Study Guide

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Part 1, Chapter 4

By Milan Kundera

Part 1, Chapter 4

Tomas is a doctor.
Two days after his standing-at-the-window crisis, Tereza calls his hospital and tells him she is at the train station. He is overjoyed.
They make plans to meet the next day.
When they meet, Tereza is carrying a copy of Anna Karenina and has left her suitcase at the train station. She says she's come to Prague to find a job.
Tomas quickly realizes that Tereza's life is in her suitcase, and that she's there to offer up her life to him. He finds the suitcase to be very heavy.
To Tomas's surprise, he takes Tereza home with him. This is against his principles.
Since he divorced his wife ten years ago, he's been the ultimate bachelor. He's designed his entire life in such a way that no woman could ever move in with him. And though he has sex with many women, he refuses to sleep next to them afterwards.
Yet he and Tereza sleep together side by side, holding hands all night long.
Again Tomas thinks of her as a child placed in a basket and sent down the river to him. He feels as though it's his responsibility to take care of her, just as the Pharaoh's daughter took care of Moses.
"Tomas did not realize," says the narrator, "that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love" (1.4.12).

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