Elizabeth Finch: A novel

by Julian Barnes

EF, as we now privately referred to her, stood before us, handbag on the lectern as usual, and said: “Be approximately satisfied with approximate happiness. The only thing in life which is clear and beyond doubt is unhappiness.” And then she waited. We were on our own. Who would dare to speak first? You will note that the quotation was unattributed. This was deliberate on her part, a useful trick to help us think for ourselves. If she had identified the source, we would start thinking about what we knew of the life and work of the person quoted, and about received opinion. We would bow in reverence accordingly, or the opposite. And so we had a lively discussion, pitching still-youthful hopefulness against mature scepticism—at least, as we saw it—until she chose to reveal her source. “Goethe, than whom few of us can hope to live a fuller or more interesting life, stated on his deathbed—he was eighty-two at the time—that he had only ever felt happiness in his life for one quarter of an hour.”