger than my soberness. In fact, for eons I had been waiting for a man to tell me a tale about that legendary place located near this land somewhere in the hills.
"The answer is for you to find--it is there. But be careful--you, too, are nothing else but human," he answered evasively.
Feeling a bit relieved, I left his residence and a strong determination was starting to rule my inner sense that I had to visit the ancient place as soon as possible. As I was walking home in the ethereal silence of the deathlike streets of my once crowded hometown, I became lost in my thoughts so much that I could hardly realize any movement in front of me. No wonder that the shadow of a human creature appearing suddenly caused such a great shock that I jumped quickly behind an abandoned fish stall. The man seemed to be insane; he couldn't even pretended the contrary. His incomplete dressing, the way he was moving and muttering half-loud words as well as the gleaming, mad light in his eyes left no doubt about the unusual, yet undiscovered activities happening continously under his hat. What made him more grotesque were his deformed body parts that I realized only when he made some steps towards my unsafe hiding place. His head was twisted approximately 75% around so that he could see a bit more of the things going on behind him than in front of him. His face, with those cankers and the seemingly purulent flesh, created an impression in me of a leper. Strangely, he could move quite fast, although his movements were a bit broken due to some other corporal deficiency.
"Never! You should. . . never!" I heard him murmuring. "Not go there. . . you, soul be eviscerated!" This latter remark was addressed straight to me after he had discovered my hiding place. Since he was getting closer and closer to me, I found it extremely urgent to show him my back, fearing that his illness might be infectious. But, to my great surprise, he didn't prove to be the only living dead I met on the way home. The other one, however, happened to have partially avoided the white coated demons of chaos to trepan his cranium that far, so after a while an almost pleasant chat started to evolve between us.
"Heh. . ." started he.
"Hoh. . ." said I, hoping that this answer would entirely satisfy him. But to me he didn't seem to be mad at all, even at first sight, and he also could have noticed this mutual characteristic of ours in me. He also looked like a cripple, but the clear, intelligent tone in which he continued his speech easily made me forget this presently usual specatcle of today's fellow-men of my hometown.
"Oh, you must be one of us. We are so few left at this place. The ones who could resist. . . "
"Resist. . . what?" I became interested.
"You couldn't drink enough of it even to know what you should know?!" He was astonished and made a step back.
"No, I didn't drink at all. But what should I have drunk of?"
"Ahh. . . So you. . . never?!"
"Never, as I said. But. . ."
"But the well of knowledge has been opened for everyone. . ."
I was again starting to lose my confidence and consider this poor person to belong to the insane lot, when he forced some apparently important sentences out of his mouth.
"You should avoid the well if you were able to do it so far. Too much is lost, people cannot show any resistance anymore. The cheap way of gaining trutths over lies and ignorance is alluring for everyone. But just take a look at me! My life decays before my eyes, the deterioration of my brain just grows. I need some drops of that fluid to know. . . to know how to stop. . . how to stop this addiction."
"Where can I find that well?"
"NO!!! Do not search for it, unless you want to be like us!"
"I have to find a friend of mine. . ."
"And you think he is there?!"
"You said everyone was there, so why couldn't he. . . ?" And it seemed that for the first time in my life I managed to exercise an influence on someone. Wheteher it was for my infallible innocence or the pity of my companion towards a worthless, miserable creature like me, I really don't know. The line of discussion was in my lead and the chat from that time on went as I wanted. "And I am extremely curious, anyway," I added.
"Curiousity. . ." he made a gesture of resignation. "We were all curious. Now we have to pay the piper for this."
"So that is why the people are so icy to each other and averse. . ."
"Yes. The knowledge they got from only a few drops of the water of that well is never enough. Newer and newer dimensions are still opening and each one is deeper. . . as well as needs something from the body. You know, the mind is more to endure than the body. . . And it is always hungry!"
"The plenty of the disabled!" shouted I, enlightened.
"Yes, they have all been there."
"I have to find that place!"
"You like their condition so much?!" he asked with a derisive smile and measured all over my perfect external framework with his eyes. I left him standing and musing and just realized myself going towards those misty hills in search of the ancient place where the well is deductively located. In this I was not sure at all, but some irresistable, supernatural force didn't allow me to cast doubt on anything any more.
The breath of the daylight was getting used up as quickly as a falling body desperately approaches the ground. I knew I was already quite far from the town, but had no idea how long I should go on yet. And then, through the blur of the nightfall, I saw him. He was lying on the grimy ground with his face down. His body was in a sarcastically malformed position, but even this fact didn't prevent me from recognizing my old, lost friend in it.
"You cannot help him," I heard a voice behind me say. "He's irretrievable."
Turning round, I caught sight of the owner of the former voices; not too far behind him a miserable crowd of zombie-like people were swarming around a queer construction. In slow motion I straightened up and stared, mesmerized at the sombre, pitch-black building. As for its shape, I couldn't find it similar to any structure made by humans and known by me; its plain, round base was decorated with the most primitive and disgusting ornaments I had ever seen. Still, for me it was quite clear even in the first moments tha this horrible creation served as a well. Getting closer, the silent idleness of the lobotomised public transformed into a restless murmuring. I carefully measured the company in which I discovered even some familar faces as well as some semi-intelligent ones. Soon I reached the rim of the well and glanced into its depth. Down there the dark water of knowledge seethed, steaming and smelling. Something still gleaming managed to get through the foam from its infernal abyss to glitter promisingly on the surface.
"What's that shining in the deep?" I asked hopelessly of the man next to me, who seemed to be startled from his dazed melancholy by my inquiry. However, he answered in a surprisingly meek and sober way.
"That is the price of knowledge."
"What sort of price? I have never known that it is something to pay for. . ."
"Yes, it is. Nobody asks the value of this water, although every one of us is fully aware what it is worth. And we always give something to the well. . . Don't you want to join us? Take a sip of this fluid, and you'll be. . ."
"How much does it cost?"
"Only one gold piece. . ."
I gazed into the dismal water for some moments before turning my back to this distressed company. My thoughts had already been going around in some distant land, where other ideas ruled. In the meantime, I got back to the place where my friend had been lying. The body was still there--it seemed as if it was even more deformed than before. I bent down with the intention to help him when something in his hand caught my eyes. I forced his fingers open and saw a tiny thing in his palm. It weas a gold coin. After short minutes of hesitation, thinking over all the past thousands of years in the history of mankind and the possible future of the galaxy, I seized the coin and set out.
by Erik Zöldi