TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER FIVE
in the present. and Raji6. who is both representative of
his self in memory. and of a whole ~eneration.
Followin~
the embedded narrative about the sailor.
the diary continues in a similar vein.
The diarist
recalls his love affair with the Polish nurse. his first
love affair. and his return home.
However. there is a
~reater
frequency of Questions in which the diarist
reveals the ~eneral
anxiety which be feels about his
life: "Ko zna Ita je livot" ("Who knows what life is"
20), "Greh'? 2ivot'? Ko zna lIta je to" ("Sin'? Life'?
Who knows what it is" 21); "2ivot se ne menja.
On
prolazi" ("Life doesn't chan~e. It passes by" 22). The
more frequent references to his journey home ~ive
the
diarist a ~reater sense of ur~ency as he not only
approaches home. but also the present time of writin~.
The catherin~
repetitions of certain phrases and words
link tocether episodes from his life in more complex
associations. Recallin~ the time when he was in the
hospital durinc the war. he evokes the atmosphere of his
feverish mind and the temporal complexity of his present
of writinc in combination with different memories I
Ljudi su kallljali sve core i jednoc dana
pade jedan crdan eeh kraj mene na
stepenicama sa ustima ocrezlim u krvi.
Ja ca po~ledah zapanjeno. Umro je posle
tri dana. A prole6e je dolazilo.
Ververi~e su zabasale iz lIuma ~aku nalle
sobe. Po krovu pada neka luta tama zorom
svakoc dana od kada sam se vratio. Tama,
tama je ta topla svetlost lito me rano
bud!. U primorju. neede daleko sad je
prole6e. Greh'? 2ivot'? Ko zna lIta je
to. U primorju je sad prole6e.· U ovakve
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