Diatribe: Before midnight

Every New Year’s Eve, wherever I whitethorn find myself, arsenic I watch the transition of the dial crossed the timepiece until midnight, I perceive the words of Cavafy’s poem “Since Nine” resonate with each tick:

“Half past twelve. The clip has rapidly passed

since 9 o’clock when I archetypal turned up the lamp

and sat down here. I’ve been sitting without reading,

without speaking. With whom should I speak,

so utterly unsocial within this house?

The apparition of my youthful body,

since 9 o’clock when I archetypal turned up the lamp,

has travel and recovered maine and reminded me

of shuttered perfumed rooms

and of pleasance spent—what wanton pleasure!

And it besides brought earlier my eyes

streets made unrecognizable by time,

bustling metropolis centres that are nary more

and theatres and cafés that existed agelong ago.

The apparition of my youthful body

came and besides brought maine origin for pain:

deaths successful the family; separations;

the feelings of my loved ones, the feelings of

those agelong dormant which I so small valued.

Half past twelve. How the clip has passed.

Half past twelve. How the years person passed.”

Twelve o’clock is the terminal point. This is where clip runs retired and it is not astatine each definite whether it begins anew and for whom. Cavafy begins to ponder the extremity astatine nine, that is successful the twilight of his life. He is, successful opposition to galore of us who question during festive occasions to beryllium with friends oregon family, abjuring and inordinately fearful of solitude, perfectly alone. In the desolation of his bare house, each that remains for him to do, is to delineate a topography of loss.

Despite what helium whitethorn think, Cavafy is not unsocial successful this pursuit. I too, formed my caput backmost to New Year’s Eve’s of old. I retrieve parties and dances successful clubhouses that person been sold agelong ago, their revellers, with their mutton chop sideburns and their inordinately wide-ties having been laid to remainder decades ago. I retrieve my grandparents and their siblings bemusedly watch my uncles, so young then, attempting to the cheat them astatine cards, while trying to stifle a smile and recalling New Year’s Eves successful different places, successful different times, impossibly past and hard to fathom when 1 is lone successful the archetypal decennary of one’s life. Mostly however, I retrieve my great-grandmother, successful the midst of an adoring assemblage of descendants, celebrated, revered but utterly alone, remembering similar Cavafy, loved ones agelong dormant that had near her down arsenic the lone idiosyncratic who remembered them, streets that nary longer existed, neighbourhoods and customs that had passed retired of show and retired of mind.

In Cavafy’s experience, reminiscing is simply a harbinger of symptom and an evocator of a consciousness of ennui, with the writer regretting the information that helium did not value his loved ones while helium was with them, nor person sufficient respect for their feelings. These holidays, galore of us will consciousness the aforesaid consciousness of symptom arsenic we region loved ones from their accommodation successful aged attraction successful bid for them to stock the joyousness of the play with us. In a ample fig of cases, those afflicted with dementia will beryllium physically present, conscionable arsenic Cavafy’s memories are visceral and sensory: helium evokes the smell of perfumed rooms, the sound of the bustle of engaged cities, the touch that beings wanton pleasure. However, unlike Cavafy, they will not beryllium successful a presumption to remember, to analyse those memories and to consciousness pleasance oregon regret, conscionable arsenic they will not beryllium capable to sorb oregon successful immoderate way subordinate to the celebrations they person been brought to partake in. For them, midnight has travel and gone. Unable to beryllium haunted by an apparition of their younger, much sensual selves, unable to separate betwixt evolving streetscapes of yore and their contiguous condition, they are transcend Cavafy’s conundrum: For them, Time nary longer has immoderate meaning whatsoever and instead, it is we, their loved ones who are implicated successful Cavafy’s reverie: lamenting the decay of their corporeal form, feeling blameworthy astir having disappointed them, disregarding their feelings and inevitably, successful our astir guilt-laden moments, furtively watching the clock.

The genius of Cavafy’s understanding of clip however, is that it tin ever beryllium manipulated. While we conscionable him conscionable earlier the end, the clip is present fractional past doomsday and yet helium is still with us, albeit successful a diminished and melancholy form. Is guilt so a signifier of purgatory for those who cease to “live” a vibrant life, nevertheless this whitethorn beryllium defined? What happens aft midnight.

Many things it turns out, not each of them unpleasant. In the poem “Comes To Rest,” the representation of a torrid erotic brushwood is placed a small aft midnight:

“It indispensable person been 1 o’clock astatine night

or fractional past one.

A country successful a taverna,

behind the wooden partition:

except for the two of us the spot wholly empty.

A lamp hardly gave it light.

The waiter was sleeping by the door.

No 1 could spot us.

But anyway, we were already so worked up

we’d go incapable of caution.

Our apparel fractional opened – we weren’t wearing much:

it was a beauteous blistery July.

Delight of soma between

half-opened clothes;

quick baring of soma – a vision

that has crossed twenty-six years

and present comes to remainder successful this poetry.”

As is the lawsuit with “Before Nine,” the memories unfold within a closed space: an bare location successful the lawsuit of the archetypal poem, an bare country of a taverna down a partition successful the second. Midnight has been and gone and yet some sets of memories, acceptable astatine astir the aforesaid clip emphasise a carnal and affectional obstruction betwixt the poet, his memories and the extracurricular world that acts arsenic a vessel to sphere those memories against clip adjacent while tacitly acknowledging that such an endeavour is ultimately futile and afloat of grief.

Those endeavours widen way past midnight into the afternoon. In “The Afternoon Sun,” successful which via a statement of municipality renewal Cavafy describes with photographic accuracy a country used to marque emotion which nary longer exits, the seminal infinitesimal upon which his representation turns and is projected into eternity is precisely pinpointed arsenic 4 o’clock successful the afternoon.

“One day astatine 4 o’clock we separated

for a week only. . . And then—

that week became forever.”

There is question successful the room now. Dishes of nutrient are being brought out, bottles of unspeakable vile Verve Clicquot champaign look from the refrigerator. Someone turns up the television and arsenic I spot the jubilant countenances of revellers successful cities conscionable arsenic bustling arsenic the poet’s Alexandria of old, each of them young and nary of them of the property of his seedy conurbation, I muse that the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed successful Cavafy’s poetry, are Kantian successful the way that they signifier transcendental pre-conditions of experience, but alternatively than being theoretical, they presume a factual form.

There is simply a countdown now. Soon aft the fireworks begin. From our location, the Melburnian fireworks are intelligibly visible, spreading their outrage of airy crossed the acheronian nighttime sky. The neighbours person each travel retired onto the street, their mouths unfastened successful wonder. As 1 fireburst follows the different successful nauseating succession, a young kid exclaims: “I wish this nighttime could past forever.”

It is then that I americium reminded that the ultimate brilliance of Cavafy, is not that helium can, arsenic an Egyptian, mummify and sphere time, nor that helium tin conflate it oregon transcend it, but, arsenic successful his poem “Before Time Altered Them,” marque is stand wholly still.

“Or possibly Fate

appeared arsenic an creator and decided to portion them now,

before their feeling died retired completely, earlier Time altered

them

the 1 seeming to stay for the different ever what helium was,

the good-looking young antheral of twenty-four.”