An Anthology of Croatian Literature

Vladan Desnica (1905-67)

Vladan Desnica (1905–67) Desnica achieved literary prominence only after World War II, with novels and short stories usually set in his native Dalmatia. His first novel, Zimsko ljetovanje (Summer Vacation in Winter, 1950), contrasts town life with country life during the war. His last, Proljeće Ivana Galeba (The Springtime of Ivan Galeb, 1957), is an open-ended work of seven novellas with provision made in Desnica’s will to add more. It is very much a novel of ideas rather than action, a trend much in evidence in Desnica’s later years. The following is an excerpt from Srebrenka Kunek-Huljev’s translation, entitled Springtime in the Life of Ivan Galeb, and published in Most i-ii (1981): 50–52. An Anthology of Croatian Literature 164 Springtime in the Life of Ivan Galeb (Excerpt) “Is there not a grain of truth in that winning a million in a lottery would by no means make one equally happy at different moments during the course of one and the same day? If I were woken up at four o’clock in the morning by someone with a telegram informing me of my winnings, I admit I would rather it was only half a million and that the telegram had arrived at nine o’clock in the morning. That is the way it is with everything connected with feelings. The death of a dear one would not cause as much pain at different points in time. Maybe this sounds terrible, maybe it sounds cynical, but it is neither nice, nor ugly, neither cynical nor uncynical: it is simply the truth; it is if you like, unfortunately, the truth and that’s all there is to be said. It is a deep and simple truth about man, which, as such, can be neither nice nor ugly. Our feelings of love, of different kinds of love, feelings of attachment, loyalty, gratitude, awe, and so on, are far from constant. On the contrary, they are different at every moment, they are of different depth and intensity, they have different roots and are of different shades. They are threads in a piece of weaving, at moments thick, at others thin, in which the colors and shades are continually changing. If there is something constant in all this, then it is our commendable will that our feelings and beliefs be always equally strong, our moral judgment such that all is as it should be and maybe also the illusion that everything is really as we conceive it to be. If this point of view seems immoral , then the so-called morality of the others is exclusively made up of their ‘bona fides’ under the influence of which they are subject to that illusion. Basically, there is no difference between them and those who are immoral. What makes the illusion possible is our weak power of analysis and our still undeveloped analytical skills in the field of human feelings as well as the absence of established criteria or practical aids for evaluation. Oh, if only such aids and criteria existed, Father, you would see all that would give the world cause for amazement… So as conviction, too, is only a feeling or a state of mind and nothing else (I, for example—you can laugh at me as much as you wish—feel states of conviction as something physical, like a warm oozing inside me), it is understandable that it can be subject to constant fluctuation which means a continuous thinning out and thickening of one’s threads.” “What are you saying, what are you saying, my son! As I was listening to you, I thought to myself—how can he speak so lightly about such things and take a blow at the foundations upon which our society is built with such ease, at the foundations which have existed since man left his animal state! In place of laws, consistency, and ethical principles of any kind you advocate arbitrariness.” Vladan Desnica 165 “You are perfectly right, Father. It is not proper to speak so lightly about something which for many millenniums has been the be all and end all to people during their painful climb, during their worm-like wiggling under a cold, unfeeling dome. But if you want me to be more serious as well as more truthful in saying what I think, then I tell you the old god is dead, dead forever...