Authors: Witold Gombrowicz
"Hey, hey, a forest green Hey, hey, a forest green!
Pick up a stick. Cut a branch for yourself. In the fields—that's where we'll find a farmhand! I can already see him in my mind's eye. Not bad, that farmhand!" I sang:
"Hey, hey, a forest green Hey, hey, a forest green!"
Yet I couldn't take another step forward. The song died on my lips. Space. On the horizon—a cow.
Earth. In the distance a goose flies by. The sky is enormous. In the mist the horizon is blue-gray. I stopped at the city limits, and I felt that I couldn't continue without the herd and its works, without the human among humans. I caught Kneadus by the hand. "Don't go there, Kneadus, let's turn back, don't leave the city, Kneadus." Among unfamiliar bushes and grasses I shook like a leaf in the wind, I felt deprived of people, and the deformities inflicted upon me by them seemed nonsensical and unjustified without them. Kneadus also hesitated, but the prospect of finding a farmhand overcame his fear. "Onward!" he called, brandishing his stick. "I won't go alone! You must come with me! Let's go, let's go!" The wind came up, trees swayed, leaves rustled, and one leaf especially—at the top of a tree and ruthlessly exposed to space—terrified me. A bird soared high above. A dog bolted from the city and tore across the black fields. Yet Kneadus moved boldly down a path along the highway—and I followed him, as if in a boat under way to the open sea. Land disappears, and so do the chimneys and spires, we're alone. Silence, one can almost hear the cold and slippery stones sticking out of the ground. I move on, I no longer know anything, the wind blows in my ears, I sway to the rhythm of walking . . . Nature. I don't want nature, people are nature for me, Kneadus, let's turn back, I prefer crowds in a movie house to ozone in the fields. Who said that in relation to nature man becomes small? On the contrary, I grow and assume gigantic proportions, yet I weaken, I feel naked, as if served up on a platter of huge fields of nature in all my human unnaturalness, oh, where did my forest disappear, my thicket of eyes and lips, of words, glances, faces, smiles, and grimaces? A different forest approaches, a forest of evergreens, below which a hare scampers and a caterpillar crawls. Yet here, as if out of spite, not a village in sight, the road passes through fields and forests. I don't know how many hours we trudged awkwardly across the fields, stiffly, as if on a tightrope—there was nothing else we could do, because standing would tire us even more, and we could neither sit nor lie on the damp, cold earth. We passed a couple of villages, but they looked dead—boarded-up cottages with empty eye sockets. There was no more traffic on the highway. How long were we to tramp through this emptiness?
"What's the meaning of this?" asked Kneadus. "Has plague descended on the peasants? Are they all dead? If this continues we'll never find the farmhand."
Finally, coming upon yet another deserted village, we began knocking on the doors of the cottages. Ferocious barking answered us, as if a pack of wild dogs, from huge mastiffs to small mongrels, were sharpening their teeth to attack us. "What is this?" Kneadus asked. "Where do all these dogs come from? Why are there no peasants here? Pinch me, I must be dreaming ..." His words hardly had time to dissolve in the limpid air, when, from a nearby potato pit, a peasant's head popped up and immediately hid again, and when we came closer, ferocious barking came from the hollow. "Damn it," Kneadus said, "dogs again? Where's the peasant?" We walked round the pit (in the meantime outright howling came from the cottages), and we flushed out the peasant and his wife with little quadruplets whom she had been nursing with one almost dried-up breast (since the other had long been useless), barking desperately and furiously. They broke into a run, but Kneadus sprang and caught the peasant. The latter was so emaciated and skinny that he fell to the ground and moaned: "Oh, lordie, lord, have me'cy on us, let us be, leave us alone, oh, sire!" "Look, mister," said Kneadus, "what's the matter with you? Why are you hiding from us?" At the sound of the word "mister," the barking in the cottages and down the paths by the fences redoubled, and the poor little peasant turned white as a sheet. "Oh, have me'cy, sire, I'm no mister, le' me be!" "Citizen," Kneadus replied in a conciliatory tone, "are you crazy? Why are you barking, you and your wife? We have good intentions." At the sound of "citizen," the barking tripled, and the peasant woman broke out wailing: "Have pity, sire, he's no citizen! They've sent us some Yententions again, damn them!" "Friend," Kneadus said, "what's the matter? We're not going to hurt you. We want nothing but your good." "Friend!" exclaimed the peasant, terrified. "He wants our good!" screamed the woman. "We're no human folk, we're just dogs, we're dogs! Woof! Woof!" Suddenly the baby at the breast barked, the peasant woman looked around and, realizing that there were only two of us, growled and bit me in the belly. I tore my belly out of the hag's teeth! But now from behind the fences all the villagers appeared, barking and growling: "Get 'em, boys! Don't be scared! Bite 'em! Snap! Snap! Set the dogsss on them! Git those yententions! Git those yentelligentsias! Sock it to 'em, sock 'em, set dogsss