5
" In the beginning was the World, but it was, therefore the past existed before the World. He bowed before the supremacy of the past. The Catholic Church would have much to be said for it, but it allowed too little past. Two thousand years, a part of it only recorded, what does that matter compared to traditions of double or treble that space of years? A Catholic priest is surpassed by any Egyptian mummy. Because the mummy is dead, he may think himself superior. But the pyramids are no more dead than St. Peter's, on the contrary, they are much more alive, for they are older. These Romans think that they have all time in the pockets. They refuse to revere their ancestors. That is a blasphemy. God is the past... A time will come when all men will beat their senses into recollections, and all time into the past. A time will come when a single past will embrace all men when there will be nothing except the past, when everyone will have one faith– the past. "
― Elias Canetti , Auto-da-Fé
14
" Yes, this was his home. Here no harm could come to him. He smiled at the mere idea that any harm could come to him here. He avoided looking at the divan on which he slept. Every human creature needed a home, not a home of the kind understood by crude knock-you-down patriots, not a religion either, a mere insipid foretaste of a heavenly home: no, a real home, in which space, work, friends, recreation, and the scope of a man's ideas came together into an orderly whole, into — so to speak — a personal cosmos. The best definition of a home was a library. "
― Elias Canetti , Auto-da-Fé
19
" Adına yaşama kavgası denen kavgayı, karnımızı doyurmak ve sevebilmek uğruna olduğu kadar, içimizdeki kitleyi öldürmek uğruna da veririz. Kimi koşullar altında bu kitle, bireyi bencillikten tümüyle uzak, dahası kendi yararlarına aykırı davranışlara dek götürebilir. "İnsanlık", bir kavram olarak bulunmazdan ve sulandırılmazdan çok önce, kitle olarak vardı. Bu kitle vahşi, coşkun, kocaman ve sımsıcak bir hayvan gibi hepimizin içinde, anasal etkilerin uzanabildiğinden çok, çok daha derinlerde bir anafor gibi kaynar. Kitle, yaşına karşın, dünyanın en genç hayvanı, en öz yaratığı, ereği ve geleceğidir. Onun üzerine hiçbir bilgimiz yok; hâlâ birer birey olduğumuz varsayımıyla yaşamaktayız. Kimi zaman kitle, gök gürültülerinden örülü bir fırtına, içinde her damlanın yaşadığı ve aynı şeyi istediği coşkun bir okyanus gibi saldırır üzerimize. Bu saldırının hemen ardından parçalanıp gitme alışkanlığını henüz koruduğu için, fırtına geçince yine biz olarak, zavallı ve bırakılmış şeytancıklar olarak kalırız. Bir zamanlar bu denli çok, bu denli büyük ve bu denli bütün olduğumuzu anılarımıza sığdıramayız bir türlü. İş bu noktaya vardığında, aklın boyunduruğunda yaşayanlar, sorunu "hastalık" sözcüğüyle açıklarlar, alçakgönüllülüğün bayraktarlığını yapmak isteyen ise, yanılgısının gerçeğe ne denli yaklaştığının bilincine varmaksızın, havayı "insanın içindeki hayvan" diyerek yumuşatır. Kitle ise bu arada yeni bir saldırı için hazırlanır. Bir gün gelecek, kitle artık parçalanmaz olacak; belki önce bir ülkede başlayacak bu gelişme, sonra orayı çıkış noktası yapıp çevresinde ne varsa yutarak ilerleyecek; ta ki artık Ben, Sen, O kavramları değil, ama yalnızca kitle varolacağından, kitlenin varlığına ilişkin tüm kuşkular ortadan kalkana dek. "
― Elias Canetti , Auto-da-Fé
20
" Another woman catches sight of Fischerle's hump on the ground and runs screaming into the street: 'Murder! Murder!' She takes the hump for a corpse. Further details - she knows none. The murderer is very thin, a poor sap, how he came to do it, you shouldn't have thought it of him. Shot may be, someone suggests. Of course, everyone heard the shot. Three streets off, the shot had been heard. Not a bit of it, that was a motor tyre. No, it was a shot! The crowd won't be done out of its shot. A threatening attitude is assumed towards the doubters. Don't let him go. An accessory. Trying to confuse the trail! Out of the building comes more news. The woman's statements are revised. The thin man has been murdered. And the corpse on the floor? It's alive. It's the murderer, he had hidden himself. He was tring to creep away between the corpse's legs when he was caught. The more recent information is more detailed. The little man is a dwarf. What do you expect, a cripple! The blow was actually struck by another. A redheaded man. Ah, those redheads. The dwarf put him up to it. Lynch him! The woman gave the alarm. Cheers for the woman! She screamed and screamed. A Woman! Doesn't know what fear is. The murderer had threatened her. The redhead. It's always the Reds. He tore her collar off. No shooting. Of course not. What did he say? Someone must have invented the shot. The dwarf. Where is he? Inside. Rush the doors! No one else can get in. It's full up. What a murder! The woman had a plateful. Thrashed her every day. Half dead, she was. What did she marry a dwarf for? I wouldn't marry a dwarf. And you with a big man to yourself. All she could find. Too few men, that's what it is. The war! Young people to-day...Quite young he was too. Not eighteen. And a dwarf already. Clever! He was born that way. I know that. I've seen him. Went in there. Couldn't stand it. Too much blood. That's why he's so thin. An hour ago he was a great, fat man. Loss of blood, horrible! I tell you corpses swell. That's drowned ones. What do you know about corpses? Took all the jewellery off the corpse he did. Did it for the jewellery. Just outside the jewellery department it was. A pearl necklace. A baroness. He was her footman. No, the baron. Ten thousand pounds. Twenty thousand! A peer of the realm! Handsome too. Why did she send him? Should he have let his wife? It's for her to let him. Ah, men. She's alive though. He's the corpse. Fancy dying like that! A peer of the realm too Serve him right. The unemployed are starving. What's he want with a pearl necklace. String 'em up I say! Mean it too. The whole lot of them. And the Theresianum too. Burn it! Make a nice blaze. "
― Elias Canetti , Auto-da-Fé
