“We go back home. We wait and then have dinner. We live these few hours. And we see ourselves alone in the house, facing each other, as never we saw ourselves, and we do not know what to do! It is a real drama of vacancy which is breaking loose. We are living together; our movements are in harmony, they touch and mingle. But all of it is empty. We do not long for each other, we can no longer expect each other, we have no dreams, we are not happy. It is a sort of imitation of life by phantoms, by beings who, in the distance are beings, but close by — so close — are phantoms!”
Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts
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Henri Barbusse 197
French novelist 1873–1935Related quotes
Shikantaza: Living Fully In Each Moment (page 4)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)
"The Road", line 1, in Songs from the Clay (London: Macmillan, 1915) p. 97.
Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
Context: All we know is, that even the humblest dead may live along after all trace of the body has disappeared; we see them doing it in the bodies and memories of these that come after them; and not a few live so much longer and more effectually than is desirable, that it has been necessary to get rid of them by Act of Parliament. It is love that alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in ourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern. Our concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them that enter into life — although we know it not.
