Ferdydurke (36 page)

I finally touched the banister, down which I used to slide in yesteryear, delighting in the gravitational downslide—from the top to the very bottom! An
Infante,
an infant—a king, a child, a lord-child full speed ahead, oh, if only I were to hack auntie now, she'd never get up—and I was terrified of my own strength, of my claws and talons, of my punches, frightened of the man within the child. What was I doing here, on these stairs, why and where was I going? And it again dawned on me that kidnapping Zosia was the only acceptable reason for this foray, the only manly solution, the only place for a man to be ... To kidnap Zosia! Kidnap Zosia like a man! I kept driving the thought away but it went on pestering me . . . buzzing within me.

I went downstairs and stopped in a hallway. Dead silence-nothing stirred anywhere, they had retired at the usual hour, auntie had surely ordered everyone to bed by now, and tucked them into their comforters. However, their rest was unlikely a rest, under their comforters everyone wove their own canvas out of the day's events. In the kitchen it was also quiet, but light seeped through a crack in the pantry door, Valek was polishing shoes, and I saw no animation on his mug, it was its usual self. I slipped in slowly, closed the door behind me, placed my finger on my lips and, with extreme caution, whispering into his ear, I began my exhortations. He was to pick up his cap right now, drop everything and come with us, we were going to Warsaw. This was a terrible role to play, I would have preferred anything to this stupid coaxing, and whispering it too. Especially since he put up a resistance. I told him that their lordships were about to sack him, that he'd be better off if he ran away, far, far away, to Warsaw, with Kneadus who would pay for his keep—but he didn't understand, he couldn't grasp this.

"What's this runnin' away for," he kept saying with an instinctual mistrust of all lordly whims, and I was again assailed by the thought that Zosia would have accepted it more easily, that whispering with Zosia in the middle of the night would have made more sense. Time was running short for more lengthy exhortations. I smacked him in the mug and gave him an order, he then obeyed—but I smacked him through a dishrag. Through a dishrag I smacked him in the mug, I had to place a dishrag on his mug and smack him through it to avoid making a noise—oh, oh!—in the dead of night I was slapping a farmhand through a dishrag. He obeyed, though the dishrag put some doubts in his mind, because the peasantry does not like deviations from the norm.

"Come on, damn it," I ordered him and went out into the hallway, he followed me. Where were the stairs? It was pitch dark.

Down the hall a door creaked and I heard my uncle's voice:

"Who's there?"

I quickly caught the valet by the arm and pushed him into the dining room. We crouched behind the door. Konstanty approached slowly and entered the room, he walked right by me.

"Who's there?" he repeated, quietly, not to make a fool of himself in case no one was there. Having thrown out the question he followed it deeper into the interior of the dining room. He stopped. He had no matches, and the darkness was impenetrable. He turned around, but after a few steps he stood still—instantly and perfectly still—did he sense, in the darkness, a whiff of the farmhand's specific, peasant odor, did his lordship's delicate skin sense the paws and the mug? He was so close that he could have reached us with his hand, yet this was exactly what told him to keep his hands by his side, he was too close, the closeness had caught him in its trap. He didn't move and, slowly at first, then more and more quickly, his immobility froze into a state of alarm. I don't think he was a coward, although people said he clambered up the gamekeeper out of fear-no, the reason he couldn't move was not that he was afraid, but he was afraid because he couldn't move—once he put on the brakes and stood silent, every passing second, for purely logistic reasons, made any movement increasingly difficult. Terror had been locked inside him for a long time, but it only now emerged to conspire against him, and his lordship's thin little bones stuck in his throat. Not a peep out of the farmhand. And so the three of us stood just a few feet apart. Our skin crawled, our hair stood on end. I was not about to interrupt this. I figured that he would finally regain control and leave, thus letting us leave and escape upstairs through the hallway, but it didn't occur to me that the growing fear would paralyze him— for now I was sure that an inner shift and reversal had taken place, he was no longer afraid because he couldn't move, he couldn't move because he was afraid. I sensed the grave terror on his face, concentration, seriousness beyond belief. . . and I in turn began to fear—not him, but his fear. If we were to retreat or make the slightest move he could have pounced on us and grabbed us. If he had the pistol, he could have fired—but no, we were too close for him to shoot, he could have physically but not mentally—because one needs to precede a shot with an inner, mental shot, and there wasn't enough distance for this. But he could have pounced on us and used his hands. He didn't know what lurked in front of him, and into what trouble he'd be shoving his hands. We knew his form—he didn't know ours. I wanted to come out, I wanted to say "uncle" or something like that. But after so many seconds, or even minutes, I couldn't, it was too late—because how was I to explain our silence? I wanted to laugh, as if someone were tickling me. Here was proliferation. And expansion. Everything was expanding in blackness. Inflating and widening, yet at the same time shrinking and straining, evading something, and some kind of winnowing, general and particular, a coagulating tension and a tensing coagulation, a dangling by a fine thread, as well as transformation into something, transmutation, and furthermore—a falling into some cumulative, towering system, and as if on a narrow little plank raised six stories up, together with the excitement of all organs. And tickling. We heard slippers shuffling in the hallway, yet we felt too impotent to budge and so we did not budge. It was Zygmunt approaching in his slippers.

