la nausée
at night I see intense dreams and my sleep breaks often. mornings I wake with nausea. no, it’s not what I ate. my nausea comes from what I saw. like gregor samsa waking from bed estranged. but no, I don’t feel like an insect. more like the doctor’s wife in josé saramago’s blindness book. I see. “se podes olhar, vê. se podes ver, repara” maybe the greatest punishment is to see. maybe in the liberal world blindness is the greatest gift. the real hard thing isn’t living with people, it’s understanding them. this world’s beauties are like a flower blooming in a swamp. a beautiful enticing flower pulling you into that swamp too. apart from the white sky, everywhere I look is dark. the son of the sun stretched on the cross rises into the light, leaving only darkness behind… and nausea cloaks all that remains. like sartre’s roquentin, I recoil from the weight of people.
quotes and sources
franz kafka – die verwandlung
- original (german): “als gregor samsa eines morgens aus unruhigen träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem bett zu einem ungeheuren ungeziefer verwandelt.”
- translation: “when gregor samsa woke one morning from restless dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
- source: kafka, franz. die verwandlung. 1915.
josé saramago – ensaio sobre a cegueira
- original (portuguese): “se podes olhar, vê. se podes ver, repara.”
- translation: “if you can look, see. if you can see, notice.”
- source: saramago, josé. ensaio sobre a cegueira. 1995.
jean-paul sartre – la nausée
- original (french): “la nausée ne me lâche pas, elle me tient.”
- translation: “the nausea doesn’t let me go, it holds me.”
- source: sartre, jean-paul. la nausée. 1938.
