Authors: Witold Gombrowicz
“Well, well!”
But right away he unwittingly rounded the word off into a sentence, which he enunciated aloud and without artificiality:
“Well, well, well, what’s up, dear Mr. Witold?”
I replied:
“Nothing, nothing, Mr. Frydedryk.”
Madame Maria turned to us.
“I’ll show you a fine example of an American arborvitae. I planted it myself.”
The point was not to disturb Henia and Vaclav. We were looking at the arborvitae when the groom appeared, running from the barnyard, signaling us. Hipolit went briskly ahead: “What’s the matter?” “The Germans have arrived from Opatów”—indeed we could see some people in front of the barn—and, suddenly apoplectic, he ran on, his wife behind him. Fryderyk followed them, perhaps thinking that he could be of use, since he knew German well. As far as I was concerned I preferred, while it was still possible, not to be anywhere close to this, I was seized with weariness at the thought of the Germans, who were unavoidable, oppressive. What a curse … I returned to the house.
The house deserted, rooms empty from end to end, the furniture made itself known all the more in this emptiness, I waited … for the result of the Germans’ visit soundlessly taking place in front of the barn … but my waiting slowly became a waiting for Henia and Vaclav, who had disappeared around the corner … and finally Fryderyk exploded within me in this empty house. Where was Fryderyk? What was he doing? He was with the Germans. Was he really with the Germans? Should I look for him somewhere else, by the pond, where we had left that girl of ours … that’s where he was! Surely that’s where he was! He had gone back there to snoop. But in that case, what did he see? Envy of everything he could see seized me. The emptiness of the house was pushing me,
so I ran out, I ran supposedly to the barn where the Germans were, but I ran along the thicket behind the pond, along a trench into which frogs were jumping, making a fat, disgusting plop, and, having circled the pond, I saw them—Vaclav and Henia—on a little bench, at the far end of the garden, across from the meadows. It was getting dark, it was almost dark. And damp. Where was Fryderyk? He had to be here—and I was not mistaken—there, among the willows, in a recess, not clearly visible, he stood on guard under the bushes and watched. I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I quietly worked my way to him and stood next to him, he didn’t stir, I stood stock-still—while my showing up as an onlooker was a declaration that he had me for a comrade! On the bench their silhouettes loomed, and they were surely whispering something—but we couldn’t hear them.
This was a betrayal—her base betrayal—she was snuggling up to the attorney, while (the boy), to whom she should be faithful, had been cast outside her ambit … and this tortured me as if the final possibility of beauty in this world of mine had been broken down by an invading decay, a demise, a torture, an atrocity. What baseness! Was he hugging her? Or holding her hands? What a disgusting and hateful place for her hands: in his palms! I suddenly felt, as it happens in a daydream, that I was close to a revelation and, as I turned around, I noticed something … something astounding.
Fryderyk was not alone, because next to him, a few steps away, almost totally concealed in the thicket, loomed Karol.
Karol’s presence here? Next to Fryderyk? But how on earth had Fryderyk brought him here? Under what pretext? Nonetheless he was here, and I knew that he was here for Fryderyk, not for her—he had not come here out of his interest in what was happening on the bench, he came because he had been lured by Fryderyk’s presence. Truly, this was as obscure as it was subtle. I don’t know if I’ll be able to put it into words. … I had the impression that (the boy) had turned up uninvited for the sole purpose of inflaming the situation even more … to make it resonate more powerfully … and more painfully for us. Most probably when Fryderyk, the older man, hurt by the young girl’s betrayal, stood there gazing with his eyes fixed, he, the youth, noiselessly emerged from the thicket and stood next to him, saying nothing. This was wild and daring! But the dusk was enveloping us, indeed, we were almost invisible, and the stillness—none of us could say a word. Thus the vividness of this fact was drowning in the night’s nonexistence and silence. And it must also be added that (the boy’s) action had a smoothing-over, almost an exonerating quality, his lightness, leanness, gave absolution and, being (youthfully) pleasant, he could actually join everyone … (someday I’ll explain the meaning of these parentheses) … And suddenly he walked away as easily as he had appeared.
