Jul 18
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Hanna: Mein Schrift? Sie wollen mein Schrift?
Me: SIE WOLLEN IHR SCHRIFT? OH MEIN GOTT! HANNA IST ANALPHABETISTIN!
« Being ill when you are a child or growing up is such an enchanted interlude! The outside world, the world of free time in the yard or the garden or on the street, is only a distant murmmur in the sickroom. Inside, a whole world of characters and stories proliferate out of the books you read. The fever that weakens your perception as it sharpens your imagination turns the sickroom into something new, both familiar and strange; monsters come grinning out of the patterns on the curtains and the carpet, and chairs, tables, bookcases and wardrobes burst out of their normal shapes and become mountains and buildings and ships you can almost touch although they're far away. Through the long hours of the night you have the Church clock for company and the rumble of the occasional passing car that throws it's headlights across the walls and ceilings.
These are hours without sleep, which is not to say they're sleepless, because on the contrary, they're not about lack of anything, they are rich and full. Desires, memories, fears, passions form labryinths in which we lose and find then lose ourselves again. »
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader
« We thought up pet names for each other. She began [to give] me other attributes and diminutives, such as Frog or Toad, Puppy, Toy, and Rose. I stuck to Hanna, until she asked me, “Which animal do you see when you hold me and close your eyes and think of animals?”
I closed my eyes and thought of animals. We were lying snuggled close together, my head on her neck, my neck on her breasts, my right arm underneath her against her back and my left hand on her behind. I ran my arms and hands over her broad back, her hard thighs, her firm ass, and also felt the solidity of her breasts and stomach against my neck and chest. Her skin was smooth and soft to the touch, the body beneath it strong and reliable. When my hand lay on her calf, I felt the constant twitching play of muscles. It reminded me of the way a horse twitches its hide to repel flies.
“A horse.”
“A horse?” She disentangled herself, sat up and stared at me, stared in shock.
“You don’t like it? It came to me because you feel so good, smooth and soft and all firm and strong underneath. And because your calf twitches.” I explained my association.
She looked at the ripple of the muscles in her calf. “Horse.” She shook her head. “I don’t know...”
. . . Faced with her look of shock, I had been ready to take it all back if necessary, blame myself, and apologize. But now I tried to reconcile her to the horse. “I could call you Cheval or Equinchen or Bukeffelchen. When I think of horses, I don’t think horse’s teeth or horse face or whatever it is that worries you, I think of something good, warm, soft, strong. You’re not a bunny or a kitten, and whatever there is in a tiger—that evil something—that’s not you either."
She lay down on her back, arms behind her head. Now it was me who sat up to look at her. She was staring into space. After a while she turned her face to me. Her expression was curiously naked. “Yes, I like it when you call me Horse or those other horse names—can you explain them to me? »
— Bernhard Schlink, The Reader
« Wenn ich jedoch verletzt werde, kommen wieder die damals erfahrenen Verletzungen hoch, wenn ich mich schuldig fühle, die damaligen Schuldgefühle, und in heutiger Sehnsucht, heutigem Heimweh spüre ich Sehnsucht und Heimweh von damals.
Die Schichten unseres Lebens ruhen so dicht aufeinander auf, daß uns im Späteren immer Früheres begegnet, nicht als Abgetanes und Erledigtes, sondern gegenwärtig und lebendig. Ich verstehe das. Trotzdem finde ich es manchmal schwer erträglich. Vielleicht habe ich unsere Geschichte doch geschrieben, weil ich sie loswerden will, auch wenn ich es nicht kann. »
— Bernhard Schlink, Der Vorleser
What is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right? […] The Odyssey is the story of motion both purposeful and purposeless, successful and futile. What else is the history of law!
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader
"Wenn sie zu mir so ist, dann ist sie so, sagte er sich, und wenn sie mich so liebt, dann ist das eben, wie sie liebt. Für mich ist's genug Liebe, genug Glück."
"Ich habe nichts vergessen, ich erinnere mich nur anders, und es tut mir leid, dass du dich so erinnerst."
