The Age of Suspicion (3 page)

For although for certain privileged characters, such as Aliosha, Father Zossima or the Idiot, the roads that lead to their neighbour are the broad straight roads of love, others, less fortunate, find only muddy, winding roads ahead of them; and some can only walk backwards, stumbling over countless obstacles. All, however, have the same goal.

They all respond, they all understand. Each one knows that he is nothing but a fortuitous, more or less felicitous assemblage of elements derived from the same common source, that all the others harbour within themselves his own possibilities, his own stray impulses; this explains why each one of them judges the actions of others as he would his own, at close range, and from within, with all their countless shadings and contradictions, which prevent classification and indiscriminate labelling; why no one can ever have the panoramic view of the conduct of others that, alone, makes rancour and blame permissible; it explains the disturbed curiosity with which each one continually scrutinises the soul of others, the astonishing premonitions, the presentiments, the clearsightedness, the supernatural gift of penetration, which are not the sole privilege of those who are enlightened by Christian love, but of all these dubious characters, these parasites with their saccharine, bitter talk, these larvae who continue to dig and stir in the very dregs of the soul and sniff with delight its nauseous slime.

Crime itself, assassination, which is a sort of ultimate end of all these movements, the bottom of the abyss towards which they all continue to lean, fearful and attracted, is merely, in their case, the supreme embrace, and the only definitive break. But even this supreme break may yet be repaired thanks to public confession, by means of which the criminal deposits his crime in the common patrimony.

In fact, in Dostoievski's entire works, with perhaps one single exception, no definitive break, no irreparable separation ever occurs.

If, here and there, one of the two partners permits himself too great a deviation in conduct, or is so bold as to remain aloof and look down upon the other, the way Yeltchaninov does in
The
Eternal
Husband
when, 'the game' having been up for a long time, he becomes again the satisfied man of the world he had been formerly, before the game started, a brief call to order suffices (a hand that refuses to be stretched out, four words: 'and what about Lisa?') for the polite varnish to crack and fall away, and contact to be re-established.

In only one of his stories—and it is also the only one that is really despairing—the
Notes from Underground,
which is situated, as it were, on the very confines, in the extreme forefront of his entire œuvre, because of the pitiless refusal the man underground meets with on the part of his comrades, narrow-minded, dull little civil servants, and the young officer, Zverkov, the root of whose name is a word that means 'animal' or 'beast', with the stupid head of a ram and elegant, clever, self-assured manners, full of a remote sort of politeness, who 'examines him in silence as though he were some curious insect,' while he carries on before them, hurling in vain his shameful, ludicrous appeals at them—here, it will be recalled, the break does occur.

This continual need to establish contact—which is one of the primal characteristics of the Russian people, in whom Dostoievski's work is so firmly rooted—has contributed to making of Russian soil the chosen soil, the veritable black loam of 'the psychological.'

Indeed, nothing could be better calculated than are these impassioned questions and answers, these attractions, these feigned withdrawals, these pursuits and flights, these flirtings and rubbings, these clashes, caresses, bites and embraces, to excite, disturb, bring up to the surface and allow to spread, the immense, quivering mass, whose incessant ebb and flow, whose scarcely perceptible vibration, are the very pulse of life.

Under the pressure of this tumult, the envelope that contains it wears thin and tears; there occurs a sort of displacement from outside inwards, from the centre of gravity of the character; a displacement that the modern novel has continued to stress.

Many have noted the impression of unreality—as though we saw them transparently—that Dostoievski's characters make upon us, despite the minute descriptions that he felt obliged to give in order to satisfy the demands of his epoch.

This comes from the fact that his characters tended already to be what, more and more, characters in fiction were to become, that is, not so much 'types' of flesh and blood human beings, like those we see around us, to enumerate whom seemed to be the novelist's essential goal, as simple props, carriers of occasionally still unexplored states of consciousness, which we discover within ourselves.

It may be that Proust's snobbishness, which recurs in an almost maniacally besetting manner in all his characters, is nothing but a variety of this same need of fusion, only grown and cultivated in a very different soil, in the formal, refined society of the Faubourg St. Germain, at the beginning of this century. In any case, Proust's works show us already that these complex, subtle states (we should say, these movements) the slightest shadings of which, in the anxiety of his quest, he has succeeded in capturing in all his characters, remain what is most precious and soundest in his work, while the envelopes, which were perhaps a bit too thick—Swann, Odette, Oriane de Guermantes, or the Verdurins—are already on the way to the vast Wax Works to which, sooner or later, all literary 'types' are relegated.

But, to return to Dostoievski. These movements upon which all his attention, that of all his characters and also of the reader, are concentrated; which derive from a common source and, despite the envelope separating them from one another, like little drops of mercury, continually tend to conglomerate and mingle with the common mass; these roving states that, from one character to another, traverse the entire
œuvre,
are to be found in everybody, refracted in each one of us according to a different index; and each time they present us one of their as yet unknown, innumerable facets, thus allowing us to sense something that might foreshadow a sort of new unanimism.

The tie between this work, which is still a living source of research and new techniques, still rich in promise, and the work of Kafka, to which people tend to contrast it today, appears evident, and if literature were to be regarded as a continuous relay race, it would no doubt have been from Dostoievski's hands, more certainly than from those of any other, that Kafka would have seized the token.

It will be recalled that his 'K.', whose very name is reduced to a mere initial, is but a slender prop. And the sentiment or cluster of sentiments gathered and held together by this frail envelope are nothing if not this same passionate, anxious desire to establish contact that runs like a guiding thread through Dostoievski's entire work. But whereas the quest on which Dostoievski's characters are bent leads them to seek a sort of interpenetration, a total and ever possible fusion of souls, in the most fraternal of worlds, the entire effort of Kafka's heroes is aimed at a goal that is at once less ambitious and less attainable. All they want is to become, 'in the eyes of these people who regard them with such distrust . . . not their friend, perhaps, but in any case, their fellow citizen' . . . , to be able to appear and justify themselves before unknown, unapproachable accusers, or to seek to safeguard, despite all obstacles, some paltry semblance of a relationship with those closest to them.

