My Struggle: Book 4

by Karl Ove Knausgård

It had been a stupid offer to make, I thought as I went back into the staff room a few minutes later. Now I would have to dig in the snow with the ten-year-olds for the rest of the breaks. On the other hand, Jo’s face had lit up, I remembered, and I closed the toilet door behind me, unzipped, and began to pee. I aimed the jet at the porcelain so that the teachers who were still in the toilet wouldn’t hear the splashing sound. While I washed my hands I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The singular feeling that arose when you looked at your own eyes, which so purely and unambiguously expressed your inner state, of being both inside and outside, filled me to the hilt for a few intense seconds, but was forgotten the moment I left the room, in the same way that a towel on a hook or a bar of soap in the small hollow in the sink also were, all these trivialities that have no existence beyond the moment, but hang or lie undisturbed in dark, empty rooms until the door is opened the next time and another person grasps the soap, dries his hands on the towel, and examines his soul in the mirror.