The Buddha's Return by Gaito Gazdanov

Author:Gaito Gazdanov [Gaito Gazdanov]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782271109
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2014-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

It was precisely ten minutes to one when I left. I remember this because I glanced at my watch and momentarily thought, in the false light of the street lamp, that it was five minutes past ten, which surprised me. But then I took a closer look and realized my mistake. Perhaps I could have caught the last service on the Métro, but I decided to walk nonetheless. It was a cold, starry night; here and there along the pavements glimmered streaks of frozen water. I surveyed my surroundings distractedly as I continued along the familiar road, then I looked straight ahead of me and saw amid the yellowish winter mist that the streets and their lamps had mysteriously disappeared. I paused, lit a cigarette and looked about myself. Truly, there were no buildings or streets at all: I found myself standing in the middle of a bridge across the Seine. Leaning against the railing, I stood there for a long time, gazing at the dark surface of the river. It flowed silently between those statues of the water nymphs that I had failed to recognize on my return from the nonexistent prison in that imaginary state. As I looked down at the water I gradually forgot all about my contemplative faculties’ unfortunate limitations, which I was always conscious of unless there was sky or water in front of me. Whenever I beheld either of these, I would begin to feel as if I were no longer pent in on all sides—by time, circumstance, the imperfection of my senses, the personal and insignificant details of my life, my own physical traits. Only then would I feel as if my mind were unburdened, as if freedom’s reflection were approaching me, fulfilling some divine promise—amid this silent, magisterial infinity of water or air. Whatever I thought of in these moments, my mind functioned differently than it did normally and acquired a certain detachment from the external circumstances affecting it. Sometimes I would forget where these thoughts had begun; at other times they would remain fixed in my mind. I knew, however, that I would never discover their mysterious, long-lost origin, which had vanished in the mute stillness of time gone by. I would feel as if I were now a spectator, somewhere amid this expanse of air or water, to the perpetual motion of that indefinable mass of the most diverse things—objects and thoughts, stone buildings and memories, street corners and expectations, optical impressions and despair—through which passed both my own life and those of other people, my brothers and contemporaries.

And so I thought of the strange allure contained in this longing for my own disappearance. What seemed seductive to me might have been so for others, too, and particularly for Pavel Alexandrovich. Perhaps it was not by chance that he had spoken about Buddhism, which, as he saw it, led to an almost complete liberation from our impermanent, earthly shell. It was necessary to overcome this persistent oppressive state: the essential

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