Ferdydurke (21 page)

"Of course there's nothing wrong with it! Zuta, if you want to have an illegitimate child, be my guest! And what's wrong with that?! The cult of virginity is no more! We—designer-engineers of the new social reality—repudiate the old-time hayseeds' cult of virginity!"

He took a gulp of water and, sensing that he may have gone too far, broke off. However, the Youngblood woman picked up the drift again and began, indirectly, in a vague sort of way, to egg on her daughter to have an illegitimate child, she expressed her liberalism, talked about conditions in America, quoted Benjamin Barr Lindsay, and underscored contemporary youth's unique ease in this matter, etc., etc.... This suddenly turned into the Youngbloods' favorite hobbyhorse. When one of them got off, sensing that he or she had gone too far, the other mounted it again and sped on. It was all the more strange, because, as I've said before, they all (including Mr. Youngblood) didn't like the idea of mother, of child. But please understand that they mounted the idea not from a mother's side but from a schoolgirl's side, nor from the child's side—they didn't care about the child, only about its illegitimacy. And especially the Youngblood woman wanted to move to the forefront of history through her daughter's illegitimate child, to have the child conceived casually, easily, boldly, impudently, in the bushes, on a sports trip with her contemporary, just as they describe it in modern love stories, etc. Actually, just talking about it and egging on the schoolgirl was enough to produce the flavor they desired. And they reveled in it all the more, because they sensed my impotence in relation to the girl—indeed, thus far I had been unable to defend myself against the charms of the seventeen-year-old in the bushes.

But they overlooked the fact that on this particular day I was too depleted to feel any jealousy. Indeed—for two weeks straight they had been putting the screws to my mug until finally my mug became so awful that there was nothing left with which I could be jealous. I suspected that the boy Mrs. Youngblood had mentioned was probably Kopyrda, but what of it, so what—there was nothing but grief and sadness—sadness and misery—misery and great weariness, and resignation. So instead of thinking my thoughts in sky-blue-green colors, giving them a fresh and bold form, I opted for the puny and the miserable: "Well, a child is a child," I thought to myself, and I imagined labor, wet nurses, illnesses, exudative skin rashes, child-related messiness and living expenses, and I thought that an infant, with its milk and baby warmth, would destroy the girl, turning her into a lubberly, warm little mommy. I therefore leaned toward Miss Youngblood, and miserably, as if speaking to myself, I said:

"Mommy..."

And I said it warmly, mawkishly, with great sadness, and I infused the word with all the sickly-sweet-mommy warmth that they, with their harsh, brisk, girlish, and youthful vision of the world, wouldn't even consider. Why did I say it? Well, just so, for no particular reason. The girl was, like all girls, first and foremost, an aesthete, good looks were her main assignment, whereas, by matching her type with the warm, emotional, and somewhat sloppy-negligée expression "Mommy," I was creating something disgustingly slovenly and indecorous. I hoped she'd have a fit. Yet I knew she would duck me and that the ugliness would be mine again, because the way things were between us, anything I attempted against her would stick fast to me, as if I were spitting into the wind.

But lo and behold—Mr. Youngblood giggled!

His guttural giggle surprised him, and, embarrassed, he grabbed the tablecloth—he went on giggling, his eyes bulged, he choked and roared into the tablecloth, horribly, mechanically, in spite of himself. I was astounded! What was it that had so tickled his nervous system? The expression "Mommy"? He must have been amused by the contrast between his "girl" and my "Mommy," something clicked, cabaret humor perhaps, or perhaps my sad and doleful voice had led him to humanity's backyard. He had the capacity, common to all engineers, of being easily tickled by
szmonces,
and my phrase had indeed the flavor of a
szmonces
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.
And the more he had reveled, a moment ago, in the idea of an illegitimate child, the more he now giggled. His glasses fell off his nose.

"Victor," Mrs. Youngblood said.

But I stepped on the gas:

"Mommy, Mommy..."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he giggled, "I'm sorry, so sorry... But just imagine it! So help me! I'm sorry..."

The girl bent over her plate, and I suddenly saw, almost physically, that through her father's giggling, my words had touched her—so after all I did touch her, she was now touched—yes, yes, I was not mistaken, her father's laughter (aside, as it were) had changed things around, it had extricated me from the schoolgirl. I could finally touch her! I sat quiet as a mouse.

Her parents also noticed it and ran to her rescue.

"Victor, I'm surprised at you," the Youngblood woman said with displeasure, "our little old man's remarks aren't in the least witty. It's a pose, nothing more!"

The engineer finally controlled his laughter.

"You think I was laughing at this, do you? Never on my life, I didn't even hear it—it's something I've just remembered ..."

But their efforts only served to involve the schoolgirl even more. Although I didn't quite understand what was happening I repeated "Mommy, Mommy" a couple of times in the same sleepy, puny little voice, and, by repeating it, the word must have gained new strength because the engineer giggled again, briefly, then laughed with a jerky, guttural, choking laughter. And it must have all appeared funny to him because he suddenly burst into unrestrained laughter, stuffing his mouth with a napkin.

"Stop butting in!" the Youngblood woman shouted at me angrily, but her anger served to involve the daughter even more, because the girl shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, let it be, Mother," she remarked with apparent indifference, but this too drew her in. Strange as it seemed—the configuration between us changed so radically that every single word drew them in more and more. Actually, it was all rather nice. I felt I had regained my potency in relation to the girl. Yet it no longer made any difference to me. I also felt I had regained my potency because of my very indifference, yet if I were to make the mistake, even for a split second, of substituting triumph for my former sadness and grief, my potency would be instantly annihilated, because it was actually a strange superpotency woven into the canvas of a blatant and long-suffering impotency. Therefore, to affirm my misery and to underscore my indifference, and how unworthy I was of everything, I began to dabble in my fruit compote, tossing into it bread crumbs, bits of rubbish, bread pellets, and stirring it with my spoon. I still had my ugly mug, so what, this was good enough for me—"shit, what do I care," I thought sleepily, adding a little salt, pepper, and a couple of toothpicks, "oh, so what, I'll eat it all as long as it fills me, makes no difference ..." It was as if I were lying in a ditch, little birdies flying about... stirring with my spoon I felt warm and cozy.

"Well, young man? . . . Well, young man? . . . Why is our young man dabbling in his compote?"

Mrs. Youngblood asked this softly yet anxiously. I lifted my inept gaze from the compote.

"I... just, it's all the same to me ..." I whispered, calm and slime in my voice. And I proceeded to eat the pap; and the pap didn't really make the slightest difference to my spirit. It's hard to describe the effect this had on the Youngbloods, I didn't expect such a powerful effect. For the third time the engineer giggled uncontrollably with that cabaret giggle, with that backyard, backside giggle of his. The girl bent over her plate and ate the compote in silence, with decorum and restraint, even with heroism. Mrs. Engineer turned pale—she stared at me as if hypnotized, bug-eyed, she was obviously afraid of me. Afraid!

"It's just a pose! A pose!" she kept mumbling. "Don't eat that... I forbid you! Zuta! Victor—Zuta! Victor! Zuta! Zuta! Victor—stop him, tell him to stop! Oh ..."

But I went on eating, because why shouldn't I? I'll eat it all, I'd eat a dead rat, it's all the same to me . . . "Hey, Kneadus," I thought to myself, "this is good, good . . . It's good ... So what, what of it, anything to stuff my mug with, so what, what of it, so what..."

"Zuta!" screeched the Youngblood woman. To a mother, the sight of her daughter's admirer eating everything in sight was unbearable. But then the schoolgirl, who had just finished her compote, stood up from the table and left. Mrs. Youngblood followed her. Mr. Young-blood also left, giggling convulsively and stuffing his mouth with a napkin. It wasn't clear whether they'd finished dinner or whether they were fleeing. But I knew—they fled! I ran after them! Yippee-yeay! On with it, attack, catch, and thrash them, chase, pursue, on their heels, nab and crush them, choke them, choke and badger them, don't let up! Were they afraid? Scare them even more! Were they fleeing? Chase them, then! But be calm, tread softly, softly, softly, like a beggar and a wretch, don't change the beggar into a conqueror, remember it was the beggar who led you to conquest. They were afraid that I might fix the girl's brain like I had fixed the compote. Ha, now I knew how to get at her style! I would stuff her brain, her intellect, with anything I could lay my hands on, then scramble it up, mince it and stir it, by fair means or foul! But keep calm, keep calm ...

Who would ever believe that Mr. Youngblood's subterranean giggling would restore my ability to resist them? My thoughts and deeds acquired claws again. I hadn't yet won the game, no. But at least I could act. I knew what line to follow. The fruit compote made it all clear to me. Just as I had messed up the compote by changing in into a dissolute pap, so I could destroy the schoolgirl's modernity by introducing into it foreign and heterogeneous elements, scrambling everything up for all it was worth. Giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up, ride roughshod over modern style, over the modern schoolgirl's beauty! But quietly, quietly...

9 Peeping and Further Incursion into Modernity

I quietly went into my room and lay down on my bed. I had to devise a plan of action. I trembled, and sweat poured off me as I realized that in this pilgrimage of mine I was descending, through a sequence of defeats, to the very bottom of hell. Nothing that is really tasty can be really awful (as the word "tasty" indicates), and only that which has bad taste is truly inedible. With envy, I was reminiscing about those beautiful, romantic, classical crimes, the rapes and gouging of eyes in poetry and prose—herring with jam, that I know are awful, unlike those wonderful and beautiful crimes in Shakespeare. So don't talk to me, don't, about those rhymed agonies we swallow as easily as oysters, don't talk about the candy of disgrace, about the chocolate cream of horror, the little cakes of wretchedness, about the lollipops of suffering and sweetmeats of despair. So why does this busybody of a woman, who uses her finger to tear at the most bloody social ills, death by starvation of a worker's family of six, why, I ask, does she not dare, with the same finger, to pick her ear in public? Because this would have been much more dreadful. Death from starvation, or the death of a million in war—this can be eaten, even relished—yet there still exist in this world combinations that are not edible, that make us vomit, that are bad, discordant, repulsive, and repellent, oh, even satanic, and these the human organism rejects. And yet our first and foremost task is to relish, we must relish, relish, let the husband, wife, and children lie dying, let our heart be torn to shreds, as long as it's done tastefully, yes, tastefully! Indeed, that which I was about to undertake in the name of Maturity, and in order to free myself from the schoolgirl's spell, would be an anti-culinary and a counter-palatable activity, something the gullet finds quite revolting!

Anyway, I didn't delude myself—my success at lunch was rather dubious, it mainly affected the parents, the girl escaped unharmed, she remained distant and unattainable. How could I defile her modern style from a distance? How was I to pull her into the orbit of my activity? And, in addition to the psychological distance, there was also the physical distance—she saw me only during lunch and dinner. How could I break her down, pierce her mentally from a distance, that is, when I was not with her, when she was alone? "Perhaps," I went on with my lame thinking, "by peeping and eavesdropping." The Youngbloods had paved the way for me because they had perceived me, from the first moment of our encounter, as an eavesdropper and a Peeping Tom. "And who knows," I thought, drowsy but hopeful, "perhaps if I put my eye to the keyhole I'll immediately see in her something repugnant, many a beauty in her own room behaves repulsively till one splits one's sides." But then again there was the danger that some schoolgirls, impressed with their own charms and well disciplined in style, are as much on their guard in solitude as they are in public. Hence, instead of ugliness I could equally well behold beauty, and beauty beheld in solitude is even more lethal. I remembered walking unexpectedly into her room and finding the schoolgirl, the shoe cloth by her leg, in a very stylish posture—yes, but on the other hand, the very fact of peeping would despoil and pierce her, because while we act hideously and peep at a beauty, something from our gaze settles on that beauty.

I reasoned this as if in a fever—I finally dragged myself off the bed and directed myself toward the keyhole. However, before I put my eye to the hole I looked out the window—it was a beautiful autumn day, bright and clear, and, in the street brightened by autumn, Kneadus was creeping toward the kitchen door. He was apparently making his way to the housemaid. Pigeons flew in the bright sunshine and over the roof of a neighboring house, then flocked together, the horn of a car sounded in the distance, a nursemaid played with a child on the sidewalk, windowpanes bathed in the setting sun. A beggar stood in front of the house, an old, bedraggled beggar, one of those burly, hairy, bearded duffers who hang around church doors. The sight of the bearded man gave me an idea—I went sleepily and sluggishly out to the street and to a nearby square where I broke off a green twig.