be feminine generosity! Long live the flight of thought! Long live risking
one’s life in the service of the idea! Long live the danger of battle! Long live
the festive celebration of victory! Long live the dance in the maelstrom of
infinity! Long live the crashing of the waves that conceal me in the abyss!
Long live the crashing of the waves that fling me beyond the stars!”
Cheers, indeed! But before we raise our glass we might just take note of
the fact thatrepetitionis not included in this otherwise so sauc yseries of
toasts. And when the wine has begun to take effect and the truth must come
out, we might consider whether there perhaps is not more honest yin the
ode to the “post horn” with which Constantin Constantius testified to his
pessimism than in the Young Man’s misleading paean of jubilation.
Reality Intervenes
Printed at right angles across the entire next page is a rectangular frame
containing the words: “To the worth yMr. X., the real reader of this book.”
There is nothing else on the page, but this is apparentl ysufficient to induce
the reader to sneak over to the next page, where he encounters the follow-
ing words: “My dear reader!Forgive me for speaking to you in such a familiar
tone, but we are alone, after all. Even though you are in fact a poetic figure,
to me you are in no sense a plural entity, but only one person, so we two
are still just you and I.”
This sort of familiarit ytempts a reader to become “Mr. X,” the real reader
of the book, who is capable of making himself deserving of the appellation.
And indeed, before long, the intimate tone is replaced b ya more emphatic
one, ending with the complaint that nowadays no one cares to “waste a
moment on the quaint thought that it is an art to be a good reader, much
less spend the time it takes to become one. Naturally, this deplorable situa-
tion has its effect on the author, who in m yopinion does the right thing
when, like Clement of Alexandria, he writes in such a manner that the
heretics are unable to understand him.”
As we subsequentl ylearn, Constantin Constantius is responsible for this
arrogant remark, and he soon raises painful doubts as to whether the reader
has understood the book’s inner workings. Things do not get an ybetter
when, not quite six pages from the end of the book, Constantin Constantius
reports that the “progression” of the work is “inverse,” that is, backwards,
so that the reader must now turn around more or less literall yand begin a
rereading ofRepetition, which, among other things, possesses the peculiar
characteristic of taking back not a little of what it had given during the first
reading. For example, the book had given the impression of being two