Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent

by Mircea Eliade

  Up here in the attic, the only thing I struggle with is myself. I’ve become a tried and tested champion, an assassin of sentimentalism, a gaoler with a hardened heart. But I need to struggle against other people. This is what something deep down inside me commands me to do. There are times when I’m seized with a blind rage against other people as well as myself, I who live in a prison cell and don’t know how to succeed in life.

  If I were to run away I’d be so powerful... I can picture myself wandering round all alone, without fear of myself, without any cares, working and reading as much as I liked. And no one would recognize me, because I’d be living the life of a different person.

  The last time I was tempted to run away, which unsettled me in a way it never had before, was after spending four hours talking to a vagrant who sat next to me on a bench on one of the main avenues. I was reading a novella by Panait Istrati. The man came and sat beside me, and asked if he could borrow my magazine. He read it quickly. Then we struck up a conversation. He was a young Jew, dressed in ragged clothes, and who had travelled and suffered a great deal. He told me about slaving away in the dockyards, and how it had crushed his shoulders. I realized that I would never be able to work as a docker, and this made me sad. He also told me about the strange existence of a pianist in suburban cabarets, who sails on Levantine steamers, disembarks in tropical ports, sleeps in squalid hotels and spends his nights playing in orchestras comprised of washed-up waifs and strays. My flesh quivered with excitement. It seemed that this was the only life that could bring me any peace.

  The young man had fled from Bessarabia, and had been a waiter in a coffee house in Braşov, an apprentice in a tea salon in Constantinople, and then a nightwatchman at a timber yard in Smirna, from where he had stowed away again, this time on a Greek steamer to Cairo. He had stayed there for almost a year. He had never learnt English. He could read Russian, Romanian and French, and was intelligent but had had little education. He was afraid to tell me what his political convictions were, but I could guess.

  We talked about Panait Istrati, who he adored. I tried to convince him that this parvenu writer from Braila didn’t amount to much. With a smile the young man said that I was a ‘bourgeois’, and told me that I didn’t yet understand Panait.

  What didn’t we talk about for four hours on a lonely bench in the noonday sun? And when we went our separate ways, I had quite different desires, walked differently, smiled differently.

  When we met for a second time, it made me reflect on certain facts of life as it is really lived, which up till then I had only known about from hearsay and books. This thought process let me see things differently, gave me new eyes with which to view my companion less trustingly, and this escapade of mine with more caution.

  We talked late into the night in an alehouse where he had insisted on going. I asked him how he had ended up in Bucharest. From what he told me, I got the impression that he was lying. He said that he had come from Hamburg, as a ‘labourer’, but didn’t specify what his trade was. Carried away by his own words, he assured me that he had left Paris ten days earlier. He had forgotten about Hamburg. I could tell that he had spent a long time in France. He was too uneducated to remember so many names, so many places and so many extraordinary things simply from conversation or books. He spoke in a constant flow, warmly, sometimes using an argot* that I couldn’t always understand.

  And then all of a sudden I started to disbelieve him. I saw him for who he really was, perhaps with suspicion in my eyes. I couldn’t understand how he had managed to worm his way through so many countries as a labourer. I tried to catch him out. But my companion started to laugh, obviously delighted. Then he swore – a colourful expression, he assured me – in Russian. He told me that I was nothing but a ‘bourgeois detective’, and that I ought to work for the Sûreté, tracking suspects. Then he ordered a bottle of expensive wine, and began telling me all manner of things that interested me because of their originality, and the cynical way in which they were told.

  In every town and city, the young man had lived on the earnings of a ‘girl’, always a different one. He had the strange ability to impose his will on street girls. He always chose the most beautiful ones. In this way he always had somewhere to live and money to spend. All day long he would roam around, smoking in the parks, and at night he played billiards in dingy cafés until it was time to meet his female companion.

  As he told me all this he got more and more carried away, drinking one glass after another and trying to shock me with his immorality. I was disturbed not by what he said, but by the fact that I approved of what he had done. I searched within myself, and tried to find the merest feeling of revulsion, of disgust, and bit my lip in rage because his escapades aroused and seduced me.

  It wasn’t long before the idea of a life of hard work and vagrancy made me feel sad. I admitted my doubts to my new-found companion. He advised me to stay at home until I was mature enough to not be disgusted by a debauched and parasitic existence. Then he listed everything that I would need in order to run away. My birth certificate, my baccalaureate didn’t matter, I would have to steal a lot of money from home, jewels, and to get a passport valid for a year, to become a Russian citizen at the legation in Constantinople, and get myself a job as a pianist on a third-class steamer that sailed between Alexandria and Nagasaki.

  As I walked home I imagined myself at the height of a storm at sea, pounding the keys of a piano, my head spinning with the pitching and tossing, drunk from lack of sleep, fear and excitement.

  When I got back it was late at night. Up in the attic, scents from the garden drifted in through the open windows. The wooden floor glowed in the moonlight. I fell into a happy sleep, determined to break with everything in my life that was mediocre, stifling and imposed by others.

