The Collected Prose

by Zbigniew Herbert

  In fact, all that could be observed—and that nothing could explain—was a metamorphosis of light. Nothing dangerous on the surface, as long as the sun’s chariot rolled along its ordinary path. But now the inhabitants of the island were sensitive to every change, and they fearfully noticed every occurrence that seemed to go beyond the sphere of admissible normality.

  Here in the middle of a moonless night, small lights started to emerge from under the earth, and crept low to the ground, blinking on and off. Almost each day brought new signs. Everyone commented on a certain sunset stripped of any transparent burning red, a sunset completely yellow like saffron—then a pale dusk lasting too long, a silent, tall, hard twilight suddenly giving way to basalt darkness as if cut off by an ax. Even at noon, when the sharp light rang down from above, scaring away all half-shades and spectres of colors, one could see the flight of hardly noticeable clouds dragging behind them on the earth hues of lead, hues of heavy crimson, of ash.

  All this was associated with the sudden departure of Cleomedes and portended, unavoidably, approaching catastrophe. Thus at night processions went by the light of torches along the flat shores of Astipalea, carrying prayers to the immortal gods: that plagues be diverted, and that he who had disappeared so absurdly should return to his homeland, for his sins had been forgiven.

  Because these and other rituals had no effect, it was decided to send a few frightened citizens to the oracle at Delphi. Heliodorus described the navigation at great length, multiplying the dangers and adventures beyond any need. For this, let him be forgiven. He succumbed to form, and form often devours content.

  It is universally known that the oracle expressed itself in an intricate, opaque manner. This not only failed to diminish its authority, on the contrary it raised it. After all, the language of the eternal ones must differ from the language of mortals. This can be explained also in a down-to-earth manner: man cannot endure a naked, self-contained, silent mystery. If it is accompanied by words, especially those that are dark and extremely disheveled, it becomes easier to bear.

  This time the voice of the oracle was clear, unambiguous, and emphatically articulated. Heliodorus made a solemn pause, then pronounced this divine couplet, recorded by Pausanias.

  Cleomedes of Astipalea—last of the line of heroes—

  Is immortal—therefore pay him due honor.

  Thus the story. It ends with the most elevated chord that can be imagined, namely an Assumption.

  Heliodorus didn’t neglect to boast he saw with his own eyes the monument raised to the glory of Cleomedes by the inhabitants of Astipalea. The statue was huge, somewhat bulky, and represented a young man with his hands stretched lengthwise along the body, his fists clenched, and with a mysterious smile, the left leg set slightly forward. Every year on the day of his miraculous disappearance, sacrifices of young sheep were placed at the base of the monument.

  Heliodorus fell silent. He was waiting. Like all authors, he was waiting for praise. The man for whom the tale was destined lay motionless on his back, and did not reveal the least emotion.

  The wandering poet bent over him. He saw a face in which it was impossible to perceive the majesty of death, or any majesty at all, rather a helpless, blunt, frozen astonishment.

  Heliodorus covered the head with a coat and went to the nearby fires of neighbors, for he knew that poor people crave comfort.

  NARCISSUS

  CONTRARY TO THE legend that attributes great beauty to Narcissus, he was a commonplace boy with vulgar features, a spotty complexion, broad shoulders and lanky limbs. He was the very image of those saps with electric guitars or film stars who search in vain for the meaning of life in the pits of their empty souls, who end up badly after idiotic peregrinations, while a sober spectator remembers from their orgy of drinking, brawling, and bed-hopping only the make of the car that obligingly carried them into a ravine.

  It was Caravaggio who passed on the most credible portrait of Narcissus. The painting hangs in the Villa Borghese1 and represents a street urchin, one of those boys2 who kill their benefactors with a fence board. The urchin leans over a pond. Caravaggio knew all about it. We can trust him.

