Three Novels: Hordubal, Meteor, an Ordinary Life

by Karel Čapek

  I am thinking of our marriage and how it emerged from it silently and self-evident. From the very first moment my wife took upon herself that concern for my health, as if she had said: That’s a woman’s job; you needn’t worry about it, leave it to me. Yes, it was like that; I could pretend to myself, Myself nothing, it’s her; she is so scrupulous and hygienic, well, let her be, if she likes to; and at the same time to revel silently and indulge in that feeling of security that one is being provided for and that so much is being done for one’s health. When she waited for me with a towel, before I had finished scrubbing myself, to dry my wet back—it, you know, looked so agreeably conjugal, but it was a daily health inspection; we never said as much to each other, but we both knew it, and I always looked sideways at her, so what ? She used to smile and nod her head, It’s good. And her temperate, abstinent love that was also part of it: she made certain rules for me so that I was not driven to lay them down out of fear for myself. Don’t get so excited, she used to say, almost like a mother, and sleep nicely; no rings round your eyes, and such-like things. Sometimes I was angry, but in the depths of my soul I was grateful to her, for I had to confess that it was better for me like that. I had not any longer to watch so anxiously over my physical state, she took that under her own care; instead she nourished my ambition—even that apparently is healthy and sharpens interest in life; it seems that a male can’t breathe without it. Tell me what you have been doing all the day; you enjoy your work better then. Or let’s make plans for the future; optimism is also healthy and forms part of a good mode of life. All that was plainly so self-evident, conjugal, and intimate; now I see it differendy, now there is no one to shoulder for me that dreadful and impotent fear. Don’t be afraid, you’re at home here, you have everything that you need, you are protected and safe.

  Then later on at my station, as was most likely I felt as healthy as a turnip; I imagine that that’s why I didn’t need her any longer so much, and in that lay that touch of estrangement. She felt it, and tried to keep me for herself; and therefore so sedulously: You ought to take more care of yourself, and so on. Now she would even have liked to bear me children, for it’s good to be a father; well, no children came. When in the end she could not do otherwise she began despotically to look after my comfort and my routine; she created a BIG LAW out of it, that I should eat well, that I should sleep well, and have everything in its right place. A life which becomes a habit is somehow safe and deeply rooted; to cultivate one’s habits, that is also some kind of caring for oneself. And, again, it was she who took it on herself: she looked after my habits and I, only indulgently and good-humouredly, accepted them; I, only for your sake, old girl, because you get it ready so nicely. Thank God, you needn’t be an egoist when someone looks after you so well; you have an honest and masculine consciousness that you are not looking after your own comfort, but only after your work. And then at the end of your days you will say: I lived only for my work, and I had a good wife; it was an ordinary good life.

  So now we’ve got a third one, said the cantankerous voice inside me.

  Which third ?

  Well, the first was that ordinary, happy man; the second was the one with elbows who wanted to scramble up; and that hypochondriac, he’s the third. Pardon me, man, these are three lives, and each one is different. Absolutely, diametrally, and in principle.

  And see here, taking all together it was a plain and simple life.

  I don’t know. The one with the elbows was never happy; that hypochondriac was not stubborn enough to scramble upwards; and a happy man couldn’t be a hypochondriac; that’s obvious. Nonsense, here are three different beings.

  And only one life.

  That’s it. If they were three independent lives, it would be simpler. Then each would be complete, with a nice sequence, each would have its own law and meaning. But as you’ve got it it’s as if those three lives intersected, at one moment this, and at another that.

  No, wait, not that! When something intersects it’s like a fever. I know, I used to have nightmares—Lord, how everything in my dreams was an awful mess, and intersected! But surely that ended long ago, I have recovered now; I have no nightmares, have I, have I any nightmares ?

  Aha, that’s the hypochondriac again. Man, that one’s lost it!

  Lost what ?

  Everything. I’ll ask you when a hypochondriac is about to die.

  But stop that!

  CHAPTER XXIII

  FOR three days I haven’t written anything: something has happened over which on the third day I am still shaking my head. It wasn’t a great and solemn event—such things don’t happen in my life, on the contrary, it was very nearly an awkward situation in which I think I cut rather a ridiculous figure. The other day my housekeeper announced that some young gentleman wanted to speak to me. I was annoyed. What business have I with him ? You could have told him that I wasn’t at home, or something like that; well, now let him in.

  It was a youth, one of the kind I’ve always disliked, unnecessarily tall, self-assured, and hairy—in short a swell; he threw his mane back and trumpeted some name which, of course, I forgot at once. I felt ashamed for not being shaved, for being without a collar, and for sitting here in carpet slippers and in an old dressing-gown, shrivelled up like a pouch; so I inquired as grumpily as possible what he wanted with me.

  He explained a bit hastily that he was just writing a thesis. The subject was the rise of the schools of poetry in the nineties. This is a tremendously interesting period, he assured me sententiously. (He had big red hands, and his arms were like logs: definitely disagreeable.) He said that he was collecting material, and therefore he had allowed himself to come.

  I looked at him with some suspicion: My dear fellow, you must have made a mistake or something; what has your material to do with me ?

  And so, he said, in two reviews from that period he had found some poems signed with my name. With a name which in the history of literature had fallen into oblivion, he said victoriously. That is my discovery, sir! He had searched for that forgotten author; one old stager, so and so, had told him that as far as he could remember the author became a railway official. He followed up that trail until at the Ministry he found out my address. And suddenly he demanded straight out: Please, is it you?

  Well, then, now it’s out! I felt a strong desire to raise my eyebrows in surprise and say that he must have been mistaken; what, I, and poetry! But no, I won’t lie any more. I shrugged my shoulders and mumbled something about its being only a trifle; I gave it up, sir, long ago.

  The youth beamed and shook his mane victoriously. “That’s superb,” he trumpeted. And could I tell him if I had written for other reviews, too? And where had I published my poems in later years ?

  I shook my head. Nothing further, sir, not a line. I’m sorry, sir, I can’t help you.

  He choked with enthusiasm, he ran his finger round his collar as if he were being strangled, and his forehead glistened with sweat. “That’s magnificent,” he shouted at me. “That’s like Arthur Rimbaud! Poetry that flares up like a meteor! And nobody has come across it! Sir, it’s a discovery, a great discovery,” he shouted, and ran his red paw through liis tufts of hair.

  I was annoyed; as a whole I don’t care for noisy young people, somehow there’s no order, nothing solid in them. “Nonsense, sir,” I said dryly. “They were bad verses, they weren’t worth anything, and it’s better that no one knows about them.”

  He smiled at me compassionately and almost from above, as if he were putting me in my right place. “Oh, no, sir,” he protested. “It’s a matter of literary history. I should prefer to call it a Czech Rimbaud. In my opinion it’s the most interesting phenomenon of the nineties. Not that it could originate any sort of school,” he said, winking his eyes expertly. “With regard to development it meant little, it hasn’t left any deeper influence. But as a personal manifestation it’s amazing, something so personal and intense. For instance, that poem which begins: ‘Come to the cocos
palms when the drums are rolling-’ “ He rolled out with rapt eyes. “Surely you remember how it goes on!”

  It touched me almost like an agonizing and disagreeable reminiscence. “So you see,” I murmured. “Never in my life have I seen cocos palms. Such rubbish!”

  He almost lost his temper. “But it doesn’t matter,” he stammered, “if you hadn’t seen any palms! You’ve got a completely wrong idea of poetry!”

  “And how,” I said, “can the drums roll in the palm trees ?”

  He was very nearly offended by my denseness. “But these are the coconuts,” he blurted out, incited like somebody who is compelled to explain obvious things. “It’s like the nuts tapping in the wind. Come to the cocos palms when the drums are rolling—can’t you hear it ? Those three c’s, they’re the knocks; then it dissolves into music—the drums are rolling. And then there are lines accidentally more beautiful.” He became silent, nonplussed, and he threw his mane back; he looked as if in those verses he was defending his own and most precious property; but after a while he took me into his grace—youth is magnanimous. “No, seriously,” he said, “these are stupendous lines. Strange, strong, stupendous new things—of course for that period,” he added with conscious superiority. “Not so much in form, but those pictures, sir! For you, sir, toyed with the classical form,” he started eagerly, “but you violated it from an inner urge. In form faultless, disciplined, regular verses, but loaded inside with terrible phantasy.” He clenched his red fists to reproduce it somehow. “It looks as if you wanted to scoff at that disciplined and correct form. Such regular verse, but inside it is phosphorescent—like carrion or something. Or it glows so frightfully that you feel it will have to burst. It’s like a dangerous game, that regular form, and that hell inside. In fact, there’s a conflict there, a terrible inner tension, or how shall I describe it—can you follow ? That phantasy would like to escape, but instead it’s pressed into something so regular and enclosed. That’s why it escaped those oxen, because at first sight it’s such classical verse; but if they’d noticed how under that inner pressure caesuras are shifted—” Suddenly he was no longer so self-assured, he perspired with effort and looked at me with dog’s eyes. “I wonder if I’ve expressed myself clearly, sir,” he stammered, and blushed; but I blushed still more, I was immensely ashamed, and I blinked at him, I think, somewhat upset.

  “But after all,” I chattered on in confusion, “those verses were bad … that’s why I gave it up, and altogether—”

  He shook his head. “It’s not like that,” he said, and all the time he fixed his eyes on me so. “You … you were BOUND to give it up. If… you had gone on creating, you’d have had to break the form, to smash it—I feel it so strongly,” he sighed with relief, for it’s always easier for young people to talk about themselves. “It was a terrific experience for me, those eight poems. Then I told my girl… after all that’s a minor point,” he mumbled in confusion, and ran both his hands through his hair. “I’m not a poet, but… I can imagine what it’s like. Only a young man can write poems like that… and only once in his life. If he wrote more that conflict would be setded in some way. In fact, that’s the most amazing fate of a poet: to express himself once so terribly strongly, out of such an exuberance, and then finis. In fact, I imagined you to be quite different,” he blurted out unexpectedly.

  I was immensely anxious to hear something more about those poems: if only that blockhead had quoted one! But I was ashamed to ask him, and from sheer embarrassment I began stupidly and conventionally to inquire from where the stripling came, and things like that. He sat as if he had been boiled, evidently realized that I was talking to him as if to a schoolboy. Well, well, you can frown; I certainly won’t ask you what was in those poems, and this and that. As if you couldn’t start on it yourself; don’t I leave enough long and awkward pauses in the conversation ?

  At last he got up with relief, again so unnecessarily tall. “Well, I must fly,” he gasped, and looked for his hat. Well, fly; I know youth can’t just come or go. Outside a girl was waiting for him, they took each other by the arm, and dashed off to the town. Why is it that the young are always in a hurry ? I couldn’t even tell him to call again sometime: so impetuous, I don’t even know who he is—

  That was all.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THAT was all, and now you can shake your head off if you like. Well, look here, poet; who would have thought that? For a stripling to say it, that doesn’t mean anything, may the deuce take him; youth exaggerates, and must exaggerate as soon as it opens its mouth. You ought to go to the university library and look it up for yourself; but the doctor said rest, rest; well, then, stay at home and shake your head. Vainglory, you can’t remember a single verse, what’s past is gone; how could it vanish so completely? “Come to the cocos palms when the drums are rolling—” You can’t get much out of that; but to shake one’s head—God Almighty, man, where did you get the palms from, and what business had you with the cocos palms ? Who knows, perhaps in that, just in that, lies poetry, that all of a sudden the cocos palms, or let’s say Queen Mab, is somebody’s business. Perhaps they are bad verses and the stripling is an ass, but the fact is that there were cocos palms and God knows what else. “A terrible phantasy,” said the youth; so there must have been heaps of things, and what strange ones, phosphorescent and glowing. It doesn’t matter whether those verses were good or bad, but to know what was in them, because those things were myself. At one time there was a life in which there were cocos palms and strange things, phosphorescent and glowing. Here you have it, man, and now see what you can do with it; you wanted to put your life straight; well, then, tucked away somewhere there are those cocos palms, somewhere at the bottom of the drawer where they wouldn’t be in the way, and where you wouldn’t see them; isn’t that it ?

  So you see, so you see; now it won’t do any longer. You can’t just wave them away with your hand. Rubbish! They were bad verses, and I’m glad I don’t remember anything more about them. It’s no use, there were cocos palms and drums rolling, and God knows what besides. And even if you waved both your hands and shouted that those verses were no good, you wouldn’t get rid of those palms and you wouldn’t take away from your life things that were phosphorescent and glowing. You know that they were, and the stripling didn’t he; the stripling isn’t an ass, even if he knows darned little about poetry. I knew, then I knew extremely well what it is. The fat poet knew, too, although he couldn’t write it; that’s why he jeered so desperately. But I knew; and now, man, shake your head off, where did you find it in you ? Nobody understood it, not even the fat poet; he read my poems with pig’s eyes and shouted: You damned swine, where did you get this from ? And then he went and got drunk for the glory of poetry, and cried: Look at that idiot, and he’s a poet! Such a muff and what things he can write! Once he went raving mad and went for me with a kitchen knife: Now tell me how it’s done! How would it be done! Poetry isn’t done, poetry simply is; it’s so simple and self-evident, like night or day. It’s not inspiration, it’s only such a widespread reality. Things just are. It’s whatever you’re thinking about; perhaps cocos palms, or an angel fluttering its wings; and you, you only give names to things like Adam in the Garden of Eden. It’s terribly simple, except that there’s too much of it. There are innumerable things, they have their front and back, there’s a myriad of lives; in that there’s the whole of poetry, that’s all it is, and who knows that is a poet. Look at him, as if he were making magic, the rascal: he happens to think of cocos palms, and here they are, they sway in the wind and shake with brown nuts; but it is equally self-evident, like looking at a burning lamp. What magic: he takes what’s there and he toys with phosphorescent and glowing things for the divinely simple reason that they’re here; they’re in him, or somewhere outside, it’s just the same. This, then, is absolutely simple and self-evident, but only on one condition: that you’re in that peculiar world that is called poetry. As soon as you’re out of it, it all disappears in a moment;
the devil took it; there are no cocos palms, no things that glow and are phosphorescent. “Come to the cocos palms when the drums are rolling—” God, what about it ? such nonsense! There never were any palms, or drums, and nothing glowing. And wave them away with your hand—Jesus Christ, what rubbish!

  You see, that’s it: now you’re sorry that the devil took it. You can’t even remember any longer what there was besides those cocos palms; and you never will think out what else there MIGHT have been there and what other things you might have seen in you but which you will never see now. You saw them then because you were a poet, and you saw strange and dreadful things: carrion in decomposition, a seething furnace, and God knows what else; you might yet have seen perhaps a believing angel or a burning bush out of which a voice spoke. It was possible then because you were a poet, and you saw what was in you, and you could give it names. Then you saw things which were; now there’s an end to it, there are no palms any longer and you can’t hear the coconuts tapping. Who knows, man, who knows what might be found in you even TO-DAY if still for a while you were a poet. Dreadful things, or angelic ones, man, things from the Lord, innumerable and inexpressible things, of which you have no inkling; how many things, how many hves and relations would emerge if upon you once more descended the terrible blessing of poetry! It’s no good, you’ll know nothing more of it; it sank down in you, it’s all over. Only to know why, to know why at that time somehow you rushed precipitately away from all that was in you; what terrified you so much? Perhaps there was too much of it, or it was too glowing and it began to burn your fingers; it phosphoresced too suspiciously, or—who knows ?—perhaps the burning bush began to catch fire and you were afraid of the voice that might speak. It was something in you which you became frightened of; and you showed it a clean pair of heels, and didn’t stop till—well, where in fact ? At the last station in the world ? No, it still phosphoresced a bit there. Not till at your station where you struck the right order of things. It wasn’t there any longer, thank God, there you had peace. You were afraid of it as if of… say, death; and who knows, perhaps it was death, perhaps you felt. Look out, a few more steps farther along this road and I should go mad, I should destroy myself, I should die. Fly, man, from the fire that consumes you. High time; in a few months the red thing spurted out of you, and you had your work cut out to make that half-broken thing whole. And then hold fast to that good, solid, regular life which does not consume one away. Already to choose only that which is needful for life, and not see all that is, for in that is death, too; it was in you along with those terrible and dangerous things to which you gave names. Well, now it’s covered with a lid, and it can’t get out any more, whether it be called life or death. It’s covered, it’s gone, and it’s no more; quite candidly you did get rid of it thoroughly, and you were right to shrug your shoulders over it: rubbish, what palms; it’s not even proper for an adult, active man.