When the Devil Holds the Candle Read Online Free PDF

Ingemar was here for coffee yesterday: So reliable, so proper. Socializing, spending time with other people, noticing their smell or being certain that they notice my smell is more than I can bear. I go shopping at regular intervals and buy what I need. Never more than that. Sometimes I go to the library, where I borrow biographies. Or I look through the newspapers. It doesn't cost anything, you know. I go there right before closing time, when it's quiet and there's never a line at the checkout desk. The librarian is a man; he looks sad. What a burden it must be to have to read everything.
    I don't talk to my neighbors. If they say hello over the fence, I say hello back, but keep walking. I'm not unhappy, but I'm not happy either. I don't know anyone who is. A doctor whom I see once a year says that I'm as healthy as a horse. He says this in a
stern, admonishing way, and I know what he's getting at, but he can't possibly understand. I don't feel like explaining. He's not being malicious or pretentious when he just sits there and looks at me. I know he wants to offer me something but doesn't really have the strength to do it.
    People are so different. It's easier to love things, or tasks, or animals maybe, but animals smell and they leave hair everywhere, or something even worse. I spend the evenings tidying up the house. I wash and put things away and wipe and dust until everything is clean. I finish by splashing bleach in all the drains. It kills bacteria and removes odors. Behind the house I have a beautiful garden and a small gazebo. When I sit outside in the summer, I put up a windbreak made of canvas. If anyone were to stand behind the hedge and look in, they wouldn't be able to see me. Not that I sit there wearing nothing but my under-wear—that would never occur to me. But I like this enclosed space. I've never bothered anybody, never made big demands or behaved unreasonably. I don't cheat on my taxes, I don't shoplift, I pay all my bills a day or two before they're due. On Saturday evenings I sometimes drink a little wine, but never too much. I watch television. Read the newspapers. I know what's happening out in the streets and in Algeria and Rwanda. I sleep well, I rarely dream, and I'm not afraid of dying. In fact, I often wish I would die: suddenly, while I'm sitting in the red chair, without being aware of it, next to the window, with the sun on my face. The last thing I'd feel would be a faint warmth. How sad it will be when I'm not here anymore!
    In short, I fulfill my obligations. What's wrong with obligations? Aren't they what holds society together? I'm not ashamed. Every night when I go to bed, I can cross off one more day. That's a relief. When I wake up in the morning, I'm always amazed that I'm still here. But I think that's great, and I do what I'm supposed to do. You mustn't think that I'm unhappy or any thing like that; I'm doing fine—or was, until the incident with Andreas happened.

    I was sixteen when I left the yellow house. All the rules had closed around me like a cage. I hadn't let anyone in. Behind the bars, I had constructed a life, a state in which I could survive, consisting of order and regulation, discipline and control. My parents regarded me with doubt and relief. There was something clearly legible in their eyes: Don't blame us, their eyes said, if anything goes wrong. They didn't wave when I left; they wanted above all things to be left in peace. And I never acquired a faith in God.
There are more things between heaven and earth,
my mother would say, with her back turned. They passed on to me what they had learned themselves, the best way to make it through life. So I left with the rules as a weight on my shoulders, and from behind the bars of my cage I observed the world. Everyone around me was vacillating and without purpose and disgustingly impulsive. Human beings have a tendency to just drift along, and that makes me nervous.
    I have a friend. Did I mention that? Runi. She