Madame

by Antoni Libera

‘Testing things against the past?’

  ‘How else can I put it?’ I looked up at the high ceiling, seeking inspiration there. ‘I mean that whenever you undertake something, you want to know what it was like before. So that you can see yourself against that background, and know where and at what point you’re making your entry on the scene; so that you can judge whether things are on an upswing or a downswing, whether you’re entering some kind of golden age or a twilight of the gods, a period of rebirth or one of decline. Think of our mountain expeditions, when you used to talk about what climbing was like in the past and what modern tourism had done to it. That was an important lesson for me. It made me realise I was living in poor, miserable times and in a rotten world. So I had no illusions, and that meant I couldn’t be disappointed. But you have to look at these things on different scales. The post-war period – especially here, in this country – seems to be a time of decline, regress and degeneration compared to the pre-war world. But even the bottom isn’t entirely flat: there are bumps and concavities, hills and dales. Surely there’s a difference between the dark night of Stalinism, a time of real terror, and what we have now, which is just grey and bleak and miserable? That was the “great purge”; this is “our little stabilisation”. It may be nasty and brutish, but it’s liveable. It’s a normality of sorts. And when I think of this, it occurs to me that now, for the first time, I may have a chance of surpassing the past. Your son, if I’m not mistaken, began university in ’53 – the declining days of the “cult of the individual”. That was a terrible time: draconian laws, informers, denunciations, police surveillance – a nightmare. And they had another way of getting at you – blackmail about your personal life. I’ve heard dozens of stories about how lives were wrecked because of things they ferreted out, poking about in people’s private affairs. Today at least there’s none of that. But I’d like to hear some reminiscences from those days, a few stories – and the gloomier the better. It sounds strange, I know, but it would encourage me. Because it would make me feel that I’m starting from a better position, that for once, “now” is better than “then”. And that would be precious.’

  ‘It’s funny, what you say,’ said Constant after a moment of silence. ‘But I still don’t quite understand what it is you want to know. What sort of stories?’

  My God, I thought, why is he doing this to me? I would have thought I’d made myself clear. ‘Well, you know . . . just stories . . . from his student days, about his friends, what they were like . . . what they did, how they spent their time . . . their social life . . . you know, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh, that!’ He laughed, throwing back his head. ‘Of course, you can ask him. I’m sure he’ll tell you about it, but I doubt whether it’ll be what you seem to want to hear. As far as I know, his memories of those days are quite pleasant. It was a difficult time, of course, but for him it was a happy one. He was soaring then. Everything went well for him in every way, academically and otherwise. The troubles and disappointments came later. Now he’s disillusioned and complains all the time, but then . . . no, things were different then. But if it interests you, go ahead, ask him. I don’t see why not.’

  I was about to say, ‘Couldn’t you do it for me?’ when Freddy appeared in the doorway, holding a tray with a porcelain teapot, two cups and a silver sugar bowl with a little lock. This put me off my stride.

  ‘I don’t suppose you . . .?’ I muttered, but trailed off lamely in mid-sentence, for Constant no longer seemed to be listening. He leapt energetically to his feet, cleared some odds and ends off the little table, extracted from a drawer a large, white, starched linen napkin, and arranged it with fastidious care on the shining mahogany.

  ‘Voilà!’ he pronounced. Brushing an invisible speck of dust from the napkin, he moved back a step to make room for Freddy, who, balancing his tray on the edge of the table, transferred the objects on the former to the linen-covered surface of the latter. Among them, in addition to teapot, cups and sugar bowl, were two small, delicate Meissen china plates which held, respectively, nuts and French biscuits, and a dainty little jug (also Meissen) with milk. Constant relieved him of the empty tray, put it under his arm and made for the door.

  ‘Well, now, I’ll leave the two of you alone,’ he said. ‘I wish you a fruitful discussion.’ He sketched an imperial gesture of farewell to the assembled crowds and was gone.

  In silence, Freddy poured out tea and offered sugar.

  ‘Thank you, no sugar,’ I whispered.

  ‘Ah, you like bitterrness, then,’ he remarked, turning the bowl towards him and plunging the sugar spoon into its depths. ‘I used to like it myself, once.’ He took two heaped spoonfuls of sugar and stirred abstractedly, gazing lugubriously into his cup.

