absorbed in plays relatively easily and it’s hard work to keep reminding
ourselves that it’s not really happening.^16 We cannot simply argue that,
because we believe it was all afiction when the curtain goes down, we
believe this at every moment during the course of the performance.
Emotions arising from perfect illusion may perhaps account for some of
what we feel in relation to some performance.
But it cannot be the whole story. For Stendhal admits, as he must, that
perfect illusion, if it happens at all, happens only very briefly–‘a half-
second or a quarter second’.^17 Well, perhaps it might last a little longer than
that. But even so, the question must be whether such brief moments, be
they minutes or seconds, can suffice to account for all of the emotions that
we have in relation tofictional characters and events. Thus, for example,
I may pity Sonya just at the moment that she learns of her rejection,
because I am absorbed in perfect illusion and I believe her to be real. But
if I pity her in any way after that–say, as I leave the theatre after the
show is done–then we still have a problem. Intuitively, it seems as
though I do pity her once the show is over. In fact, I still pity her now, as
I write. If emotions arising out of perfect illusion account for all that I
feel about Sonya, then either Stendhal must claim that I continue to
believe that Sonya exists once the performance is over (which I don’t); or
he must claim that somehow the memory of the genuine emotion (but
not the emotion itself) carries over, in which case I do not pity Sonya once
the show is over, I merely remember pitying her (this begins to look like a
denial of 1, not 2). So a denial of 2 doesn’t seem to give us the full picture,
even if we accept the notion of perfect illusion.^18
Denying 3: caring for the non-existent
Could we deny that we care about things only when we believe that they
exist? In some clear cases, we can. First, there is a sense in which the
events of next year do not currently exist, but still I care about some of
them a great deal. But, of course, this is not a helpful model for caring
about Vanya.^19 The events of next year certainly will take place: assum-
ing I am still alive, they will have a direct effect on me and on my life.
Not so for Vanya. Second, there are emotions that do not appear to
require any kind of belief at all. Suppose you are alone at home, and for
some reason you begin to feel afraid. There has been no evident cause for
this fear–no strange noises or unexplained phenomena. You cannot say
exactly what it is that you’re afraid of. This general kind of fear doesn’t
seem to require any kind of belief about the existence of something to
fear; it’s just a mood. So the question of belief just seems irrelevant to our
understanding of this kind of emotion. As discussed, general moods
caused by performances can be powerful and significant. But this can’tbe
136 From the Stage to the World