Actually I shouldn’t say I saw nothing. My eyes did see. They saw and perhaps enjoyed the grace and beauty of the Umbrian countryside on their own. But I certainly paid no attention to what my eyes were seeing.
Nevertheless, the attention I was paying to the problem occupying my mind gradually began to wane, without meanwhile increasing my awareness of the countryside that continued to pass before my eyes, limpid, light, and relaxing.
I wasn’t thinking about what I was seeing, and finally I ceased thinking about anything. I remained for an incalculable spell as if in an indefinite, eerie state of suspension, and yet one that was clear and peaceful. Ethereal. My spirit had almost become estranged from my senses and had taken refuge in an indefinitely distant place where, inexplicably and with a sense of joy that didn’t seem its own, it caught a glimpse of the seething of a different life. Not its own, but one that could have been its own. Not here, not now, but there in that infinitely distant place. It was the seething of a remote life which perhaps had been its own, it knew not how or when, and of which it had a vague recollection, not of acts, not of images but, as it were, of desires that vanished even before they were formed. And there was the feeling of not existing, which, though empty, was sad and painful. It was perhaps the same sorrow felt by flowers that were unable to bloom. In short, it was the seething of a life that had not come into being, but that was to be lived, there, far, far away, where it was beckoning with throbs and flickers of light. There, ah yes, certainly there, my spirit would find itself quite complete and full, ready not only to enjoy itself but also to endure sufferings — sufferings, however, that would be truly its own.
Gradually my eyes closed shut without my being aware of it, and as I slept, I perhaps continued living in my dream the life that had not come into being. I say perhaps, because when I awoke, stiff, aching, and with a bitter taste in my parched mouth, and already close to my destination, I suddenly found myself in a completely different mood. What I felt was a sense of dreadful boredom towards life. I was in a state of gloomy, leaden stupefaction, a state in which the appearances of the most common things appeared devoid of any meaning whatsoever. Yet, to my eyes, they appeared cruel and intolerably heavy.
While in this mood, I got off at the station, got into my car, which awaited me at the exit, and set off for home.
Well, it happened on the stairway of my home; it happened on the landing in front of my door.
Suddenly I saw in front of that dark, bronze-colored door with the oval brass plate bearing my name inscribed with all my titles preceding it, and all my scientific and professional qualifications behind it, suddenly I saw, as if from outside my body, myself and my life, but so that I couldn’t recognize myself or recognize my life as being my own.
I suddenly felt frightfully certain that the man standing in front of that door with the leather case under his arm, the man who lived in that house, was not me, had never been me. I suddenly realized that I had always been, as it were, absent from that house and from the life of that man. What is more, I felt really and truly absent from any life. I had never lived. I had never been in life; in a life, I mean to say, that I could recognize as my own, a life desired and felt as my own. Even my own body, my own shape as it now suddenly appeared to me, dressed and set up in that particular way, seemed alien to me. It was as if someone else had fashioned and forced that shape on me, in order to make me move in a life that wasn’t mine, to make me perform acts of presence in that life from which I had always been absent. But now my spirit suddenly realized it had never been in it. Never, never! Who had made the man whom I was supposed to be that way? Who had wanted him that way? Who had dressed him that way and given him those shoes? Who made him move and speak that way? Who had imposed all those duties upon him, one more weighty and hateful than the other? Distinguished citizen, professor, attorney, the man whom everyone sought, whom everyone respected and admired, the man whose work, advice, assistance everyone wanted, the man whom everyone fought over without ever giving him a moment of peace, a moment of rest — was that me? Me? Really? But since when? And what did I care about all those cases with which that man was swamped from morning to night? And about all the respect, all the esteem he enjoyed as a distinguished citizen, professor, and attorney? And about the wealth and honors that had come to him from the assiduous fulfillment of all those duties, from the practice of his profession?
And they were there, behind that door bearing a large brass plate with my name on it. They were there — a lady and four children who saw that insufferable man who I was supposed to be, and whom I now considered a stranger, an enemy. Every day they viewed him with the same feeling of annoyance that was mine, but that I couldn’t tolerate in them. Was she my wife? Were they my children? But if I had never been myself, really myself, if that insufferable man who was in front of that door wasn’t really me (and I felt this with frightful certainty), that woman, whose wife was she? Those little ones, whose children were they? Not mine! They belonged to that man, that man whom my spirit, if it had had a body at that moment — its real body, its real shape—would have kicked or seized and then torn to pieces and destroyed together with all those cases, all those duties and honors, all that respect and wealth, and together even with my wife, yes, perhaps even with my wife.
But what about the children?
I brought my hands to my temples and pressed tightly against them. No, I didn’t feel they were mine. But I had a strange, painful, agonizing feeling for them, as they were outside me, as I saw them daily before me, needing me, my attention, my advice, my work. With this feeling and the same sensation of frightfully hot, dense, and suffocating air which had awakened me on the train, I felt myself reenter that insufferable man who was standing in front of the door.
I took my little key out of my pocket, opened the door, and reentered that house, as well as my former life.
Now my tragedy is this. I say my tragedy, but who knows how many others share it!
