Lem, Stanislaw (34 page)

that, huffing, he raised his finger and— though he still

dropped an occasional oath and threw off such sparks, that the air

reeked with ozone—proceeded to tell his story in the following

words:

—Know then, O foreigner, that I

am a pundit, a pundit's pundit, first among philosophists, for my

lifelong passion and profession is ontology, and my name (which the

stars must some day outshine) is Chlorian Theoreticus the Proph. I

was born of impoverished parents and from earliest childhood felt an

irresistible attraction to abstract thought. At the age of sixteen I

wrote my first opus,
The Gnostotron
. It set forth the

general theory of
a posteriori
deities, deities which had to

be added to the Universe later by advanced civilizations, since, as

everyone knows, Matter always comes first and no one, consequently,

could have possibly thought in the very beginning. Clearly then, at

the Dawn of Creation thoughtlessness reigned supreme, which is

only obvious, really, when you take a look at this, this Cosmos of

ours!!— Here the ancient one choked with sudden rage, stamped

his feet, but then weakened, and finally went on. —I simply

explained the necessity of providing gods after the fact, inasmuch

as there were none available beforehand. Indeed, every civilization

that engages in intellectronics strives for nothing else but to

construct some Omniac, which, in Its infinite mercy, might rectify

the currents of evil and plot the path of righteousness and true

wisdom. Now in this work of mine I included a blueprint for the first

Gnostotron, as well as graphs of its omnipotence output, measured in

units called jehovahs. One jehovah would be equivalent to the working

of one miracle with a radius of one billion parsecs. As soon as this

treatise appeared in print (at my own expense), I rushed out into the

street, certain that the people would lift me up on their

shoulders, crown me with garlands, shower me with gold, but no

one, not even so much as a lame cybernerian, approached with words of

praise. Feeling dismay rather than disappointment at this neglect, I

immediately sat down and wrote
The Scourge of Reason
, two

volumes, in which I showed that each civilization may choose one of

two roads to travel, that is, either fret itself to death, or pet

itself to death. And in the course of doing one or the other, it eats

its way into the Universe, turning cinders and flinders of stars into

toilet seats, pegs, gears, cigarette holders and pillowcases, and it

does this because, unable to fathom the Universe, it seeks to change

that Fathomlessness into Something Fathomable, and will not stop

until the nebulae and planets have been processed to cradles, chamber

pots and bombs, all in the name of Sublime Order, for only a

Universe with pavement, plumbing, labels and catalogues is, in its

sight, acceptable and wholly respectable. Then in the second volume,

entitled
Advocatus Materiae
, I demonstrated how the Reason,

a greedy, grasping thing, is only satisfied when it succeeds in

chaining some cosmic geyser, or harnessing an atomic swarm—say,

to produce an ointment for the removal of freckles. This

accomplished, it hurries on to the next natural phenomenon, to

add it, like a stuffed trophy, to its precious collection of

scientific spoils. But alas, these two excellent volumes of mine were

also received with silence by the world; I said to myself then, that

patience was the way, and perseverance. Now having defended, first,

the Reason against the Universe (the Reason absolved from blame, in

that Matter permits all sorts of abominations only because it is

mindless), and second, the Universe against the Reason (which I

demolished utterly, I dare say), on a sudden inspiration I then wrote

The Existential Tailor
, where I proved conclusively the

absurdity of more than one philosopher, for each must have his own

philosophy, that fits him like a glove, or a coat cut to

specifications. And as this work too was totally ignored, I

straightway wrote another; in it I presented all the possible

hypotheses concerning the origin of the Universe —first, the

opinion that it doesn't exist at all, second, that it's the result of

all the mistakes made by a certain Demiurgon, who set out to create

the world without the faintest idea of how to go about it, third,

that the world is actually an hallucination of some Superbrain gone

berserk in a manner infinite but bounded, four, that it is an

asinine thought materialized as a joke, five, that it is matter that

thinks, but with an abysmally low IQ—and then I sat back and

waited, expecting vehement attacks, heated debates, notoriety,

laurels, lawsuits, fan mail and anonymous threats. But once

again, nothing, absolutely nothing. It was quite beyond belief.

Then I thought, well, perhaps I hadn't read enough of other thinkers,

and so, obtaining their works, I acquainted myself with the most

famous among them, one by one— Phrensius Whiz, Buffon von

Schneckon, founder of the Schneckonist movement, then Turbulo

Turpitus Catafalicum, Ithm of Logar, and of course Lemuel the

Balding.

Yet in all of this I discovered

nothing of significance. Meanwhile my own books were gradually being

sold, I assumed therefore that someone was reading them, and if

so, I would sooner or later hear of it. In particular I had no doubt

but that the Tyrant would summon me, with the demand that I

devote myself exclusively to the immortalization of his glorious

name. Of course I would tell him that Truth alone did I serve and

would lay down my life for it, if necessary; the Tyrant, desirous of

the praises my brilliant brain could formulate, would then attempt to

bring me round with honeyed words and even toss sacks of clinking

coins at my feet, but, seeing me unmoved and resolute, would say

(prompted by his wise men) that as I dealt with the Universe, I ought

to deal with him as well, for he represented, after all, a part of

the Cosmic Whole. Outraged at this mockery, I would answer sharply,

and he would have me put to torture. Thus I toughened my body in

advance, that it might endure the worst with philosophical

indifference. Yet days and months passed by, and nothing, no

word from the Tyrant—so I had readied myself for martyrdom in

vain. There was only a certain scribbler by the name of Noxion, who

wrote in some cheap, vulgar evening gazette that this prankster

Chlorian made up no end of farfetched yarns in his book facetiously

entitled,
The Gnostotron
, or The
Ultimate

Omnipotentiometer
, or
A Pee into
the Future. I

rushed to my bookshelf—yes, there it was, the printer had

somehow left out the
k.
. .. My first impulse was to go out

and murder him, but reason prevailed. "My time will come!"

