Ferdydurke (34 page)

"What lovely weather!" he exclaimed in the limpid air, "it's dry at last."

The weather was indeed wonderful, blue skies in the background, trees dripping with rusty-golden foliage, the pinscher and the mutt excited and shoving one another. No sign of Kneadus. Auntie arrived with two mushrooms on her palm, displaying them from a distance, smiling gently and benevolently. We gathered in front of the porch, and, since not one of us wanted to admit that we were all looking for Kneadus, an unusual gentleness and politeness supervened. Auntie, all heart, asked if anyone was cold. Jackdaws sat on trees. Little peasant urchins, their grimy fingers stuck in their mouths, sat on the gate of the barnyard and gawked at their lordships walking to and fro, and they gabbed about somefhin' until Zygmunt stomped his foot and chased them away; but they soon began gawkin' through the railing, so he chased them away once more; whereupon gardener Zielinski drove them away with rocks—they took off, but they gawked again from near the well until finally Zygmunt gave up, while Konstanty ordered the servants to bring apples, then showed off eating them, scattering the peels. He ate against those peasant kiddies.

"Tereperepumpum," he murmured.

Still no Kneadus, yet not a word was said, even though everyone desired some sort of confrontation, some explanation. If this was a pursuit, it was an extremely sluggish pursuit, perfectly nonchalant, almost immobile, and hence—even more threatening. Lordliness was in pursuit of Kneadus, but the lords and ladies hardly budged. Nevertheless, dallying in the courtyard seemed pointless, especially since the kiddies were still gawkin' through the railings, so Zygmunt suggested that we have a look in the barn.

"Let's walk over to the barnyard," he said, and we slowly sauntered in that direction, uncle Konstanty with the gardener behind him, cap in hand—while the urchins moved their gawkin' from the railings to the vicinity of the granary. It was muddy beyond the gate, geese attacked us, the foreman pounced on them; a lame dog bared its teeth and growled, the night watchman rushed out to chase it away. The dogs chained near the stables began to howl and growl, incited by the strangeness of our attire—indeed, I was wearing a gray city suit, collar and tie, dress shoes, my uncle wore a tweed coat, auntie had on a black cape trimmed with fur over her shoulders and a boat-shaped hat, Zygmunt wore Scottish socks and knickers. It was indeed the Way of the Cross, slow, the hardest road I had ever traveled; you'll hear some day about my adventures in the prairies and among the Africans, but no African could compare to the peregrination through the Bolimov barnyard. No place more exotic than this one. Nowhere else—more noxious poisons. Nowhere else had such unhealthy phantasms, and flowers, orchids, bloomed under one's feet— nowhere so many Oriental butterflies, oh! no downy hummingbird will ever equal in its exoticism a goose that has never been touched by hands. Oh, because here nothing had ever been touched by our hands, the grooms near the barn—untouched, the wenches by the granary—untouched, untouched were the cattle and the fowl, and the pitchforks, and the whipple-trees, chains, leather straps, and flour sacks. Neither wild poultry nor mustangs nor wild wenches nor wild pigs. At most the grooms' mugs may have been touched by my uncle's hand, and auntie's hand was touched by the grooms who planted on it their peasant kisses of allegiance. Otherwise—nothing, nothing, and again nothing—all unfamiliar and never experienced by us! We were walking, flat on our heels, when cows were driven in through the gate, the huge herd goaded and prodded by ten-year-old boys, totally filled the barnyard, and we found ourselves among those beasts, unfamiliar and never experienced by us.

"
Attention!"
auntie exclaimed.
"Attention, laissez les passer!
"

"Atasionlesaypasay! Atasionlesaypasay!" aped the peasant kiddies by the granary, but the night watchman and the foreman moved swiftly and chased away the little urchins as well as the cows. The wenches by the barn—never experienced by us—burst into a folk ditty: "Hey, hey-ho!" but we couldn't catch the lyrics. Maybe they sang about the young master? But the most unpleasant aspect of this situation was that their lordships seemed to be looked after by the peasants, and even though they actually lorded over the peasants and exploited them, it seemed to an outsider that the peasants coddled them, as if their lordships were the yokels' little darlings—and the foreman, as auntie's slave, carried her across a puddle, and yet it seemed that he was coddling her. Their lordships sucked the peasantry dry of their finances, but besides the fiscal sucking they carried on an infantile kind of sucking, they sucked not only their blood but also their sweet milk, and no matter how harshly and mercilessly my uncle swore at the grooms, no matter how much, like a mommy, auntie let them kiss her hands with matriarchal kindliness—neither matriarchal nor patriarchal kindliness, nor the severest of commands could quell the impression that the squire was actually the peasantry's little son, and the squire's lady—their little daughter. For indeed, the local peasantry had not yet been kneaded by the intelligentsia, unlike the rabble on the outskirts of the city who tried to escape from us by turning into dogs; here the peasantry were primeval and intact, secure within themselves, so that, even passing them from afar, we felt their power to be like that of hundred thousand rampant work horses.