This humble pursuit, by virtue of its desperate obstinacy, of the depths of human suffering, the distress and complete abandonment that it brings to light, extends well beyond the domain of psychology and lends itself to all kinds of metaphysical interpretations.

However, readers who would like to assure themselves that Kafka's heroes have no connection with those characters in fiction whose authors, out of a need to simplify, through prejudice or from didactical motives, have emptied them of 'all subjective thought and life,' and present them as 'the very image of human reality when it is divested of all psychological conventions,' need only re-read the minute, subtle analyses that Kafka's characters indulge in with impassioned lucidity, as soon as the slightest contact is established between them. As, for instance, the skilful dissections of K.'s conduct and sentiments towards Frieda, performed with the keenest of blades, first by the landlady, then by Frieda, then by K. himself, and which reveal the complicated interplay of delicate wheel-works, a flash of multiple and often contradictory intentions, impulses, calculations, impressions and presentiments.

But these moments of sincerity, these states of grace, are as rare as the contacts that may give rise to them (love between Frieda and K.—if their strange relationship may be so called—or hatred for K. on the part of the landlady).

If we were to try to locate the exact spot in Dostoievsky's writings at which Kafka 'seized the token,' it would no doubt be found in the
Notes from Underground
which, as we have seen, constitutes a sort of ultimate limit, the furthermost point of this
œuvre.

The hero of these
Notes
knows that, for the officer who 'takes him by the shoulders and without any explanation, without a word, moves him to one side and passes on, as though he did not exist,' he is now nothing but a mere object, or, in the eyes of Zverkov, with his 'ram's head,' a 'curious insect'; as he tries to mingle with the crowd and 'slips between the passersby in the most odious way,' he feels 'like an insect', he becomes very clearly aware that, in their midst, he is nothing but a 'fly,' 'a nasty fly.' This furthermost point at which he finds himself for a very brief moment—for he is quickly revenged, he discovers within easy reach human beings with whom the closest fusion will always be possible (such as Lisa, whom he immediately causes to suffer, and by whom he succeeds in making himself both intensely loved and hated)—this furthermost point to which he is driven for an instant only, was the same world without exit, enlarged to the dimensions of an endless nightmare, in which Kafka's characters were to flounder.

We all know this world, in which a sinister game of blindman's buff is in constant progress, in which people always advance in the wrong direction, in which outstretched hands 'claw the void,' in which everything we touch eludes us, in which the person we clutch hold of for a moment and feel with uneasy hands, suddenly becomes transformed or escapes, in which appeals are always misleading, in which questions are left unanswered, in which 'others' are those who throw you out 'without a word, but with the greatest possible force,' because 'hospitality is not practiced' among them, they 'do not need guests,' those who look without flinching, or absent-mindedly forget to see the hand you 'hold outstretched, thinking all the while that they are going to take it,' those who, when you ask them 'if you can't come to see them (because) you feel a bit lonely,' content themselves with giving their address 'for your information, rather than as an invitation,' those who, if you come to sit beside them, say: 'I shall be leaving,' those who, in your presence, speak of you as though you were an object, and observe your movements, 'to which even horses react, as though they were watching the comings and goings of a cat,' those who, one fine day, as Klamm did with the landlady— and without years and years, an entire life of uneasy reflection ever making it possible for you to understand 'how it happened' —break off all connection with you, 'never call you again and never will call you'; in which 'others' are half-human creatures with identical faces, whose childish, incomprehensible gestures, underneath their apparent
naïveté
and disorder, conceal a malicious sort of cleverness that is at once cunning and obtuse; these are the enigmatically smiling men who observe you from a distance with sly, childish curiosity, who look at you 'without speaking to one another, each man for himself, with no other tie than the target they are looking at,' who move away docilely when they are driven off, then immediately return to their places, with the mechanical, passive obstinacy of tumbler dolls; a world in which, above everything, 'others,' those towards whom we strain with all our might, are 'remote and invisible' 'gentlemen,' occupying administrative functions that are minutely and strictly stratified in hierarchic order, simple wheels within wheels
ad infinitum,
up to the central wheel of a mysterious organisation which, for unknown reasons, is the only one that can grant or refuse you the right to exist; civil servants the meanest of whom wields over you, who are nothing 'but a pitiful subject, a shade . . . wretchedly buried in the most distant of distances,' infinite power.

These 'gentlemen,' whom it is impossible to know even by sight, whom you can watch for vainly your entire life long, who 'will never speak to you and never allow you to appear before them, whatever pains you may take and however insistently you may importune them,' with whom you cannot hope to establish
any
sort of relationship other than 'to be mentioned in an official report' which they will probably never read, but which, at least, will be filed in their records,' themselves have only a distant knowledge of you, which is both general and precise, like the information to be found in the card-index of a penitentiary director's office.

Here, where distances as immense as interplanetary space separate human beings from one another, where you constantly have 'the impression that all connection with you has been broken off,' all landmarks disappear, your sense of orientation becomes dulled, little by little your movements become disordered, your sentiments disentegrate (what remains of love is nothing but a savage tussle in which the lovers, under the indifferent gaze of the spectators, 'make desperate assault on each other, disappointed, powerless to help,' or else, a few abrupt, mechanical gestures, parodies of caresses, directed towards an anonymous partner, like those that Leni lavishes upon K. because he is under accusation and, to her, all defendants are admirable), words lose their usual meaning and efficacy, attempts at justification only serve to prove your guilt.