Ferdydurke (4 page)

Ah yes, at the outset of my public life I did receive a less-than-glorious consecration, and I was duly anointed by the lower class. Yet what complicated matters even more was the fact that my social demeanor left much to be desired, I was fumbling along, inadequate and helpless in relation to those semi-brilliant men of the world. My awkwardness, stemming from contrariness, or perhaps from anxiety, would not let me identify myself with any aspect of maturity, and, out of sheer panic, I would quite often pinch the very person whose spirit reached out to my spirit with approval. I envied those literary men, exalted and predestined to higher things from the cradle, whose Soul—its backside prodded with an awl—strove continually upward; those writers who in their Soul took themselves seriously, and who, with inborn ease and in great creative torment, dealt with matters so high and mighty and forever hallowed that God himself would have seemed to them commonplace and less than noble. Why isn't everyone called to write yet another novel about love or to tear apart, in pain and suffering, some social ill or other, and become the Champion of the oppressed? Or to write poems, and become the Poet who believes in the "glorious future of poetry"? To be talented, and with one's spirit to lift and nourish the wide masses of un-talented spirits? Yet what pleasure is there in agonizing and tormenting oneself, in burning on the altar of self-sacrifice, be it in the realm of the high and the sublime and—the mature? To live vicariously through thousand-year-old cultural institutions as securely as if one were setting aside a little sum in a savings account—this could be one's own, as well as other people's, fulfillment. But I was, alas, a juvenile, and juvenility was my only cultural institution. Caught and held back twice—first by my childish past, which I could not forget, and the second time by the childishness of other people's notions of me, a caricature that had sunk into their souls—I was the melancholy prisoner of all that is green, why, an insect in a deep, dense thicket.

A rather unpleasant and, what's more, a dangerous situation. For there is nothing that the Mature hate more, there is nothing that disgusts them more, than immaturity. They will tolerate the most rabid destructiveness as long as it happens within the confines of maturity, they are not threatened by the revolutionary who fights one mature ideal with another mature ideal and abolishes Monarchy in favor of the Republic, nor by one who nibbles at the Republic and then devours it with Monarchy. Indeed, it gives them pleasure to watch the thriving business of maturity and of all that is sublime. However, let them as much as sniff immaturity, let them sniff a juvenile or a sniveling brat in someone and they will pounce on him and, like swans that peck a duck to death, they will kill him with sarcasm, derision, and mockery, they will not allow a foundling from the world that they have renounced long ago to befoul their nest. And how will it all end? Where will this road take me? How did I become imprisoned in my own underdevelopment, I wondered, where did my infatuation with all the greenness have its origins—is it because I come from a country rife with uncouth, mediocre, transitory individuals who feel awkward in a starched collar, where it is not Melancholy and Destiny but rather Duffer and Fumbler who moon about the fields in lamentation? Or is it because I've lived in an era that, every five minutes, emits new fads and slogans, and, at the slightest opportunity, grimaces convulsively—a transitory era?... A pale dawn was seeping in below the half-open window shade and, as I was thus taking stock of my life, I blushed and shook with an obscene little laugh between my bed sheets—and I began to explode with an impotent, bestial, mechanical, knee-jerk kind of laughter, as if someone were tickling my foot, as if it were not my face but my leg that was giggling. It was high time to put an end to it, cut the ties with my childhood, make a decision and start anew—do something! Forget at last, forget the schoolgirls! Dismiss the fondness of cultural aunts and peasant girls, forget the minor and pretentious office clerks, forget about the leg and my heinous past, snub the sniveling brat and the juvenile—settle myself squarely on mature turf, and yes, finally assume that extremely aristocratic stance and despise, despise! No longer stimulate, titillate, and attract the immaturity of others with immaturity, as I have done thus far, but, on the contrary, elicit my own maturity and with it evoke their maturity, speak from my soul to their soul! The soul? And forget the leg? The soul? How about the leg? How can one forget the legs of cultural aunts? And what if, no matter how hard I try, I do not succeed in conquering the green that is budding, pulsating, growing all around (and I'm almost sure not to succeed), what if I treat people maturely and they persist in treating me immaturely, what if I address them with wisdom and they respond with stupidity? No, no, I'd rather be the first to act immaturely, I don't want to expose my wisdom to their stupidity, I'd rather direct my stupidity against them! And yet no, no, that's not what I want, I'd rather be at one with them because I love them, I love the little buds and sprouts, the little sprigs of green, oh!—and all at once I felt them grabbing me again, catching me in their love embrace, and again I roared with that mechanical, knee-jerk laughter and sang a frivolous little ditty:

In the town of Little Zanich In the bedroom of Miss Bozek Hid two bandits in a closet ... when suddenly the taste in my mouth turned bitter, my throat went dry—I realized that I was not alone. There was someone else in the room, in the corner by the stove where it was still dark—another person was there.

But the door was locked. Not a person then, but an apparition. An apparition? The devil? A ghost? A dead person? I suddenly sensed that it was not someone dead but someone alive, and all at once my hair stood on end—I sensed another human, like a dog smells another dog. My mouth dry, my heart pounding, I was hardly able to catch my breath—when I realized that it was I standing by the stove. And this time it was not a dream—it really was my double standing by the stove. I noticed however, that he was more scared than I was; he stood with his head lowered, his eyes downcast, his hands hanging by his side—and his fear gave me courage. I peeked from under my covers at a face that was mine and yet it wasn't mine. It loomed from a deep and dark greenness, itself a brighter green—it was my own countenance as it had always been. Here were my lips . . . my ears . . . my nose, they were my home. Hail familiar nooks and crannies! And how familiar! How well I knew the twist of those lips hiding tension and fear. The corners of my mouth, my chin, my ear partially torn off by Ziggy long ago—all the signs and symptoms of a twofold impact, a face that two forces, an outer and an inner, had ground between them. It was all mine—or maybe I was it—or maybe it was all someone else's—and yet it was I.

I suddenly thought that it was not I. I felt like someone who unexpectedly looks into a mirror and for a split second does not recognize himself, so did the startling concreteness of the form surprise me and cut me to the quick. The quaint short hairstyle, the eyelids, pants just like mine, organs of sight, hearing, and breathing—were these my organs, was it really me? The minute details, the clarity and precision of the outline ... all too clear. He must have noticed that I saw those details, and, embarrassed, he smiled uneasily and waved his hand with a hesitant motion that seemed to recede into the darkness.

And yet, as the light from the window grew brighter, his form became more and more vivid—his fingers and fingernails now came into view—and I saw . . . but the ghost, realizing that I saw him, crouched slightly and, not looking at me, began to signal me with his hand not to look. Yet I could not refrain from looking. Because that's the way I am. Strange indeed, like Mme Pompadour. And unpredictable. But why? An ephemeron. His faults and blemishes creeping into the light of day, he crouched like one of those nocturnal animals made easy prey by the light—like a rat caught by surprise in the middle of the room. The details emerged more and more clearly, more and more horribly, body parts creeping out of him everywhere, one by one, clearly defined and real... to the limits of their disgraceful clarity... to the limits of disgrace ... I saw his finger, his fingernails, his nose, his eye, his thigh, and his foot, everything was now out in the open, and, as if hypnotized by all the details, I stood up and took a step toward him. He shuddered and waved his hand as if in apology, and he seemed to say "that's not it, never mind—let me be, forgive me, leave me alone" ... but my movement, initiated as just a warning, ended despicably—I continued to move toward him, and, unable to stop the sweep of my outstretched hand, I struck him in the face. Off with you! Off! No, this is not me at all! This is something randomly thrust upon me, something alien, an intrusion, a compromise between the inner and outer world, it's not m y body at all! He groaned and—with a leap—he vanished. I was left alone but actually not alone—how could I be alone when I wasn't even there, I had no sense of being there, and not a single thought, gesture, action, or word, in fact nothing seemed to be mine, but rather it was as if it had all been settled somewhere outside myself, decided for me—because in reality I was quite different! And this upset me terribly. Oh, to create my own form! To turn outward! To express myself! Let me conceive my own shape, let no one do it for me! My agitation pushes me toward writing paper. I pull out a few sheets from the drawer, it is morning now, sunlight pours into my room, the maid brings my morning coffee and bread rolls while I begin, amid shimmering and finely chiseled forms, to write the first pages of my very own
oeuvre,
which will be just like me, identical with me, the sum total of me, an
oeuvre
in which I will be free to expound my own views against everything and everyone, when suddenly the bell rings, the maid opens the door, and T. Pimko appears—a doctor of philosophy and a professor, in reality just a schoolteacher, a cultural philologue from Krakôw, short and slight, skinny, bald, wearing spectacles, pinstriped trousers, a jacket, yellow buckskin shoes, his fingernails large and yellow.

