The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter

by Matei Calinescu

  THE WANDERING JEW

  PERIODICALLY, goaded by an irresistible impulse that could not be linked to any external cause, Zacharias Lichter would take off walking, holding himself erect and maintaining a mechanical rhythm of surprising steadiness, unable to stop for hours and sometimes even days on end. Thus he would suddenly depart, out of the blue, breaking off a conversation at some arbitrary point and leaving his interlocutor (if unaware of this trait) in a state akin to stupefaction. He would say goodbye with an uncomfortable smile, as if impelled by a force it would be useless to oppose, and stammer a hasty promise to continue the conversation “as soon as possible.” And he would keep his promise, astonishing the uninformed interlocutor once again by picking up the thread of conversation, unflinchingly, without the slightest hesitation and with the most natural air in the world, exactly at the point where it had broken off.

  The first thing he did upon falling prey to this “demon of perambulation” was to leave the city center. He was obscurely afraid and—as he would later confess—felt suddenly oppressed by a kind of curse. Moreover, he had the impression that he was awakening fright in others, that his suffocating anxiety might be contagious. He would thus retreat to less-populated areas on the outskirts of town, walking steadily, without looking right or left, yet with a sure sense of orientation, like a sleepwalker. (The comparison is quite apt since, when night fell, looking completely worn out, yet maintaining that monotonous rhythm that seemed to originate beyond time, his eyes would sometimes close and he would fall asleep, his face drawn tight by the terror of his oneiric visions.) There was something more curious, however: as he came to the end of some more or less labyrinthine road, his path would become circular and his silhouette could be seen circumambulating the same sordid urban area ten or even a hundred times, as if he could not extricate himself from that perimeter. In the end, the people in the neighborhood could not fail to note his haunting presence, which, after dark, seemed to exude an air of the occult and bizarre.

  Absorbed in his own impenetrable world, Zacharias Lichter was of course totally unaware of all this. For him immediate reality had ceased to exist. When he returned to normal life, it was as if after a long trip: he displayed an absent, almost abstracted air, yet his gaze was limpid and intense, as if focused on vast spaces. When asked where he had been, Zacharias Lichter would answer as if in jest: “From time to time—out of sheer moral solidarity—I feel compelled to become again the Wandering Jew.” And a faraway smile floated on his lips.

  THE METAPHYSICS OF LAUGHTER

  AS TIME went on—it was bound to happen—people started talking about Zacharias Lichter as a picturesque character, one of those “originals” whose deeds or unusual turns of phrase provoke amused interest or comic surprise, especially in that literary milieu where gossip at times acquires an intellectual tinge.

  “Have you heard about Zacharias Lichter’s latest folly? Let me tell you, it’s incredible!” And amid bewildered exclamations and bursts of laughter, all sorts of strange stories and hilarious parables were told whose heroic protagonist—a hero seen as a combination of Diogenes, Nasreddin, and a Jewish prophet—was no other than Zacharias Lichter. For a long time he himself had no idea of the role his name and person was playing in the pseudo-folkloric anecdotes that animated the conversation, otherwise so banal and boring, of minor intellectual circles. He ended up, of course, learning about it but never gave any sign of being surprised or irritated, voicing deep satisfaction instead: “As I think more about it, it could not have happened otherwise. And on top of that, I recognize myself perfectly in this clown-like image. Didn’t I start to exist, in a higher sense, when I realized my own condition as a clown? Haven’t I tried to be a clown to the very end, unto madness? I would go so far as to say that the deeds and words that are attributed to me—be they funny, grotesque, or stupid—are in their essence truer than my own deeds and words . . . And of course they do not realize, narrow-minded as they are, that by laughing at me they come close—too dangerously so for their own stupidity—to the profound core of my thinking. They don’t realize that, objectively, their laughter gains a metaphysical dimension: so that a keen mind, even starting from as low a level as the manner and nuances of their laughter, could reconstruct the paradoxical edifice of my philosophy, illuminated by the great lightning bolt of Revelation.