  For sheer lack of other interests, Narcissus dedicated his life to breaking hearts. Brutal and cynical—humanity inflected in argot—he was beloved of naïve girls and even mature women with a taste for his type, expecting God knows what, perhaps his ultimate domestication. He could therefore count on a lengthy artistic career. However, brutality and stupidity require a binding agent, a third element to create a durable molecule of character. Most often that element is sentimentality. So he, too, fell in love.

  His chosen one was named Echo. Her eyes, not large, were of a color hard to determine, her mouth and ears were small. She was a cripple to boot.

  It is difficult to define her body’s extraordinary skin tone, and in any case the word skin is out of place here, as we associate it with flesh. Echo was pale, on the verge of ghostliness, a mute, watery, fish-like paleness. One had the impression that if anyone gave her a sharp look-over—which no one did, out of pity—he would easily discover under the thin ganze of her skin her delicate bone structure and little fluttering heart.

  From the time of the Trojan expedition to the beginning of the Third World War—a fair amount of time—no one, but no one, ever threw back her head like she did. The shattering splendor of that sight could obviate any hermit’s years of asceticism. It was done without the aid of her hands, starting from a turning motion of her slender neck, so fast that it eluded one’s notice, then a short tense pause, she bent her whole body, and the bright hair broke like a wave on her shoulders, waiting only for an appropriate moment to return to its place and once again screen the forehead and eyes, lending her face a mysterious, animal and yet innocent sacrificial aspect, which Greuze and other Rococo lechers reproduced with lewd enthusiasm.

  The irresistable charm of Echo’s looks was best expressed in the casual, oft-repeated remarks people made at the very sight of her: “She truly couldn’t manage to take ten steps on her own strength” or “She won’t last the winter if she isn’t supported by some powerful arm.”

  How to describe Echo’s handicap? Some said she was mute, but that term is not accurate. For Echo literally and clearly repeated the last two words that ended any sentence directed toward her. However, she never spoke on her own initiative. It accorded entirely with her nature—indolent, phlegmatic, passive.

  Narcissus’ love for Echo began to wither from the moment the boy realized he was becoming increasingly dependent on his chosen one—losing his freedom. The charm of guardianship faded. Narcissus got it into his head that Echo was ruining his spiritual life, as if you could ruin something that doesn’t exist. Nothing extraordinary about that—many wonderfully promising young people abandon their studies, claiming all professors are idiots, which may have a grain of truth in it, but one shouldn’t make such crass generalizations, or they leave the Church to join some obscure sect, proclaiming to the world that the traditional God the Father has shamefully betrayed the hope invested in him.

  There was a break-up. Narcissus did not return to his former activities. He began to ruminate.

  Echo, on the other hand, entered the convent of nature. There were no other convents at that time. When groups of eccentrics, loaded down with cold chicken, sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs visit the canyons, ravines, backwoods and fields, the invisible Echo accompanies the explorers, repeating the last two words of their resounding hoots. You could say that despair drove her to become a stewardess of the natural world.

  And Narcissus, as said before, mused.

  ENDYMION1

  THE STORY IS simple and as old as the world. A Great Lady falls in love with a young boy from a lower social class. All the variants of the delicate situation have been sufficiently described by world literature. In this case there is an additional complication: the Lady is the goddess of the moon, and the object of her affection, a hunter. This stunning disproportion i
n their status augurs nothing good.

  Sudden Ionian dusk falls. Tired from a full day of hunting, Endymion lies on the slope of Mount Latmos. Tightly wrapped in the scent of thyme and lavender, he falls into a deep sleep. At the same time Selene makes her routine inspection of the night firmament and notices the small figure, his face trustingly turned to the sky, the mouth open, arms widely spread. Truly he looks like a child fallen from a cradle, and so—overcome by a sudden wave of tenderness—Selene leaves her chariot, approaches the boy, and spends a few unforgettable moments with him.

  What a pity it did not end there. It would be a graceful subject for a small bas-relief. Best of all would be a gemma, yes, a concave gemma cut in onyx which opalizes with pale light, concealing under its smooth, milky surface not a mystery but just a night secret.

