Bacacay

by Witold Gombrowicz

  (What foolishness! At such a moment! Why was it that foolishness wouldn’t leave me alone for even a second? A terrible weariness flowed over me like olive oil.)

  “If the ship is sailing to Valparaiso then I, as captain of the ship, should see to it that it reaches Valparaiso. I have to maintain cleanliness and order. Is that not so? Mr. Zantman—is that a misguided line of reasoning?”

  He looked at me with unutterable pride and puffed himself up till his eyes bulged, and he turned so horribly crimson and scarlet that I took a step back and involuntarily covered my ears out of fear that he would burst—and suddenly he rose up from the ground, flew a few feet through the air and dropped back down. What was that? For all the world like a flying fish. Why on earth had I mentioned it to him then? It’s clear that speaking is a bad idea, since the reach of words is unpredictable, and the borders of dreams become blurred.... “It’s afraid!” he wheezed triumphantly as he descended. “It’s afraid!—f . . . ing nature! In the throat! In the throat! Forward! Onward! Hurrah!”—he seemed to have lost his mind.—“Look here, Mr. Zantman”—he showed me the middle finger and index finger of his right hand—“What do you see? A tiny little spider.

  “Just imagine,” he went on, swelling up again automatically and shouting into my ear, since the wind was growing stronger, heavy clouds were gathering to the north, and his pipe had gone out. “I found him a moment ago here on the bridge. I saw a huge she-spider that this tiny little spider was crawling towards. Blast it! Two steps away from me. You had to see how black and motionless she was, sitting there astraddle and waiting hypnotically. Like Mene, Tekel, Peres; and how he begged her not to devour him. He whimpered, I tell you! What do you say to that? I swear to God—you were right that hereabouts everything is having fun any way it wishes, and it’s only foolish me ... Foolish me! What do you say to that?—what do you say to the spider?”

  “What’s worse,” I whispered, looking to the side and trembling, “is that snakes behave in exactly the same way with tiny little birds. My mind is weak. My mind is weak. Because of this there’s a blurring of the difference between things, and also between good and evil.”

  The captain stared open-mouthed. “What? Mr. Zantman! That’s right! Little birds—snakes—it never occurred to me. It really gives me gooseflesh. A fine bunch of scoundrels! Everything’s scheming, everything’s pairing off with one another, spiders, birds with snakes, sailors, everything’s having fun—while I ... Even here on the ship, under my nose, while I ... Bah, after all there are fish in the sea, there are damn fish—there are hermaphrodites!” —he roared—“I never thought of that! By all the sulfurous fires of hell! Have you ever considered the fact that a hermaphrodite fish, having everything it needs—that it really must have fun?! And I alone have to stand here—I have to stick out like a peg?”

  “It’s a marriage,” I said cautiously, since all the hairs on my head were standing on end and I was afraid of offending one of them. “It must be a marriage—in each fish there’s a man and a woman, and a tiny priest.”—Why wake sleeping dogs? Why so loud all of a sudden? “Now then, captain,” I added, leaning on the rail, “there on the deck there are not a few but a great number of sailors—it seems even that all the sailors are together; they’re whispering, embracing one another and heading this way—excuse me, I think I’ll go back to my cabin.”

  “Aha,” said the captain, rubbing his hands, “Aha! They’re heading this way? Very good. Mr. Smith, come here on the double. Summon the second officer. Hurry now. They’re heading this way? Right, now we’ll have a dance.”—And before I could shout out, with a gesture profoundly offensive to public decency he pulled a noiseless bluish Browning out of his pocket.

  With a hurried step I returned to my cabin, where I lay on my bunk and fell asleep at once. But my dreams were troubled—I dreamed that everyone had gathered on deck very close together, that there arose a mingling, embraces, vulgar rolling about, subdued whispers, groans, hideous curses and imprecations. Something began squeezing together in the vicinity of the bridge, after which it surged to the rear of the ship, but I wasn’t certain if this was a mutiny, since I heard no shots. It also seemed to me that in my sleep I heard my own name being spoken several times, to the accompaniment of raucous laughter, screams, derision, and handrubbing —“Zantman, Zantman”—as if I had funded it. As if all this were paid for out of my money.

