Ferdydurke (33 page)

We were served
bigos
as an appetizer, then clear tomato soup, veal cutlets, pears in vanilla sauce—all prepared with the cook's coarse fingers, while the servants waited on us t i p t o e i n g—Francis in white gloves, the farmhand barefoot, a napkin over his arm.
{11}
Kneadus looked pale and, his eyes downcast, ate the fine, carefully chosen dishes that Valek placed before him, miserable that the farmhand was feeding him such delicacies. To make matters worse, my aunt, in an attempt to gently make Kneadus aware of the impropriety of his excesses in the pantry, treated him with extreme politeness, she asked him about family matters and about his departed father. Forced to turn well-rounded phrases Kneadus was in torment, speaking to her softly so that the farmhand wouldn't overhear, not daring to look in Valek's direction. And perhaps that's why, when dessert was served, instead of answering my aunt, he lost himself in longing, a meek smile on his squeaky-thin mug—the dessert spoon idling in his hand. I couldn't nudge him because I was sitting on the far side of the table. My aunt fell silent, while the farmhand burst into an embarrassed, peasant guffaw, as peasants are wont to do when their lo'dships are lookin' at us, and he covered his mouth with his hand. The butler boxed his ear. Right at this moment my uncle lit a cigarette and was inhaling the smoke. Did he see what had just happened? It was so obvious that I was afraid he would tell Kneadus to leave the table.

But instead, Konstanty let the smoke out through his nose rather than his mouth!

"Wine!" he exclaimed, "wine! Oh, let us have wine!"

All of a sudden his spirits seemed to rise, he sprawled on his chair and drummed on the table with his fingers.

"Wine! Tell them, Francis, to bring that 'granny Henry' from the cellar—we'll have a sip! Valek, coffee—black! Cigars! Let's light up a cigar—to hell with cigarettes!"

And, drinking to Kneadus, he began to reminisce about days gone by when he used to go pheasant hunting with Prince Severyn. And, drinking especially to Kneadus and to no one else, he went on talking about a barber at the Bristol Hotel, the best barber he'd ever encountered. He became lively, excited, while the servants doubled their attention and, with their peasant fingers, swiftly filled our glasses with wine. Kneadus, looking like a corpse, a glass in his hand, drank to my uncle Konstanty, he was in torment, not knowing why he deserved such unexpected attention, but he had to imbibe the old, delicate, fusty wine with its fine bouquet right in Valek's presence. I too wondered about my uncle's unexpected reaction. After dinner he took me by the arm and led me to the smoking room.

"Your friend," he said in his most aristocratic tone and with experience in his voice, "he's a pede... pede... Hmm... He's after Valek! Did you notice that? Ho, ho. Well, let's hope the ladies don't get wind of this. Prince Severyn also had his moments!"

He stretched his long legs. Oh, he delivered this with a truly aristocratic and masterful skill! With that lordly finesse to which four hundred waiters, seventy barbers, thirty jockeys, and the same number of maitre d's had contributed, oh, with what pleasure did he bring into relief a
bon vivant's, a grand seigneur's
peppery, restaurant knowledge of life! This is how truly high-bred lordliness, when it hears of something like sexual perversion or intemperance, displays its masculine knowledge of life, which it has learned from waiters and barbers. My uncle's peppery, restaurant wisdom infuriated me, I was like a dog maddened by a cat, I was shaken by the cynical simplicity with which he offered such a facile and lordly interpretation of the incident. I forgot all my fears. Out of sheer spite I told him everything! May God forgive me—impelled by his restaurant maturity I tumbled into greenery, and I resolved to treat him to a dish that was more undercooked than any of those he'd ever eaten in a restaurant.

"It's not at all what you think, uncle," I replied innocently, "he was just fra ... ternizing."

"Fraternizing?" Konstanty said, surprised, "what do you mean-fraternizing? What do you mean by 'fraternizing'?" Thus unsaddled, he looked at me askance.

"Fra ... ternizing," I replied, "he wanted to fra ... ternize."

"Fraternize with Valek? How do you mean—fraternize? Perhaps you mean—stir up the servants? An agitator? Bolshevism—eh?"

"No, fraternizing like one young fellow with another."

My uncle stood up and shook the ashes from his cigar—he fell silent, searching for words.

