Allegro

In the beginning we are shown accelerated nighttime footage of Europe's most sumptuous city.  The actors are introduced with their characters' names, and our first scene has a very blond little boy playing Bach to the tutelage of a worried instructor.  Our wunderkind may be talented, but he swears violently at his minute mistakes.  We also see him as a cartoon stick figure eating his first soft ice, riding the merry-go-round, and making other normal childhood discoveries.  Yet even in these first few minutes we have the impression that our pianist became an adult without ever having been a child.  His only name is Zetterstrøm (Ulrich Thomsen), the reluctant epicenter of this film.

A voice-over from a much older man than Zetterstrøm cryptically informs us that, "the secret to his success is also the reason for his failure."  The voice then with great relish provides some facts about the virtuoso with a few nudges as to his own role in the matter.  Although this initially comes off as unwarranted contrivance there is, we will learn, system behind such a narrative.  Zetterstrøm plays his concerts with the necessary technique and posture, not missing a note and not really contemplating any other part of reality.  He is alone, almost wordless, grim-faced, and dapper in that way particular to very lonely people.  Our narrator observes that Zetterstrøm yearns for love; it would be more correct to say he yearns for understanding, which lasting love encompasses.  At length he meets Andrea (Helena Christensen), also in her mid- to late thirties, on a walk-up one starry evening.  Green-eyed and angelically curious, she is very attentive to the strange man marching around Copenhagen in a tuxedo and bow tie.  This last appurtenance becomes a conversation piece and like most conversation pieces serves as an icebreaker when much more has already been said by telepathy.  The enigmatic voice-over about Zetterstrøm's "success" and "failure" is based, therefore, on this scene in which he misplaces his keys but finds the one and only love of his life.   But alas, there are many more failures to come.

The two become a couple, sharing soft, fully-dressed moments on some chic Scandinavian furniture and we sense Zetterstrøm melting ever so slightly.  While Andrea is oozing with love, the pianist can manage: "You're very beautiful.  You make me very happy.  If you didn't exist, God, I'd have to build you."  When they revisit their selection of sweet nothings he adds that she "makes [him] play better," to which she rejoins like any self-respecting woman, "Is that all?"  He strengthens his claim by saying that she almost makes him human as well.  "Almost?" she whispers.  "Yes, almost," he replies.  "No need to exaggerate."  We never learn how long their relationship lasts but this does not affect our sense of its importance.  Its presentation has the quality of many long-lost loves, a passel of tender moments that transcend the daily vicissitudes, and Zetterstrøm expresses himself so haltingly but at his maximum emotional capacity.  If he had gushed like a love-struck schoolboy, writing poetry and hanging on his beloved's every word, the whole architecture of the film would have collapsed.  Which is, as it were, what happens anyway.  As the lovers stand on a bridge one quiet night, Andrea asks him one very important question that he not only answers wrongly, but also unhesitatingly.  The next thing we know events have advanced ten years into the future: Zetterstrøm left Denmark after that fateful night vowing never to return and his style has receded into robotic perfection (he so shuns the human element that his concerts are held with the audience blindfolded).  Then our unseen narrator surfaces to announce his hardly-concealed intention: he will make Zetterstrøm regain his humanity by regaining his memory. 

His memory?  The narrator's Helper (Niels Skousen), who comports himself somewhere between a priest and a chef, is dispatched to interview the pianist and tell him of something very strange.  After the lovers parted and Zetterstrøm abandoned his native land, a Zone arose in the middle of Copenhagen near where he had once lived.  "372 x 88 meters, bound by unknown substance, uninhabitable" is the official description provided (a couple of curious young boys bounce a ball off a street entrance as if it were made of plastic).  The Helper asks Zetterstrøm about his life prior to the last decade and finds that he cannot remember a single event.  "Life for you began ten years ago," he tells him, "but before that is an impenetrable mist."  To prove his point to us he shows Zetterstrøm a picture of Andrea, which he does not recognize.  His past remains trapped in the Zone and the only way to retrieve it is, of course, to return to Denmark.  Zetterstrøm returns and finds an invitation from his host and our narrator, Tom (Henning Moritzen), who is nice enough to have his name stenciled on his luxurious apartment's door – and here's where things become much more lucid.  He goes back into his first thirty years of life and relives that moment when he and Andrea parted; when she was upset about their decision "not to have a child"; and he hears recordings of the film's opening scene of teacher and student.  He also sees himself as a child standing next to him, which makes us wonder why Tom, who is never given a surname, is so keen on helping the pianist, who is never given a Christian name – and we should say no more. 