By the chicken coop the housekeeper shoved feed into the gullet of an already fat turkey, satiating it beyond its limits, honoring the lordly tastes, and preparing a tasty dish for their lordships. By the forge the tail of a team-colt was being cut for fashion's sake, while Zygmunt patted its rump, checked its teeth, because a horse was one of those few things that a young master was allowed to touch, and the wenches—unfamiliar to us and sucked dry—sang for him even louder: "Hey, hey-ho, hey, hey-ho, hey-ho!" But the thought of the crone ruined his foppery, and, dejected, he let go of the horse's neck and mistrustfully looked at the wenches, wondering whether they were laughing at him. An old, gnarly peasant, also unfamiliar and a bit sucked dry, walked up to auntie and kissed her on the permitted body part. Our cortege finally reached the far end of the barn. Beyond the barn—a road, checkerboard fields, a wide expanse. From far, far away another sucked-dry peasant spotted us and stopped for a while by his plow but immediately hit the horse with a whip. The damp earth did not allow sitting down nor continuing to sit. To their lordships' right little hand—stubble fields, crests of earth, fallow land, and peatbogs, to their left little hand—an evergreen forest, coniferous greenery. No sign of Kneadus. A wild native hen pecked in a field of oats.

Suddenly, a few hundred steps from us, Kneadus emerged from the forest—not alone—the valet was by his side. He hadn't noticed us—he saw nothing of the world around him, he was all passion, all-ears, all-agog with the farmhand. He twirled, jumped up and down like a pretentious jackass, every now and then grabbing the farmhand's hand and looking into his eyes. The farmhand jeered at Kneadus for all his worth with a peasantlike, bucolic superchuckle, and unceremoniously slapped him on his back. They walked skirting the edge of the copse, Kneadus with the farmhand—or rather, the farmhand with Kneadus by his side! Kneadus, all passion, kept reaching into his pocket and shoving something into the farmhand's hand, money, most likely, while the farmhand kept unceremoniously poking him in the ribs.

"They're drunk!" auntie whispered...

No, not drunk. The ball of the sun, slowly descending in the west, illuminated and brought everything into relief. And, in the setting sun, the farmhand slapped Kneadus on the cheek...

A shout from Zygmunt, like a whiplash:

"Valek!"

The valet took to his heels and headed into the forest. Kneadus stopped in his tracks, all magic gone. We began to walk toward him, cutting across a stubble field, and he walked toward us. But Kon-stanty didn't want to settle things in the middle of the field because the peasant kiddies were still gawkin' from the barn, and the sucked-dry peasant was still plowing.

"Let's have a walk in the forest," he suggested, suddenly becoming exceptionally polite, and we entered the dark grove directly from the fields. Silence. The showdown was to take place among firs, densely set—we stood in tight proximity to each other, very close indeed. Uncle Konstanty shook inwardly, but he doubled his politeness.

"I notice that Valek's company suits you," he began with subtle irony.

Pale with hatred, Kneadus replied in a squeaky voice:

"Yes, it suits me ..."

Tucked into a prickly fir, his mug screened by branches, like a fox in a battue—two paces from him auntie stood among the branches of a little conifer, also my uncle, and Zygmunt... My uncle, however, approached the subject in an icy manner with barely perceptible sarcasm.

"You, sir, are apparently fra... ternizing with Valek?"

A hateful and furious squeak:

"Yes, I'm fra ... ternizing!"

"Kostie," Auntie kindly remarked, "let's go. It's damp here."

"This grove is rather dense. We should cut every third tree," Zygmunt said to his father.

"I'm fra . . . ternizing!" Kneadus whimpered. I had no idea they would subject him to such torture. Is this why they sidled into the grove—to pretend to be deaf? Is this why they pursued him, so that, having seized him, they could give vent to their disdain? How about the explanations? How about a showdown? They perfidiously reversed roles, they weren't settling with him at all—they were haughty, and in such a hurry to show him their disdain that they gave up on clarifications. They made everything look trivial. They were snubbing him. They hardly noticed him—oh, their lordships, furious and despicable!