I told myself. "It cannot be, for someone to cast forth pearls

of eternal wisdom left and right, day and night, till the mind is

blinded by the surging Light of Final Understanding—and

nothing! No, fame will be mine, acclaim will be mine, thrones of

ivory, the title of Prime Mentorian, the love of the people, sweet

solace in a shaded grove, my very own school, pupils that hang on

every word, and a cheering crowd!" For verily, O foreign one,

every pundit cherishes such dreams. True, they'll tell you that

Knowledge is their only sustenance, and Truth their only joy, that

not for them are the trappings of this world, the ribbons, medals and

awards, the warm embrace of thermomours, and gold, and glory, and

applause. Humbug, my dear sir, sheer humbug! They all crave the same

thing, and the only difference between them and myself is that

I, at least, have the greatness of spirit to admit to such frailties,

openly and without shame. But the years went by, and I was referred

to only as Chlorian the Fool, or Poor Old Chlorio. When the fortieth

anniversary of my birth arrived, I was amazed to find myself still

waiting for the masses to beat a path to my door. So I sat down and

wrote a dissertation on the H. P. L. D.'s, that is, the civilization

that has progressed the farthest in the entire Universe. What, you

say you never heard of them? But then neither did I, nor did I see

them, nor for that matter do I ever expect to; I established their

existence on purely deductive grounds, in a manner that was strictly

logical, inevitable and theoretical. For if—so went my

argument —the Universe contains civilizations at varying stages

of development, the majority must be more or less average, with

a few that have either fallen behind or managed to forge ahead. And

whenever you have a statistical distribution, say, for example, of

height in a group of individuals, most will be medium, but one and

only one may be the highest, and similarly, in the Universe there

must exist a civilization that has achieved the Highest Possible

Level of Development. Its inhabitants, the H. P. L. D.'s, know things

of which we do not even dream. All this I placed in four volumes,

paying for the glossy paper and the frontispiece portrait of the

author out of my own pocket, but in vain—it shared the fate of

its predecessors. A year ago I read the whole work through, from

cover to cover, and wept, so brilliantly was the thing written, so

full of the breath of the Absolute—no, it simply cannot be

described! And then, at the age of fifty, I nearly hit the ceiling!

You see, I would occasionally purchase the works of other sages,

who enjoyed great riches and the sweets of success, to learn what

sort of things they wrote about. Well, they wrote about the

difference between the front and the rear, about the wondrous

structure of the Tyrant's throne, its sweeping arms and all-enduring

legs, and tracts about good manners, and detailed descriptions of

this and that, during which no one ever praised himself in any way,

and yet it worked out somehow that Phrensius stood in awe of

Schneckon, and Schneckon of Phrensius, while both were lauded by the

Logarites. And then there were the three Voltaic brothers catapulted

to fame: Vaultor elevated Vauntor, Vauntor elevated Vanitole, and

Vanitole did likewise for Vaultor. As I studied all these works,

suddenly I saw red, and wildly threw myself upon them, and ripped and

tore, and gnashed and gnawed… until my sobs abated, and then,

drying my tears, I proceeded to write T
he Evolution of
Reason As a Two-cycle Phenomenon. For, as I showed in that essay,

robots and paleface are joined by a reciprocal bond. First, as the

result of an accumulation of mucilaginous slime upon some saline

shore, beings come into being, viscous, sticky, albescent and

albuminous. After centuries, these finally learn how to breathe the

breath of life into base metals, and they fashion Automata to be

their slaves. In time, however, the process is reversed, and our

Automata, having freed themselves from the Albuminids, eventually

conduct experiments, to see if consciousness can subsist in any

gelatinous substance, which of course it can, and does, in albuminose

protein. But now those synthetic paleface, after millions of years,

again discover iron, and so on, back and forth for all eternity. As

you can see, I had thus settled the age-old question of which came

first, robot or paleface. This opus I submitted to the Academy, six

volumes bound in leather, and the expense of its publication quite

exhausted the remainder of my inheritance. Need I tell you that it

too was passed over in silence? I was already past sixty, going on

seventy, and all hope of glory within my lifetime was swiftly fading.

What then could I do? I began to think of posterity, of the future

generations that must some day discover me and prostrate themselves

in the dust before my name. But what benefit, I asked myself, would I

derive from that, when I no longer was? And I was forced to conclude,

in keeping with my teachings contained in four and forty volumes,

with prolegomena, paralipomena and appendices, that there would be no

benefit whatever. So, my soul seething with spleen, I sat down to

write my
Testament for Descendants
, to kick them, spit upon

them, abuse, revile and curse them as much as possible, and all in

the most rigorously scientific way. What's that, you say? That this

was unjust, and my indignation would have been better directed at my

contemporaries, who failed to recognize my genius? Bah!

Consider, worthy stranger! By the time my
Testament
is

enshrined by future fame, its every syllable refulgent with the glow

of greatness, these contemporaries will have long since turned to

dust, and how shall my curses reach them then? No, had I done as you

say, their descendants would surely study my works with perfect

equanimity, now and then remarking with a comfortable,

self-righteous sigh: "Alas! With what quiet heroism did