their beauty but above all because they provided entry into the realm of the elect who knew how to perceive what for others remained hidden.
Mama knew that her son was not content to be a mere emissary and that he read with interest the books that were only apparently meant for him; she thus began to discuss with him what they had both read, and she asked him questions she didn't dare ask the painter. She then was terrified to learn that her son defended the borrowed books with more implacable stubbornness than did the painter.
She noticed that in a collection of poems by Eluard he had underlined some lines in pencil: To be asleep, the moon in one eye and the sun in the other. "What do you find so beautiful about that? Why should I sleep with the moon in one eye?" Legs of stone in stockings of sand. "How can stockings be made of sand?" Jaromil thought that Mama was not only making fun of the poem but that she thought him too young to understand it, and he responded brusquely to her.
My God, she couldn't even stand up to a child of thirteen! When she went to the painter's that day, her state of mind was that of a spy wearing the uniform of a foreign army; she was afraid of being unmasked. Her behavior had lost the last vestige of spontaneity, and everything she said and did resembled the performance of an amateur who, paralyzed by stage fright, recites her lines in fear of being booed.
It was at about that time that the painter discovered the charm of the camera; he showed Mama his first photographs, still lifes made up of an odd assortment of objects, bizarre views of forgotten and abandoned things; then he led her under the luminous skylight and started to photograph her. At first it made her feel a kind of relief, for there was no need to talk; she only had to stand or sit or smile or listen to the painter's instructions and to the compliments he from time to time bestowed on her face.
The painter's eyes suddenly lit up; he grabbed a brush, dipped it in black paint, gently turned Mama's head, and made two oblique lines on her face. "I've crossed you out! I've destroyed God's work!" he said laughing, and he set about photographing her with the two thick lines crossing on her nose. Then he led her to the bathroom, washed her face, and dried it with a towel.
"I crossed you out in order to create you all over again now," he said, again taking up the brush and starting to draw on her. This time it was circles and lines resembling ancient ideographic writings. "A face-message, a face-letter," said the painter, and he took her back under the bright skylight and began again to photograph her.
Then he had her lie down on the floor and beside her head placed a plaster cast of the head of an antique statue on whose face he drew the same lines she had on hers, then photographed these two heads, the living and the lifeless, and then washed the lines off Mama's face, painted other lines on it, photographed her again, had her lie down on the daybed, and began to undress Mama, who, fearing that he would paint on her breasts and legs, even risked a joking remark intended to make him realize that he should not paint her body (it took courage for her to risk a joke, for she was always afraid that her jokes would misfire and make her look foolish), but the painter was tired of painting, and instead of painting he made love to her and, at the same time, he held her head between his two hands, her head covered with his designs, as if he were particularly aroused by the thought of making love to a woman who was his own creation, his own fantasy, his own image, as if he were God lying down with a woman he had just created for himself.
Mama really was at that moment nothing but his invention, one of his paintings. She knew it, and she marshaled all her forces to keep him from seeing that she was not at all the painter's partner, his miraculous counterpart, a creature worthy of love, but merely a lifeless reflection, a mirror proffered with
Mama knew that her son was not content to be a mere emissary and that he read with interest the books that were only apparently meant for him; she thus began to discuss with him what they had both read, and she asked him questions she didn't dare ask the painter. She then was terrified to learn that her son defended the borrowed books with more implacable stubbornness than did the painter.
She noticed that in a collection of poems by Eluard he had underlined some lines in pencil: To be asleep, the moon in one eye and the sun in the other. "What do you find so beautiful about that? Why should I sleep with the moon in one eye?" Legs of stone in stockings of sand. "How can stockings be made of sand?" Jaromil thought that Mama was not only making fun of the poem but that she thought him too young to understand it, and he responded brusquely to her.
My God, she couldn't even stand up to a child of thirteen! When she went to the painter's that day, her state of mind was that of a spy wearing the uniform of a foreign army; she was afraid of being unmasked. Her behavior had lost the last vestige of spontaneity, and everything she said and did resembled the performance of an amateur who, paralyzed by stage fright, recites her lines in fear of being booed.
It was at about that time that the painter discovered the charm of the camera; he showed Mama his first photographs, still lifes made up of an odd assortment of objects, bizarre views of forgotten and abandoned things; then he led her under the luminous skylight and started to photograph her. At first it made her feel a kind of relief, for there was no need to talk; she only had to stand or sit or smile or listen to the painter's instructions and to the compliments he from time to time bestowed on her face.
The painter's eyes suddenly lit up; he grabbed a brush, dipped it in black paint, gently turned Mama's head, and made two oblique lines on her face. "I've crossed you out! I've destroyed God's work!" he said laughing, and he set about photographing her with the two thick lines crossing on her nose. Then he led her to the bathroom, washed her face, and dried it with a towel.
"I crossed you out in order to create you all over again now," he said, again taking up the brush and starting to draw on her. This time it was circles and lines resembling ancient ideographic writings. "A face-message, a face-letter," said the painter, and he took her back under the bright skylight and began again to photograph her.
Then he had her lie down on the floor and beside her head placed a plaster cast of the head of an antique statue on whose face he drew the same lines she had on hers, then photographed these two heads, the living and the lifeless, and then washed the lines off Mama's face, painted other lines on it, photographed her again, had her lie down on the daybed, and began to undress Mama, who, fearing that he would paint on her breasts and legs, even risked a joking remark intended to make him realize that he should not paint her body (it took courage for her to risk a joke, for she was always afraid that her jokes would misfire and make her look foolish), but the painter was tired of painting, and instead of painting he made love to her and, at the same time, he held her head between his two hands, her head covered with his designs, as if he were particularly aroused by the thought of making love to a woman who was his own creation, his own fantasy, his own image, as if he were God lying down with a woman he had just created for himself.
Mama really was at that moment nothing but his invention, one of his paintings. She knew it, and she marshaled all her forces to keep him from seeing that she was not at all the painter's partner, his miraculous counterpart, a creature worthy of love, but merely a lifeless reflection, a mirror proffered with
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