  I woke feeling dazed and disorientated after the wine I had drunk with my new companion, and from the dreams I had had. I realized that there were many things that still tied me to my home: the attic, my books, my novel. If I were going to leave, I would need money, courage, and the certainty that I wouldn’t pine for my library. What prevents me from finding any peace is the fact that I yearn for books and the life of a vagabond at the same time and with the same consuming passion. I’m tortured by the desire to dedicate myself to austere, tireless and insane work, all the while equally tormented by the need to run away, to wander through a world of suffering. I have no idea how these yearnings will be resolved. Yet I believe that I lack the genuine willpower to choose certain aspirations, and to satisfy and achieve them...

  *

  It’s even hotter now. And I haven’t done any more work on my novel. Paper and notebooks await me in the drawer, but I read Anatole France and dream every night. I see my friends less and less. They’ve all gone their separate ways. It’s for the best, I tell myself, without really believing that my happiness lies in solitude. I read constantly, from dawn till midnight, when I fall into a dazed and brutish sleep, my movements limp, like a man overcome by heat and lack of sleep.

  I wait resignedly for the end of July, when I go camping in the forest of Sibiu. Scouting has always seemed an honourable yet dubious institution to me. We joined so we could travel by train for free. We have been on long excursions together, we’ve spent many wonderful nights in Dobrogea, we’ve wandered through the Bucegi and roamed the mountains of Neamt County. If I wrote it all down it would seem like literature. I find Boy Scout magazines and books suffocating. Their affected, unnatural style revolts me.

  In the forest of Sibiu I’ll pitch a tent for me alone, in the wildest, most isolated part. I’ll spend my nights there, smoking and dreaming. Perhaps I’ll write my novel. And perhaps I’ll meet my heroine.

  That part about the heroine is completely stupid. In the novel I’ll write that I yearned for the forest, because in Bucharest the ‘strong smells and passions’ suffocate me. That has a lovely ring to it. One of our masters, a dark-haired,
serious, scowling man who had a Prussian education, is always telling us this. If he were Headmaster, he says, he’d give us a military education. He refers to Bucharest as ‘this inferno of seductions.’ Which is strange: to me it’s always seemed an inoffensive, dirty city. I like the forest, because I find it clean and enticing.

  A Summer Diary

  5th August

  I’m back at home now.

  I’m feeling rather tired and sad, as always after spending the night on a crowded train.

  I didn’t give my family many details. I just told that I came home early because I ran out of money.

  Then I went up to the attic and slept till evening. I didn’t dream of dark-haired girls, which made me unhappy while I was asleep but cheered me up when I woke. As I got dressed I whistled, and whispered to myself that I was very pleased with the way I had behaved. But as usual I was lying to myself, and with complete equanimity.

  It was impossible for me to be pleased because I didn’t understand a thing, not a thing that was going on deep down inside me.

  The next day I read a lot. About two pages an hour. My eyes followed the letters but my mind was still in the forest of Sibiu. Or I stared at the poplar tree across the road and tried hard to feel sad. Despite the fact that no one was there to admire me, I did my best to strike ‘interesting’ poses. I knew perfectly well how ridiculous this was, but couldn’t resist the temptation.

  But the moment passed. This morning I woke up with a clear head, my mind sharp and exhilarated, my will unshakeable. Today I’m convinced that no one can stop me. I’m an unbeatable force. Once school starts again, my teachers are going to have to come to terms with this fact. Because I’m determined to put up with the boredom and overcome any obstacle that stands in my way; starting from this autumn I’m going to do some serious work – if only to test my willpower. I’ll even revise so I get a brilliant mark in my retake, and humiliate Vanciu in the process. And I’ll do it as soon as possible. So that people will finally know who I am.

  8th August

  It made me sad to read that last page. Three days have gone by, and I still haven’t opened my maths books. This proves a great deal to me. It proves that...

  But it’s pointless trying to explain. I know that I simply don’t have the willpower. I know that everything I write, I only write in order to stimulate this willpower that I don’t posses.

  But perhaps I just don’t understand anything. Whenever I try to learn something about my inner life, I feel utterly bewildered. This autumn I’ll have to study psychology in earnest. If only I knew more about myself then maybe things would be different. Yet it’s so difficult to understand who I am. And I’m unable to analyse myself properly, because at the very moment when I need to look more deeply within me, my mind is suddenly filled with other things. Plus I don’t know where to begin. It’s easy to say: ‘Above all know yourself!’ But I’d like to meet someone who has managed to discover anything while trying to do this. I can’t work it out. I can’t distinguish between what exists naturally in my soul and what only exists in my imagination. I don’t recognize myself in most of my thoughts, and can’t fathom out the meaning of many of my emotions. I can’t understand why sometimes I’m sad, and at others times I enjoy filling this notebook with commonplace humour and trivia, when it should actually be overflowing with serious, in-depth analysis. But perhaps I’ll find it easier to understand in the autumn, when I start studying psychology.

  15th August

  The other boys got back from camp today. They said they had a wonderful time. On the day before they left they took great delight in tearing down all the little buildings in the camp. I don’t regret not being there.