"Fraternizing," he repeated, "he's fraternizing with peasantry, eh?" He tried to give it a name, to make it passable in a worldly, social, experiential sense, because a purely boyish fraternization was unacceptable, he felt that he wouldn't have been served this in a good restaurant. He was highly irritated by my following Kneadus' example and pronouncing "fra . . . ternizing" with a touch of a shy and embarrassed stammer. This floored him totally.

"He's fraternizing with peasantry?" he asked gingerly.

To which I replied: "No, he's fraternizing with the boy."

"Fraternizing with the boy? Which means what? He wants to play ball with him, or what?"

"No. To be his buddy, like a boy—they're fraternizing like one boy with another boy." My uncle's face turned red, probably for the first time since he started shaving, oh, that
à rebour
blush of a grown up man about town in relation to a naive youth!—he pulled out his watch, looked at it, and wound it up, searching all the while for a scientific, political, economic, or medical term in which he could box up, under lock and key, this sentimentally slippery matter. "A perversion, is it? Eh? Some complex? He's fra . . . ternizing? Maybe he's a socialist, a member of the Polish Socialist Party? A democrat, eh? He's fra . . . ternizing?
Mais qu'est que c'est
fra . . . ternizing?
Comment
fra . . . ternizing?
Fraternité, quoi, égalité, liberté?"
He began in French, yet he was not being truculent, but rather like someone who is hiding and literally "running for recourse" to the French language. He was helpless in relation to the young fellow. He lit his cigarette and put it out again, he crossed his legs, stroked his moustache.

"He's fraternizing?
What is that
{12}
fra... ternizing? Damn it! Prince Severyn..."

I went on gently and doggedly repeating "fra... ternizing," and I wouldn't have passed up for anything the green, soft naivete that I was smearing all over my dear uncle.

"Kostie," auntie said kind-heartedly, as she stood on the threshold with a bag of candies in her hand, "don't be upset, he's probably fraternizing in Christ, fraternizing in brotherly love."

"No!" I answered stubbornly. "No! He fra . . . ternizes nakedly, without anything!"

"So he's a pervert after all!" Konstanty exclaimed.

"Not at all. He fraternizes without anything, and without perversion. He fraternizes like a boy."

"A boy? A boy? But what does it mean?
Pardon, mais qu'est-ce que c'est—
boy," he played dumb, "as a boy with Valek? In my house— with Valek? With my lackey?" He got mad and pressed the bell. "I'll show you the boy!"

The valet ran into the room. My uncle went up to him, his arm drawn back, and he might have given him a swift smack in the mug without even having to wind up, but he stopped halfway, disoriented, tottering inwardly, and he couldn't hit him, he could not make connection with Valek's mug under these circumstances. To hit the boy just because he was a boy? To hit him because he was "fraternizing"? It was out of the question. And Konstanty, who would have hit him for spilling coffee, dropped his arm.

"Out!" he yelled.

"Kostie!" exclaimed auntie, all heart, "Kostie!"

"It's no use," I said. "On the contrary, punching the valet in the snoot will only encourage Kneadus to fra... ternize. If someone gets it in the snoot—Kneadus loves him all the more."

My uncle blinked as though he were brushing a caterpillar off his waistcoat but said nothing; attacked by ironic naivete from below, this virtuoso of drawing-room and restaurant irony behaved like a fencing master who is being accosted by a duck. The worldly country squire proved childishly naive when faced with naivete. What's more interesting—in spite of his knowledge and experience of life, it didn't occur to him that I could be on Kneadus' and Valek's side against him, and that I could enjoy his lordly fits and spasms—it was characteristic of him to hold fast to the loyalty of the higher social class, which did not allow treason in its own circles. Old Francis came in wearing his coattails, shaved, with sideburns, and he stood in the center of the room.

Konstanty, somewhat ruffled, resumed his nonchalant attitude.

"What is it, my dear Francis?" he graciously asked, but in his voice there was a lord's regard for an old, seasoned servant, as there would be for an old, dry Hungarian wine. "What's on your mind, Francis?" The old servant looked at me, but my uncle waved his hand. "You can speak up."

"Did your lordship talk to Valek?"

"Ah, yes I did, I did, my dear Francis."

"I just wanted to be sure that your lordship had talked to him. If it were me, your lordship, I wouldn't have kept him another minute! I would have thrown him out on his face. He got too familiar with your lordships! People are already gabbing, your lordship!"

Three wenches ran through the courtyard, their bare legs flashing. A lame dog ran after them, barking. Zygmunt slipped out into the smoking room.

"They're gabbing?" uncle Konstanty asked. "What are they saying?"

"Their gabbing about your lordships!"

"They're gabbing about us?"

Fortunately the old servant didn't want to say anything more.

"They're gabbing about your lordships," he said. "Valek got familiar with the young master who has just arrived, so now, begging your pardon, sir, they're gabbing about your lordships without any respect. Mostly Valek and the wenches in the kitchen. I myself heard them gabbing with the young master till late at night, they gabbed about everything. They're gabbing for all their worth, anything they can think of! They're gabbing, it's terrible! I'd kick the scoundrel out on his face, your lordship, this very second."

The distinguished-looking servant blushed like a peony, all crimson, oh, the blush of an old butler! The lordship's soft and delicate blush answered him. His lord- and ladyship sat without a murmur-it wouldn't do to ask questions—maybe the butler would add something himself—their lordships hung on his words—but he didn't add anything.

"All right, all right, my dear Francis," uncle Konstanty finally said, "you may leave."

And the servant left just as he had come.

"They're gabbing about their lordships," he had said, and they didn't find out anything more. My uncle satisfied himself with a sour remark in auntie's direction: "You're too lax with the servants, my sweet, why are they so undisciplined? What drivel!" With that they turned to other matters, and, long after the servant had gone, they exchanged banalities and trivialities like: "where is Zosia?" and "has the mail arrived?" and they trivialized the whole affair to hide that Francis' insinuation had struck their weak spot. After almost a quarter of an hour of trivializing, Konstanty stretched himself, yawned, and unhurriedly crossed the parquet floor to the living room. I suspected that he was looking for Kneadus. He must have a talk with him, he felt the pressure of an inner need to have things immediately explained and clarified, he could no longer endure these murky waters. Auntie followed him.

Kneadus, however, was not in the living room, Zosia was the only one there, sitting with a textbook on practical vegetable farming on her lap, looking at the wall, at a fly—he was neither in the dining room nor in the study. The entire farmstead dozed in after-dinner silence, the fly buzzed, outside the hens circled on the withered lawns and pecked at the ground, the little pinscher nudged the mutt and nipped at his tail. My uncle, Zygmunt, and auntie cautiously dispersed through the house, each on his own, searching for Kneadus. It would have been below them to admit that they were looking for him. However, the sight of their lordships being released into what seemed a nonchalant, slow yet persistent motion was more menacing than the hottest pursuit, and I searched my mind for a way to avert the row that was swelling, like an abscess, on the horizon. But they seemed beyond reach. They had closed themselves off. I could no longer talk with them about it. As I crossed the dining room I noticed that my aunt stopped at the door to the butler's pantry, through which one could usually hear the clamor in the kitchen, the maids chattering and squealing as they washed the dishes. Pensive yet watchful, she stood with the look of the mistress of the house eavesdropping on her servants, and her usual kindliness had disappeared without a trace. When she saw me she coughed and walked away. At the same time, my uncle strayed through the courtyard in the direction of the kitchen and stood near a window, but when one of the kitchen maids stuck her head out the window, he shouted: "Zielihski! Tell Nowak to patch up that drainpipe!" and he slowly strolled down an avenue of hornbeams, gardener Zielihski following him, cap in hand. Zygmunt came up to me and took me by the arm.

"I don't know if you have a taste for an old, slightly overripe, peasant crone—I myself fancy a crone—Toby Patz started this fad—I love a crone—once in a while, I must admit, I love a crone—
j'aime parfois une simple
'crone,' I love a crone, damn it! I love a crone! Tra la li, la li, la, I love an ordinary crone, must be a bit on the old side!"

Ah, yes—he was worried that the servants had tattled about his old woman, about the widah Josie, with whom he was cavorting in the bushes by the lake; and now he was hiding behind the quirkiness of a fad, dragging the young Patz into it. I didn't answer him because I realized that once released into action, nothing could hold back their lordships from quirkiness, the star of madness had again arisen in my firmament, and I remembered all my adventures since that day when Pimko had dealt me the pupa—this one seemed to be the worst. I went with Zygmunt to the courtyard where my uncle soon appeared at our end of the lane of hornbeams with gardener Zielihski following him, cap in hand.