Although short, the film is a quiet triumph of film-making in the style of this director, a fact Boe gladly admits (the Zone is a direct allusion to this masterpiece).  Small moments are observed with meticulous perfection, such as the arrangement of paintings when Zetterstrøm finds he can only play off-key, or when he glares back at the Helper as they march down an abandoned street.  Thomsen has such a remarkably gentle face for someone whose brow is invariably furrowed and who rarely smiles.  Even when he contradicts someone, his features seem to apologize.  And lovers of soundtracks and diegetic music will revel in what is played to us, since Bach comprises, I believe, the entire score.  The world would be more divine if everything were by Bach; he may be the one composer whom one recognizes as godly without needing to hear anything else.  Depending on your loose-ends policy, you may or may not be pleased with how the film concludes, but you should consider what Tom – which in Danish means "empty" or "blank" – has to say about "sunsets and beautiful flowers."  And then you should wonder about what degree of happiness someone like Zetterstrøm could possibly achieve.

Italian for Beginners

In Denmark in the early nineties a man named after a German city had the audacity (born, we are told, from a severe religious crisis) to return modern cinema to a charming form of dalliance.  Gone were the lavish sets, thunderclap soundtracks and disruptions in that sticky matrix we call the time and space continuum; in their stead came onsite filming, diegetic music, and a sharp focus on the ineluctable modality of the visible with the help of a handheld camera.  Von Trier, a man of devout belief in the future of cinema and his soul, has tinkered with his pretentious manifesto in enough ways as to elicit the envy and derision of far less talented filmmakers and critics, which, of course, only augments his Jupiter-sized ambition. Yet what is most interesting about the Dogme 95 declaration is that it emanated from a small country.  Denmark has fewer than six million inhabitants, but in the last thirteen years it has probably produced thirty first-rate films as well as many others that are sufficiently watchable (the crown jewel of all these titles having been reviewed elsewhere on these pages).  Being a laid-back, attractive, fun-loving nation, if reticent at times, Danes are naturally equipped to handle the rigors of spontaneous acting because hysterics, wild gesturing, and insane monologues simply do not do.  Life and society, however informal Danes tend to be, are constructs that have propelled them to the forefront of European style and urban culture; that they should venture into cinema to record this modern expansion is therefore hardly a surprise.  Yet there is almost nothing modern or progressive about this pleasing take on an old-fashioned comedy of manners. 

The manners involved are those of a small village's batch of eccentrics who range from a widowed and tattooed pastor (Anders W. Berthelsen) to a foul-tempered restaurateur (Lars Kaalund) to a hopelessly clumsy shop assistant (Anette Støvelbæk).  Their sextet is rounded out by an awkward middle-aged hotel employee (Peter Gantzler) who has been, ahem, without love for an extremely long time, a hairdresser (Ann Eleanora Jørgensen), and the Italian in the lot, a young woman called Giulia.  They are all, for one reason or another, single.  Andreas the pastor soothes his grief by driving a Ferrari; Finn takes out his frustrations on the few people who dine at his small establishment, where his service staff includes Giulia; Olympia is so incompetent she can barely hold a job and has to care for an old vulgarian of a father who seems to hate her; Karen cuts hair every now and again, but mostly spends her time seeing to her sick mother; and love-deprived Jørgen keeps making eyes at Giulia although they are, shall we say, linguistically incompatible.  By all indications Danish villages are very bizarre places.  So when an Italian class taught at the local community center unites the characters (except, of course, Giulia), we sense destiny weaving its loom around all involved, which should bring them happiness or at least a new lease on their tired lives.  There might even be a chance of a field trip to that southern land!  Romance shall blossom like jasmine on a young woman's clavicle!  All will be redeemed and the sun shall rise anew on this little Danish village we have come to like so much.

