Down Below

by Leonora Carrington

  I had heard about several pavilions; the largest one was very luxurious, like a hotel, with telephones and unbarred windows; it was called Abajo (Down Below), and people lived there very happily. To reach that paradise, it was necessary to resort to mysterious means which I believed were the divination of the Whole Truth. I was meditating on the manner in which I could get there as rapidly as possible when I was warned by the arrival of Moro, the dog, of Don Luis’s visit. His expression was so different from yesterday’s that it seemed to me that the world had turned backwards; with the night, his usual self-possession had vanished; he was dishevelled, dirty, agitated, and behaved like a madman. With the aid of José and Santos, he removed all the furniture from my room except for the bed, from which I watched his strange activity. I knew that my clothes and a few small objects belonging to me were under lock and key in the wardrobe they were taking away. Frau Asegurado stood impassively next to me. I thought that the day of spring cleaning had arrived, that it heralded my liberation, and I was filled with joy. But once they had completely emptied the room, they left without giving me the slightest explanation.

  Frau Asegurado told me that Don Luis had gone mad. I heard a great commotion above my room, accompanied by yells and insults. The dog, Moro, stood by my bed motionless and stared at the ceiling. I thought that it was Moro who, at that moment, held the power, that Don Luis had given himself up to a fit of raving madness in order to take a vacation from himself. I saw Frau Asegurado as a telephone cable who transmitted the will of Don Luis (Frau Asegurado was the most motionless of women).

  I happened to be unstrapped that day, and from time to time I tried to escape, but Asegurado was watchful and I did not want to make use of violence against a woman for the sake of saving myself.

  All day long the noise continued above my head, and I quietly rejoiced at the idea that Don Luis had become a raving maniac. Towards the end of that afternoon, the noise stopped suddenly and I heard steps on the stairs. I rushed into the hall, where a little old man appeared: it was Don Antonio with his matchbox, which still contained the sad little piece of excrement. I believed that Don Luis had sneaked into the old man’s body: Don Antonio was not habitually violent and I have never been able to explain to myself the relentless noises of that strange Sunday.

  After nightfall, Don Luis reappeared with a woman —Angelita: her street clothes, which were very neat, gave me some hope and I questioned her:

  “You are a gypsy?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “From Down Below.”

  “Is Down Below nice?”

  “Delightful. Everyone is happy there.”

  “Take me with you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not well enough to go there.”

  Thereupon Don Luis took me to the Sun Room, which was at that moment dark. I was entering that room for the first time. He began to talk about my visions, as though he had lived through them with me. Then he left suddenly; I wanted to follow him to Down Below with the gypsy, but Frau Asegurado prevented me and José came back to tie me down.

  Later Piadosa got a bath ready for me. They bathed me for the first time that evening and cleaned my bed. I said to myself: “They are preparing my triumphal entry into Down Below.” I believed they were purifying me in order to unite me with Alberto; I believed that the palace had been made ready to receive me; I believed this to be the dawn of freedom. Once I was left alone, clean in my bed, strapped as usual, the small window to the left lit up with such a beautiful warm orange light that I felt a delightful presence next to me. I was happy. Later José brought me his cigarette.

  A new era began with the most terrible and blackest day in my life. How can I write this when I’m afraid to think about it? I am in terrible anguish, yet I cannot continue living alone with such a memory . . . I know that once I have written it down, I shall be delivered. But shall I be able to express with mere words the horror of that day?

  The next morning, a stranger entered my room. He carried in his hand a physician’s bag of black leather. He told me that he had come to take blood for a test and that he had to be helped by Don Luis. I replied that I was willing to receive one of them, but one at a time only, for I had noticed that the presence of more than one person in my room brought misfortune to me; moreover, that I was going to leave for Down Below and that I would not allow an injection to be given to me under any pretext. The discussion lasted for a pretty long time. It ended by my insulting him and he went away. Don Luis then entered and I announced my departure to him. Gentle and insinuating, he began talking about the blood taking. I spoke to him at length about my removal, about Alberto, and other things I don’t remember. We spoke eye to eye; he was holding my left hand. All of a sudden, José, Santos, Mercedes, Asegurado, and Piadosa were in my room. Each one of them got hold of a portion of my body and I saw the centre of all eyes fixed upon me in a ghastly stare. Don Luis’s eyes were tearing my brain apart and I was sinking down into a well . . . very far . . . The bottom of that well was the stopping of my mind for all eternity in the essence of utter anguish.

  With a convulsion of my vital centre, I came up to the surface so quickly I had vertigo. Once more I saw the staring, ghastly eyes, and I howled: “I don’t want . . . I don’t want this unclean force. I would like to set you free but I won’t be able to do so, because this astronomical force will destroy me if I don’t crush you all . . . all . . . all. I must destroy you together with the whole world, because it is growing . . . it is growing, and the universe is not big enough for such a need of destruction. I am growing. I am growing . . . and I am afraid, because nothing will be left to destroy.”

  And I would sink again into panic, as if my prayer had been heard. Have you an idea now of what the Great Epileptic Ailment is like? It’s what Cardiazol induces. I learned later that my condition had lasted for ten minutes; I was convulsed, pitiably hideous, I grimaced and my grimaces were repeated all over my body.

  When I came to I was lying naked on the floor. I shouted to Frau Asegurado to bring me some lemons and I swallowed them with their rinds. Only she and José were with me now. I rushed into the bathtub and splashed water all over me, on them both, on everything around me. Then I went back to bed, and tasted despair.

  I confessed to myself that a being sufficiently powerful to inflict such a torture was stronger than I was; I admitted defeat, the defeat of myself and of the world around me, with no hope of liberation. I was dominated, ready to become the slave of the first comer, ready to die, it all mattered little to me. When Don Luis came to see me, later, I told him that I was the feeblest creature in the whole world, that I could meet his desires, whatever they were, and that I licked his shoes.

  I must have slept for about twenty-four hours. I woke up in the morning; a little old man, dressed all in black, was watching me; I knew he was a master because the pinpoint pupils of his light eyes were similar to those of Van Ghent and Don Luis. This man was Don Mariano Morales. He spoke to me in French, very politely, something to which I was no longer accustomed.

  “So you feel better, Mademoiselle? . . . I am no longer seeing a tigress, but a young lady.”

  He seemed to know me and I was expressing my surprise when Don Luis entered the room and said: “This is my father.”

  Don Mariano ordered that I be unstrapped and removed to the Sun Room in Covadonga. They could do what they pleased with me, I was as obedient as an ox.

  The Sun Room was a pretty large room; one of its sides was made of opaque glass that gave out a dazzling light. Beatifically soaking in the muted sunshine, I felt as though I had left behind me the sordid and painful aspect of Matter and was entering a world which might have been the mathematical expression of Life. The room was furnished with a few chairs, a leather couch, and a small pinewood writing desk. The floor was covered with blue-and-white tiles. I lay down for hours in the light and contented myself with fo
llowing the course of the sun through the glass panes. I took my food with docility and gave up resisting.

  THURSDAY, 26 AUGUST 1943

  It was, I am almost certain of it, the night before I was injected with Cardiazol that I had this vision:

  The place looked like the Bois de Boulogne; I was on top of a small ridge bordered with trees; at a certain distance below me, on the road, stood a fence like those I had often seen at the Horse Show; next to me, two big horses were tied together; I was impatiently waiting for them to jump over the fence. After long hesitations, they jumped and galloped down the slope. Suddenly a small white horse detached himself from them; the two big horses disappeared, and nothing was left on the path but the colt, who rolled all the way down where he remained on his back, dying. I myself was the white colt.

  The terrible downfall induced by Cardiazol was followed by several rather silent days. Around eight in the morning, I would hear from a distance the siren of a factory, and I knew this was the signal for Morales and Van Ghent to call the zombies to work and also to wake me, I who was entrusted with the task of liberating the day. Piadosa would enter then with a tray on which stood a glass of milk, a few biscuits, and some fruit. I took in this food according to a special ritual:

  First, I would drink the milk at one draught, sitting bolt upright in my bed.

  Second, I would eat the biscuits, half reclining.

  Third, I would swallow all the fruit, lying down.

  Fourth, I would put in a brief appearance in the bathroom, where I would observe that my food went through without being digested.

  Fifth, back in my bed, I would sit up again very straight and examine the remnants of my fruit, rinds and stones, arranging them in the form of designs representing as many solutions to cosmic problems. I believed that Don Luis and his father, seeing the problems solved on my plate, would allow me to go Down Below, to Paradise.

  Frau Asegurado would come in for my bath and then would take me to the Sun Room. Here I was rid of all my familiar objects which, belonging to the troubled and emotional past, would have darkened my labours. Here I was alone and naked, with my bed sheet and the sun—the sheet united to my body in a dance. Here in the Sun Room I felt I was manipulating the firmament: I had found what was essential to solving the problem of Myself in relation to the Sun.

  I believed that I was being put through purifying tortures so that I might attain Absolute Knowledge, at which point I could live Down Below. The pavilion with this name was for me the Earth, the Real World, Paradise, Eden, Jerusalem. Don Luis and Don Mariano were God and His Son. I thought they were Jewish; I thought that I, a Celtic and Saxon Aryan, was undergoing my sufferings to avenge the José for the persecutions they were being subjected to. Later, with full lucidity, I would go Down Below, as the third person of the Trinity. I felt that, through the agency of the Sun, I was an androgyne, the Moon, the Holy Ghost, a gypsy, an acrobat, Leonora Carrington, and a woman. I was also destined to be, later, Elizabeth of England. I was she who revealed religions and bore on her shoulders the freedom and the sins of the earth changed into Knowledge, the union of Man and Woman with God and the Cosmos, all equal between them. The lump on my left thigh no longer seemed to form part of my body and became a sun on the left side of the moon; all my dances and gyrations in the Sun Room used that lump as a pivot. It was no longer painful, for I felt integrated into the Sun. My hands, Eve (the left one) and Adam (the right one), understood each other, and their skill was thereby increased tenfold.

  With a few pieces of paper and a pencil José had given me, I made calculations and deduced that the father was the planet Cosmos, represented by the sign of the planet Saturn:. The son was the Sun and I the Moon, an essential element of the Trinity, with a microscopic knowledge of the earth, its plants and creatures. I knew that Christ was dead and done for, and that I had to take His place, because the Trinity, minus a woman and microscopic knowledge, had become dry and incomplete. Christ was replaced by the Sun. I was Christ on earth in the person of the Holy Ghost.

  Three days perhaps after my second Cardiazol injection, I was given back the objects which had been confiscated on my entering the sanatorium, and a few others besides. I realised that with the aid of these objects I had to set to work, combining solar systems to regulate the conduct of the World. I had a few French coins, which represented the downfall of men through their passion for money; those coins were supposed to enter into the planetary system as units and not as particular elements; should they join with other objects, wealth would no longer beget misfortune. My red-and-black refill pencil (leadless) was Intelligence. I had two bottles of eau de cologne: the flat one was the José, the other, cylindrical one, the non-José. A box of Tabu powder with a lid, half grey and half black, meant eclipse, complex, vanity, taboo, love. Two jars of face cream: the one with a black lid was night, the left side, the moon, woman, destruction; the other, with a green lid, was man, the brother, green eyes, the Sun, construction. My nail buff, shaped like a boat, evoked for me a journey into the Unknown, and also the talisman protecting that journey: the song “El barco velero.” My little mirror was to win over the Whole. As for my Tangee lipstick, I have but a vague memory of its significance; it probably was the meeting with colour and speech, painting and literature: Art.

  Happy with my discovery, I would group these objects around each other; they wandered together on the celestial path, helping each other along and forming a complete rhythm. I gave an alchemical life to the objects according to their position and their contents. (My face cream Night, in the black-lidded jar, contained the lemon, which was an antidote to the seizure induced by Cardiazol.)