"Is anyone here?" he asked on the threshold.

He took another step and repeated: "Is anyone here?" and fell silent, he froze, sensing something was afoot. He knew that his father was somewhere here, since he must have heard Konstanty's footsteps and questions—so why didn't his father say something? Archaic fears and anxieties had corked up the father, ha, ha, ha, and so he couldn't, he couldn't because he was frightened! And the father's fear corked up the son. All the fear that had been generated thus far petrified Zygmunt, and he fell silent, as if forever. Perhaps at first he felt unclear, but soon the unclearness clarified itself into fear and grew upon itself.
Da capo—
winnowing, distending, magnifying, raising to the 101st power, proliferating and stretching, mollifying and caressing, straining, intently listening to a monotone, piling up and suspending—endlessly, endlessly going up and under—all the while Zygmunt standing a few steps away. Choking, unable to swallow and damming up, holding on to one's head, falling and breaking apart, prolonged disentangling, summing up, pushing out and leading up to, changing and intensifying, intensifying . . . One minute? One hour? What was going to happen? Universes soared through my brain. I recalled: it was here, long ago, that I lurked to scare my nanny—at this very spot—and I almost laughed. Shush! Why laugh? That's enough, cut it out, stop it, what will happen if my childishness is finally disclosed, what if, after all this time, they discover me with the valet—it would be strange, and inexplicable—but oh, with Zosia, to be with Zosia, to hold my breath with Zosia rather than with the farmhand! With Zosia it wouldn't be childish! I suddenly took a bold step, I slipped behind the drapes, quite sure that the other men wouldn't dare move. Indeed, they didn't dare. In the darkness, besides fear, there was now an awkwardness, what's more, it would have been awkward for them to interrupt, perhaps they intended to, they thought about it, but they didn't know how to do it. I'm talking here about their silence. For I interrupted mine by moving. It's possible that they thought about the logistics, they looked for excuses and pretexts, some outer justification, and, what's worse, each one of them hampered the other by his presence, and both those thinkers stood there, unable to stop, to cut short, while the pushing out and disentangling continued unbroken. Having regained my ability to move I decided to catch the farmhand, pull him along and make a quick exit into the hallway, but before I could carry out my decision—light, light!—a gleam on the floor, a creaking and a shuffling, it was Francis, Francis had arrived with a light, there was the outline of my uncle's leg coming to light, into light, out into the open!! Fortunately for me, I was behind the drapes! But their old servant brought to light everything that was happening in the dark! And they all stepped out: my uncle, Zygmunt, the valet—they all had to step out! My uncle, his hair roughed up a bit, only a step from the valet, both facing each other—and Zygmunt stuck farther back in the room, like a post.

"Is someone walking about?" asked the butler with a somewhat plaintive voice, lighting up the room with a small paraffin lamp; but he asked this after the fact, merely to justify his arrival. He obviously saw them as if on the palm of his hand.

Konstanty moved. What did Francis think, seeing him close to the valet? Why were they standing next to each other? Konstanty couldn't step back right away, and yet, by a slight movement, he widened the space between them; he took a step to one side.

"What are you doing here?" Konstanty exclaimed, transforming his fear into anger.

The valet didn't answer. He couldn't find an answer. He had no problem standing, but he couldn't find his tongue. He was alone with their lordships. The silence of the son of the common people and his inability to explain things cast a shadow of suspicion. Francis looked at my uncle—their lordships here with Valek in the darkness? Was the squire also hobnobbing with the common people?—the old servant stood erect, lamp in hand, slowly turning red and shining like the sun's afterglow at dusk.

"Valek!" exclaimed Zygmunt.

All those exclamations were ill-timed, they came either too soon or too late, and I crouched behind the drapes.

"I heard someone walking about," Zygmunt began, confused and looking right and left, "I heard someone walking. Walking. What are you doing here? What are you up to? Speak up! What do you want here? Answer me!!! Answer me, damn it!!!" He ranted on in great confusion.

"It's obvious what," answered the butler after a long and deadly silence, inflamed, "it's obvious, your lordship."

He stroked his sideburns.