  “A prophet can frighten, can set off an earthquake in hearts; but he is never closer to achieving his mission than when he becomes the object of ridicule. For in the laughter he arouses (irrespective of his motives, which could be real or false), the world whose decline he prophesied effectively collapses . . . Laughter purifies like a sacred flame. But only the madmen, the prophets and the saints know that—and that is why they make efforts to make the entire universe roar with laughter, until the stars tremble. My only regret is that until now I could make so few people laugh at me; and that, when I laugh at myself, my laughter is louder than everyone else’s. Could this be the sign of my failure?”

  And, before any of those to whom he was speaking could start to laugh, Zacharias Lichter burst out, with suddenly congested face and bloodshot eyes, in long, strange, and frightening peals of laughter.

  LEGENDS

  AS MENTIONED in the previous fragment, all sorts of legends grew up around Zacharias Lichter. The laughter they provoked in certain circles was hearty and even greedy for more, a laughter in which—as the derided prophet himself suggested—a finely tuned ear could have discerned echoes of emptiness, the first signs of a world trembling on the brink of apocalyptic collapse; but also the first signs of an apotheosis.

  One cycle of legends concerned Lichter’s sexual behavior.

  A self-styled former college friend, it seems, was the source of certain tales about Lichter’s supposedly hyperbolic sexuality, which unfolded exclusively on a cosmic plane. Lichter thought of himself, according to this fanciful testimony, as an embodiment of absolute virility and was said to be obsessed by the feminine principle found everywhere in nature. He thus yearned to copulate with all primordial elements, with the oceans and with the earth, with the starry firmament and with fire. At the sight of any of these he was seized with irresistible centauresque urges.

  Along this same line, an older episode from one of his trips to the seaside was reported by the so-called former college friend as follows: Zacharias Lichter sat for an entire day on the beach with the sun beating down on his head, seemingly dazed. By chance, but perhaps not entirely so, he was situated near a rocky outcrop where nudist women sought what shelter they could while sunbathing. Towards evening a few of them were still there, going to and from the sea with languid movements, their breasts and hips swaying, water glittering like silver on their tanned skin. Lichter was not watching them, however; with piercing eyes, he was peering out into the distance, scanning the monotonous ripples of the sea emanating from the curved horizon. From time to time, as if possessed, he would start to run, heavily and off-balance, yet seemingly driven by a force and energy about to be unleashed at any moment—toward the metallic highlights playing on the waves as the sun descended. He would throw himself brusquely into the sea, emitting strange cries of pleasure, swirling and thrashing about in the throes of a mixture of lust and ferocity, totally oblivious to what was going on around him. When he emerged again, water streaming down his broad, hairy chest, eyes shining feverishly, his whole being seemed charged with raw, unrestrained vigor. On his final return, he emerged from the sea shouting and began to roll in the sand while still dripping wet, tossing about spasmodically for a time like some amphibious monster in the throes of a sexual act. All this beneath the frightened stares of those still remaining on the beach in the cooling twilight. Even the few nudists, covering their nakedness with their arms, looked on in fascination as the incredible scene unfolded. Everything lasted barely a few minutes. Then, totally spent and emptied of all energy, Lichter lay for some time seemingly unconscious, his inert body covered with coarse patches of sand. Much later, as if re
leased by a spring, he jumped up, grabbed his clothes with an automatic gesture, and bolted away like some frightened object of prey, as ridiculous as it seemed in the tranquility reigning that evening on the beach, broken only by the calm flight of seagulls and the swirl of rippling waves. Lichter—his former classmate explained, not without a certain wicked aesthetic delight—feared the intensity of the erotic impulses generated in him by the grandiose spectacle of nature, which is why he so seldom left town. Given his cosmic sexuality, urban life was a form of abstinence and asceticism.

  There were others who lowered the level of the gossip still further. They ignored the legends regarding Lichter’s cosmic sexuality—legends in which, by the way, one can easily discern a form of mockery through exaggeration—and spread rumors that behind his mask of theoretical disinterest in the erotic, Lichter engaged in strange clandestine activities in that very area. Lacking any true vocation for asceticism, he took great pains to hide his passionate interest in women, regardless of their social status. They cited adventures with a gypsy beggar, with an old crone who cleaned street urinals, and with a snobbish intellectual who practiced theosophy. All these tales repeatedly emphasized—in a depressingly vulgar way—the contrast between Lichter’s professed ideals and his actual practice. Thus he was reportedly seen on a park bench with a young street-sweeper on his lap, initiating her into the principles of Ecstatics or existential Dilemmatics (disciplines he had in fact founded), while pausing from time to time to cover her face with wild, passionate kisses.

  According to others—whether he had stated it openly or not—Lichter had discovered a mystical value in eroticism, a portal to Perplexity. Thus he not only refused to oppose his basic instincts but stimulated them in every possible area, including the culinary: believing that garlic possessed aphrodisiac qualities, Lichter consumed great quantities of it, as a result of which—here they were obviously striving for a crude comic effect—women found him repulsive and refused to come near him. This plunged Lichter into states of extreme frustration, leading to murky prophesies and bursts of metaphysical hysteria.

  Another cycle of legends arose around Zacharias Lichter’s inexplicable “flights,” in which he would run about aimlessly. It was said, for example, that before such a flight, he would go through a preliminary stage characterized by a sort of “aura,” a quite lengthy period that sometimes lasted up to a week or more. To designate this period, the bizarre (and no doubt ungainly) term of folfa was attributed to Lichter.* At such times, he would fall into a sort of prostration, interrupted now and then by bursts of verbal delirium, the incoherence of which made those around him feel as if they were participating in some sort of weird rite. It was said that during folfa Lichter proved exceptionally receptive to intellectual matters. Although he responded only with grunts and snorts and made not the slightest gesture, while his face retained the blank stare of a cretin, he remembered all that was said to him with great accuracy, so that when his “flight” was over, he could weave into subsequent discussions, ardently and with his usual acuity, everything he had left unanswered during those perplexed days of folfa. It was also reported that his students, realizing this—and aware of Lichter’s notorious tendency towards endless monologues—took advantage of his folfas to broach their own ideas, formulate their questions, clear up confusions, and even raise objections.

  All these accounts—peppered to various extents with racy details according to the talent of the teller—provoked enormous roars of laughter. But this very laughter—as we have seen—carried for Lichter a purifying value. In time, and without substantively modifying his initial reaction, he began to speak of a Calvary of the Grotesque and the Picturesque.

  “Ridicule”—Zacharias Lichter would say—“of whatever kind, should be assumed; just as sin, lies, suffering, life, or death may be assumed—no matter their nature. Purity assumes filth and vulgarity. Chastity assumes the raptures of desire, for they are part and parcel of chastity, just as filth is of purity, stupidity of wisdom, stammering of elocution. So ridicule too is part and parcel of the serious.

  “Without being anywhere, God may flare up in anything, at any place. His flame unifies the laughter and tears of mankind. It delivers us from the narrow game of meaning. Thus we must be willing to signify all things: to pass, with equal goodwill, for angels or monsters, for saints or laughingstocks, for ourselves or others. For all things draw us toward God more rapidly, more clearly, more beautifully, even those we find difficult to accept . . .

  “On the way towards God, we have to climb several mountains in turn, and among them is the burning mountain of Laughter. The test of fire: the test of laughter.

  “This is my prayer: Make them, O God, laugh at me; may they grant me the charity of their laughter. Give me, O God, the strength to be the same one who appears in their laughter. And let their fiery clamor wash me clean. Let not my legs tremble on that climb, sharp as flint, through the scorching heat of my ugliness. And let not my mind falter. Let not my love waver . . .”

  As he was saying this, Zacharias Lichter’s eyes glistened as if brightened by tears.