Well, not exactly.  In the middle of the first class attended by Olympia, one of the earth's most cursed mammals, the portly, middle-aged (but very suave) instructor gets a little light-headed then promptly drops dead.  Since this is a canonical Dogme film, no signs of death are actually allowed (that is to say, an actor may fall down and we may assume him to be dead, but a close-up of him not breathing or any fake blood is prohibited).  Their sole respite from the daily tedium now gone, the masses revert to their semi-suicidal state until one student decides to take matters into his own hands and teach the class himself.  His Italian for a non-native is quite good (everyone, it seems, has a secret talent or two) and this makes the dream of Italy much more tangible to his classmates.  My policy of nondisclosure precludes any more details, but I will add that certain things that are expected to happen do indeed take place, with twists that are hardly contrived.  The magic of Dogme is precisely its proximity to our real existence untempered by the manipulative imagery and tones that are supposed to direct our thoughts.  Conflicted emotions, half-gnawed assent, and hesitancy are all perfectly acceptable because that is how we feel most of the time about most of the world.  You may be pleased with the Danes and their cosmopolitan approach to escape or you may say that this sort of stuff only happens to other people.  Or maybe you'll simply forget you're watching a film about strangers, which is exactly what these sweet if misled people might have hoped had they been showing you, for example, one of their prized home videos.

The Five Obstructions

Admittedly it did not take a great deal of time to locate downloads of Det perfekte menneske (The Perfect Human, 1967), a film short by this Danish writer and filmmaker and the basis of this recent film.  Film short here means all of twelve black–and–white minutes in the life of a rather attractive young Scandinavian couple dancing, grooming, bathing, eating, dressing, undressing, and discovering the contours of their outward genetic advantages.  A voiceover done by Leth himself does not wonder how such perfection was achieved (an old argument), but how it is maintained and, most modernly, how simple daily actions are beautified because the agents performing them look fresh off a modeling shoot.  Given the hints at the couple’s vapidity, the voiceover and the images provided are sufficiently ironic to make the short palatable to film studies offerings up to this day, something to be seen once or twice, discussed at length, and then stashed between copies of Metropolis and Wild Strawberries.  Or in Lars von Trier’s case to be seen twenty times and turned into a hypnotic exercise in self-awareness.

If these downloads and my stopwatch are to be trusted, then by taking in all ninety minutes of The Five Obstructions, we actually see about half of Leth’s original short interspersed.  More than enough to get the idea and enough in any case to highlight the game which is afoot: the remaking of the film with substantially different criteria.  These criteria, says von Trier, who seems to be draining a cocktail in every scene, are better referred to as obstructions because the point of having Leth remake his short is to reexamine both the ethics and worthwhileness of the whole endeavor.  How can twelve minutes of Blow–up–type footage merit such scrutiny?  If you follow von Trier (usually a very wise option), then it is precisely the inherent shallowness of the short that makes it the perfect test subject.  Leth, a man of discernible ego and one recently besmirched by some rather nasty rumors, is up for the challenge, perhaps if only to harpoon the massive bubble that he mistakes for von Trier’s swollen head.  Yet von Trier is not trying to show off.  He is trying to prove that art without clear morality may only enjoy ephemeral and topical success.  Nothing is more old–fashioned than the hopelessly modern, remarked this famed hedonist (who was really an old moralist), and Leth’s short, however popular and trendy in his day, now appears like a Mesozoic fossil against von Trier’s revolutionary (and sometimes hyperrevolutionary) back–to–basics Dogme 95 approach.  So, Leth grudgingly concurs, a few updates may be overdue.              

The first obstruction is to film The Perfect Human in Cuba — a place where Caribbean connoisseur Leth had some issues a while back — in Spanish, without a set, and, most annoyingly, with only twelve frames.  Since twenty–four frames is standard, an unpleasant choppiness obtains that frustrates Leth more than the viewer.  After passing this first test and evincing signs of incredulity, Leth is pushed much further by the second obstruction.  Von Trier begins his request by inviting Leth to sample some forenoon vodka and caviar, which von Trier claims should only be eaten with a bone china utensil, then moves to talking about “the most miserable place in the world.”  What is the worst patch of humanity or inhumanity that Leth has ever experienced?  Sensing a debacle of immense proportions, Leth thinks about lying then confesses that there is nothing more hideous for a godfearing man than recalling in dream the red light district of Mumbai: 

I had one of those rare nightmares you remember when you wake up. I thought it had a bit of a Faustian pact to it ...  Where fear transforms into madness, when you have to avoid sleep not to fall back into that nightmare.

This obstruction, which contains a few other minor stipulations, has become the poster piece for the film and the one in which Leth comes closest to losing the icy and objective distance for which he is renowned.  Can there be anything more off–putting than a gourmet meal in a tuxedo and a shave before a screened–off mass of undernourished onlookers?  At first Leth mocks “this notion that I’ll be so affected, that it will be visible, quantifiable,” attributing von Trier’s insistence on squalor to pure “Romanticism.”  “There’s no physiological law,” says Leth, “that says you will have too much.”  Yet physiology is not the reason that we watch the amazingly reserved Leth change his mind little by little, even if changing his mind means that von Trier was right.                  

The other three obstructions will not be mentioned here.  With each episode, Leth is granted less creative control and more incentive to strangle von Trier, who does at times seem to be having his fun.  But it is fun of the finest kind, a parody of hard–held tenets of fashion and kitschy solipsism that are blown out of the water by von Trier and his principled band of Dogmeists.  Not to say that Leth was a purveyor of this type of stuff, but the irony he intended at the time is no longer valid because it is satirical and engages trendiness on its own dull terms.  Despite its odd format and brittle accord of oneupmanship, calling The Five Obstructions pretentious is hardly accurate.  They are nothing but what they claim to be: five methods of reorganizing one’s approach to the values of observation.  When von Trier objects to Leth’s showing the poor of Mumbai (“One thing I asked is that we don’t see those people”), we know that we shouldn’t have seen them because, first and foremost, he wants Leth’s reaction to them, and with them there, we hardly see Leth at all.  And the famous quote that begins “today I experienced something that I hope to understand in a few days,” uttered by “the perfect man” while shaving and then by Leth while in Mumbai, becomes less of an imbecility and more of an epitaph: the days of beautiful decadence and luxury worship are over.  Long live the rugged realism of craftsmanship.

Kierkegaard, "A True Friendship" (part 2)

The concluding part of a selection from a work by this Danish man of letters. You can find the original in this volume.

All of this is but one picture, all four of us together.  If I were to think about some of them I would be able to find an analogy as far as my own self – Mephistopheles; the only difficulty here is that Edward is no Faust.  Were I to dub myself Faust the problem would be different: Edward is the farthest thing from Mephistopheles.  As am I for that matter, at least in Edward's eyes.  He admires me for the good genius of Love, and in that regard he does well; at least he can rest assured that no one can watch over his love more meticulously than I can.  I promised him to engage the aunt in conversation, and I tend to this hateful task with all seriousness.  Practically before our very eyes the aunt disappears into pure agronomy: we go to the kitchen and basement, out into the fresh air, look after the hens, ducks and geese, and so forth.  All this angers Cordelia, but she of course cannot understand what I actually want.  To her I remain a mystery, a mystery whose solution does not tempt her but which provokes bitterness and indignation.  She feels very good that her aunt is almost ridiculous, and yet her aunt is such a respectable woman that she certainly does not deserve it.  On the other hand I make her feel that she would be forgiven if she sought me out to provoke me.  Sometimes I go so far as to make Cordelia smile at her aunt with secrecy.  There are studies that have to be done.  It's not as if Cordelia and I acted in such a way so that she would never smile at her aunt – far from it.  I remain undeterred in my commitment to taking the matter seriously; but she doesn't let herself smile.  And this is the first error in her education: we have to teach her how to smile ironically.  But this smile applies almost as much to me as to her aunt because she really has no idea what to think of me.  Nevertheless it was possible that I was a young man who had become old before his time; it was possible.  There was a second possibility as well as a third, etcetera.  Once she has smiled at her aunt she will feel indignant towards herself, and I will turn around and continue chatting with her aunt, look at her with a grave and serious mien, and she will smile at me, at the situation.              

Our relationship does not involve the tender, faithful embraces of understanding nor attraction, but misunderstanding's repulsion.  My relationship towards her is in fact nothing at all, it is purely spiritual – which of course is nothing in a relationship with a young girl.  The method to which I now adhere does have, however, its extraordinary conveniences.  A person who comports himself chivalrously stirs up doubt and provokes resistance – but I am exempt from such things.  No one watches over me; on the contrary, one would sooner label me a reliable sort well-suited to watching over a young girl.  This method has only one flaw, which is its slowness; this can only used to one's advantage on those people who would be interesting to win over.

What else possesses the tremendous force of a young girl?  Not the wind's whisper, nor the freshness of the morning air, nor the brisk cool seaport, nor the scent and vim of a bottle of wine.  No, nothing; nothing else on earth has this power.

Soon I hope to have made her hate me.  I have wholly assumed the guise of bachelor, talking only about loafing at home, having a reliable servant, and having a friend with a good enough foothold that he can be counted on when we join arms in camaraderie.  If I could only get the aunt to stop talking about farming, I would be able to give her a more direct occasion for irony.  A bachelor is someone you can laugh at, someone with whom you can sympathize, yet a young man who is not out of his mind; and a young girl will bristle at such behavior, with all of her gender's meaning, her beauty and poetry destroyed. 

