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349
The Journal of a Disappointed Man
·
W. N. P. Barbellion
208
April
11.
Beethoven's
Fifth
Symphony
If
music
moves
me,
it
always
generates
images--a
procession
of
apparently
disconnected
images
in
my
mind.
In
the
Fifth
Symphony,
for
example,
as
soon
as
the
first
four
notes
are
sounded
and
repeated,
this
magic
population
springs
spontaneously
into
being.
A
nude,
terror-stricken
figure
in
headlong
flight
with
hands
pressed
to
the
ears
and
arms
bent
at
the
elbows--a
staring,
bulgy-eyed
mad-woman
such
as
one
sees
in
Raemakers'
cartoons
of
the
Belgian
atrocities.
A
man
in
the
first
onset
of
mental
agony
on
hearing
sentence
of
death
passed
upon
him.
A
wounded
bird,
fluttering
and
flopping
in
the
grass.
It
is
the
struggle
of
a
man
with
a
steam-hammer--Fate.
As
tho'
thro'
the
walls
of
a
closed
room--some
mysterious
room,
a
fearful
spot--I
crouch
and
listen
and
am
conscious
that
inside
some
brutal
punishment
is
being
meted
out
--there
are
short
intervals,
then
unrelenting
pursuit,
then
hammerlike
blows--melodramatic
thuds,
terrible
silences
(I
crouch
and
wonder
what
has
happened),
and
the
pursuit
begins
again.
I
see
clasped
hands
and
appealing
eyes
and
feel
very
helpless
and
mystified
outside.
An
epileptic
vision
or
an
opium
dream--Dostoievsky
or
De
Quincey
set
to
music.
In
the
Second
Movement
the
man
is
broken,
an
unrecognisable
vomit.
I
see
a
pale
youth
sitting
with
arms
hanging
limply
between
the
knees,
hands
folded,
and
with
sad,
impenetrable
eyes
that
have
gazed
on
unspeakable
horrors.
I
see
the
brave,
tearful
smile,
the
changed
life
after
personal
catastrophe,
the
Cross
held
before
closing
eyes,
sudden
absences
of
mind,
reveries,
poignant
retrospects,
the
rustle
of
a
dead
leaf
of
thought
at
the
bottom
of
the
heart,
the
tortuous
pursuit
of
past
incidents
down
into
the
silence
of
yesterday,
the
droning
of
comfortable
words,
the
painful
collection
of
the
wreckage
of
a
life
with
intent
to
"carry
on"
for
a
while
in
duty
bound,
for
the
widow
consolation
in
the
child;
a
greyhound's
cold
wet
nose
nozzling
into
a
listless
hand,
and
outside
a
Thrush
singing
after
the
storm,
etc.,
etc.
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