  I sat motionless, observing him. A strange man. I couldn’t figure him out. Was this some sort of act put on for my benefit? Was he playing some kind of part? Or was this what he was really like? Gloomy, shut up within himself, with an absent gaze? I didn’t know what to do – charge ahead regardless and try to break through his defences? Offer him something, sacrifice a pawn, in the hope that it might speed things up and allow me to manoeuvre myself into a better position? Or wait, and leave the field to him? Let him speak, let him expose himself? I chose the defensive strategy.

  ‘So,’ he said finally, taking a sip of tea, ‘you say you’d like to study Rrromance languages. Rrromance philology.’ He looked at me. ‘In our splendid deparrtment.’ His voice dripped with irony and his face contorted into an elaborate scowl of disgust.

  ‘I’m thinking about it,’ I said evenly.

  ‘And may I ask why?’ he pursued, still scowling.

  It was hardly a difficult question, but I couldn’t seem to find a quick answer. ‘Well, how shall I put it . . .?’ I tried desperately to gather my thoughts.

  ‘Brriefly and simply would be best,’ he advised.

  I shrugged. ‘I like French. I’m fairly fluent. You may find it hard to believe, but in our school the standard is quite high –’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ he interrupted wearily. ‘I don’t mean why do you want to study in that deparrtment, I mean to what end?’

  ‘How do you mean, to what end?’

  ‘I mean, what do you want to do with it? What are your plans for the future?’

  Once again he had me backed into a corner. (‘As early as the fourth move Alekhin is already taking Capablanca by surprise,’ I thought, remembering the commentary on one of the tournament games in which the great José had lost his world title.) Good God, man, I groaned inwardly, have a heart! I didn’t come here to be interrogated, I came to find out something about that woman!

  ‘I can’t answer a question put like that,’ I said finally. ‘I can only tell you what I’m interested in and what I’d like to learn more about.’

  ‘Very well,’ he agreed with long-suffering reluctance. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, French culture, generally speaking. Literature, theatre and also philosophy – especially the intellectual current that began with Sartre’s existentialism. You know: Les Temps modernes, Aux Deux Magots, the café at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, L’Imaginaire, Le Mur’ – I threw out the first titles, names and catchwords that came to mind – ‘Les Chemins de la liberté, Camus’s Mythe de Sisyphe, L’Homme révolté, La Chute, the theatre of the absurd, Genet, the nouvelle vague in film . . . that whole legendary intellectual and artistic world, which Simone de Beauvoir describes in such detail in her autobiography. And, since I’ve mentioned her . . . I might, for instance, do a study of her manifesto about the liberated woman, Le Deuxième sexe. For some reason it hasn’t been translated into Polish yet, and as far as I know no serious study of it has ever been undertaken here – except perhaps in university seminars, or in a lecture . . . or someone might have written a thesis on it . . .’

  Your move, I thought, and took a sip of tea. If you know something, now’s the time to speak. Take the damn pawn! Accept the sacrifice! And bring out your queen!

>   Unfortunately he did no such thing. Instead he clicked his tongue disapprovingly three times, frowned and shook his head. ‘That’s bad. That’s verry bad.’

  ‘Bad?’ I put down my cup, missing the saucer and hitting the edge of the table. ‘What’s bad about it?’

  ‘Everything, my frriend, everything, from start to finish.’

  ‘I give up, in that case. Tell me.’ I nibbled a few nuts from the Meissen plate. ‘Tell me why I’m wrong.’

  ‘You’re wrong for a number of reasons. Let’s start with the simplest.’ He sat up in his armchair and clasped his hands together like an opera singer before an aria. ‘Why is it, when you have so many fine, worthwhile, prrecious things to choose from, that you insist on the tawdry and the shoddy? Tinsel and glitter and plastic jewellery, when you could have genuine pearls and diamonds? You don’t look completely uncivilised, so why, with the whole rrich, glorious trreasury of Frrench culture open before you, overflowing with trrue masterpieces and rreally splendid achievements, do you choose kitsch, junk, the rrotten frruit of decline? Si-mone-de-Beau-voir, I ask you!’ He raised his hands in shocked disbelief. ‘You couldn’t do worse! You’ve hit bottom with that! The drregs! Don’t you feel it? Can’t you see it? Can you tell me just what it is that you see in her? I don’t understand how you can even rread the stuff!’

  I felt myself flush. I’d been snared in my own net. I cast about desperately for a way to disentangle myself. ‘You misunderstood me,’ I said, raising my hand in mild protest. ‘But it’s my own fault.’ I waved my hand in the air and briefly put my fingers to my brow. ‘I didn’t make myself clear enough, I should have explained it better. The fact that I might consider doing a study of Beauvoir’s Second Sex doesn’t mean I admire her. On the contrary. I find her work incredibly irritating, boring – absurd, even. She’s affected, garrulous and patronising, and she lectures you.’ At each of these words Freddy nodded, as if to say, Exactly! ‘But what does strike me as interesting is how such trash came to be so popular – and not just here, but in France. I can see how people here might like it: it’s Western, after all, so it must be good. But over there, in the free world?! So what I meant when I said I might write about her was that I’d write a critique, a thorough one, and also analyse the sociological causes of her regrettable success.’

  But after this neat U-turn Freddy’s face still bore its frown of disapproval. If anything, it had deepened. ‘No, no, you’re wrong again.’ He shook his head. ‘Quite wrong. From the frrying pan into the fire, as it were. Do you have any idea where you’d end up if you trried something like that? With what sort of people? You’d find yourself in the company of rrepulsive, illiterate, backward crreatures who want to stamp out culture or trrade in it like shopkeepers, rready to do anything to get access to the rrotten West and all the nice things it has to offer. They’ll drrag it thrrough the mud, rrevile it, heap calumnies on it, write any disgusting lie about it you ask them to. Is that the sort of company you want to keep? Is that how you want to be seen – as one of them? Along with the censor, the political commissar and the informer?’

  ‘Ah, but you see –’ I ploughed on, hating this nonsense but feeling I had no choice, and consoling myself with the thought that it might lead somewhere in the end, ‘my critique wouldn’t be anything like those blind, unthinking attacks on “bourgeois culture”. It wouldn’t be a “fundamental Marxist critique”, far less an act of opportunism or moral prostitution, performed cynically for this or that privilege –’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Freddy broke in roughly. ‘Objectively you’d be serving the interests of the rregime. You’d be prroviding arrguments for the claim that the West is wrong and its culture worthless and degenerate.’

  ‘So there’s no way out,’ I said, half to myself.

  ‘Why not? Of course there is, and it’s verry simple.’ He plucked a French biscuit from the plate and crunched it with relish.

  ‘Namely?’

  ‘Do something else.’

  Well, yes, I thought, easy to say. But what if that was what Madame happened to like?

  ‘Do you know of anyone who made that kind of wrong choice?’ I asked, grasping firmly at the thread slipping through my fingers. ‘Not necessarily someone now,’ I added hastily, to show I had no wish to pry into the current business of the department. ‘It could be an example from any time – from your own student days, for instance.’

  ‘Do I know of anyone who made the wrong choice!’ He snorted sardonically. ‘Do I know of anyone who didn’t!’

  ‘What do you mean? Are you implying that everyone made bad –’

  ‘Listen,’ he broke in. ‘Rrremember, when you asked me to explain why you were wrong in your choice of studies, I told you there were a number of reasons, not just one. I’ll tell you what I meant. The idea of working on Simone de Beauvoir is an absurd one per se, rregardless of your motives and aims. It’s rreprrehensible in its own right. But let’s assume you’re interested in something else, something of genuine value – like, oh, I don’t know, Pascal, for instance, or Racine, or la Rochefoucauld. Don’t imagine I’d rrush in with enthusiastic support. No, I’d still try to dissuade you from Rrromance languages. I’d be just as strongly opposed.’

  ‘Is the standard really so low?’ I asked, falling back on the question I’d put to Constant on the phone.

  ‘It’s not a question of the standard,’ he replied impatiently, ‘although that, too, leaves much to be desired.’