Yet the ease of his joining us made the bench pierce us like a dagger. It was mad, incredible, (the boy’s) joining us while (the girl) was betraying him! Situations in this world are written in code. Inscrutable at times is the configuration of people,
and of phenomena in general. This, here … was terrifyingly expressive—nonetheless beyond understanding, beyond deciphering. In any case, the world swirled with strange meanings. At that moment a shot resounded from the direction of the barn. We all ran together, taking a shortcut, with no regard as to who was with whom. Vaclav ran next to me, Henia with Fryderyk. Fryderyk, who in critical moments became enterprising and quick-witted, turned behind a shed, and we followed him. We saw: nothing particularly frightening. A German, tipsy, was amusing himself by firing a shotgun at the pigeons—and soon the Germans scrambled into their vehicle and, waving good-bye, left. Hipolit looked at us, furious.
“Let me be.”
His gaze leaned out of him, as if through a window, but he soon shut the doors and windows within himself. He went into the house.
In the evening at supper, red-faced and deeply moved, he poured vodka.
“Well, then? Let’s drink to Vaclav’s and Henia’s health. They came to an understanding.”
Fryderyk and I extended our congratulations.
Alcohol. Schnapps. An inebriating adventure. An adventure like a shot of strong drink—one more jigger—though this was slippery drunkenness, each moment threatened a downfall into filth, into depravity, into sensual muck. Yet how could one not drink? In truth, drinking became our mental hygiene, everyone used whatever he could to stupefy himself, in any way he could—so did I—though I did try to salvage something of my dignity by preserving, in my drunken state, the demeanor of a researcher who, in spite of everything, keeps watching—who gets drunk in order to watch. So I watched.
The fiancé left us after breakfast. It was decided, however, that the day after tomorrow the entire household would go to Ruda.
Then Karol arrived at the porch in an open coach, a
britzka.
He was supposed to go to Ostrowiec for kerosene. I offered to accompany him.
And Fryderyk was just about to open his mouth and offer himself as a third—when he fell into one of his unexpected
difficulties. … One never knew when this would happen. He was just about to open his mouth, then closed and opened it again—he remained, pale, in the claws of this tormenting prank, while Karol and I took off in the
britzka.
The horses’ trotting rumps, the sandy road, expansive vistas, slow circling around hills that were cropping up one behind the other. This morning, in this expanse, I with him, I next to him—both of us surfacing from the Poworna ravine, both of us visible, and my coarseness toward him was exposed to the jeopardy of being visible from afar.
I began thus: “Well, Karol, what were you up to with that hag yesterday, by the pond?”
He asked somewhat warily, to better gauge the nature of my question, “Why?”
“Everyone saw it, after all.”
My opening remark was not precise—just to start a conversation. He laughed, just in case, to make it lighter. “Nothing to it,” he said and cracked the whip, he didn’t care. … Then I expressed my surprise: “If only she were good-looking! But she was the lowest of the low, and an old slut too!” Since he didn’t answer, I stressed the point: “Do you go for old hags?”
He nonchalantly cracked his whip at a bush. Then, realizing that this was the appropriate response, he snapped the whip at the horses, and they jerked the
britzka.
His response was clear enough, though impossible to translate into words. We rode more briskly for some time. Then the horses slowed
down and, when they did slow down, he smiled with a friendly flash of his teeth and said:
“What’s the difference, old or young?”
He laughed.
This worried me. A slight shiver ran through me. I sat next to him. What did this mean? First of all one thing hit me in the eye: the immeasurable meaning of his teeth that were at play here, they were his inner whiteness, all-purifying—and so his teeth were more important than what he was saying—it seemed that he was talking for the sake of his teeth and because of his teeth—he could be saying any old thing because he was talking for pleasure, he himself was a game and a delight, he knew that his teeth, so high-spirited, would be forgiven every revulsion and disgust. Who was this, sitting next to me? Someone like myself? Not at all, it was a being essentially distinct and delightful, native to a blossoming land, he was full of a grace that was transforming itself into charm. A prince and a poem. Why then did the prince harass old hags? That was the question. Why did it amuse him? Was it his own desire that amused him? It amused him that, even as a prince, he was also in the throes of a hunger that made him desire even the ugliest of women—was it this that amused him? Was his beauty (connected to Henia) so devoid of self-respect that it was almost indifferent as to how it satisfied itself, and with whom it took up? Here darkness was being born. We went down a hill into the Grocholice ravine. I was discovering in him a kind of sacrilege carried out with satisfaction, and I knew
that this was something that affected his very soul, indeed, it was something, in its very nature, desperate.