on 'em, cats too, cats! Ksss... Ksss ..." Thus setting upon us and hounding us, they came closer—what's worse, to draw attention away from themselves, or to spur themselves on, they brought real dogs on ropes, and the dogs stood on their haunches, jumping, saliva dribbling from their snouts, barking ferociously. Our situation became critical, even more from the psychological standpoint than the physical. It was six o'clock in the evening. It was getting dark, the sun was behind the clouds, it was beginning to drizzle, while we—in an unfamiliar territory, a cold, fine rain falling—were faced with a huge number of peasants pretending to be dogs so they could dodge the all-encompassing activity of the city intelligentsia. Their children could no longer speak but barked on all fours, their parents encouraging them: "Barkie, barkie, sonny, little Spot, so they'll leave you in peace, barkie, barkie, Spottie-dog." This was the first time I had ever observed a whole village hurriedly transforming itself into dogs on the strength of the law of mimicry and out of fear of humanization, too intensely applied. And it was impossible to defend ourselves because it's one thing to defend yourself from one dog or one peasant, but quite another to defend yourself from growling, barking peasantry wanting to bite you. Kneadus drops the stick out of his hand. I look vacuously at the slippery, mysterious turf ahead of me, where I'm about to give up the ghost, and under such feigned circumstances. Farewell my body parts. Farewell my mug, and farewell, too, my docile pupa!
And we surely would have been, on this very spot, devoured in some unknown manner, when suddenly everything changes, the horn of a car resounds, a car drives into the crowd and stops, my aunt Hurlecka, née Lin, sees me and calls out:
"Joey! What are you doing here, child?"
Unaware of the danger and as usual not noticing anything, my aunt, swathed in shawls, gets out of the car and, her arms outstretched, rushes to kiss me. Oh, no! It's auntie! Auntie! Where can I hide from her? I would prefer to be devoured than to be hitched to Auntie on this great road of my life. This auntie has known me since I was a child, she has preserved the memory of my little pants! She's seen me kicking my little legs in my crib. So she runs up to me, kisses me on the forehead, the peasants stop barking and burst out laughing, the whole village shakes and roars—they realize I'm not some all-powerful city official, I'm just auntie's little boy! Confusion takes over. Kneadus takes off his hat while auntie presents him her hand to be kissed.
"Joey, is this your friend? My pleasure."
Kneadus kisses auntie's hand. I kiss auntie's hand. My aunt asks if we aren't cold, where are we going, where from, what for, when, with whom, why?" I reply we're on a hike.
"On a hike? But my children, who has let you out in such damp weather? Get into the car, we'll go to my place, to Bolimov. Your uncle will be delighted."
It's no use protesting. My auntie won't hear of any protests. On this great road of mine, in the mizzly, spattering drizzle, among rising mists—we are here with auntie. We get into the car. The chauffeur sounds the horn, the car starts, the peasants roar with laughter, the car, strung on the line of telephone poles, gathers speed—we're off. While my auntie: "Well, Joey, aren't you glad, here I am, your second cousin's cousin's aunt twice removed, my mother was your mother's second cousin twice removed. Your dear departed mama! Dear Cesia! It's so many years since I've seen you. It's four years now since the Franks' wedding. I remember how you played in the sand-remember the sand? What did these people here want from you? Oh, how they scare me! Today's peasantry is most uninteresting. Germs everywhere, don't drink unboiled water, don't let unpeeled fruit pass your lips unless it has been washed in hot water. Please wrap this shawl around you or you'll hurt my feelings, and have your friend take the other shawl, no, no, don't be cross, I could be your friend's mother. I'm sure his mama is worrying at home." The driver honks the horn. The car hums, the wind hums, my aunt hums, utility poles and trees rush by, puny cottages, small towns like puddles rush by, birch and alder groves, clusters of firs rush by, the vehicle carries us swiftly over potholes, we bounce in our seats. While my auntie: "Not too fast, Felix, not too fast. Do you remember uncle Frank? Krysia's getting married. Little Ann had whooping cough. Henio's been drafted into the army. You look pale and haggard, if you have a toothache I have an aspirin here. And how's your schoolwork— good? You probably have talent for history because your departed mother had an amazing gift for history. You've inherited it from your mother. Also her blue eyes, your father's nose, your chin, however, is typical of the Pifczyckis. And do you remember how you cried when they took that apple core from you, you stuck your little finger in your mouth and cried: 'Tia, tia, tia, here, appie, appie, here!' (Oh, accursed aunt!) Wait, wait, how many years ago was that—twenty, twenty-eight, yes, it was nineteen hundred and ... of course, I used to go to Vichy then and had bought a green trunk, yes, yes, that would make you thirty now... Thirty... yes, of course—thirty, to be exact. Wrap that shawl round you, my child, one can't be too careful of the draft."
