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"Mystery is the sugar in the cup,' said the Doctor. She picked up the container of white crystals the delicatessen had included in the picnic basket … - Robertson Davies
"Mystery is the sugar in the cup,' said the Doctor. She picked up the container of white crystals the delicatessen had included in the picnic basket and poured a large dollop into her cognac.
'I don’t think I’d do that, Gunilla,' said Darcourt.
'Nobody wants you to do it, Simon. I am doing it, and that’s enough. That is the curse of life — when people want everybody to do the same wise, stupid thing. Listen: Do you want to know what life is? I’ll tell you. Life is a drama.'
'Shakespeare was ahead of you, Gunilla,' said Darcourt. '"All the world’s a stage,"' he declaimed.
'Shakespeare had the mind of a grocer,' said Gunilla. 'A poet, yes, but the soul of a grocer. He wanted to please people.'
'That was his trade,' said Darcourt. 'And it’s yours, too. Don’t you want this opera to please people?'
'Yes, I do. But that is not philosophy. Hoffmann was no philosopher. Now be quiet, everybody, and listen, because this is very important. Life is a drama. I know. I am a student of the divine Goethe, not that grocer Shakespeare. Life is a drama. But it is a drama we have never understood and most of us are very poor actors. That is why our lives seem to lack meaning and we look for meaning in toys — money, love, fame. Our lives seem to lack meaning but' — the Doctor raised a finger to emphasize her great revelation — 'they don’t, you know.' She seemed to be having some difficulty in sitting upright, and her natural pallor had become ashen.
'You’re off the track, Nilla,' said Darcourt. 'I think we all have a personal myth. Maybe not much of a myth, but anyhow a myth that has its shape and its pattern somewhere outside our daily world.'
'This is all too deep for me,' said Yerko. 'I am glad I am a Gypsy and do not have to have a philosophy and an explanation for everything. Madame, are you not well?'
Too plainly the Doctor was not well. Yerko, an old hand at this kind of illness, lifted her to her feet and gently, but quickly, took her to the door — the door to the outsi
English
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About Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies CC (August 28 1913 – December 2 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist and professor.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
William Robertson Davies
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When the time came for Pompadour herself to die, she confessed, was given her viaticum, and was from that time forth forbidden to see her lover. And when her body was borne away from Versailles, Louis was thought to have behaved rather badly because he watched the sad procession from a balcony. Let no one suppose that these people lived lives that were any more free from religious and neighbourly censure than the adulterers in our smallest Canadian villages. Even wealth and privilege could not wholly insulate them from that frost.
My own idea is that when He comes again it will be to continue his ministry as an old man. I am an old man and my life has been spent as a soldier of Christ, and I tell you that the older I grow the less Christ's teachings says to me. I am sometimes very conscious that I am following the path of a leader who died when He was less than half as old as I am now. I see and feel things He never saw or felt. I know things He seems to never have known. Everybody wants a Christ for himself and those who think like him. Very well, am I at fault for wanting a Christ who will show me how to be an old man? All Christ's teaching is put forth with the dogmatism, the certainty, and the strength of youth: I need something that takes account of the accretion of experience, the sense of paradox and ambiguity that comes with years! I think after forty we should recognize Chirst politely but turn for our comfort and guidance to God the Father, who knows the good and evil of life, and to the Holy Ghost, who posses a widsom beyond that of the incarnated Christ. After all, we worship a Trinigty, of which Christ is but one Person. I think when He comes again it will be to declare the unity of the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit. And then perhaps we shall make some sense of this life of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces. Who can tell? — we might even make it bearable for everybody.
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