“Blinding” of Canetti in brief

Professor Peter Kean, a long and skinny forty-year-old bachelor, during his traditional morning walks, peeps through the windows of bookstores. Almost with pleasure he notes that the waste paper and the boulevard spread wider and wider. Kin, a world-renowned scholar, a synologist, has the most important private library in Vienna in twenty-five thousand volumes. A tiny part of it, from precaution, he always carries with him in a tightly stuffed briefcase. Keen considers himself a librarian, who keeps, not giving out his treasures for reading. Passion bibliophile – the only one that Keen allows himself in his strict and working life. This passion has possessed him since childhood, he once remained a boy cunning for the whole night at the largest bookstore.

Keen does not have a family, because a woman will necessarily make demands, which “an honest scientist will not come up with in a dream”. He does not support personal ties with anyone, in scientific congresses,

to which he is invited with respect as the first Sinologist of his time, does not participate. Refuses Kin and from teaching in universities, this can deal with “mediocre heads.” At thirty he wrote off his skull with his contents to the brain research institute.

The greatest danger threatening the scientist, Keane considers “incontinence of speech” and prefers written speech. He owns more than a dozen Eastern languages, and some Western ones find themselves understandable. More than anything in the world for himself, Keen is afraid of blindness.

The professor’s household has been led for eight years by the “responsible” Teresa, who is pleased with him. She daily wipes dust in the four rooms of his library and prepares food. During the meal, the taste of which is indifferent to him, the scientist is busy with important thoughts, and chewing and digestion occur by themselves. Therese receives a good salary from Keane, enough to save and save a blue book with blue starched lower skirts, hiding the legs of a fifty-six-year-old strong person. Her head is set obliquely,

her ears protruding, her hips immense. She knows what she looks like “for thirty years,” and passers-by look at her always. But she considers herself to be a “decent woman” and secretly counts on the professor’s benevolence.

Theresa knows for sure, to minutes, the strict schedule of the master’s day. But before the morning walk there are mysterious forty-five minutes, when no eavesdropping helps to establish the nature of his studies. Therese suggests some vice, maybe he hides the body of a woman or drugs. She conducts searches and does not lose hope to reveal the secret.

Communion of Therese and Keen is reduced to the exchange of necessary phrases. The lexicon of the housekeeper is miserable, no more than fifty words, but Keen appreciates her laconicism and devotion to the library. She, with him, exposes the neighbor’s boy behind the door, who came for a promise, somehow a professor, in an oversight, a book in Chinese. As a reward, the moved Keen gives the housekeeper a respectable romance, which all his school friends once took from him. Soon, Keane discovers this scruffy book, lying in the kitchen on an embroidered velvet pad under Teresa’s fingers, clad in white gloves. In addition, Teresa tried to take out the old spots. Keene understands that he is dealing with a woman, merciful to books, “holy.” The astonished scientist is removed to the library, where, as always, he talks for a long time and argues with books and their authors.

After a modest rite of marriage from the very first night of marriage, Kin turns out to be untenable as a man. Teresa is disappointed, but she feels confident in the role of wife and mistress and gradually takes away three rooms of the library, cluttering them with cheaply bought furniture. For Keen, the main thing is that she does not interfere with his work and does not touch the books. He tries to be away from his wife, her thick red cheeks and blue starched skirt. When she invades new furniture in his office, the scientist considers it necessary to warn his pets about the danger, about the “state of war” in the apartment. Having risen on the stepladder under the ceiling, he turns to books with a “manifesto” about protection from the enemy, and then falls down the stairs and loses consciousness. Theresa finds her husband lying on the carpet and takes him for a “corpse”. She pities a beautiful carpet, stained with blood, and “almost sorry” for her husband. Within an hour she looks for his will, counting on her leaving a million sum. She does not doubt that a husband who should understand that he will die before his “young” wife, took care of this. Not finding a will, Teresa calls on the help of the gatekeeper Benedikt Pfaff, a big guy, a retired policeman. The spiteful Pfaff respects only Keen in the house, receiving from him a monthly “gift”. He thinks that the “passer-by” Theresa killed her husband and you can make money on this. The gatekeeper already presents himself as a witness at the murder trial, and the nearby Teresa seeks a way out of the dangerous situation and thinks about the inheritance. At this time, Kin comes to himself and tries to get up. Nobody expects this from him. Outraged Teresa says her husband, that decent people do not do that. Pfaff transfers the professorial “skeleton” to the bed.

During the illness of Keane, Teresa takes care of him in her own way, but does not forget that he “allowed himself to live on”, although, in effect, he had already died. She forgives it to him, she needs a will, which he now hears dozens of times a day. Before Keane, it turns out that his wife is only interested in money, not books. For a scientist who lives on a parental legacy, spent mostly on the library, the money does not matter. Visiting him for the sake of “presentation” Pfaff Kin qualifies from the position of history as a “barbarian”, “hired warrior”, but his wife has no place in any kind of barbarism. – Theresa in vain tries to get into the lovers of a young seller of a furniture store. Pitying herself, she somehow cries in the presence of “guilty in everything” husband. And to him, stunned by her incoherent speeches, it seems, as usual, something else, an expression of love for him, a scientist. When the misunderstanding is revealed and Keen “documented” to his wife how little money left to make a will, Teresa is infuriated. For Keane, life turns into a madhouse, where he is beaten and starved. Now Teresa unsuccessfully searches for her husband’s bank book and considers him “justly” a “thief”. Finally, realizing that “her” apartment is not an “almshouse” for “parasites”, she throws her husband out onto the street, hurling an empty briefcase and coat after him, not knowing that there is a bank book in her coat pocket. For Keane, life turns into a madhouse, where he is beaten and starved. Now Teresa unsuccessfully searches for her husband’s bank book and considers him “justly” a “thief”. Finally, realizing that “her” apartment is not an “almshouse” for “parasites”, she throws her husband out onto the street, hurling an empty briefcase and coat after him, not knowing that there is a bank book in her coat pocket. For Keane, life turns into a madhouse, where he is beaten and starved. Now Teresa unsuccessfully searches for her husband’s bank book and considers him “justly” a “thief”. Finally, realizing that “her” apartment is not an “almshouse” for “parasites”, she throws her husband out onto the street, hurling an empty briefcase and coat after him, not knowing that there is a bank book in her coat pocket.