  The morning after the episode, which insisted on being something more than an episode, Selene appeared before Zeus. After a night excursion of doubtful nature he returned to Olympus, and in a very bad mood was about to settle outstanding business. Paler than usual, Selene could barely control herself.

  —I am in love, she confessed.

  —That’s fine. Quite fine, Zeus said thoughtlessly.

  His answer did not measure up to the situation. Zeus knew quite well that Selene—cool, mirrorlike, and distinguished—was the only puritanical goddess. When such people have a love affair they completely lose their heads, and are capable of anything. The matter was serious. It required careful investigation.

  —When did it happen? he asked. That is, since when?

  —That’s unimportant. I know I have always loved him.

  —Could I at least know the lucky man’s name?

  —Endymion.

  —Endymion? Never heard of him.

  —Endymion, a hunter, Selene explained with pride in her voice that was difficult to understand.

  Yes, thought Zeus, it has happened. Once you fall, then you really fall far.

  —Endymion, you say. Is he at least well-built?

  —He is beautiful, very tender, and certainly wise, although I haven’t had a chance yet to find out. We were together only for a moment.

  —And this is how it ought to end.

  —I don’t understand.

  —This is how it ought to end. This shepherd of yours…

  —Hunter. Selene, close to tears, corrected Zeus.

  —It’s all the same. Remember, and I say this from experience, only fleeting moments have any value. Leave him in peace, if you want to have happy memories.

  —I don’t want memories, Zeus, I want Endymion.

  —Soon you’ll find out that Endymion—what a ridiculous name!—speaks nonsense, wheezes like a bull, and is unfaithful to you with some stable girl. An ordinary worm. Grayness wrapped in the nauseating odor of decomposition.

  —Can you understand, Zeus, it was exactly his smell that seduced me?

  —Smell?

  The father of the gods, who was sensitive only to sensations of touch, showed interest.

  —Yes, said Selene. I love his smell. Humans call it sweat.

  This was a perversion Zeus could not understand. Yet Selene spoke with exaltation.

  —You must understand. Endymion carries on his skin the smell of beech leaves, of pine needles, water, heat, sticky buds, ancient moss, the sweet fragrance of raspberries, pungent juniper, the undefinable smell of wing sheathes, bracing acids of ant hills, the odors of animals he kills, the smell of their pelts, blood, fear. And many, many others I can’t name. You will say, Zeus, this is nothing special for someone so completely blended with nature by his profession. I agree. But what I am speaking about is merely the surface, the outside of a shell. Inside is the smell of Endymion himself, different from all other smells and impossible to describe. In medicine it is called a characteristic odor.

  Zeus listened intently. Here was a back alley of reality bypassed by the gods: aromas and odors. The times had long since passed when the inhabitants of the heavens obediently followed nomads and held on to them tightly, inhaling with flared nostrils the sacrificial odors of burnt meat and tallow. At that time smoke was the only proof they existed, proof of a fleeting affirmation they were necessary until theology and poetry erected more permanent, subtle and irrefutable monuments for them. Now the fragrances on Olympus were indistinct, marblelike, elevated and abstract rather than concrete. To speak plainly they were insipid, without character. Zeus thought: we abandoned the sensations of smell too thoughtlessly. Maybe they have the ability to increase other sensations, so it might be worthwhile to introduce smells that are sharp, exciting, even blasphemous into the palace of the immortals. I must think about it.

  Still, there wasn’t the slightest doubt that Selene was now beside herself. Zeus dryly said he emphatically forbade any further relations with the young butcher of forest animals. If she wanted to continue her studies of life in lower social spheres, why not widen her investigations and include hat-makers, donkey herdsmen and sailors? They too had a smell. He demanded that a report be made the following morning, at the latest, to definitely close the matter.

  Selene left, completely crushed.

  Next morning when she reappeared, she was transformed. Bold and clear madness shone in her eyes. Without warning, she declared she could not live without Endymion.

  —Think of that, said the father of the gods. She “can’t live” without him! But we are Pure Form, Being without alternative, the essence of duration. I can comfort you, however, that what you are experiencing now will be repeated many times in the future.

  —That is what is terrible. I yearn for what is unrepeatable and unique, mortal, splendidly finite, earthly and final, whispered Selene.

  Zeus was overcome by a powerful, purple wave of royal fury. Before each explosion he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of delivering a small sermon.

  —Remember who you are, Selene. Lady of melancholy, of phases and crescents, Lady of long litanies of mists, Lady of waters. This is how people pray to you—a generous dispenser who bestows the cheap jewelry of the sky on everyone. So many matters have been entrusted to your care. You lead lunatic pilgrims on a narrow foot-bridge between exaltation and the abyss, you move the huge gills of the oceans, you draw the dragnets of the tides. You teach kings the softening of contrasts, that each work of art has to have its own light and be steep like a mirror. How many times have you saved lost wanderers and led the longing arms of lovers toward each other?

  At this point Zeus got stuck. He had made a blunder. This was definitely the wrong note to strike; the entire homily was wasted. His words rolled with the force of inertia, beads of images whirled in a circle, and no moral came from it. He was the victim of a disastrously chosen tone. All those silly affettuoso2 con tenerezza3 completed the devastation. Finally, to get out of the rhetorical tangle, he roared:

  —Selene, Selene! Leave the crooked path and return to the way of virtue. After all, you belong to the triumphant church of astronomy. Do you, or don’t you?

  There was a long silence. Selene said:

  —I understand your anxiety. There is only one way out. You must transform Endymion into an immortal.

  At this, a dry clap of the thunder rolled over the world.

  Selene, who until now had so scrupulously fulfilled her cosmic duties, would not obey. If she disappeared from the scene it would not be too bad. It could be explained as a momentary indisposition, a sudden change of program. A general repair. But who could have suspected the goddess of having resources of black humor, or a sophisticated ability to gradually increase gothic horror? For now a huge shield appeared on the horizon and remained there the whole night, bloody, motionless, lying in wait. Then again the moon glided in a drunken zigzag, frightening hordes of clouds—or it climbed to the peak of the sky and, after a fearful wait, tumbled down like a rock. No voice—and that was the most frightening—accompanied this insane pathology. A leaden silence hung on the heights while dogs howled below, the sea stepped out of its shores, and
the stock exchange, that infallible barometer of social moods, sank in delirium.

  In some societies the defects now revealed in the sky’s mechanics were greeted with enthusiasm, and appropriate conclusions were drawn. A certain wavering of spirit, characteristic of democracies, was transformed into laborious anarchy; and the old nihilism of those who despair was replaced by a new and energetic, vital version that gathered momentum. After a period of joyful destruction and total negation came a period of New Synthesis, which triumphantly proclaimed that truth and falsehood are not contradictory, while crime and virtue, barbarity and civilization, can and should coexist peacefully. Only a few perceived it was nothingness that noiselessly detonated—silent explosions of nonsense shaking the oases of freedom.

  In totalitarian regimes vigilance was increased. This meant a shift from painful repression to coldly calculated mass terror. The rulers proclaimed that the blow dealt to a brother by a brother’s hand can always be rationalized, and is therefore less painful than the blind, irrational violence of nature. The people were thus steeled for the onset of the unknown. One must bow one’s head at the animal patience of subjects. In their collective ecstasies of submission, they reached incredible heights or, if one prefers, the very bottom of degradation.

  Poor Python4! In vain, completely in vain you left your hiding place to take part in the apocalypse predicted by prophecies. No one even noticed you. Broken and humiliated, you dragged yourself to your depot near Delphi, filled with the bitter knowledge that humanity had matured and become sufficiently monstrous to take the steering wheel of annihilation into its own hands.