"Thirty?" asked Kneadus.
"Thirty," said my aunt. "He turned thirty on St. Peter's and St. Paul's! He's four and a half years younger than Terenia, and Terenia is six weeks older than Zosia, Alfred's daughter. The Henryks were married in February."
"But Mrs. Halecka, he goes to our school, same grade as me!"
"That's right, it must have been February because it was five months before my trip to Mentona, and it was freezing weather. Helenka died in June. Thirty. Mama was returning from Podole. Thirty. Exactly two years after Bolek's diphtheria. The ball in Mo-gilczany—thirty. Would you like some candy? Joey, would you like some candy? Your auntie always has candy—remember how you'd stretch out your little arm and call: 'Candy, auntie! Candy!' I still carry the same kind of candy, take some, take it, it's good for a cough. Cover yourself up, child."
The chauffeur honks. The car speeds on. Utility poles and trees speed by, also cottages, pieces of fences, pieces of checkered fields, pieces of woods and meadows, pieces of unfamiliar places. Flatlands. It's seven o'clock. It's dark, the chauffeur lets out beams of electricity, my aunt turns on the light inside and offers me my childhood candy. Kneadus, surprised, sucks on a piece of candy, my aunt also sucks on one, paper bag in hand. We're all sucking. Tf I'm thirty years old, woman, I'm thirty—don't you understand that?' No, she doesn't understand. She's too good. Too kind-hearted. It's nothing but kindness. I'm drowning in auntie's kindness, I'm sucking on her sweet candy, and according to her—I'm still two years old, and anyway, do I exist for her? I don't, my hair is uncle Edward's, my nose is my father's, my eyes are my mother's, my chin belongs to the Pifczyckis, I'm a collection of the family's body parts. Auntie sinks into the family and tucks the shawl around me. A calf runs onto the road and stands, its legs spread out, the chauffeur sounds the horn like an archangel, but the calf doesn't want to give way, the car stops and the chauffeur pushes the calf off the road—we speed on while auntie tells how I used to draw letters with my finger on a windowpane when I was ten years old. She remembers things I don't remember, she knows me as I've never known myself, but she's too good, I can't kill her—God knew what he was doing when he swathed in kindness every aunt's knowledge of embarrassing, amusing details of one's tear-filled, long-gone childhood. We speed on, we enter a huge forest lit only by our headlights, fragments of trees flash by, and, from my memory—fragments of the past, the area here is evil and menacing. We are so far from everything! Where are we?! A huge stretch of brutal, black countryside, slippery from rain, dripping with water, surrounds our box, while within auntie prattles on about my fingers, that I once cut my finger and probably still carry a scar while Kneadus, a farmhand in his head, puzzles over my thirty-year-old. It has started to really rain. The car turns onto a side road, up and down through a sandy stretch, one more turn and dogs jump out, tough and ferocious mastiffs, the night watchman runs out, chases them away—they growl, bark, and whimper—a servant runs out onto the porch, another servant behind him. We get out of the car.
Countryside. The wind tears at the trees and the clouds. In the night the hazy outline of a large building appears, it's not unfamiliar to me—I know it—because I've been here before, a long time ago. Auntie is afraid of the damp, the servants lift her under her armpits and help her into the hallway. The chauffeur lugs in heavy suitcases. An old butler with sideburns takes off auntie's coat. A chambermaid takes off my coat. A young valet takes off Kneadus' coat. Little dogs sniff us, I know it all, though I don't remember it... it was here I was born and spent the first ten years of my life.
"I brought you visitors," auntie calls out. "Konstanty dear, this is Ladislas' son, Ziggie dear—your cousin! Zosia! Joey—your cousin. This is Joey, the departed Cesia's son. Joey—your uncle, Kostie— Joey."