Jean-Baptiste’s death was the defining event of my life: it left my mother a slave, and gave me my freedom.
There is, by the nature of things, no such thing as a good father. Don’t blame men, though: blame rather the rotten bond of fatherhood. There’s nothing finer than making children: and no greater injustice than having them! Had he lived, my father would have lain full over me, crushed me. Luckily, he died very young: while around me every other poor Aeneas staggers under the burden of his own Anchises, I cross unencumbered from shore to shore, full of contempt for those unseen sires mounted lifelong on their sons’ backs. I left behind a young man who died never having had time to be my father, and who by now could be my son. Was that good, or bad? I don’t know, but I am happy to subscribe to the diagnosis of an eminent psychoanalyst: I have no superego to loom over me.
Just dying is not enough: it must be done at the right time. Had it happened later, I would have felt a sense of guilt, as every orphan old enough to understand blames himself: his parents loathed the sight of him, and have gone away to their celestial dwelling-place. But as it was, I was delighted. My sad circumstances brought me respect, affirmed my importance; I numbered my bereavement among my virtues. My father was thoughtful enough to die when he had no right to. My grandmother always said that he had wriggled out of his duties; my grandfather, being justly proud of the Schweitzers’ longevity, would not allow that someone could pass away at thirty. In the light of this dubious demise, he came to doubt that his son-in-law had ever existed, and in the end he forgot him. I didn’t even have to forget him: Jean-Baptiste gave me the slip, and so denied me the pleasure of knowing him. Even today it amazes me to think how little I know of him. Still, he loved, he enjoyed life, he faced death; that’s enough to be counted a man.