“Em a Honra Perdida de Katarina Blum, Heinrich Boll escreveu que muitas vezes, quando afixamos uma mascara a alguem, essa pessoa tem uma tendencia natural, instintiva talvez, de actuar conforme o seu papel, a tal mascara. A propria pessoa que coloca a mascara deixa de saber onde é que o papel que está a encarar acaba. O que é verdade e o que é ficção passam-se a confundir. Há uma deconstrução, ou a destruição se quiserem, do que é verdadeiro, do caracter.” André Leite
Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story—about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness . . . who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant. And his crowning glory would be if the whole of that sorrowful life he’d told were, from start to finish, absolutely false.
ReplyDeleteMore than anybody else, I suppose, Pessoa knew the importance of a mask. But his dream's mask is one we choose, one we wear, like to a Venetian carnival. Boll's mask is one we don't choose, but is chosen for us, and which ends up acting for us, like the Jim Carey's Mask I guess.
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