  Lucid and gay, I waited impatiently for Don Luis. I said to myself: “I have solved the problems he set before me. I shall certainly be led Down Below.” So I was horrified when, far from appreciating my labour, he gave me a second injection of Cardiazol.

  Thereupon I organized my own defence. I knew that by closing my eyes, I could avoid the advent of the most unbearable pain: the stare of others. Therefore I would keep them closed for a very, very long time at a stretch. This was my expiation for my exile from the rest of the world; this was the sign of my flight from Covadonga (which for me was Egypt) and of my return Down Below (Jerusalem), where I was destined to bring Knowledge; I had spent too much time putting up with the solitude of my own knowledge.

  Keeping my eyes closed enabled me to endure the second Cardiazol ordeal much less badly, and I got up very quickly, saying to Frau Asegurado, “Dress me, I must go to Jerusalem to tell them what I have learned.” She dressed me and I went into the garden, meeting no obstacle, Frau Asegurado behind me. I followed the alley, between the trees, leaving the apple trees and Villa Pilar to the right. As I advanced everything became richer and more beautiful around me. I did not stop until I came to the door of Down Below. An old woman, Dona Vicenza, sister of Don Mariano, was coming out of the house with a glass of water and a lemon, which she handed to me. I drank the water and kept the lemon as a talisman with which to carry out my perilous mission. I reached the foot of the stairs in my Paradise with a dreadful anguish, an anguish wholly comparable to the one I had experienced in front of the mountain, in Andorra. But, as in Andorra, I once again found the strength to struggle against the invisible powers that were striving to detain me, and I triumphed.

  There were three storeys: in each a door was open. I could see in the rooms, on the night tables, other solar systems as perfect and complete as my own. “Jerusalem knew already!” They had penetrated the mystery at the same time as I. On the third floor, I came upon a small ogival door; it was closed; I knew that if I opened it, I would be in the centre of the world. I opened it and saw a spiral staircase; I went up and found myself in a tower, a circular room lighted by five bull’s-eye windows: one red, one green (the Earth and its plants), one translucent (the Earth and its men), one yellow (the Sun), and one mauve (the Moon, night, the future). A wooden column which served as an axis for this strange place j
utted from the ceiling, passed through the centre of a pentagonal table, which was laid with a small, torn red tablecloth, covered with dust. I took the great disorder which reigned on this table for the handiwork of God and of His Son: disorder among the various objects that were there, disorder in the cogs of the human machinery which, immobilized, kept the world in anguish, war, want, and ignorance.

  I still can see those objects very distinctly: two stout pieces of wood cut out in the shape of an enlarged keyhole—a small pink box containing gold powder—a number of laboratory saucers of thick glass, some crescent shaped, others half-moon shaped, the remainder perfectly round (I seem to remember that some were triangular)—an oblong tin on which were pasted labels bearing the name of Franco and containing a morsel of dirt—lastly, a metal disk and a medal of Jesus Christ. Attached to the wall, so as to form a triangle in this circular room, hung three rectangular tanks of a metal I was unable to identify, they were so dirty on the outside, while inside they were covered with a thick layer of paint. The first was mauve, another pink; I don’t remember the colour of the third. Each one was pierced through its side with a hole through which passed the handle of a large spoon.

  I began by laying down the disk next to the column and by placing on top of it the two pieces of wood (male and female). I then poured all the gold dust over them, thus covering the world with riches. I then placed the saucers inside the tanks, and the Jesus Christ medal and the Franco box in my pocket. I opened all the windows, as I would have opened those of Consciousness, except for one: the mauve-coloured one, the Moon’s, since my “moon cycle,” my menstrual period, had stopped. Having concluded the Work, I walked down the stairs and returned to “Egypt.”

  FRIDAY, 27 AUGUST 1943

  On the way to Covadonga, followed by Frau Asegurado, I met Don Mariano—God the Father, dressed as usual in his black robe, which was covered, at the level of his stomach, with a crust of old food dried over time. He was watching a very poor child who was picking up dry leaves and weeping. I asked what the child had done. Don Mariano answered: “He stole an apple from my orchard.”