In a Nutshell

Victor Pelevin “The Sacred Book of Werewolf”

I cannot say that she was especially good-looking.  On those occasions when I saw her after a long separation, I was amazed at how this skinny little creature with such fierce eyes could have become everything for me – love, life, death, the salvation of my soul.  But she only had to meet my glance, and everything changed.  First of all a started doubt that she was loved would appear in those green eyes.  At that moment it was obvious that there was nothing to love her for, and every time I experienced a wave of pity, merging into tenderness.  But she soaked up those feelings like a sponge soaking up wine, and immediately blossomed into a tormenting beauty that could drive a man insane.  A brief exchange of glances changed everything.  A moment before it, I was not able to understand how this essentially unlovely woman could have enthralled me, and afterwards I could not grasp how I could have doubted even for a minute the magical power of her features.  And the longer I gazed into her eyes, the stronger this feeling became, rousing me to ecstasy, to a state of physical pain – as if she had thrust a knife into a crack in the wall behind which I was trying to hide and, with a few swift movements of the blade, had loosened the brickwork so much that the wall had collapsed and I was left standing before her once again, as naked and defenseless as a child.  I have studied this metamorphosis through and through, but I have still not learned to understand the nature of the fire that has seared my soul and reduced it to ashes.

Alas it is true: beauty is like fire, it burns and consumes, driving you insane with its heat, promising that in the place to which it drives its victim there will be calm, cool shade and new life – but that is a deception.  Or rather, it is all true – but not for the victim, only for the new life that will take the victim’s place, and then also be consumed by this pitiless demon.

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Posted on November 23rd, 2009 under Literature, Quotes • Tags: "The Sacred Book of Werewolf", beauty, death, deception, demon, ecstasy, fire, life, Love, pain, salvation, soul, torment, true, Victor Pelevin. • • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback