Cosmos

by Witold Gombrowicz

  But then the flashlight began to move briskly and after a moment found something—namely a nail file on top of the chest of drawers. The nail file was driven into a little cardboard box. I had not noticed the nail file before, the flashlight showed it to me as if asking, “what do you think?”

  The nail file—the nib—the needle . . . the flashlight was now like a dog that had caught a scent, it jumped from object to object, and we discovered two more “driven-ins”: two safety pins driven into a cardboard. Not much. Not much, and yet, wretched as we were, this gave new direction to our action, the flashlight worked jumping, examining . . . and here was something else . . . a nail driven into the wall, strange in its location, about an inch above the floor. Yet the strangeness of the nail wasn’t enough in itself, it was our illuminating the nail that was, to some extent, an abuse on our part . . . There was nothing else . . . nothing . . . we still searched, but our search was coming to an end, in the sultry cavern of the room decay was setting in . . . finally the flashlight stopped . . . what next?

  He opened the door, we began to retreat. Before the actual departure he briefly shone the light straight into Katasia’s mouth. Leaning against the recess of the window I felt a hammer under my hand and I whispered “a hammer,” perhaps because the hammer was connected to the nail driven into the wall. No matter. Let’s go. We closed the door, returned the key to its place, “the wind is really blowing way up there”—he whispered beneath the dome of speeding clouds, he, the ne’er-do-well, the rebuffed one, the irritating one, what’s he to me, it’s my own fault, never mind, the house stood immobile before us, beyond the road tall spruces stood like posts, small trees stood in the little garden, it reminded me of a dance when the music suddenly stops and all the couples stand dumbstruck, it was all so stupid.

  Now what? Go back and go to sleep? Some kind of depletion was encircling me, a weakening of everything. I didn’t feel a thing.

  He turned to me to say something, when suddenly a pounding—forceful and resonant, shattered the calm!

  I went numb—it came from behind the house, from the direction of the road, the furious blows came from there, someone was pounding! Like with a hammer! Furious blows with a hammer, heavy, iron blows, pounding blow after blow, bang, bang, fiercely, someone pounding with all their might! The din of iron in the noiseless night was astounding, almost out of this world . . .Was it against us? We took cover by the wall as if those blows, incompatible with everything that surrounded us, must have been aimed at us.

  The pounding did not cease. I looked around the corner and caught Fuks by the sleeve. There was Mrs. Roly-Poly.

  Mrs. Roly-Poly! In a robe with wide sleeves, and within those wide-swept sleeves, she was panting and pounding, lifting a hammer, or an axe, pounding into the trunk of a tree, stark raving mad. Driving in? What was she driving in? Why this driving-in, desperate and furious . . . that . . . that we had left in Katasia’s little room . . . and now it was mightily raging here, and the roar of iron reigned!

  The small hammer that I touched with my elbow as we were leaving the little room transformed itself into this hammer, into the pins, the needles, the pen nibs, and into the driven-in nails, reaching their utmost in this sudden unleashing. As soon as I thought of the connection, I pushed away the absurd thought, off with it, but at the same moment another driving-in, something like a crash . . . resounded from inside the house . . . From somewhere above, from the second floor, but faster and more frequent, accompanying the other blows, corroborating the driving-in and bursting my brain, panic writhed in the night, a frenzy, it was like an earthquake! Was it coming from Lena’s room? I broke away from Fuks and rushed into the house, I hurried upstairs . . . was it Lena?

  But, as I ran up the stairs, suddenly everything became dumbstruck—and I, already on the second floor, stood still, panting, because the din that drove me on had ceased. Silence. I even had a totally calm thought, why not calm down and simply go back to our room. But Lena’s door, the third one in the hallway, was in front of me, while within me the banging, the driving-in were still happening, the din, the hammer, the small hammer, the needles, nails, the driving-in, the driving-in, oh, to bang through to Lena, to keep banging through to her . . . therefore, throwing myself at her door I began to strike it, to pound it with my fists! With all my might!

  Silence.

  It flashed through my head that if they open the door, I’ll exclaim “thieves!” to somehow justify myself. Yet nothing—everything had become quiet, I could hear nothing, nothing, nothing, I retreated silently and quickly, I went downstairs. But downstairs all was quiet too. Emptiness. Not a living soul. No Fuks, no Roly-Poly. The lack of response from Lena’s room was easily explained, they weren’t there, they hadn’t yet returned from their visit, the ruckus hadn’t come from there—but where has Fuks gone? Where was Roly-Poly? I went round the house, close to the wall so that no one could see me from the windows—the frenzy had dissipated without a trace, only the trees remained, only the paths, the gravel beneath the racing moon, nothing more. Where was Fuks? I felt like crying, I was close to sitting down and crying.

  Suddenly I see, on the second floor, light shining from a window—in Lena and Ludwik’s room.

  I see, so they are there, they heard my banging! Why didn’t they open the door? What am I to do? Again I had nothing to do, nothing, I was unemployed. What then? What? Go to our room, undress, go to sleep? Or lie in ambush somewhere? What? What? Cry? Their window on the second floor was not shaded, light shone from it . . . and . . . and . . . just across from it, behind the fence, stood a dense, wide-spreading spruce, if I climbed it, I could look in . . . A wild idea, but its wildness was in keeping with the wildness that had just come to an end . . . what else was there for me to do?

  The uproar, the confusion that had just taken place made such an idea possible, it was facing me, just like this tree, nothing else was facing me. I went onto the road, forced my way to the trunk of the spruce and began laboriously climbing that coarse and prickly monster. Oh, to bang my way through to Lena! To reach Lena . . . the residue of that other banging rattled within me, and again I strove toward it . . . all the rest, Katasia’s room, her photo, the pins, Roly-Poly’s banging, everything receded before my main and only purpose of banging through to Lena. I climbed carefully, from branch to branch, higher and higher.

  It was not easy, it took a long time, my curiosity was becoming feverish: to see her, to see her—to see her with him—what will I see?. . . After that thumping, pounding—what will I see? My recent trembling in front of her door trembled on within me, furiously. What will I see? I had already swept my eyes over the ceiling, the upper part of the wall, and the lamp.

  Finally I saw.

  I was dumbstruck.

  He was showing her a kettle.

  A kettle.

  She sat on a small chair, by the table, with a bath towel thrown over her back like a shawl. He stood in his vest, held the kettle in his hand and was showing it to her. She was looking at the kettle. Saying something. He was talking.

  The kettle.

  I had been ready for anything. But not for the kettle. One must understand what is the drop that makes the cup overflow. What is it that’s “too much.” There is something like an excess of reality, its swelling beyond endurance. After so many objects that I couldn’t even enumerate, after the needles, frogs, sparrow, stick, whiffletree, pen nib, leather, cardboard, et cetera, chimney, cork, scratch, drainpipe, hand, pellets, etc. etc., clods of dirt, wire mesh, wire, bed, pebbles, toothpick, chicken, warts, bays, islands, needle, and so on and so on and on, to the point of tedium, to excess, and now this kettle popping up like a Jack-in-the-box, without rhyme or reason, on its own, gratis, a luxury of disorder, a splendor of chaos. Enough is enough. My throat tightened. I won’t be able to swallow all this. I won’t be able to handle it. Enough. Turn back. Go home.

  She took off the towel. She had no blouse. Nakedness assailed me from her breasts, her shoulders. Bending her
nudity she began to pull down her stockings, the husband spoke again, she answered, she took off a stocking, he placed his foot on a chair and was unlacing his shoe. I delayed my retreat, I thought that now I would find out what she’s like, what she’s like with him when naked, is she vile, mean, dirty, slippery, sensual, sacred, tender, pure, faithful, fresh, attractive, perhaps a coquette? Perhaps just easy? Or profound? Perhaps just obstinate, or disillusioned, bored, indifferent, passionate, cunning, evil, angelic, timid, impudent, I’ll finally see! Then her thighs showed, once, twice, I’ll soon know, I’ll finally find out, finally something will reveal itself to me . . .

  The kettle.

  He picked it up, moved it from the table to the floor and went to the door.

  The light went out.

  I looked closely but saw nothing, with my unseeing gaze piercing the darkness of the cavern I kept looking, what could they be doing? What were they doing? And how were they doing it? At this moment anything could be happening there. There was no gesture, no touch, that would not be possible, the darkness was truly inscrutable, she writhed or she didn’t writhe, or she was embarrassed, or she loved, or else there was nothing, or something entirely different, or it was baseness, or horror, I’ll never find out anything. I began to climb down and, letting myself down slowly, I thought that even if she were a child with very blue eyes she could be a monster as well—blue-eyed and childish. So what does one know?

  I will never know anything about her.

  I jumped to the ground, brushed myself off, slowly walked toward the house, in the sky all was rush and speed, entire herds sped on, disheveled, the whiteness of their luminous edges, the blackness of their nuclei, everything sped on below the moon that also raced, swam out, glided, dimmed, then emerged immaculate, the heavens were embraced by two contradictory motions, speeding and calm—and I, walking on, wondered whether to throw everything out the window, whether to get rid of the entire ballast and say “I pass,” because, finally, Katasia’s lip, as was evident from the photograph, was a purely mechanical blemish. So why did I need this?

  And on top of it all, the kettle . . .

  Why did I need the association of the mouths—her mouth with Katasia’s? I won’t do it anymore. I’ll leave it alone.

  I was reaching the porch. Lena’s cat, Davie, sat on the banister and, on seeing me, it stood up and stretched itself so that I would tickle it. I caught the cat tightly by the throat, I began to strangle it—what am I doing—flashed through me like lightning, but then I thought: too bad, it’s too late, I tightened my fingers with all my might. I strangled it. It hung limp.

  What now, what next, I was on the porch with a strangled cat in my hands, something had to be done with the cat, lay it down somewhere, hide it? However, I had no idea where. Perhaps bury it? Yet who’d be burying anything at night!? Throw it out on the road, as if a car had run over it—or perhaps into the bushes, toward the sparrow? I deliberated, the cat weighed heavily on me, I couldn’t make up my mind, all was quiet, but suddenly my eye fastened on a tough string that tied a small tree to its pole, one of those trees white with lime, I untied the string, made a loop, I looked around wondering if anyone could see me (the house was asleep, no one would have believed that not so long ago a din had swept through here), I remembered there was a hook in the wall, I don’t know what for, perhaps for hanging laundry, I carried the cat there, it wasn’t far, about twenty paces from the porch, I hung it on the hook. It hung like the sparrow, like the stick, completing the picture. What next? I was so tired that I was barely alive, I was a bit fearful of returning to the room, what if Fuks is there, not asleep, he’ll be asking questions . . . But as soon as I quietly opened the door, it turned out he was fast asleep. I too fell asleep.

  chapter 5

  Katasia stands over me, going on at length, such villainy, someone hanged Davie, Davie is hanging on a hook in the garden, who hanged him, God have mercy on us, what a disgraceful thing to hang Lena’s cat! This woke me brutally. The cat had been hanged. I hanged the cat. I cast an uneasy eye toward Fuks’s bed, it was vacant, apparently he was already by the cat, and this gave me a moment of solitude to come to grips with . . .

  The news surprised me, as if I were not the strangler. To find myself, with a single leap out of sleep, in something so unbelievable, for God’s sake why did I strangle the cat? Now I remembered that, while I was strangling the cat, I felt the same banging through to Lena that I had felt when I was storming at her door—yes, I was getting at her by strangling her beloved cat—I could only have done it in a fit of madness! But why did I hang it on the hook, what recklessness, what stupor! And, what’s more, contemplating this stupor, half-dressed, with a dubious smile on my shriveled face that I saw in the mirror, I experienced as much satisfaction as I did confusion—as if I had played a prank. I even whispered, “It’s hanging,” with joy, with delight. What am I to do? How am I to extricate myself from this? The people downstairs must be going on about it—had anyone seen me?

  I strangled the cat.

  This fact threw me. The cat had been strangled and was hanging on a hook, and there was nothing I could do but go down and pretend I knew nothing. But still, why did I hang it? So many issues piling up, so many threads interweaving, Lena, Katasia, signs, pounding, et cetera, take even the frog, or the ashtray, et cetera. I was lost in the tumult, it even occurred to me that perhaps I had killed it because of the kettle, because of the excess, to top it all off, an extra horse to the cart, in other words the strangling, like the kettle, was supernumerary. No, that wasn’t true! I had not strangled the cat because of the kettle. What was the link then, what did the cat even have to do with it? I had no time to think, I had to go down and confront a situation that was, even without the cat, uncanny and filled with the night’s quaint oddities . . .

  I went downstairs. The house was empty, I surmised that everyone was in the little garden. But before appearing at the door of the porch, I looked out the window from behind the curtain. The wall. On the wall the cat’s body. Hanging on a hook. In front of the wall people standing, among them Lena—she’s farther off, reduced in size, it all looked like a symbol. To make my appearance on the porch was not easy, it was like a jump into the unknown . . . and what if someone had seen me, what if in the next moment I’ll have to mumble something, beside myself with shame? I walked slowly along the gravel path, the sky like sauce, the sun dissolved in a whitish expanse, again the foreboding heat, what a summer! As I was getting closer the cat became more distinct, its tongue protruding from the side of its jaws, its peepers thrust out of their orbits . . . it hung. It would have been better, I thought, if this were not a cat, a cat by its very nature is already awful, the cat’s softness, furriness, are as if grounded in a mad screeching and scratching, a horrifying hissing, yes, hissing, a cat is made for stroking, but also for torturing, although it’s a kitten, it is also a tomcat . . . I walked slowly to gain time, because its sight astonished me in the daytime that followed my nighttime act, when it had been less visible and intertwined with that night’s wonders. It seemed that sluggishness affected everyone, they too barely moved, while Fuks, much to my amusement, hunched over, studied the wall and the ground below it. Yet Lena’s beauty puzzled me, it was so sudden and amazing, and I thought in terror: oh, how much more beautiful she has become since yesterday!

  Leon asked me, hands in his pockets: “What do you make of this?” A tuft of pomaded hair stuck out above his baldness, like a ship’s lookout.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. They didn’t know I had done it. No one had seen me.

  I turned to Lena: “How sad for you!”

  I looked at her, she wore a soft, coffee-colored blouse, a navy skirt, she was nestling into herself, her mouth soft, her arms against her body like the arms of a recruit . . . and the palms of her hands, her feet, her little nose, her little ears were too small, too petite. At first this annoyed me. I had killed her cat, I did it to her brutally, solidly, and now these little feet, they were so lit
tle!

  But my fury rolled into bliss. Because, please do understand me, she was also too slight in relation to the cat, and that’s why she was ashamed, I was sure of it, she was ashamed of the cat! Oh! She was too slight in regard to everything, a tiny bit smaller than she should be, she was only fit for love, nothing else, and that’s why she was ashamed of the cat . . . she knew that whatever pertained to her must have the meaning of love . . . and even though she hadn’t guessed who did it, yet she was shamed by the cat, because the cat was her cat, and it had to do with her . . .

  Yet her cat was my cat, strangled by me. It was our cat.

  Delightful? Nauseating?

  Leon asked me:

  “Don’t you know anything? Who, how? Haven’t you noticed anything?”

  No, I haven’t, late last night I took a walk, I returned well after midnight and came in through the porch, I don’t have any idea whether the cat was already hanging—my delight at misleading them grew in step with this deceitful deposition, I was no longer with them but against them, on the other side. As if the cat had transferred me from one side of the medal to the other, into another sphere where mysteries happened, into the sphere of the hieroglyph. No, I was no longer with them. Laughter tickled me as I watched Fuks laboriously looking for signs by the wall and attentively listening to my lies.

  I knew the mystery of the cat. I was the perpetrator.

  “Hanging the cat! Imagine someone hanging the cat!” Roly-Poly exclaimed with fury and then stopped, as if something had come over her.

  Katasia emerged from the kitchen and walked toward us through the flowerbeds. Her “affected” little mouth drew closer to the cat’s jaws—I sensed that she, while walking, feels that she is carrying something akin to those jaws, and this provided me with instant gratification, as if my cat were settling itself more solidly on the opposite side. The lip was drawing nearer to the cat and all my doubts, which had been raised by her oh so innocent photograph, evaporated, the lip with its slippery slipaway, was drawing closer, dislocated and despicable, a strange swinish similarity was taking place—and a kind of dark, nocturnal shudder ran through my loins. At the same time I didn’t take my eyes off Lena—and imagine my astonishment, my emotion, my secret tremor, ecstatic perhaps, I don’t know, when I sensed that Lena’s shame intensified at the same time that the depravity of Katasia’s mouth rose above the cat. Shame has a strange, contrary nature, even while defending against something it pulls that something into the most deeply personal and intimate domain—and so Lena, shamed by the cat and by the lip with the cat, drew it all into the mysteriousness of her private secrets. And thanks to her shame the cat became united with the lip, like one gear engaging another! But my soundless cry of triumph became united with a groan, how the devil could this fresh, naïve beauty drink in this foulness . . . and by her shame confirm my fantasies! Katasia had a box in her hand—our box with the frog—ah, Fuks had obviously forgotten to take it as we were leaving!