  The ship swayed and was hoisted slowly upward and I heard someone explaining loathsomely that this was happening because the momentum of the ship had encountered an adverse wind—owing to which both the momentum and the wind were escalating, and the ship was being hoisted into the air to a great height. I tried to cry out but I couldn’t make a sound, since I was asleep, and in the meantime someone touched the wheel with his finger, a turn was made, and the Banbury suddenly moved side on to the wind so abruptly that I fell from my bunk onto the floor.

  4

  Around midnight the sea wind turned into a storm. The brig pitched like a child’s swing, creaking as it hurtled forward; and in a short time the momentum had increased so much that I could not tear myself away from the back wall of the cabin. The Banbury held out valiantly, meeting the wind with a sharp starboard tack. After twenty-six hours the pitching ceased, but I preferred not to go out on deck. For there most certainly had been a mutiny, and if not a mutiny then in any case something like it—so I thought I was better advised to stay on my own till I knew for certain what I would find outside. I locked my door and blocked it with a cupboard; in the corner I had a packet of sponge biscuits and eleven bottles of beer.

  In the morning I peered warily out of the window, but I withdrew my head at once and pulled down the blind, and even covered the window with my overcoat. What I had seen confirmed me even more in my decision not to leave the cabin until they came themselves and broke down the door. My position was extremely disadvantageous, since I could run out of sponge biscuits. What was more, despite the fact that I put a blanket on top of the overcoat, light was seeping in through the chinks—a most unseemly light, replete somehow and dazzling—and the walls of the cabin had split and warped because of the storm, forming numerous fissures and cracks, all of which were contorted. These fissures were quite needlessly of a know-it-all, cerebral character and quite needlessly all of them were contorted and ended spikily. This too inclined me toward caution.

  However, I do not know whether they had forgotten about me, whether they thought a wave had swept me overboard during the storm, or whether they perhaps had other things to do—in any case, in the course of three days no one gave any signs of life. It was becoming swelteringly hot. I looked out the window once again, but I retreated quickly to the far corner of the cabin; for I had seen some very garish willow-green colors, and it appeared at first glance that the garish willow-green colors could be worse than dark and gloomy nights. Furthermore, a tiny, overly garish hummingbird had come and perched on the railing, and the horizon shimmered with the splendor of all the colors of the rainbow, something I am not fond of; quite the reverse, a satiety of light, richness of decoration, and sumptuousness of colors disposes me unfavorably—I prefer a drab autumn dusk, or just as well a misty dawn—I dislike ostentation—I would rather have a quiet, modest spot where I always know how things will end.

  And now this is the fourth day I’ve not moved from the corner, despite the fact that the biscuits are almost gone. The ship, it appears, is sailing ever more rapidly, but without the slightest rocking, evenly, like a boat on a pond—and the light that creeps through the chinks is constantly growing in clarity. There must already be great painful condors—and strange, raucous parrots—and goldfish as in an aquarium—and perhaps in the distance baobabs, palm trees, and waterfalls.... Yes, yes.... For there is no question that the mutineers, taking advantage of the force of the wind, have steered the Banbury toward unknown tropical waters—but I would rather not guess which willow-green colors the ship is passing through and what fantastical archipelagoes it is head
ed for as it moves along, borne by an underwater current. And I would rather not hear the savage, licentious cries with which the crew greet these hummingbirds, parrots and other signs on earth and in the heavens, proclaiming (to speak plainly) some rapid and magnificent merrymaking.

  No, I do not wish to know. I do not wish to know and I have no desire whatsoever for hot weather or glamour and luxury. And I would prefer not to go out on deck for fear of seeing something ... something that previously had been obscure, hidden, and unspoken, now parading in all its brazenness amid peacock feathers and the hot glare. Because from the beginning everything was mine, and I, I was just like everything—the exterior is a mirror in which the inside can be observed!