Thus the days go by: I see her but do not speak to her, in her vicinity I only make idle chatter with her aunt.  One night perhaps it may occur to me to give full vent to my love.  So I walk outside her windows shrouded in my cloak, my hat pulled down over my eyes.  Her bedroom looks out upon the courtyard, but since it lies on the corner it also faces the street.  Now and then she stands up for a moment beside the window or opens it, and, unnoticed by all, looks up towards the stars – although she is not one to want to be noticed by everyone.  During these nocturnal hours I drift around like a ghost, and like a ghost I haunt her apartment block.  Here I forget everything, have no plans or calculations; here I throw reason overboard, expand and strengthen my bosom with deep sighs, a movement not permitted in my system of conduct.  Some are virtuous during the day and sinful at night, and I am all pretense in daytime and pure desire as evening comes.  If only she could see me here, if only she could peer into my soul – if only. 

If this girl wishes to understand herself, she will have to confess that I am a man for her.  She is too intense, too deeply set on being happy in marriage; it would not be enough to let her fall for a seducer, pure and simple.  But when she does fall for me she will salvage the interesting part of this shipwreck.  With me she will have to do what philosophers have described with a pun: zu Grunde gehen.

As it were, she's grown tired of listening to Edward.   This is so often the case when strict limits engird the person of interest.  Sometimes she listens in on my conversation with her aunt, and once I notice this, to the astonishment of both her aunt and Cordelia, some hint of another world gleams on the horizon.  Her aunt sees lightning but hears nothing; Cordelia sees nothing but hears a voice.  And yet at that very time everything is in perfect order, the conversation between her aunt and me advancing in its humdrum way like courier ponies in the still of the night, accompanied by the melancholy of the tea machine.  In the living room at such moments it can sometimes get uncomfortable, especially for Cordelia.  She has no one to whom she can talk or listen.  Were she to turn towards Edward in his embarrassment, she would run the risk of a very dumb move; were she to turn to the other side, towards her aunt and me, she would trigger that assuredness that reigns, the brisk, monotone hammering of conversation, so different from Edward's supreme awkwardness.  I can well understand how it might occur to Cordelia that her aunt was charmed and bewitched, as she moves in perfect harmony with my tempo.  Nor could she participate in this conversation, because this is one of those means that I use to repulse her, and I allow myself to treat her completely like a child.  It's not as if on that account I should permit myself all sorts of liberties towards her – far from it.  I see quite clearly how confusing this might seem, especially as to whether her femininity may rise up pure and  beautiful as it once was.  Owing to my intimate relationship with her aunt, it is easy for me to treat her like a child that has no understanding of the world.  This approach neutralizes rather than affronts her femininity, because her femininity cannot be offended by the fact that she has no idea about market square prices although it may repulse her that this is somehow the most essential thing in life.  In this respect her aunt outdoes herself – with my powerful support.  She becomes almost fanatic, something for which she has me to thank.  The only thing she cannot tolerate about me is that I am simply nothing.   Now I have introduced the practice that every time our topic of conversation is a vacant office or post, that means that this is a post for me, and a matter of serious discourse between us.  Cordelia always notices the irony, which is exactly what I want. 

Poor Edward!  Pity that his name is not Fritz.  Every time that I dwell in my reflections on my relationship with him, I always end up thinking about Fritz i Bruden.  Edward is moreover just like his role model, the Corporal in the National Guard; to be honest, Edward is also rather boring.  He never perceives a matter the right way, and always appears taut and rehearsed.  Just between us, out of friendship towards him, I always try to appear as reckless as possible.  Poor old Edward!  The only thing that hurts me more is his endless debt to me, and that he almost doesn't know how to thank me.  Therefore allowing myself to be thanked would really be too much. 

Kierkegaard, "A True Friendship" (part 1)

The first part of a selection from a work by this Danish man of letters.  You can find the original in this volume.

