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1 " The misfortune is that although everyone must come to [death], each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days... and yet we were profoundly separated from her. "
― Simone de Beauvoir , A Very Easy Death
2 " There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation. "
3 " Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consultation for death. "
4 " Death itself does not frighten me; it is the jump I am afraid of. "
5 " ولكن عندما عدت إلى البيت، انهار حزن ورعب الأيام الماضية فوق كتفي بكل ثقله. فقد كان بداخلي أنا أيضا سرطانا ينهش داخلي-الندم. "لا تدعوهم يجرون لها العملية". ولم أمنع أي شىء. كثيرا ما كانت لا مبالاة أقارب المرضي الذين يقاسون عذاب الاحتضار تثير سخطي. "لو كان الأمر بيدي، لقتلته". وفي أول اختبار استسلمت: تنكرت لقيمي بعد أن غلبتني اخلاقيات المجتمع. "لا،" أخبرني سارتر. "غلبك الفكر العلمي: وقد كان ذلك قاتلا". وبالفعل قد كان. فكل منا يدور في رُحى الأطباء مجبرا، مغلوبا أمام تشخيصاتهم وتنبوءاتهم وقراراتهم. يصبح المريض ملكا خاصا بهم: أيمكنك الهروب به منهم؟ في تلك الأربعاء، لم يكن هناك سوى خياران: إجراء العملية أو القتل الرحيم. "
6 " Die Krankheit hatte den Panzer ihrer Vorurteile und ihrer Ansprüche gesprengt; vielleich, weil sie diese Art Selbstschutz nicht mehr brauchte. Von Verzicht, von Aufopferung war keine Rede mehr: ihre Vornehmste Pflicht war, wieder gesund zu werden, das heißt, sich um sich zu kümmern; da sie sich ohne Bedenken ihren Wünschen und ihren Freuden überließ, war sie endlich von der Verbitterung befreit. Ihre Schönheit, ihr Lächeln kehrten zurück und drückten auf diesem Totenlager eine stille Selbstzufriedenheit, eine Art Glück aus. "
7 " Sorumlusu olmadığım halde, benim olan, hiçbir zaman da bağışlatamayacağım bir günahın, umutsuzluk içinde, cezasını çekiyordum. "
8 " No existe muerte natural: nada de lo que sucede al hombre es natural puesto que su sola presencia cuestiona al mundo. Todos los hombres son mortales: pero para todos los hombres la muerte es un accidente y, aunque la concozca y la acepte, es una violencia indebida. "
9 " When someone you love dies you pay for the sin of outliving her with a thousand piercing regrets. "
10 " But it is impossible for anyone to say ‘I am sacrificing myself’ without feeling bitterness. "
11 " She had appetites in plenty: she spent all her strength in repressing them and she underwent this denial in anger. "
12 " Aujourd'hui, je n'ai pas vécu "
13 " She asked us to raise the curtain that was covering the window and she looked at the golden leaves of the trees. 'How lovely. I shouldn't see that from my flat!' She smiled. And both of us, my sister and I, had the same thought: it was that same smile that had dazzled us when we were little children, the radiant smile of a young woman. Where had it been between then and now? "
14 " Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death. "
15 " As we talked in the half-darkness I assuaged an old unhappiness. "
16 " For the first time I saw her as a dead body under suspended sentence. "
17 " It was a lovely autumn day with a blue sky: I made my way through a lead-coloured world, and I realized that my mother’s accident was affecting me far more than I had thought it would. I could not really see why. It had wrenched her out of the framework, the role, the set of images in which I had imprisoned her: I recognized her in this patient in bed, but I did not recognize either the pity or the kind of disturbance that she aroused in me. "
18 " By her eyes she clung to the world, as by her nails she clung to the sheet, so that she might not be engulfed. ‘Live! Live! "
19 " Hätten Sie nicht den Glauben verloren, dann würde der Tod Sie nicht derart erschrecken", schrieben mir fromme Seelen mit hämischem Mitgefühl. Wohlwollende Leser redeten mir gut zu: "Verschwinden bedeutet nichts; Ihr Werk wird bleiben." Und in Gedanken antwortete ich ihnen allen, daß sie sich täuschten. Die Religion konnte für meine Mutter ebensowenig leisten wie für mich die Hoffnung auf einen Erfolg nach dem Tode. Ob man sich die Unsterblichkeit als eine himmlische oder eine irdische vorstellt – solange man am Leben hängt, tröstet sie nicht über den Tod hinweg. "
20 " With regard to us, she often displayed a cruel unkindness that was more thoughtless than sadistic: her desire was not to cause us unhappiness but to prove her own power to herself. "