  *A philologist offered an elegant explanation of this term, unrecorded in dictionaries. According to his hypothesis, folfa describes a concealed agitation, a flood of anxiety, the onset of a state of possession. It points, on the one hand, toward a strong inner sensation of “fluttering” (the constellation flt presenting a striking parallel to the term under discussion), a strange sense of sluggish flight through thick ooze. On the other hand, folfa is associated with increased difficulty of self-expression, with words stammered out in a “snuffling” language (here again, the phonetic similarities with folfa were obvious). Enlarging upon these preliminary remarks, the philologist developed—to the amusement of the gathering—a sort of an ironic ontology of folfa. He discovered in it one of the fundamental hypostases of being in confrontation with nonbeing. A philosopher contradicted the philologist however, maintaining that folfa might merely be a state of existential stupor. There were others who claimed that Lichter staged his “folfas,” thus repudiating his status as a Judaic prophet and revealing his hidden connections with various Eastern religions. Several anecdotes were told along these lines, among which was the following: In response to a question on the nature of God, Lichter asked his interlocutor to spit on him—and when the latter refused to do so, implored him again, nearly in tears. Following this, the prophet fell into a state of folfa. The man understood and left the room, overcome by humility . . .

  ON RETICENCE

  G. HAD A thin yet harsh voice, with plaintive drawn-out tones like sobbing prayers. From his mouth, filled with broken and darkened teeth barely held in place by the rotting gums, words emerged with difficulty, as if drawn forth from some obscure ancient despondency—even with regard to the most everyday things and circumstances.

  He also had a singular way of remaining silent—an attentive silence, filled with tense expectation. A silence that drew in and absorbed all that others said, robbing them of their verbal resources, placing them in a surprising and baffling predicament, pierced by a gaze that flickered with a strange mixture of coldness, bemusement, and intense dreaminess.

  In the noisy hell of taverns, where he spent much of his time (though he was no alcoholic), G. kept so quiet and at the same time so near the threshold of speech that words seemed ready to burst forth at any moment, storming all barriers. Yet that did not happen. He would only start talking much later, after downing a good number of glasses, dolefully lengthening each syllable, his small hands with uncut nails making slow, distinctive gestures that always seemed to be weighing invisible objects. Anyone who followed the intermittent thread of his phrases closely would develop in time a clear sense that each uttered word, like his gestures, was weighing, with trepidation and great care, its own meaning: the weight of that meaning.

  With his thirty-some years, G. presented the figure of a wise man, an intransigent moralist who harbored no illusions about human nature. He liked
to think of himself, without excessive vanity and even with certain dignified modesty, as a man who had the right to judge others, as an administrator of justice—exclusively in the theoretical realm, it seems.

  It is in this capacity that he was consulted (perhaps at first with a certain irony, which nonetheless slowly but surely faded away) on various moral questions, to which he generally offered the sternest of solutions. Curiously, although he resorted to a rather obvious rhetoric (rhetoric, as we know, being the child of moralism), his unwieldy, quivering replies—uttered in a voice that rose to an unbelievably high register, only to immediately break and expire in a sort of a wheeze, then begin its ascension anew, again and again, followed by the same sudden break and fall, like some mechanical form of weeping—had the effect of deepening the spiritual atmosphere his long previous silence had imposed. Imperceptibly, those at the table, struck dumb, would find themselves in a zone of such severity and paralyzing rigor that the slightest smile would have seemed unpardonably rude.

  G.’s encounter with Zacharias Lichter (through the agency of Leopold Nacht) constituted a turning point in the former’s life.

  From time to time, late in the evening, G. would evoke this decisive moment:

  “Zacharias Lichter devastated me by ferreting out a sense of metaphysical shame . . . the shame of existing. A crushing, stifling, maddening shame. In his proximity I felt ashamed, for instance, that I was ever thirsty or even hungry. We were in some dive once and I wanted something to eat; I asked him what he would like, but he didn’t order anything . . . It’s always unpleasant to eat in front of someone else, but I will never forget how thoroughly abject I felt at that moment, how deeply I loathed my own hunger and the food my body craved, an aversion that increased when I found I could not satisfy my hunger. On the contrary, it grew ever greater, turned ravenous, intoxicating, maddening . . . And all this while listening to Zacharias Lichter’s abstract discourse on the devouring Flame . . .