The Secret Heart of the Clock, page 12
There are two kinds of friends, and one accords them different positions. The first are declared to be friends: one esteems them in public, refers to them, and sings their praises, leans on them as if on pillars supporting the private firmament, calls them to witness, as though they were always available, and they are. One is as conscious of their weaknesses as one is of their strengths, yet one expects them to bear the heaviest burdens, as if their fortitude knew no limits, they can be so much and sometimes they are more than a brother; one endows them with selflessness, even if they’re completely incapable of it. Perhaps the most important thing about such friends is that everyone who knows you also knows about them.
The other kind of friends are the kind one keeps secret. These one does not name, one avoids talking about them. One keeps one’s distance from them, one sees them rarely. One isn’t inquisitive about them, they have unknown qualities. But even the ones you know (because they are too obvious) don’t take up your thoughts, they remain untouched, so unexplored that they can surprise you with every new encounter. They are much rarer than the declared friends.
One needs the secret ones especially because one hardly ever makes any claims on their friendship. They are there as the last resources of one’s life, for one could lay claim on them. Their position is unshakable, but they are not always conscious of that. At times they are surprised if one turns to them at all. Their counsel would be decisive, so much so that one would usually prefer to forgo it. But one likes to imagine oneself going to them, a pilgrimage which must not be too easy, which is frequently aborted before the goal is reached, but which never ends with a rejection.
Part of immortality is that there’s enough left to reproach its candidates with, otherwise the greatest merit would dissolve in boredom.
Before the words begin to sparkle, he cuts himself short.
Why do you put up with everyone? Because everyone is there so briefly.
Regain the gods, those who were gods, whom you knew too early and therefore failed to understand.
What one says to people in letters and what one says about them in journals. Compare!
All the failure-faithful have abandoned him.
Are you completely incorruptible? Do you have to see even your benefactor as he is?
No hideous belief prevents an even more hideous one.
* * *
His sensitivity to fairy tales has never abated. But what bothers him frequently, even when the tales are completely new, is the feeling that he already knows them. They confirm something for him and amplify nothing. It’s like stumbling upon roles he once played. As long as he thought they were forgotten, they charmed him. That charm is lost as soon as he refreshes his memory of them.
Terror of the fragmentary.
At the end of the Islamic biography of Plato is the following unexpected passage about his loud weeping:
“He loved to be alone, in solitary country places. One could usually tell where he was by the sound of his crying. When he cried, one could hear him in a desolate country region as far as two miles away. He wept ceaselessly.”
—FROM THE TRANSLATION BY FRANZ ROSENTHAL
I never thought of my debt to Herodotus. But I was always conscious of Tacitus, whom I read during the time of the novel, and he conclusively forced me into the jaws of power.
When I read Herodotus as a very young man, I had begun to question power, but it was not yet a constant concern. This came about through the Tiberius of Tacitus.
Here he stands, looking at Death. Death approaches him, he repels it. He will not do Death the honor of taking it into account. If he finally does break down in bewilderment—he didn’t bow before Death. He called it by its name, he hated it, he cast it out. He has accomplished so little, it is more than nothing.
Immigrations. One and the same person immigrating to the same place again and again. He never finds himself, disappears, and always comes back again.
* * *
A work consisting of refused communications.
The beggar offered him charity and he took it.
Too many names in his head, like pins.
He had swallowed Goethe early and never coughed him up again. Now those who want to swallow Goethe themselves are furious.
It’s just a matter of living long enough until you receive everything that is not your due.
He renounces himself and sighs with relief. He does not want to know anything about himself ever again.
ALSO BY ELIAS CANETTI
Auto-da-Fé
The Conscience of Words
Crowds and Power
Earwitness: Fifty Characters
The Human Province
The Plays of Elias Canetti
The Tongue Set Free: Remembrance of a European Childhood
The Torch in My Ear
The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit
The Play of the Eyes
Essays in Honor of Elias Canetti
About the Author
Elias Canetti (1905-94) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981. His writings include a monumental work of social theory, Crowds and Power, and three volumes of memoirs, The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, and The Play of the Eyes. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
Also by Elias Canetti
About the Author
Copyright
English translation copyright © 1989 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First published in German under the title Das Geheimherz der Uhr, copyright © 1987 by Carl Hamer Verlag
All rights reserved
First American edition, 1989
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eISBN 9780374607791
First eBook edition: 2021
Elias Canetti, The Secret Heart of the Clock
