Death and the Dervish

by Meša Selimović

Sincerity is the certitude that we speak the truth (and who can be certain of that?), but there are many kinds of honesty, and they do not always agree with one another.

I am forty years old, an ugly age: one is still young enough to have dreams, but already too old to fulfill any of them.

What is the purpose of piety if there are no temptations to resist? Man is not God, his strength is the ability to restrain his own nature, so I thought, and if he has nothing to restrain, then what are his merits?

But when one has learned to measure his actions by strict standards of conscience, fearing sin perhaps even more than death, then it does not seem so strange.

Is everything we do really useless?

We trust them unquestioningly, and place our weakness under the protection of their ancient strength. Thus we belittle our human worries and nightmares through the habit of measuring them against eternity, and by putting them into such an inferior position we reduce them to insignificant proportions.

People in fact talk most often for their own sake, and with a need to hear the echo of their words.

God would punish me with pangs of conscience,

I passionately wished for him both to be caught and to escape, fear for the fugitive mixed strangely with the desire to shout out where he was, and all of this turned into a torturous pleasure.

I had not given him away, but I was not going to help him. Surprisingly, that neglect, as if I were a tree, a bush, or a child, wounded my vanity; it somehow depersonalized and belittled me, deprived me of value not only in his, but in my own eyes as well. I did not care about him, I knew nothing about him, I would never see him again, but his opinion had become important to me, and I was offended because he was acting as if I did not exist. I would have been pleased if he were angry.

I caught myself feeling that vile need for others to be grateful to us, to show themselves as small and dependent, because that is what creates our favor, nurtures it, and heightens the importance of our deeds and kindness.

He paid more attention to his bearing than any of us did to ours, because he had more to hide. I did not trust his composure;

How calmly he had gone to fetch the guards so that they would capture the fugitive! Not for a moment had he pondered his fate, his life, or his possible innocence. I had tormented myself all night long, he had made the decision in an instant.

“Life is larger than any principle. Morality is an idea, but life is what we live. How can we fit it into this idea without damaging it? More lives have been ruined in attempts to prevent sin than because of sin itself.”

“Should we live in sin then?” “No. But prohibiting it doesn’t help at all. It creates hypocrisy and spiritual cripples.”

It’s not important if we do not do good; it’s important that we do not do evil. And this is not evil.”

end? Then it occurred to me that he had indeed forgotten all ordinary words, and that was a terrible thought: not to know a single word of your own, not to have a single thought of your own, to be unable to say anything human, to speak without need or meaning, to speak in front of me as if I were not there, to be condemned to speak by rote. And I was condemned to listen to what I already knew.

Hope is the pimp of death, a murderer more dangerous than hatred. It’s deceptive; it knows how to win you over, to calm you and lull you to sleep, whispering whatever you want to hear, leading you to the blade.

one has to have strength to suffer.

To direct someone’s affairs is to rule; ruling is power; power is injustice for the sake of justice.

saw them all together as a whole, as a multitude, odd, cruel, strong, and even interesting. As individuals they were unimaginably insignificant.

Where armies pass, grass does not sprout, but children do.

I wanted to be different than the others, because I was the same.

“They are so beautiful that it would be hard for me to lose them. And with time they would break, one by one. And I would be sorrier than I am now.”

We must renounce love in order not to lose it.

We must renounce every attachment, because of the possibility of regret.

People easily forget what they’re not proud of.”

For him kindness was like the sunrise: something to be watched.

But should one make human misfortune one’s passion? Maybe one should, I’ve never thought about it.”

Cruelty in the name of kindliness is terrible; it would bind our feet and hands; it would kill us with hypocrisy.

Cruelty based on

power is better—that we can at least hate. Thus, we set ourselves apart and a...

When they think they are above us, people can even be generous.

“In front of children and old men people speak only stupidities,” he said angrily, probably thinking of the large, dark house in which he had lain. “Only this stubborn son of mine treats me like a man, because he doesn’t respect me, thank God.”

freedom to him, real or imagined, it was all the same in the end.

No one can ever anticipate everything; we rely on

luck more than we think.

Does every man end that way, fighting with his former self?

They dreamed of rulers who were good, but who was that? As far as he was concerned, he dreamed of bribable ones, he liked them the most because there was a way to them. Worst are the honest ones, who need nothing, who have no human weaknesses, and know only about some higher law, which is almost incomprehensible to ordinary men. No one can do more evil than they can. They create enough hatred to last for a hundred years. And these of ours? They’re nothing. Petty in everything. They can’t be evil or good.

Irresponsible generosity is the extravagance of a child who gives away everything he has, because he does not know the value of any of it.

Ugh, leave my conscience alone! I’ll do what my fear tells me to do, what my terror tells me to do, I’ll bid farewell to my nice ideas about myself. I’ll be what I must: scum.

I knew I did not deserve any of their respect, but it suited me, and sometimes I was pained by the thought that I should have in fact acted that way.