De Zwitserse schrijver en filosoof Pascal Mercier (eig. Peter Bieri) werd geboren op 23 juni 1944 in Bern. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2008.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Uit: Der Klavierstimmer

“Jetzt, da alles vorbei ist, wollen wir aufschreiben, wie wir es erlebt haben. Wir werden den Erinnerungen allein gegenübertreten, ohne Verführung durch die Gegenwart des anderen. Die Berichte sollen wahrhaftig sein, ganz gleich, wie groß der Schmerz sein mag beim Lesen. Das haben

wir uns versprochen. Nur so, hast du gesagt, vermöchten wir den Kerker unserer Liebe zu zerschlagen, die mit der gemeinsamen Geburt begann und bis zum heutigen Tage gedauert hat.

Nur so könnten wir frei werden voneinander.

Du hast es gesagt, als wir in der Küche standen und die letzten Schlucke Kaffee aus den Zwillingsbechern tranken, die Maman am Abend meiner Ankunft aus dem hintersten Winkel des Buffets hervorgekramt hatte. Ihre Hände zitterten, und es wäre unmöglich gewesen, sie in ihrem verlorenen Lächeln, hinter dem sie einen Sprung in die unversehrte Vergangenheit versuchte, zu enttäuschen. So haben wir einen unsicheren Blick getauscht und die beiden blaßgelben Becher in die Hand genommen, du den heilen, ich denjenigen mit dem Sprung; wie früher.

Wenn wir uns, weil wir keinen Schlaf fanden, nachts in der Küche trafen, hielten wir die Becher wie damals, und es schien mir, als würden sich unsere Bewegungen mit jedem Mal wieder ähnlicher. Nur angestoßen haben wir mit unserem Kaffee nicht wie früher, obwohl wir beide vom anderen wußten, daß er daran dachte. (In diesen Tagen waren wir füreinander wie aus Glas: hart und zerbrechlich zugleich, und in den Gedanken vollkommen durchsichtig.)”

Pascal Mercier (Bern, 23 juni 1944)

De Amerikaanse schrijver David Leavitt werd geboren in Pittsburgh op 23 juni 1961. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2007 en ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2008.

Uit: The Marble Quilt

“'Crossing St. Gotthard

It was the tunnel--its imminence--that all of them were contemplating that afternoon on the train, each in a different way; the tunnel, at nine miles the longest in the world, slicing under the gelid landscape of the St. Gotthard Pass. To Irene it was an object of dread. She feared enclosure in small spaces, had heard from Maisie Withers that during the crossing the carriage heated up to a boiling pitch. "I was as black as a nigger from the soot," Maisie Withers said. "People have died." "Never again," Maisie Withers concluded, pouring lemonade in her sitting room in Hartford, and meaning never again the tunnel but also (Irene knew) never again Italy, never again Europe; for Maisie was a gullible woman, and during her tour had had her pocketbook stolen.

And it was not only Maisie Withers, Irene reflected now (watching, across the way, her son Grady, his nose flat against the glass), but also her own ancient terror of windowless rooms, of corners, that since their docking in Liverpool had brought the prospect of the tunnel looming before her, black as death itself (a being which, as she approached fifty, she was trying to muster the courage to meet eye to eye), until she found herself counting first the weeks, then the days, then the hours leading up to the inevitable reckoning: the train slipping into the dark, into the mountain. (It was half a mile deep, Grady kept reminding her, half a mile of solid rock separating earth from sky.) Irene remembered a ghost story she'd read as a girl--a man believed to be dead wakes in his coffin. Was it too late to hire a carriage, then, to go over the pass, as Toby had?

But no. Winter had already started up there. Oh, if she'd had her way, they'd have taken a different route; only Grady would have been disappointed, and since his brother's death she dared not disappoint Grady. He longed for the tunnel as ardently as his mother dreaded it.

"Mama, is it coming soon?"

"Yes, dear."

"But you said half an hour."

"Hush, Grady! I'm not a clock."

David Leavitt (Pittsburgh, 23 juni 1961)

De Russische dichteres Anna Andréjevna Achmatova werd geboren in Bolshoi Fontan bij Odessa, 23 juni 1889. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2006 en ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2007  en ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2008.

Requiem

Ik weefde een kleed voor hem uit wat zij zelf
in schuchtere zinnetjes hadden gezegd.
Altijd, overal draag ik hem in mijn hart,
ik blijf hem gedenken in komende smart.
En als mijn gemartelde stem wordt gesnoerd
die schreeuwend de honderd miljoen heeft verwoord,
Dan moge ik evenzo worden herdacht
door hen, op de avond van mijn dodenwacht.

Laatste toast

Op mijn bestaan vol nijd en spijt,
Ons huis in stof en as,
Ons samenzijn in eenzaamheid,
Op jou hef ik het glas,
En op die ogen, kil en dof,
Die mond, die mij verried,
En op de wereld, wreed en grof,
Op God, die ons verliet.

Vertaald door Hans Boland

Anna Achmatova (23 juni 1889 - 5 maart 1966)

De Amerikaanse schrijver Richard Bach werd geboren in Oak Park, Illinois op 23 juni 1936. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 juni 2007.

Uit: Illisions

“Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.

The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks at the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.'

The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you shall die quicker than boredom!'

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, 'See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!'

And the one carried in the current said, 'I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.'

Richard Bach (Oak Park, 23 juni 1936)