Museum de Animabus Purgatorii

(The Museum of Purgatorial Spirits)

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"But I don't admire it at all! Not at all! It doesn't interest me in the least! I read two verses—and I'm already bored. God help me, how am I supposed to admire it when I don't admire it?" His eyes popped, and he sat down, thus sinking into a bottomless pit. The teacher choked on this naive confession."For God's sake be quiet!" he hissed. "I'll flunk you. Galkiewicz, you want to ruin me! You probably don't realize what you've just said?"

Galkiewicz

"But I don't understand it! I don't understand how I can admire it when I don't admire it."

Teacher

"How can you not admire it, Galkiewicz, when I told you a thousand times that you do admire it."

Galkiewicz

"Well, I don't admire it."

Teacher

"That's your private business. Obviously, Galkiewicz, you lack the intelligence. Others admire it."

Galkiewicz

"Nobody admires it, I swear. How can anybody admire it when nobody reads it besides us, schoolboys, and only because we're forced to ..."

Teacher

"Quiet, for God's sake! That's because there aren't many people who are truly cultural and up to the task..."

Galkiewicz

"But the cultural ones don't read it either. Nobody does, nobody. Absolutely nobody."

Teacher

"Listen, Galkiewicz, I have a wife and a child! Have pity on the child at least! There's no doubt, Galkiewicz, that we should admire great poetry, and Slowacki was, after all, a great poet... Maybe Slowacki doesn't move you, Galkiewicz, but you can't tell me that Mickiewicz, Byron, Pushkin, Shelley, Goethe don't pierce your soul through and through..."

Galkiewicz

"They pierce nobody. Nobody cares, they're bored by it all. Nobody can read more than two or three verses. O God! I can't..."

Teacher

"This is preposterous! Great poetry must be admired, because it is great and because it is poetry, and so we admire it."

Galkiewicz

"Well, I can't. And nobody can! O God!"

- Witold Gombrowicz, "Ferdydurke" (1937)

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

Watt will not

abate one jot

but of what

of the coming to

of the being at

of the going from

Knott’s habitat

of the long way

of the short stay

of the going back home

the way he had come

of the empty heart

of the empty hands

of the dim mind wayfaring

through barren lands

of a flame with dark winds

hedged about

going out

gone out

of the empty heart

of the empty hands

of the dark mind stumbling

through barren lands

that is of what

Watt will not

abate one jot

- Beckett Samuel. "Watt" (1953).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

- Why didn't you get married?

- Because my fiancée died [...] So I did what I could: I chloroformed myself. It was in the countryside. But God sent me a good friend, who broke down the door and saved me. The most vicious kind of mercy!... I had to pay for the broken door, and the friend received my position announcing that I was crazy... [...]

- And what moral sense does it make for the last love? - asked Wokulski.

‌ - That the suicides can't be disturbed - answered the doctor.

- Prus Bolesław. "The Doll" (1890).

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- "Blinded by The Light" (2018). HBO.

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There is no humankind - there are only worms in cheese, which is also a pile of worms.

- Witkiewicz S. I. "Shoemakers" (1934).

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HAMM:

Did you ever have an instant of happiness?

CLOV:

Not to my knowledge.

- Beckett Samuel. "Endgame" (1957).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings. Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid."

- Bulgakov Mikhail. "Master and Margarita" (1966).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face."

- Nabokov Vladimir. "Lolita" (1955).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing;--it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?"

- Remarque E. M. "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1929).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"-I'm not a machine. I'm a human. -At home. In factory no one want from you any humanity tests, in factory your muscles and your brain are required, and only for that we pay you - he was getting irritated more and more. - You are a machine here, the same as all of us, so do only what is up to you."

- Reymont W. S. "Promised Land" (1899).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

Corking life in a bottle for five grams, when for your sheer void a large barrel is not enough

- Witkiewicz S. I. "Farewell to Autumn" (1927).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

”That’s right! That’s the way one should act,” observed Rybin. ”We are all enveloped in misery as in our skins. We breathe misery, we wear misery. But that’s nothing to brag about. Not all people are blind; some close their eyes of their own accord, indeed! And if you are stupid you have to suffer for it.”

- Gorky Maxim. "Mother" (1907).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"The judges of this State may tranquilly condemn us for our conduct at that time, but History, the goddess of a higher truth and a better legal code, will smile as she tears up this verdict and will acquit us all of the crime for which this verdict demands punishment."

- Hitler Adolf. "Mein Kampf" (1925).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain..."

photo: The Ladd Company, Shaw Brothers. "Blade Runner" (1982).

[purgatorysoulsmuseum]

"My mind is clearer now. At last all too well I can see where we all soon will be. If you strip away the myth from the man you will see where we all soon will be. Jesus! You started to believe the things they say of you. You really do believe this talk of god is true! And all the good you've done will soon get swept away. You've begun to matter more than the things you say. Listen Jesus I don't like what I see. All I ask is that you listen to me. And remember, I've been your right hand man all along. You have set them all on fire. They think they've found the new Messiah. And they'll hurt you when they find they're wrong..."

photo: Universal Pictures. "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1973).

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photo: Warner Bros. Columbia Pictures. "Blade Runner 2049" (2017).

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photo: Le Studio Canal+, Regency Enterprises, Alcor Films. "Falling Down" (1993).