Read Online Therefore Choose by Keith Oatley - Free Book Online Page B

impediments …’” said George.
    â€œWhat’s that?” said Werner.
    â€œA Shakespeare sonnet. ‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.’”
    â€œI do not know it.”
    George was delighted to know something that Werner did not.
    â€œCousin Heinrich wanted to meet someone with whom he could establish complete understanding,” said Anna. “The marriage of true minds. Then they could die together. A kind of perfection.”
    â€œNow it’s Cousin Heinrich?” said Werner.
    Anna continued. “Henriette was ill with cancer. She told Heinrich that she wanted to die with him. He was very moved. More important than wanting to live with him. On their last day, just near here, they spent several hours sitting together: talking, writing letters, drinking wine. Heinrich wrote that he was blissfully happy.”
    â€œIt seems strange to me,” George said.
    â€œThat is because you are from the other side of that patch of shallow and stormy water that you call the North Sea, from that side where it is difficult to understand the Romantic Geist,” said Werner.
    â€œPerhaps he understands it better than we do,” said Anna.
    â€œDo you understand it?” said Werner.
    â€œDeath as a kind of perfection?’ said George. “I don’t know. I’m going to be a doctor.”
    â€œFor most people,” said Anna, “death just happens.”
    George said, “You mean for someone who believes in literature, that death can be something you choose?”
    â€œMaybe you are right,” said Anna. “It is morbid.”
    After a pause during which no one spoke, she said, “If one were to die, would this not be a good place?”
    They hired a rowing boat. George sat in the bow. Werner took the oars and rowed slowly out as Anna, on the stern seat, shut her eyes and turned her face to the sky. It was a day George remembered vividly: the light, the dappled water, Anna with her face to the sun, Werner at the oars. They were together. Had they achieved that? Did everyone feel included?

    Anna said she had to spend more time at the magazine: every day until two or three in the afternoon. George spent the mornings with Werner. Many of the afternoons the three spent together. They went to some of the events at the new Olympic Stadium. They saw Jesse Owens beat Lutz Long in the final of the long jump. By that time in Berlin, some measures of previous years had been reversed. The signs proclaiming that certain shops were Jewish, so that they could be shunned, had been removed. Some people said the authorities did not want to give a bad impression to visitors to the Games. Others said it was a moderation, and that the government had recognized its excesses and was being reasonable, as governments generally are.
    The three went to see Leni Riefenstahl’s film about the Nuremberg rally. Werner had seen it before, but Anna and George had not.
    â€œYou should see it before you go back to your umbrellas and fish and chips,” Werner said. “You’ll find it interesting.”
    The film had come out the year before. Within two years after he had come to power, Hitler had established himself completely. No longer a mere chancellor, he became the living embodiment of the German people. He was them and they were him. The opening sequences of the film were of Hitler arriving at Nuremberg by plane. The shot was very accomplished. It showed the shadow of the plane sliding gracefully over the city. In the next sequence every person in the cinema was with Hitler as he stood in his open car, looking over his shoulder, catching the eyes of cheering people who lined the route four or five thick. Then the audience went beyond being with Hitler: they became him, just as he had become the German people. Something was happening: a sense of purpose, of enthusiasm, of youth, of hope for the future.
    As the three walked together after the