  Philidor’s Child Within

  The prince of the most gloriously famous synthesists of all time was without a doubt the senior synthesist Philidor, professor of Synthetology at the University of Leyden, who hailed from the southern regions of Annam. He operated in the lofty spirit of Higher Synthesis, using the addition of +infinity, and in cases of emergency also using multiplication by +infinity. He was a man of respectable height and impressive rotundity, with an unkempt beard and the face of a prophet in eyeglasses. But a mental phenomenon of such magnitude could not fail to evoke in nature its counter-phenomenon, along the lines of the Newtonian principle of action and reaction; for this very reason an equally outstanding Analyst was soon born in Colombo and, completing his doctorate at Columbia University and receiving a professorship there, quickly rose to the highest ranks of an academic career. He was a lean, diminutive, clean-shaven man with the face of a skeptic in eyeglasses, whose sole inner mission was to hound and confound the eminent Philidor.

  He operated by breakdown, and his speciality was breaking down a person with the aid of calculations, especially with the aid of flicks. And with the aid of flicks to the nose he stimulated the nose to independent existence, causing it to move spontaneously in every direction, to the consternation of its owner. He often performed this trick in the tram during moments of tedium. Following the voice of his most deep-rooted calling, he set off in pursuit of Philidor, and in a small town in Spain he even managed to acquire the aristocratic appellation of Anti-Philidor, of which he was extraordinarily proud. Philidor, having learned that the other man was after him, naturally also set off in pursuit, and for a considerable time both scholars pursued one another to no avail, for pride prevented either of them from accepting that he was not only the pursuer but also the pursued. And accordingly when, for instance, Philidor was in Bremen, Anti-Philidor would rush to Bremen from the Hague, unable or unwilling to take into consideration the fact that at the same time and with the same purpose Philidor was leaving Bremen for the Hague on an express train. The collision of the two speeding scholars—a disaster on the order of the greatest railway disasters—took place entirely by chance on the premises of the first-rate restaurant at the Hotel Bristol in Warsaw. Philidor, accompanied by Mrs. Philidor, was holding the railway timetable in his hand and was just working out the best connections when Anti-Philidor burst in breathlessly straight from the train with his analytical traveling companion, Flora Gente of Messina, on his arm. We, that is, the assistant professors present, Doctors Theophile Poklewski, Theodore Roklewski and myself, realizing the gravity of the situation, immediately set about taking notes.

  Anti-Philidor walked up to the table and in silence, using only his gaze attacked the professor, who stood up. Each attempted to impose his will mentally upon the other. The Analyst drove coldly from beneath; the Synthesist responded from above, with a look full of hardy dignity. When the duel of stares produced no definitive results, the two mental foes began a duel of words. The doctor and master of Analysis said:

  “Noodles!”

  The synthetologist responded:

  “Noodle!”

  Anti-Philidor roared:

  “Noodles, noodles: that is, the combination of flour, eggs and water!”

  While Philidor parried at once with:

  “Noodle, that is, the higher essence of the Noodle, the supreme Noodle itself!”

  His eyes flashed thunderbolts and his beard waved; it was clear that he was the victor. The Professor of Higher Analysis took several steps back in helpless rage, but immediately afterward he hit upon a terrible cerebral notion, namely, the sickly weakling, in the presence of Philidor himself, attacked his wife, whom the worthy old professor loved above all else. Here is the further course of the encounter according to the Minutes:1. Mrs. Philidor, the Professor’s wife, is extremely plump, podgy, rather stately; she sits, says nothing, concentrates.

  2. Professor Anti-Philidor took up a position opposite the professor’s wife with his cerebral lens and began to stare at her with a gaze that undressed her completely. Mrs. Philidor shuddered from cold and shame. Professor Philidor silently wrapped a traveling rug around her and cast a withering glance filled with boundless contempt at his arrogant opponent. Yet at the same time he betrayed signs of unease.

  3. Then Anti-Philidor declared quietly: “The ear, the ear!” and burst out in derisive laughter. Under the influence of these words the ear was brought to light and became indecent. Philidor instructed his wife to pull her hat over her ears, but this did little good, for Anti-Philidor muttered as if to himself: “Two nostrils,” in this way laying bare the nostrils of the venerable Professor’s wife in a manner that was as shameless as it was analytical. The situation was becoming perilous, especially because covering the nostrils was out of the question.

  4. The Professor of Leyden threatened to call the police. The scales of victory had visibly begun to tip toward the side of Colombo. The Master of Analysis said cerebrally: “Fingers, fingers of the hand, five fingers.”

  Alas, the largeness of the Professor’s wife was not large enough to conceal the fact that suddenly revealed itself to those present in all its unheard-of luridness: the fact of the fingers of the hand. The fingers were there, five on each side. Mrs. Philidor, utterly defiled, attempted with what strength she still had to pull on her gloves, but—a quite incredible thing—the Doctor of Colombo hastily performed an analysis of her urine and exclaimed with a victorious roar:

  “H2OC4, TPS, a few leucocytes, and some proteins!”

  Everyone stood up. Professor Anti-Philidor moved away with his lover, who snorted with vulgar laughter, while Professor Philidor, aided by the undersigned, took his wife without delay to the hospital. Signed: T. Poklewski, T. Roklewski, and Anthony Świstak, assistant professors.

  The next day we gathered, Roklewski, Poklewski, the Professor, and I, at the sick bed of Mrs. Philidor. Her breakdown was steadily progressing. Touched by Anti-Philidor’s analytic hand, she was slowly losing her inner cohesion. From time to time she merely groaned softly: “I leg, I ear, leg, my ear, finger, head, leg”—as if bidding farewell to parts of her body that were already starting to move of their own accord. Her personhood was in its death throes. We all racked our brains in search of some means of immediate succour. There were no such means. After conferring among ourselves and also with Associate Professor S. Lopatkin, who flew in from Moscow at 7:40, we once again acknowledged the unavoidable necessity of the most extreme synthetic, scientific methods. There were no such methods. But then Philidor concentrated all his powers of thought, to such an extent that the rest of us took a step back, and said:

  “The cheek! A slap on the cheek, and a sound one at that—this alone of all the parts of the body is capable of restoring my wife’s good name and synthesizing the scattered elements into some higher honorable meaning of clap and slap. To work then!”

  But the world-renowned Analyst was not so easily found in the city. It was only in the evening that he let himself be caught in a first-rate bar. In a state of sober inebriation he was emptying one bottle after another; and the more he drank, the soberer he became, and his analytic lover too. In fact, they were getting drunker on sobriety than on alcohol. When we walked in the waiters, pale as ghosts, were cowering behind the counter, while
the two of them, in silence, were devoting themselves to some otherwise undefined orgies of cold blood. We formed a plan of action. The professor was to begin by making a feint with his right hand to the left cheek, then was to strike the right with his left hand, while we—that is, Assistant Professors of Warsaw University Poklewski, Roklewski, and I, along with Associate Professor Lopatkin —were to begin at once keeping the minutes. The plan was simple and the action uncomplicated. But the Professor’s raised hand dropped back down. And we, the witnesses, were dumbstruck. There was no cheek! I repeat, there was no cheek; there were only two rosebuds and something like a vignette involving doves!

  Anti-Philidor had predicted and anticipated Philidor’s plans with devilish cunning. This sober Bacchus had tattooed on his cheeks two rosebuds on each side and something like a vignette involving doves! As a consequence the cheeks, and along with them the slap on the cheek intended by Philidor, lost all meaning, let alone a higher one. In essence a slap on the cheek administered to rosebuds and doves was not a slap on the cheek—it was more like striking wallpaper. Not wishing to allow the widely respected pedagogue and educator of youth to make a fool of himself by hitting wallpaper because his wife was sick, we firmly discouraged him from actions he would later regret.

  “You cur!” roared the old man. “You despicable, oh, despicable, despicable cur!”

  “You pile!” retorted the Analyst with fearful analytic pride. “I’m a pile too. If you like, kick me in the stomach. You won’t kick me in the stomach; you’ll just kick in the stomach—and nothing more. You meant to accost a cheek with a slap on the cheek? You can accost a cheek, but not mine—not mine! I don’t exist at all! I don’t exist!”