(It’s possible, however, that I was devoting myself to those speculations merely to maintain, during the drinking, the semblance of a researcher.)
But perhaps he had pulled up the hag’s skirt to show that he was a soldier? Wasn’t this like a soldier?
I asked (changing the subject for the sake of propriety—I had to watch myself). “What do you fight with your father about?” He wavered, surprised, but he realized instantly that I must have heard it from Hipolit. He replied:
“Because he’s harassing my mother. Won’t let her be, the son of a bitch. If he weren’t my father I’d …”
His response was beautifully balanced—he was able to confess to loving his mother because at the same time he was confessing to hating his father, this protected him from sentimentalism—but, since I wanted to press him to the wall, I asked directly: “You love you mother very much?”
“Of course! If mother …”
Which meant that there is nothing peculiar about it, because it’s acceptable for a son to love his mother. Yet this was strange. Looking at it more closely, it was strange, because a moment ago he was pure anarchy throwing itself onto an old hag, while now he became conventional and subject to the law of filial love. So what did he believe in, anarchy or law? Yet, if he so obediently gave in to custom, it was not to add to his worth but to devalue himself, to turn the love
of his mother into something commonplace and unimportant. Why did he always devalue himself? This thought was strangely alluring—why did he devalue himself? This thought was pure alcohol—why, with him, did each thought always have to be attractive or repulsive, always passionate and full of vitality? We were now climbing, beyond Grocholice, on the left there were banks of dirt, yellow, with cellar holes dug for potatoes. The horses went at a trot and—silence. Suddenly Karol became talkative: “Sir, could you find some work for me in Warsaw? How about in the black market? I could help out my mom a bit if I was earning money, because she needs it for medical treatment, as things are, my father just keeps carping that I don’t have a job. I’m fed up with it!” He became talkative because these were material and practical matters, he could talk, and plenty, it was also natural that he was turning to me with this—and yet, was this so natural? Was this not just a pretext to “reach an understanding” with me, the older man, to come closer to me? Truly, in these difficult times a boy must gain the goodwill of older people who are more powerful than he, and he can achieve this only through personal charm. … But a boy’s coquettishness is much more complicated than the coquettishness of a girl, whose sex comes to her aid … so this was surely a calculation, oh, an unconscious, an innocent one: he was simply turning to me for help, yet he was really concerned not about work in Warsaw, but rather to establish himself in the role of someone who needs to be taken care of, to break
the ice … the rest will take care of itself. … Breaking the ice? But in what sense? And what was that “rest”? I knew, or rather, I suspected, that this was an attempt on the part of his boyishness to make contact with my maturity, and I knew from other sources that he was not averse to this, and that his hunger, his desire, made him approachable. … I went numb, sensing his hidden intention of drawing closer to me … as if his whole domain were to assault me. I don’t know if I’m making myself clear. The association of a man with a boy is generally based on technical matters, protection, cooperation, but, when it becomes more direct, its drastic aspect turns out to be very noticeable indeed. I sensed that this human being wanted to conquer me with his youth, and this was as if I, an adult, were to succumb to irrevocable discredit.
But the word “youth” was not permissible to him—it was not proper for him to use it.
We had climbed a hill, and an unchanging view of the land appeared, rounded off by hills and swollen with its own immobile undulation in the slanting light that swirled here and there under the clouds.
“You’d better stay put here, with your parents. …” This sounded uncompromising because I spoke as his elder—and it actually allowed me to ask in the simplest way and as if continuing our dialogue: “Do you like Henia?”
This most difficult question fell so easily, and he too replied without difficulty.