  ‘What, then?’ I asked. Now I was genuinely curious.

  ‘It’s a discipline for which there’s no place in this country. If you decide to work in that field, or even if you trry to study it, at the verry least it’ll rreduce you to a nerrvous wrreck.’

  He spoke with such fierce conviction that I shivered, but my curiosity had been piqued. What was all this supposed to mean? Why should choosing to study French literature, and later to make it one’s field of professional research, lead to madness or nervous breakdowns? Why was it unhealthy and inadvisable, and what was so treacherous about it?

  I took another sip of tea and a nibble of biscuit. ‘You intrigue me,’ I said. ‘Could you elaborate? I confess I’m surprised and a little perplexed.’

  A long silence ensued.

  ‘What is the meaning of the word “philology”?’ he asked finally, in a perfectly calm, matter-of-fact voice, as if he were launching into a Socratic inquiry and proposed to get to the truth by elenchus.

  ‘Is that a rhetorical question, or do you expect an answer?’ I still wasn’t quite sure where he was headed.

  ‘Yes, please, I’d like an answer.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, as if I were giving a definition at an oral exam, ‘in this country the word “philology” is still used in the old, general sense to mean the study of the language and literature of a particular nation. And –’

  ‘What does philo mean in Greek?’ he broke in.

  ‘It means liking or loving something,’ I replied, ‘or being friendly or well inclined towards something.’

  ‘Good,’ he said approvingly. ‘And what about logy? What is the meaning of the Greek logos?’

  ‘Logos,’ I replied, ‘can mean a great number of things, but in this case it means “word”. However, in the word “philology” as we use it, it means “that which is composed of words”: language and literature in general.’

  ‘Very good. And neo? As in neo-philo –’

  This time I interrupted. ‘Neo means new or recent, and neophilology is the study of the languages and literatures of modern nations.’

  ‘Excellent. Now then, tell me, if you would, what is meant by the term “modern nations”. Which nations, exactly, are these?’

  I knew the answer, but I had some difficulty in formulating it clearly. ‘Well,’ I said after a moment’s hesitation, ‘it means nations . . . which have survived in more or less unchanged form . . . since the end of the Middle Ages . . . the time of the great discoveries . . . the fifteenth century.’
r />   ‘Would you count India or China among them?’ He was slyly probing.

  I shrugged. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Well, then?’ He gazed at me expectantly.

  ‘The term refers to the nations of our continent . . . to European nations,’ I said finally, more decisive now, even with a slight edge of impatience.

  ‘Ah!’ He feigned surprise. ‘Rreally? So that’s what you mean! And that would include . . .?

  ‘The English, the French, the Germans,’ I rattled off, ‘the Italians and the Spanish . . .’

  ‘And the Rrrussians, surely,’ he added, gazing at me in mock defiance.

  ‘The Russians?’ I smelt a trap. He was testing me.

  ‘What, you mean you wouldn’t include the Rrrussians?’

  ‘The Russians are a Slavic nation.’

  ‘Does that mean they’re not modern?’

  ‘No, but I had the impression that the term “neo-philology” referred to Western languages and literatures. The study of Russian language and literature belongs to the field we call Slavic philology.’

  ‘Aaah, there we are!’ he drawled triumphantly. ‘So that’s what you mean. Well, at least that’s clear now.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. This excruciating tooth-pulling process had gone on long enough. It was time to speed things up. ‘I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at. What’s the point of all these laborious definitions?’

  ‘Patience, young man, patience! We’ll get to that in a minute.’ He was clearly enjoying his role of classical mentor. ‘We’re agrreed, then, are we not, that neo-philology, as the term is popularly understood here, is that brranch of philology concerned with the languages and literratures of modern Western nations. But there’s a deeper sense to the word. If you go back to the source and look at the orriginal meanings, you’ll find it means love for those Western languages and the whole culture connected with them. And the question arrises of how one can love something in a country that is hostile to it, a country that in its political system, its ideology and its defence doctrine looks with extrreme disfavour upon anything from the West, a country that treats any citizen connected with things Western with pathological suspicion. Well, do you think it’s possible? How do you imagine it can be done?’