John Fowles - Mantissa

Then, carefully examining what I was, and seeing that I could pretend that I had no body, that no outer world existed, and no place where I was; but that despite this I could not pretend that I did not exist; that, on the contrary, from the very fact that I was able to doubt the reality of the other things, it very clearly and certainly followed that I existed; whereas, if I had stopped thinking only, even though all I had ever conceived had been true, I had no reason to believe that I might have existed from this I knew that I was a being whose whole essence or nature is confined to thinking and which has no need of a place, nor depends on any material thing, in order to exist. So that this I, that is to say the soul by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body, is even easier to know than the body, and furthermore would not stop being what it is, even if the body did not exist.

Ren Descartes, Discours de la Mthode

SYLVIA: We must be serious now. My stars say I shall marry a man of distinction, and Ill look at nothing less.

DORANTE: If that were me Id feel threatened, and go in fear of proving your horoscope. Im an atheist over astrology but a profound believer in your face.

SYLVIA: (to herself) What a pest he is! (to Dorante) Will you stop this? Whats it matter to you that my destiny rules you out?

DORANTE: It didnt predict that I wouldnt fall in love with you.

SYLVIA: No, but it said it wouldnt do you one bit of good, and I can tell you its right. You are capable of talking about something else besides love, I presume?

DORANTE: From the moment youre capable of not inspiring it.

SYLVIA: Really, this is outrageous, Im going to lose my temper. Once and for all, will you stop being in love with me!

DORANTE: If you will stop being.

Marivaux, Le Jeu de lAmour et du Hasard

They were generally represented as young,

beautiful, modest virgins, were fond of

solitude, and commonly appeared in differ-

ent attire, according to the arts and

sciences over which they presided.

Lemprire, under Musae

I T was conscious of a luminous and infinite haze, as if it were floating, godlike, alpha and omega, over a sea of vapor and looking down; then less happily, after an interval of obscure duration, of murmured sounds and peripheral shadows, which reduced the impression of boundless space and empire to something much more contracted and unaccommodating. From there, with the swift fatality of a fall, the murmurs focused to voices, the shadows to faces. As in some obscure foreign film, nothing was familiar; not language, not location, not cast. Images and labels began to swim, here momentarily to coalesce, here to divide, like so many pond amoebae; obviously busy, but purposeless. These collocations of shapes and feelings, of associated morphs and phonemes, returned like the algebraic formulae of schooldays, lodged in the mind by ancient rote, though what the formulae now applied to, why they existed, was entirely forgotten. It was conscious, evidently; but bereft of pronoun, all that distinguishes person from person; and bereft of time, all that distinguishes present from past and future.

For a while a pleasing intimation of superiority, of having somehow got to the top of the heap, still attached to this sense of impersonality. But even that was soon brutally dispersed by the relentless demon of reality. In a kind of mental somersault it was forced to the inescapable conclusion that far from augustly floating in the stratosphere, couched as it were in iambic pentameters, it was actually lying on its back in bed. Above the eyes presided a wall-lamp, a neat, rectangular, apposed white plastic panel. Light. Night. A small grey room, a pale grey, the color of a herring gulls wing. Eternal limbo, at least eventless, tolerably nothing. If it had not been for the two women staring down.

Obscurely reproached by the closer and more requiring face, it made another unwilling deduction: for some reason it was a center of attention, an I of sorts. The face smiled, descended, with a mixture of the solicitous and the skeptical, concern tainted with a perhaps involuntary suspicion of malingering.

Darling?

With another painfully swift and reducing intuition it realized it was not just an I, but a male I. That must be where the inrushing sense of belowness, impotence, foolishness came from. It, I, it must be he, watched the mouth glide down like a parachutist and land on his forehead. Touch and scent, this could not be film or dream. Now the face hovered over his. Whispered words issued from the red orifice.

Darling, you know who I am?

He stared.

Im Claire.

Not at all clear.

Your wife, darling. Remember?

Wife?

The most strangely alarming yet: to know one has spoken, but only by the proximity of the source of the sound. The brown eyes hinted at appalling depths of conjugal betrayal. He tried to attach word to person, person to self; failed; and finally shifted his eyes to the younger and more distant woman on the other side of the bed who smiled as well, but professionally and indifferently. This person, hands in pockets, trimly observant, wore a white medical coat. Now her mouth also gave birth to words.

Can you tell me your name?

Of course. Name! No name. Nothing. No past, no whence or when. The abyss perceived, and almost simultaneously, its irremediability. He strained desperately, a falling man, but whatever he was trying to reach or grasp was not there. He clung to the white-coated womans eyes, abruptly and intensely frightened. She came a step or two closer.

Im a doctor. This is your wife. Please look at her. Do you remember her? Do you remember having seen her before? Anything about her?

He looked. There was something expectant in the wifes expression, and yet hurt, almost peeved, as if its owner resented both the stupidity of the procedure and his silent stare. She looked nervous and tired, she wore too much makeup; the air of someone who has put on a mask to prevent a scream. Above all she demanded something he was not able to give.

Her mouth began to announce names, peoples names, street names, place names, disjointed phrases. Some were repeated. He had perhaps heard them before, as words; but he had no idea what relevance they were supposed to have, nor why they should increasingly sound like evidence of crimes he had committed. In the end he shook his head. He would have liked to close his eyes, to have peace to reforget, to be one again with the sleeping blank page of oblivion. The woman bent closer still, scrutinizing him.

Darling, please try. Please? Just for me? She waited a second or two, then glanced up. Im afraid its no good.

Now the doctor leaned over him. He felt her fingers gently widen his eyelids, as she examined something about his pupils. She smiled down at him as if he were a child.

This is a private room in a hospital. Youre quite safe.

Hospital?

You know what a hospital is?

Accident?

A power cut. A hint of dryness enlivened her dark eyes, a merciful straw of humor. Well soon have you switched on again.

I cant remember who

Yes, we know.

The other woman spoke. Miles?

What miles?

Your name. Your name is Miles, darling. Miles Green.

The faintest flit of an alien object, a bats wing at dusk; but gone almost before it was apprehended.

Whats happened?

Nothing, darling. Nothing that cant be cured.

He knew that was wrong; and that she knew he knew. There was altogether too much knowing about her.