Keen “is overwhelmed with work,” he goes to bookstores, buys books and spends the night at the nearest hotel to the store. The scientist “carries the increasing burden of his new library in his head.” He eats where he is and once he gets into the house of tolerance, himself not knowing about it. There he meets the hunchback Fischerle, a passionate chess player who dreams to beat the world champion Capablanca and get settled so that he can eat and sleep “during enemy moves.” In the meantime, he is fed by the wife of a prostitute and fraud.

-If acquainted with the case of the contents of Keen’s purse, Fischerle agrees to become an “assistant” to the scientist, helping him in the evening “unload books from the head” and “arrange” on the shelves. Keen feels that the hunchback understands it, it’s a “soul mate” who needs education, but Fisherl believes Keen is a swindler and a lunatic, but restrains his impatience, knowing that the money will still go to the “smart”, that is, to him.

The hunchback leads Keane to the pawnshop, where everything is laid, including books. Now Keen stands in the pawnshop, catching “sinners” with books and buying them out at a good price. “Sinners” begins to supply smart Fischerle. Through them, in order to increase the amount of ransom, he informs Keen his invention that Theresa has died. Kin is happy, he believes right away, because she had to die of hunger, locked up by him, “devouring herself in pieces,” mad with greed for money. Kin himself comes up with how the “hired warrior” found Theresa’s “corpse” and her blue skirt, how the funeral was. And to Fischerle removes a solid amount, which you can already go to America, to Capablanca. Unexpectedly, Keane encounters Teresa and her lover Pfaff, who brought his pawnshop to the pawnshop. Kin closes his eyes and does not perceive “

Fischerle safely disappears in the crowd, when the police lead the trinity. In the police, Keane pleads guilty to the murder of his wife, leading her to starvation. He asks the police to explain how his deceased wife in the same starched blue skirt stands next to her and speaks her primitive language. By stroking Theresa’s hateful skirt, Keen admits that he suffers from hallucinations and sobs. Everyone perceives his speech in his own way. Theresa understands that Kin killed his “first” wife. The doorkeeper recalls his daughter, whom he brought to death. The commandant of the police represents Kin an aristocrat with a perfectly tied tie, which he can not do himself. Finally, he pushes everyone out the door. Pfaff takes Kina with him to the gatehouse, where Keen wants to live, until the smell of the decomposed corpse of Theresa disappears from his apartment.

Fischerle has the address of his brother Keene in Paris, and he calls him to his elder brother with a telegram, the text of which is carefully thought out: “I am completely mad, your brother.” The contented hunchback settles his own affairs upon leaving for America. He manages to get a fake passport quickly and free of charge, get dressed from an expensive tailor and buy a first class ticket. At parting Fischerle goes to his wife and finds there, as usual, a client who kills him in front of a calm wife.

Pfaff wants to hold the professor for a while in the literal sense of the word “on his knees.” He teaches him how to handle the eyeball built into the door at half a meter from the floor through which he himself watched the tenants. Keen considers his new occupation as a scientific activity. He sees mostly “pants” passing, skirts he tries not to notice, like a real scientist, he has the ability not to notice. Keen conceives the article “Characterology of the pants” with the “Appendix on shoes”, which will identify people in these garments. The enthusiastic scientist involuntarily enters into conflict with the owner of the eye. Beaten, hungry, deprived of his post, he crawls under the bed and begins to doubt his mind.

The famous psychiatrist, the director of the big Parisian clinic Georges Keane, loves his work and the sick, thanks to whom he became one of the greatest minds of his time. Career, this handsome man owes much to his wife.

Having received the telegram of “brother”, he urgently goes to Vienna and on the train comes to the conclusion that his brother is worried about blindness, more imaginary, rather than real. At the door of the house, he immediately receives information from his “second wife brother” and Pfaff, who leads him to Peter, like a skeleton, weightless when moving from floor to bed. George considers himself a great connoisseur of people, but penetrate into the soul and thoughts of Peter, to win his favor and trust him still fails. Peter keeps the director of the “idiot clinic”, the “skirtman” indifferent to Confucius at a distance from the director.

The biggest thing that a younger brother can do is to expel Pfaff and Theresa from the apartment, with whom he easily finds mutual understanding. He goes to meet this couple and in a “businesslike” way, buying a store for them. Peter again settles in his carefully cleaned Teresa apartment. His financial future is now provided by George. Peter reservedly thanks his brother for all the “services” rendered to them, although he does not say a word about his wife’s removal. They say goodbye, George is waiting for “madmen”.

Left alone in his library, Keane recalls a recent past. He imagines a blue skirt, the words “fire” and “murder” flash in my head. In the place where Teresa’s corpse lay, Keen sets a carpet with a red pattern, so that the police do not take it for blood. It occurs to him that by burning books he will be able to take revenge on his enemies, who “are chasing the will.” Standing on the stepladder under the ceiling and looking at the approaching flame, Keen laughs so loudly as “I never laughed in my life.”