"The table silver is in the drawer. And tomorrow your lordships were going to release him from his duties. So he figured . . . he'd filch it."

Filch it! Valek had wanted to steal the silver! They found a rationalization—he wanted to steal, and they caught him at it. Everyone, Valek included, felt better, and, behind the drapes, I too breathed more easily. Konstanty moved away from the valet and sat on a chair by the table. He regained his customary lordly relationship with the farmhand, as well as his self-assurance. The farmhand had wanted to steal!

"Come here," said Konstanty, "come here, I tell you . . . Closer, closer . . ." He was no longer afraid of closeness and obviously relished the fact that he was no longer afraid. "Closer," he repeated, "closer," as Valek approached him with mistrust, dragging his feet, "come on, closer," until the farmhand almost touched him, then he drew back his fist and, still sitting, punched him in the snoot,
Mane, Tekel, Fares!
{13}
"I'll teach you to steal!" Oh, the bliss of a punch by the lamplight, after all the fear in the darkness, oh, to punch the mug that scared you, to punch within the well-defined notion of thievery! Oh, the bliss of a normal relation after so many abnormal relations! Zygmunt, following his father's example, punched Valek's teeth as if they were the hanging gardens of Semiramis! He punched them with a bang and a whack! Behind the drapes I tensely coiled myself as if upon a spool.

"Ah wasn't stealin'!" the farmhand said catching his breath.

 That's exactly what they were waiting for. It enabled them to exploit the excuse of thievery to its limits. "You weren't stealing?" said Konstanty, and, stretching from his chair he again smacked him in the snoot. "You weren't stealing?" said the young lordship, and, as he stood there, he too hit him in the snoot with a brisk and succinct whack. They pounced on him. "You weren't stealing? You weren't stealing?"—and asking this question over and over again, unremittingly, they went on smacking him, searching for his mug with their hands and, having found it, hitting it again, briskly, as if releasing a spring, or with a sweep and a crash! He covered himself with his arms, but they knew how to get at him! For a long while they could reach only his mug, but I felt their scope would widen; indeed, his lordship managed to break the barrier, he caught Valek by the hair and, having caught him by the hair, banged his noodle on the counter of the sideboard.

"I'll teach you to steal! I'll teach you to steal!..."

Ha, and so it began! Oh, accursed billowing night! Accursed darkness that magnified, darkness that unleashed all, were it not for immersion in darkness this would never have happened. A sediment of darkness spread over it. Kostie the squire went on a rampage. Under the guise of thievery he gave the farmhand a thrashing: for the fear, for the terror, for the blushing, for the fra . . . ternizing with Kneadus, for everything he had suffered. "This is mine! Mine!" he repeated, hitting him against drawers, against edges, against ornaments and moldings. "It's mine, damn you!" And the "mine" slowly changed its meaning, it was no longer clear whether he meant the silver and the flatware or his own body and soul, his hair, his customs, his hands, his lordliness, his refinement, his race and culture, he no longer banged him against a drawer, he banged him in space, without any pretexts! It seemed that by thrashing and sacking the farmhand he was enforcing his own self, not the silver nor his estate, but himself. It was his own self that he was enforcing! What terror! Terror! To terrorize, to enforce oneself upon the farmhand lest he dare fra . . . ternize again, no more prattlin' or marvelin', the valet must accept their lordships as the godhead! With his lordly, dainty little hand the squire was pounding his own being into that snoot! That's how a turkey would pound a turkey into a sparrow! A foxter-rier pound the cult of a foxterrier into a mongrel! An owl—into a jay! A buffalo—into a dog! I rubbed my eyes behind the drapes, I wanted to scream, cry for help, but I couldn't. Francis, meanwhile, lit everything from the side with his small paraffin lamp. Auntie! Auntie! Did my eyes mislead me, or did I see auntie standing in the door of the smoking room, candy in hand. Hope swept through me, I thought my aunt might save the situation, smooth things over—neutralize them. But no! She lifted her arms as if to scream, but instead of screaming she smiled without rhyme or reason, she waved it all aside, made a nondescript gesture or two, and retreated into the smoking room. She pretended not to be there, she didn't take in what she had seen, didn't assimilate it, the dose was too potent—and she vanished into herself and into the interior of the room, or rather, she flowed back so mistily that I doubted whether she had ever been there. Konstanty's energy would leave him momentarily—then he would resume enforcing—while Zygmunt kept jumping in from the side, also enforcing himself on the farmhand, enforcing and enforcing, limited only by the reach of his arm. When my uncle let up, Zygmunt let the farmhand have it, and he enforced himself with all his power, roar and uproar! And through their clenched jaws they let fly breathless words such as: