Let the Old Dead Make Room for the Young Dead by Milan Kundera

First published: "At ustoupí starí mrtví mladým mrtvým," 1969 (English translation, 1974)

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of work: Probably the mid-twentieth century

Locale: Czechoslovakia

Principal Characters:

• An unnamed man, thirty-five years old
• An unnamed woman, a widow in her mid-fifties

The Story

An unnamed divorced man, thirty-five years of age and handsome, is resigned to his rather dull lot in life but becomes depressed on noticing a bald spot developing on the top of his head. This sign of approaching old age causes him to think about his accomplishments in life. He concludes that he has experienced little, especially in relation to women, who—he believes—provide the only true fulfillment in life.

As he is walking home from work one day, oblivious to his surroundings, he almost passes by a former lover. The woman, however, recognizes the man immediately. Both are pleased by the chance meeting and go to his apartment, avoiding the overcrowded cafés, to wait until it is time for her to catch the train back to Prague. As he prepares coffee, he decides that fate has played a trick on him by bringing this woman, with whom he was once madly in love, back into his life now that he is middle-aged.

The woman was beautiful in her youth. Although fifteen years older than when she last saw him, she is still attractive and still places tremendous value on physical beauty. Just as some find utmost importance in moral law, so she finds importance in beauty. To confirm her beauty when she was younger, she had extramarital affairs but was careful not to let them turn into ugly habits. One of these affairs was with the man she is now visiting.

She has returned to the small Czech town to renew the lease on her husband's grave, only to discover that the lease has been canceled and someone else's marker is where her husband's used to be. The cemetery administrator's only comment was "the old dead ought to make room for the young dead." She tells her host none of this, however, but bombards him with questions in an effort to keep him from noticing how much she has aged.

Nevertheless, he notices her wrinkled face, withered neck, and manlike hands marked by blue veins. The pity he feels for her makes him feel closer to her. He launches into a long, melancholy monologue, filled with maxims about the shortness of life, which he thinks about because of his bald spot. Although he expects her to empathize, she states she does not like such shallow talk. Discussions of aging and death evoke for her disturbing, unattractive images.

Ironically, the woman argues with the man's ideas by stating that one's body is not as important as one's work. She suggests that everyone leaves something behind, a sort of memorial. She mentions her own work and her son. She is happy to give her son everything she can and then slowly disappear from his life. Although she does not say it aloud, she thinks about how her son is pushing her toward her grave by insisting that she give up everything in herself that suggests youth, especially her sexuality; he can only love a mother who is old. She also feels anxious about admitting to her son that she has let the lease on his father's grave expire.

Finding the woman's ideas as shallow as she found his, the man suddenly strokes her hand and begins detailing for her their one night together. He was twenty, shy, clumsy, and inexperienced; she was almost forty and very patient. At that time, the man had vainly tried to imagine how the woman's face would look distorted by ecstasy. When they made love, however, the light was off, and he was too shy to get up to turn it on; therefore, he could see only shadows. Not only could he not see her clearly, but he also could not hear what she was whispering, even when he drew her to him. For the last fifteen years, he has considered her the woman who eluded him. He asks her, but she cannot remember why she never saw him again after that night. Both decide the present is more important.

The man now longs to see what he missed fifteen years ago. He pulls her to him and caresses her, and she responds, elated to discover that she has retained her ability to feel passion. The man notices that her body is extremely soft because her muscles have become flabby. He also remembers, from fifteen years ago, that the woman had some teeth missing, but now she is missing none. Although he finds these changes unappealing, he manages to ignore them to some extent.

When he tries to kiss her, she suddenly freezes, realizing that he will feel the denture in her mouth. She tells him that she is older now, that he will be disgusted if they make love, that the beautiful memory he has of her will be destroyed. He argues that she is still beautiful, that he will not be disgusted; even though he knows he will be disgusted, he is still filled with desire.

As she continues fighting him, she remembers the cemetery administrator's comment. She visualizes her son's reaction when she tells him that memorials are worth nothing compared to life. She concludes that memorials are outside oneself, and therefore make no difference in life. She confirms the man's statement that it is silly to fight him, and begins to undress.