Do you know the Professor? Have you met the Professor? Professor?

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop! At the sight of this horribly banal and utterly commonplace Form I threw myself on my texts, covering them with my whole body, but he sat down, so I too had to sit down, and having sat down he proceeded to offer me his condolences on the death of my aunt, who died long ago and whom I had totally forgotten.

"The memory of the dead," said Pimko, "is the ark of the covenant between the new times and the old, just like the songs of the people (Mickiewicz). We live the life of the dead (A. Comte). Your aunt is dead, and this is a good reason, even a compelling reason, to extol her contribution to cultural thought. The deceased had her faults (he enumerated them), but she also had her good points (he enumerated them) which benefited everyone, all in all not a bad book, that is, I meant to say a 'C plus'—well then, to make a long story short, the deceased was a positive force, my overall assessment of her is rather favorable, which I consider it my pleasurable duty to tell you, since I, Pimko, stand guard of the cultural values your aunt undoubtedly still personifies, especially since she's dead. And besides," he added indulgently,
"de mortuis nihil nisi bene,
and although one could criticize this or that, why discourage a young author—I beg your pardon, a nephew... But what is this?" he exclaimed when he saw my notes lying on the table. "Not only a nephew, but also an author! I see we're trying our wings, are we? Chirp, chirp, chirp, author! Let me look it over, and encourage you ..."

And, still seated, he reached across the table for my papers, put on his spectacles, all the while remaining seated.

"It's nothing... it's just..." I mumbled, still in my seat. My whole world suddenly collapsed, his talk of the aunt and the author upset me no end.

"Well, well, well," he said, "chirp, chirp, little chickie." He wiped one eye as he said this, he then took out a cigarette and, holding it between two fingers of his left hand, proceeded to squeeze it with two fingers of his right hand; at the same time he sneezed because the tobacco irritated his nose, and, still seated, he began to read. And sitting squarely on his wisdom, he went on reading. I felt sick at the sight of him reading. My world collapsed and promptly reset itself according to the rules of a conventional prof. I could not pounce on him because I was seated, and I was seated because he was seated. For no apparent reason, sitting itself assumed prime importance and became an obstacle to everything else. Not knowing what to do or how to behave I fidgeted in my seat, moved my leg, looked around at the walls and bit my nails, while he went on sitting, logically and consistently, his seat fairly and squarely filled with that of a prof, reading. This went on for a terribly long time. Minutes weighed on me like hours, seconds stretched and stretched making me feel like someone trying to drink the ocean through a straw. I groaned: "For God's sake, not your prof stuff ! You're killing me with it!" The rigid, angular prof was indeed killing me. But he continued to read in the manner of a true prof, and, like a typical prof, he went on absorbing my rambunctious texts, holding the paper close to his eyes, while outside the window a brownstone building stood, twelve windows wide and twelve windows deep. A dream?! An apparition? Why had he come here? Why was he sitting? Why was I sitting? How on earth was everything that preceded this—dreams, memories, aunts, torments, ghosts, my
oeuvre
only just begun—epitomized now by this commonplace prof sitting here? My whole world shrank into this trite prof. How unbearable! It made sense for him to keep sitting (because he was reading), but it made no sense for me to be sitting. I strained to get up, but just at that moment he looked at me indulgently from under his spectacles, and suddenly—I became small, my leg became a little leg, my hand a little hand, my persona a little persona, my being a little being, my
oeuvre
a little
oeuvre,
my body a little body, while he grew larger and larger, sitting and glancing at me, and reading my manuscript forever and ever amen— he sat.