"And you, sir, scrambled up the gamekeeper!" Kneadus exclaimed, "you scrambled up the gamekeeper because you were afraid of the boar! I know all about it! Everybody's talking! Tereperepumpum! Tereperepumpum," he said, aping my uncle, in his fury he lost any remaining self-control.

Konstanty tightened his lips and—silence fell.

"Valek will be kicked out on his ass!" Zygmunt said coldly to his father.

"Yes, Valek will be dismissed," uncle Konstanty took up coldly. "I'm sorry, but I'm not in the habit of putting up with demoralized servants."

They were taking revenge on Valek! Oh, perfidious and despicable lordships, they wouldn't even respond to Kneadus and were sacking Valek instead—they struck at Kneadus through Valek. Didn't old Francis do the same when, in the butler's pantry, he didn't say a word to Kneadus, but gave hell to Valek and the wench instead? The fir trembled, and I was about to jump at their throats—when suddenly the gamekeeper, in a green, short, close-fitting jacket, his shotgun over his shoulder, emerged out of the thicket, close to us, and saluted us with all due formality.

"Clamber up him, you!" Kneadus exclaimed. "You there, clamber up him, a boar's coming! A boar!!!... The crone, Josie the crone!" he hurled at Zygmunt, and took off into the woods like a madman. I dashed after him. "Kneadus, Kneadus!" I shouted in vain, the firs whipped and lashed my face! I absolutely did not want him to be alone in the forest. I jumped over ravines and hollows, burrows, crevices, roots. From the grove we ran into a thick forest, he doubled his speed and ran, he ran like a crazed boar!

I suddenly saw Zosia, who was taking a walk through the woods and, bored, was picking mushrooms among the mosses. We were heading toward her, and I was scared that in his madness he might harm her. "Run!" I screamed. My voice must have sounded urgent, for she took to her heels—and Kneadus, realizing she was running away, began to chase her, and to catch up with her! With a final sprint I tried to reach him just as he almost caught up with her— luckily he tripped on a root and fell in a small clearing. I ran up to him.

"What do you want?" he growled, pressing his face against the mosses, "what do you want?"

"Come home!"

"Yer lo'dships!" he spat the words through his teeth, "yer lo'dships! Go away, go! You're too—a lo'dship!"

"No, no!"

"Oh yeah? You's yer lo'dship too! Yer lo'dship!"

"Come home, Kneadus—stop it! This is bound to lead to disaster! We have to stop it, end it—there must be some other way!"

"Yer lo'dship! Yer lo'dships, damn it! They won't let oop! They're curs! O Jesus! They're twistin' ya round too!"

"Cut it out, this isn't your language! Why do you talk like this? Why to me?"

"He's moin, moin ... Ah won't let 'em! He's moin! Leave him alone! They wanna throw Valek out! Throw him out! Ah won't let 'em—he's moin—ah won't let 'em!..."

"Come home!"

What an inglorious homecoming! He moaned and groaned, he mooned in sylvan lamentation—"oh, woe's me, oh, woe's me!" The wenches by the barn and the grooms scratched their heads and marveled at the young master wailing in their tongue. It was dusk by the time we crept in through the back porch; I told him to wait in our room upstairs while I went to talk things over with uncle Konstanty. I ran into Zygmunt in the smoking room where, hands in his pockets, he walked from one side of the room to the other. The young master was fuming within but was stiff without. I learned from his dry account that Zosia ran back from the forest barely alive and, it seemed, caught a cold, auntie was taking the girl's temperature. Valek, who was back in the kitchen, was forbidden entry to the rooms, and early tomorrow morning he would be sacked and kicked out. Zygmunt noted, moreover, that he was not holding me responsible for "Mr. Kneadalski's" disgraceful behavior, and, in his opinion, I should be more careful in the choice of my friends. He regretted that he would no longer have the pleasure of my company, but he did not think that any further stay in Bolimov would be pleasant for us. Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock there is a train that goes to Warsaw, the coachman has been given his orders. As for supper, we would surely prefer to eat in our room upstairs, Francis has already been duly instructed. Zygmunt informed me of all this in a tone that allowed for no discussion, semi-officially, and in his role as the son of his parents.

"As for me," he said through his teeth, "I will respond in my own way. I will, forthwith, take the liberty of punishing Mr. Kneadalski for insulting my father and my sister. I belong to the fraternity Astoria."