Fragrance (novel) [49]

Pr. Dr. Dorin Octavian Picioruș

Fragrance

(novel)

*

The man’s negligence has to do with his wife. Mother’s Ionel says what his wife says. Even though he doesn’t like her food, he says what his wife says. Even though they have so many children and it’s getting harder, if his wife wants it, then he wants it too. Because he understood from his mother that he must listen to his wife, not have anything to say in front of her. And she, with her temperament as a woman who has not been loved long enough, demands love upon love, demands guarantees upon guarantees of love, and he, to please her, says what his woman says. Into a day of Saturday, in the evening, he says what his wife says. And what does his woman say? That’s the question, actually! That his wife, miffed, picky, coquette, the YouTube creator Eliza, doesn’t say much, but she leaves it up to you to understand, to deduce, to figure it out. And, just as she educates her public, so she educates her husband: through allusions, through parables. She immediately makes a video, says some things that don’t make much sense and demands that the public understand her. If they don’t understand her, they’re not of her nose. If I understand her, it means they are the disciples of her online school, where she strives to teach the world. And, without ever having been a teacher, Eliza has university airs, because she’s a born self-taught. She understands each one in her own way, Ionel must do at place the command, the children the same, because Eliza dictates and initials.

That if it hadn’t been told, others wouldn’t have read it. And if it hadn’t been revealed, others would have lied too. And if it hadn’t, maybe yes, that’s what you say, but she doesn’t want to, that’s what he knows, maybe not, she says, maybe you say too. And the narration, gentlemen and ladies, does not end when the reading public wants it to, but when the one who writes it wants it to! For he, who has assumed his coming, through writing, to you, is like flowers placed in a vase: they smell both from close and from far away with the same thrilling. Because the readers understand a great author only when the author has at least one critic to match him. And when the literary critic is able to see the essential in an author, then his writings truly begin to live. Until then they are covered by a veil, by misunderstanding. But when you see beyond the words, when you understand who the author is, then you share with people the truth of his writings. His parents, relatives, friends, teachers, the author’s, don’t tell you much about him. But when the literary critic descends into the text, when he makes the source a living spring, then everything becomes clear. That you ate with the author at the table, that you saw him, that he smiled at you, that he said a few words to you, it doesn’t matter at all. You have to say words about his fundamental things, about his work, and as to say, you must see the author in his work. Because various acquaintances talk to you, leave, they are not changed at all by meeting you. Whoever changes when meeting you is the one who understands you deeply. Who can read your work from the inside.

That one said that the writers rush and rushing is one of their biggest mistakes. But I think rushing is part of the novel. Because we don’t know what we will write until the rush appears, until the need arises to immediately write what we have within ourselves.  The formulation is the child within ourselves, which we give birth unexpectedly to no one, sometimes harder, sometimes easier. And when the novel becomes technical, when it tends to become scrupulous grammar to the detriment of reality, we are not dealing with a forest of calophilia, but with a sample of naivety. And how can you believe that the truth can be written better than its naturalness? The flower we put in a vase is the naturalness we need. More or less of it is not accepted. If I paint it, I move towards the idea, towards my thought. But the flower as a flower is smell, it is beauty, it is naturalness, it is my keeping up with the season, with what I know about the meadow. And when I smelled the freshly threshed threshing floor, the straw warmed by the sun, I knew that my summer was at its zenith. That I’m walking around and enjoying my vacation, but that it will end soon. For I am a free being, far too free, but who has her own secret work, as long as I am learning within myself. And just as the silkworm transforms into a cocoon, I, learning, enjoyed the astonishing changes within myself, those that told me that, by learning, I was passing into other stages of my life, which were not at all like the previous ones.