Unable to bear all the nagging and complaining, all the questioning and probing, I started shutting down yesterday afternoon. For the third or fourth time since 1993, when I tasted of this horror for the first time, I ended up in bed. I curled up like a baby and covered myself over my head. I shut my eyes, my ears. I shut all my senses. My only wish was not to be disturbed, not to be molested any longer. My only fear was that Lauren would barge in again, that she would start shooting her mouth again, that she would have a load of questions for me again. By the time she joined me in the morning, I was able to make love to her, but as soon as she came a few times, she began nagging, complaining, questioning, probing once again. Barely recovered, I started shutting down again. Oh, how I loathe the word “again”! A few hours later, I loathe all words. I loathe language itself. Language—the blessing and the curse of the human species.

Addendum (December 17, 2000)

This morning I delved with unrestrained gusto into Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker,[1] which I just bought. I have been aware of this masterpiece of popular Darwinism for a long time, but I have not bumped into it yet. All of a sudden, it was right in front of me on the first bookshop table with books on sale, costing a few pounds only. Anyhow, as soon as I opened the book I was staggered by what I read: “Words are our servants, not our masters.”[2] “But, but…,” I began to splutter. I could not believe my eyes. “But,” I conceded a moment later in a hushed voice, “how about sentences?” Indeed, how about language? For some strange reason, I was not put off by Dawkins’ brashness. As he says repeatedly in the Preface, his is the art of explaining. The master’s conceit is thus not difficult to understand and even condone.

Footnotes

1. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1991 (first published in 1986).

2. Op. cit., pp. 1-2.