MILAN KUNDERA

"The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" By Milan Kundera 51
to him that what he considered unreal (the work he did in the solitude of the office or
library) was in fact his real life, whereas the parades he imagined to be reality were
nothing but theater, dance, carnival—in other words, a dream.
During her studies, Sabina lived in a dormitory. On May Day all the students had to
report early in the morning for the parade. Student officials would comb the building to
ensure that no one was missing. Sabina hid in the lavatory. Not until long after the
building was empty would she go back to her room. It was quieter than anywhere she
could remember. The only sound was the parade music echoing in the distance. It was
as though she had found refuge inside a shell and the only sound she could hear was
the sea of an inimical world.
A year or two after emigrating, she happened to be in Paris on the anniversary of the
Russian invasion of her country. A protest march had been scheduled, and she felt
driven to take part. Fists raised high, the young Frenchmen shouted out slogans
condemning Soviet imperialism. She liked the slogans, but to her surprise she found
herself unable to shout along with them. She lasted no more than a few minutes in the
parade.
When she told her French friends about it, they were amazed. You mean you don't
want to fight the occupation of your country? She would have liked to tell them that
behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic,
pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with
raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be
able to make them understand. Embarrassed, she changed the subject.
THE BEAUTY OF NEW YORK
Franz and Sabina would walk the streets of New York for hours at a time. The view
changed with each step, as if they were following a winding mountain path surrounded
by breathtaking scenery: a young man kneeling in the middle of the sidewalk praying;
a few steps away, a beautiful black woman leaning against a tree; a man in a black suit
directing an invisible orchestra while crossing the street; a fountain spurting water and a
group of construction workers sitting on the rim eating lunch; strange iron ladders
running up and down buildings with ugly red facades, so ugly that they were beautiful;
and next door, a huge glass skyscraper backed by another, itself topped by a small
Arabian pleasure-dome with turrets, galleries, and gilded columns.
She was reminded of her paintings. There, too, incongruous things came together: a
steelworks construction site superimposed on a kerosene lamp; an old-fashioned lamp
with a painted-glass shade shattered into tiny splinters and rising up over a desolate
landscape of marshland.
Franz said, Beauty in the European sense has always had a premeditated quality to it.
We've always had an aesthetic intention and a long-range plan. That's what enabled
Western man to spend decades building a Gothic cathedral or a Renaissance piazza.
The beauty of New York rests on a completely different base. It's unintentional. It arose