So we are friends, Edward and I; a true friendship, a beautiful relationship exists between us, one unlike any that has existed since the halcyon days of Ancient Greece.  We soon became confidants and, after having involved him in a plethora of observations regarding Cordelia, I almost succeeded in making him confess his secret.  It is said that as easily as secrets come together, so do they slip away.  Poor fellow, so often has he sighed already.  He decks himself out each time she comes by; from there he walks her home in the evening, his heart throbbing at the thought of her arm grazing his.  And they stroll home, gazing at the stars, he rings the outside doorbell, she disappears, he despairs – but he hopes and waits for next time.  He still has not had the courage to set foot across her threshold, he whose own apartment is so exquisite.  Although I cannot help but silently mock Edward in my mind there is indeed something cute about his childishness.  And although I imagine myself otherwise as rather skilled in all these erotic concepts, I have never observed that condition, a lover's fear or trembling, that is to say, to the degree that it robs me of my composure which I can usually maintain.  But this instance is such that it actually makes me stronger.  Perhaps one would say I have never really been in love – perhaps.  I have reprimanded Edward; I have encouraged him to rely on our friendship.  Tomorrow he shall take a decisive step, personally go over and invite her out.  I have made him keen on the desperate idea of asking me to go with him; this I have promised him.  He takes it as an extraordinary act of friendship.  The apartment is just how I want it, with the door opening into the living room.  Should she have the slightest doubt about the meaning of my appearance, my appearance shall yet again confound everything.

I have not been accustomed previously to preparing myself for conversation, and now I see the necessity of talking with her aunt.  Namely, I have taken upon myself the hateful task of conversing with her, therewith concealing Edward's love-struck movements towards Cordelia.  The aunt used to reside in the country, and from both my painstaking studies of agronomic documents and the aunt's wisdom grounded in experience, I continue to make significant progress in my insights and capabilities.

At her aunt's I do whatever I please; she regards me as a staid and respectable person whom one can always enjoy inviting along – not like one of those waggish Junkers.   With Cordelia I do not think of being particularly well-regarded.  Owing to her purely innocent femininity she is someone who demands that every man pay her courtship, and yet she senses all too greatly the rebelliousness of my existence.

So as I sit in that cozy salon and as she, like some good angel, spreads her charm and grace everywhere and over everyone,  I come into contiguity with her, beyond good and evil, where I sometimes become impatient within and am tempted to abandon my cover.  For even though I sit before everyone's eyes in the living room, I also sit and lurk.  I am tempted to grab her hand, to embrace the entire girl, to hide her within me out of fear that someone will rob me of her.  Or as Edward and I leave them in the evening, as she extends her hand to me to say goodbye, as I hold it in mine, sometimes I find it difficult to let the bird slip out from my fingers.  Patience – quod antea fuit impetus, nunc ratio est ***– may now be spun in a completely different way in my loom, and suddenly I let all of passion's might burst forth.  We do not debase this moment with sweets, with untimely anticipation – and you can thank me for that, my dear Cordelia.  I work on developing contradistinctions, opposites; I tense Cupid's bow to wound even more deeply.  And like an archer I release the string, tense it again, hear its song anew, which is my war anthem, but I still do not aim nor place an arrow on the string.

As a limited number of people often come in contact with one another in the same room, so there develops a tradition as to each person's place, his stage, that remains in one's mind like a picture which can be unrolled at will, a map of the terrain.  This is how we are now in the Wahlske house: a picture all together.  The general scene: seated on the sofa, the aunt moves the little sewing table towards her; Cordelia moves to accommodate her; she moves it up to the coffee table in front of the sofa; then Edward follows, and I follow Edward.  Edward wants secrecy, mysteriousness, he wants to whisper; and in general he whispers so well as to seem completely mute.  I, on the other hand, make no mystery of my effusions to the aunt, market square prices, a calculation as to how many pots of milk would make a pound of butter through the liquid medium and the butter's core dialectic.  These really are things to which every young girl cannot just listen without being harmed; even more rarely does it devolve into a solid, fundamental and constructive conversation that ennobles the head and heart.  I generally have my back to the coffee table and to Edward and Cordelia's chatter, and I chat away with the aunt.  And is it not of our great and undoubted nature in its creations; what is butter if not a delicious gift; what a magnificent result of nature and art.  Her aunt would certainly be in no condition to listen to what is being said between Edward and Cordelia, assuming something is actually being said.  That much I promised Edward and I am a man of my word.  I, however, can hear every word exchanged, every movement.  For me this is paramount because one doesn't know what a person in his despair might venture.  The most cautious and dispirited among us sometimes attempt the most desperate acts. Nevertheless, I have nothing of the kind to undertake with these two people, I can see that on Cordelia's face.  And I am the constant invisible presence between her and Edward.

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*** More properly, "Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit," from Horace [What we justify today as reasonable, we deemed yesterday an act of violence].