He who lives, doesn’t see himself while he’s living: he simply lives… If one can see his own life, that only means that one no longer lives it, but undergoes it, drags it along. Like a dead thing, one drags it along, because every form is a death.
Very few know that. The majority of people (almost all) struggle and strive, as they say, to make something of themselves, that is, to attain a form. But once they have attained it, they think they’ve mastered their lives. Instead, however, they begin to die. They don’t know it, because they don’t see themselves, that is, they can no longer detach themselves from the dying form they have attained. They don’t realize they’re dead and they believe they’re still alive. Only he who manages to see the form he has given himself or the one given him by others, by luck, by circumstances, or by the conditions in which he was born, knows himself. But if we can see this form, that’s an indication that our life is no longer in it, because if it were, we wouldn’t see it; we would live this form without seeing it, and every day we would die a little bit more in it without ever coming to know it, which in itself is already a death. Therefore we can see and know only what has died in us. To know oneself is to die.
My case is even worse. I don’t see the part of me that is dead; I see that I’ve never been alive, I see the form that others, not I myself, have given me, and I feel that in this form my life, a true individual life, has never existed. They took me as one would take nondescript matter. They took a brain, a soul, muscles, nerves, flesh, and they kneaded and shaped them at will, so that they would accomplish a job, perform acts, meet obligations; and though I look for myself in that form, I do not find myself. And I cry out, my soul cries out within this dead form that has never been mine: “How is this possible! I’m this individual? I’m like this? But how in the world?” And I have feelings of disgust, horror, and hatred towards this individual who is not me, who I’ve never been, and towards this dead form in which I’m imprisoned, and from which I can’t free myself. A form weighed down by duties that I don’t feel ar
e mine, encumbered by cases I couldn’t care less about, made the object of respect I have no use for. My form is these duties, these cases, this respect—things outside of me, above me, empty things; dead thing that weigh me down, suffocate me, crush me, and stop me from breathing.
Free myself? But no one can turn a fact into a non-fact and make death nonexistent when it has taken hold of us and keeps us.
The facts are there. When you’ve acted, no matter how, even if afterwards you don’t feel or find yourself in the acts you’ve performed, what you’ve done remains like a prison for you, and like coils and tentacles, the consequences of your actions entangle you. The responsibility you have taken upon yourself for those actions and their consequences that you neither wanted nor foresaw weighs down upon you like dense, un-breathable air. How can you then free yourself from it? How can I embrace and initiate a different life, a life truly mine, when I am imprisoned in this form which is not mine, but which represents me as I am for everybody, as everybody knows, wants, and respects me? How, when this life is a form I feel is dead, but that must subsist for others, for all those who have created it and want it this way and no other way? It must necessarily be this life because it is useful as it is to my wife, to my children, to society, that is, to the respectable university students of the school of law, to the respectable clients that have entrusted me with their lives, honor, freedom, and possessions. It is useful as it is, and I can’t change it, I can’t kick it and get rid of it. I can’t rebel or vindicate myself, save for a moment every day, with the act I perform in the utmost secrecy, choosing the opportune moment with trepidation and infinite circumspection so that no one will see me.
You see, I have an old female German shepherd, who has been living in my house for the past eleven years. She’s black and white, fat, short, and shaggy, and her eyes are already dimming from old age.
We’ve never been on good terms. Perhaps at first she didn’t approve of my profession, which didn’t allow noises to be made about the house. But gradually she began to approve of it as old age came upon her, and to such an extent, that to escape the capricious tyranny of the children, who still want to scramble with her in the garden, she chose, some time ago, to take refuge here in my studio from morning to night in order to sleep on the carpet with her pointed little snout between her paws. Here among so many papers and books she felt protected and safe. From time to time she would open and eye to look at me, as if to say: “Yes, my dear man, that’s a good fellow. Continue working. Don’t move an inch from there, because as long as you’re working, no one will come in here and disturb my sleep, that’s for sure.”
That’s what the poor animal was certainly thinking. The temptation to take my revenge on her suddenly came to me fifteen days ago when I noticed her looking at me that way.
I don’t hurt her. I don’t do a thing to her. As soon as I can, as soon as a client leaves me for a moment, I get up from my huge armchair cautiously and very very slowly, so that no one will notice that my feared and coveted wisdom—the formidable wisdom that comes to me from being a professor of law and an attorney —and my austere dignity as a husband, as a father, have been temporarily separated from this throne-like chair. And I tiptoe to the door to check the hallway to see if someone is coming. I lock the door, for just a moment. My eyes glisten with joy. My hands tremble from the pleasure I am about to concede myself, the pleasure of being mad, of being mad for just a moment, of leaving the prison of this dead form for just a moment, of destroying, of annihilating with derision, and for just a moment, this wisdom and this dignity that suffocates and crushes me. I run to her, to the little dog sleeping on the carpet, and slowly, gently I take hold of the small paws of her hind legs and make her do the wheelbarrow, that is, holding her by the paws of her hind legs, I make her travel on her forelegs alone, eight or ten paces, no more.
That’s all. I don’t do anything else. I quickly run to reopen the door, very, very slowly, without making the slightest creaking sound, and I place myself again on the throne, on the huge armchair, ready to receive a new client, with my former austere dignity, and charged like a cannon with all my formidable wisdom.