  Dinu told me in great detail about all his complicated love affairs. While he was in Sibiu he only fell in love with three girls, although seven fell in love with him. He told me their names, what they said, the songs they sang; using different facial expressions he acted out the girls’ happiness, their suffering and despair; he read out passages from letters and showed me the originals.

  Dinu is convinced that many girls will suffer because they yearn to be loved by him. He strolls down the street without a hat, and when he’s sure no one is looking he arranges a kiss-curl over his forehead. He often comes to see me, and asks when I’m going to start working on my maths – so that he can start at the same time. I gave him my word – a grave and solemn promise – that on the twentieth of the month I would stop whatever I was reading and dedicate myself to maths. And that’s what I’m going to do. I must do it. I know it’ll be difficult, but if I put my mind to it I’ll succeed. All I lack is the willpower.

  20th August

  Today I went to the school, where I read a half sheet of paper bearing an official seal and the Headmaster’s signature, which announced that the retake examinations would begin on 15th September. This means there are twenty-five days of freedom left. Dinu and I agreed to put off revising for our exams until 1st September.

  22nd August

  Today I discovered Carlyle. In the notebook that I use for critical observation I wrote twenty-seven pages about him. I read The Heroes for the third time.

  On 1st September I shall start revising maths.

  29th August

  I know the retake is getting closer and that I need to shut my books for two weeks. What complicates matters, however, is that Dinu brought me three volumes by Gourmont, one by Jack London, plus a collection of Samain’s poetry. The books don’t belong to him, and he asked me to finish them as soon as possible. It goes without saying that I can’t miss the opportunity to read books that I’ve wanted to read for a long time. But when I finally do start revising maths, I’ll only leave the house once every three days!

  4th September

  Haven’t I always known? I’m far and away the laziest, most blockheaded, incapable, lying coward in the whole of Greater Romania!

  9th September

  Only six days left. If I haven’t learnt all the subject matter from start to finish by 15th September, then I’ll commit suicide. It’s the biggest decision I’ve ever taken in my whole life. I had to take it. Up till now, the heat in the attic and Le Chariot d’or* have only allowed me to read thirty pages of algebra.

  But now the decision is made. I’ve given my word of honour and I’ll stick to that decision. If not...

  What do I care about Christianity?

  10th September

  Three chapters of algebra, with explanations provided by Constan­tin Bărbulescu, a tall boy covered in red and white pustules and with a greasy nose – and who has moved up a year. It’s a shame that the tram runs right past the house. It amuses me.

  What’s more, Bărbulescu explains things in a way that anyone could understand, speaking in a deep voice and waving a long pencil.

  12th September

  Dinu has been working with a private tutor for four hours a day (at a hundred lei an hour), plus four hours on his own. He’s finished algebra and is halfway through trigonometry. In the evenings he strolls along the boulevard eating ice cream. He meets up with other friends who are retaking chemistry. They are all revising hard. Jipescu had read through his chemistry textbook three times by 15th July. Since then he has read his exercise book five times, his précis five times, a French treatise once, and his fifty-six pages of ‘syntheses’ eight times, which he hopes to be able to reproduce in the exam. Marcu is the only one who has been on the same chapter, ‘chlorine’, since August. If anyone asks him how he’s going to manage, he says that he’ll pass; if not, he’ll repeat the year. In fact that’s all that could happen to him. But the other boys say that Marcu is ‘bluffing’.

  13th September

  It’s impossible to know everything about maths. It would be better to revise a few chapters in depth, to understand them perfectly, and to just skim through the rest.

  14th September

  I’ve been giving
it a lot of thought, and I think I’m right.

  So what if I have to repeat my Lower Sixth year? Might this not be the very event, the spark that ignites the powder keg of my soul? Isn’t this exactly what I need – a great calamity, a profound change that will set me on the right path in life?

  I pictured myself downhearted, scorned by my friends, ridiculed by family and enemies alike, and I realized that only under these circumstances would I ever write The Novel of the Short-Sighted Adolescent, which would make me famous overnight, like Selma Lagerlöf, and rich, like Blasco Ibáñez9.

  So that’s why I’ve decided not to revise for the retake. Vanciu, who has always disliked me, will just have to make me repeat the Lower Sixth year. That’s precisely what I expect.

  Perhaps I’ll run away from home. How will I ever be able to write the novels that are in my mind if I don’t know any real-life people in flesh and blood, especially a certain kind of person? I’ll run away to the port of Constanța, where I’ll take the advice of my vagrant friend from the summer, and become a tapeur* on board a ship.

  When I told Dinu about my decision he tried to make me change my mind, but his efforts were in vain. I know he’s secretly delighted that he’ll have a friend who leads a life of adventure, who writes successful novels, and who he’ll be able to brag about in fashionable circles.

  So just to poke fun at Vanciu and all the other mathematicians in the world, – an absurd and arrogant science – I’m going to spend all night reading Les Messieurs Golovleff* by Shchedrin. It’s a captivating novel that I bought from a second-hand bookshop the day before yesterday for only twenty-five lei.