...of forgetting

Besides, Mama was very glad to have met this new relative. She was a very nice girl. (And it was incredible how she reminded her of someone, but who?) For a good two hours, Mama had answered her questions. How did Mama wear her hair as a girl? She had a braid. Of course, it was still in the old days of Austria-Hungary. Vienna was the capital. Mama went to a Czech high school, and Mama was a patriot. And all of a sudden she had longed to sing them some of the patriotic songs they sang at that time. Or to recite the poems! She surely still knew many of them by heart. Right after the war (yes, of course, after the 1914 war, in 1918, when the Czechoslovak Republic was established, my God, the cousin didn't even know when the Republic was proclaimed!), Mama had recited a poem at a school ceremony. They were celebrating the end of the Austrian Empire. They were celebrating independence! And would you believe it, all of a sudden, having come to the last stanza, her mind went blank; she couldn't remember what followed. She fell silent, sweat ran down her brow, she thought she would die of shame. And then all at once, unexpectedly, there was a great burst of applause! Everybody thought the poem was over, nobody noticed the last stanza was missing! Even so, Mama was in despair, and, ashamed, she ran and locked herself in the toilet and the principal rushed to find her and kept banging on the door, begging her not to cry and to come out, because she had been a great success.

[The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Kundera, M.]