But, mind you, for a couple of weeks now, the animal has been staring at me as if she were in a trance. She stares at me with those dimmed eyes of hers dilated with terror. I would like to make her understand — I repeat — that it’s nothing, that she should be calm, that she shouldn’t look at me that way.
The animal understands how dreadful the act I perform is. It wouldn’t mean anything if one of my children were to do it to her as a joke, but she knows that I can’t joke. It’s impossible for her to accept the fact that I’m joking, even for a moment, and so, terrified, she continues to look at me reproachingly.
Escape
This blasted fog!” grumbled Mr. Bareggi, bristling with anger. It seemed to him that it had formed there treacherously just for him, to sting his face and the back of his neck with what felt like thin, icy needles.
“Tomorrow you’ll feel sharp pains in all your joints,” he began saying to himself, “your head will be as heavy as lead, and your eyes will be swollen shut between these fine watery bags! I swear it, I’ll end up doing something really foolish!”
Wasted away by nephritis at age fifty-two, he had a constant, racking pain in his kidneys, and his feet were so swollen that, if you poked them with a finger, it took a full minute for the skin to come up smooth again. And yet, there he was, squelching along with canvas shoes on the avenue, already completely wet as if it had actually rained.
Every day, with these same canvas shoes, Mr. Bareggi trudged from home to office, and from his office, home. And as he moved along, ever so slowly upon those tender aching feet, he would daydream to divert his mind. He fantasized that sooner or later he would run away — run away forever, never to return home again.
Indeed, it was his home life, more than anything else, that made him so terribly restless. The very thought of having to return twice a day to his house, down there on a remote cross-street off this exceedingly long avenue, was almost more than he could take.
It was not the distance that troubled him, even though, because of those feet of his, he had to take that into account too. Nor was it the isolation of his street, which, in fact, he liked. Being little more than a country road, it still had no streetlights, and was not at all spoiled by civilization. There were only three small homes to the left, almost the sort peasants live in, and, on the right, a country hedge in the middle of which stood a post with a weather-beaten sign reading: “Lots for Sale.”
He lived in the third of these homes. On the ground floor it had four almost pitch-dark rooms with windows covered with rusty grates. What is more, the glass panes had been fitted with screens to protect them from the stones thrown by the neighborhood’s wild and mischievous youths. On the second floor it had three bedrooms and a little balcony with a view over the vegetable gardens, which was his delight when the weather was clear.
What made him so terribly restless was the fact that, as soon as he would arrive home, he would be overwhelmed by the anxious attentions of his wife and two daughters — a dizzy hen followed by two peeping chicks. They dashed here and ran there, getting his slippers and his cup of milk with an egg yolk in it. One of them would be down on her hands and knees to untie his shoes, the other would ask him in a whimper (depending on the season) whether he was drenched from the rain or just soaked with sweat. As if they had not seen him return home thoroughly drenched without his umbrella, or, in August, when he came home at noon, all sticky and flushed from perspiration!
All this fussy care turned his stomach. He felt that he was being treated this way to stop him from venting his feelings.
Could he ever complain before those three pairs of eyes melting with pity, or those three pairs of hands so anxious to minister to him?
And yet he felt the need to complain a lot, and about so many things! All he had to do was turn his head in any direction to find a reason fo
r complaint which they could not even have imagined. For instance, that massive old kitchen table where they ate was hardly useful to him any more since he had been put on a bread and milk diet. And yet how that massive table smelled of fresh raw meat and beautiful dried onions with their golden skins! But could he reproach his daughters, who had no restrictions of diet, for eating the meat which their mother prepared so deliciously with those onions? Or could he reproach them for doing the laundry at home to save money, and then throwing the soapy, stinking water outside, thus depriving him of that breath of fresh air from the vegetable gardens which he enjoyed so much in the evenings?
Who knows how unjust such a reproach would have seemed to them who slaved from morning to night, always cooped up in there like prisoners, and perhaps never aware that, in other circumstances, each of them might have led a different sort of life?
Fortunately, his daughters were a bit slow-witted, like their mother. He pitied them, but even the pity he felt in seeing them reduced to a couple of old dust cloths, turned into bitter vexation.
The fact is that he was not a good man. No, no. He was not good, as those poor women — and, for that matter, everyone else thought. He was bad. At certain times the rancor he kept well hidden in his heart must have been clearly visible in his eyes. It would come out when he sat alone at his desk in his office, unconsciously toying with the blade of his penknife. At times like these he felt impulses not unlike those of a madman, such as to slash the oilcloth covering on his desk flap or the leather upholstery of his armchair. But instead, he would rest his hand on the flap, a small hand that seemed quite fat because it was so swollen. He would stare at it while large tears trickled from his eyes. Then with his other hand he would pluck furiously at the reddish hairs on the backs of his fingers.
Yes, he was bad. But he was also desperate, because he felt that before long he would probably be confined to a wheelchair, partially paralyzed and demented, and under the care of those three annoying women who gave him the urge to run away like a madman, now that there was still time.
Tales of Madness Page 15