“How many of them are there, those tiny reflections we scatter about in other people’s eyes?” I often wondered this as I walked down the lonely, deserted streets. “If I were to collect them all, my tiny likenesses in other people’s pupils, I would have a small nation of modified, minimized ‘I’s’ . . . They exist, of course, while I look at them, but then so do I exist while someone looks at me. But if that someone closes her eyes, then . . . What rubbish! Still, if it is rubbish, if I am not someone’s apparition but a separate entity, then the little man in her pupil is a separate entity too.”
Here my sleepy thoughts usually became muddled, and I would unravel them all over again.
“Strange. Why did he have to go? And where? Well, all right, suppose her pupils are empty. What of it? Why do I need some tiny person-like glint? What do I care if he exists or not? How dare that pitiable pupil manikin meddle in my affairs, illusorize my life, and separate two people!”
Stuck in that thought, there were times when I was ready to go back, to wake her and extract the secret from under her eyelids: Was he there or not?
But I never returned before evening; and if the light was on in her room, I would avert my face and ignore her caresses. I was mostly sullen and rude till the darkness blindfolded our eyes. Then I would boldly press my face to hers and ask her, over and again: Do you love me? And our nighttime habits would take hold.
3
One night, through layers of sleep, I felt an imperceptible something tugging violently at an eyelash. I started awake; something tiny went tumbling by my left eye, careered across my cheek, and plunged into my outer ear with a high-pitched shriek: “What the deuce! Like an empty apartment in here, not a sound.”
“What was that?” I muttered, suddenly uncertain if I were awake or dreaming.
“Not what, who! That’s in the first place. In the second place, bring your ear to the pillow so I can jump out. Closer. Closer! There.”
On the edge of the pillowcase, palely visible through the gray dawn air, sat the little man from her pupil. Pressing his palms to the white nap, he hung his head and gasped for breath, like a traveler at the end of a long and difficult journey. His face was sad and intent. In his hands he held a black book with gray clasps.
“Then you’re not an illusion?!” I shrieked, staring at the little man in amazement.
“What a silly question,” he snapped. “And don’t shout: You’ll wake her. Now bring your ear closer. That’s it. I have something to report.”
He stretched out his tired legs, made himself more comfortable, and began in a whisper:
I needn’t tell you how I got into her pupil. We both know all about that. My new quarters pleased me: full of glassy reflections, with a window in a round rainbow frame, cozy and cheerful; the convex panes were regularly washed with tears, and at night the blinds came down automatically—in short, an apartment with conveniences. True, at the back there was a long dark corridor leading who knew where, but I spent almost all of my time at the window, waiting for you. Whatever that was behind me, I didn’t care. Then one day, the arranged meeting did not take place: I began to perambulate the corridor, trying not to go too far for fear of missing you. In the meantime, the day outside the pupil’s round window was fading. “He won’t come,” I thought. I felt a little bored. Not knowing how to amuse myself, I decided to walk to the end of the corridor. But in the pupil, as I said, the light was fading, and after a few steps I found myself in total darkness. My outstretched hand kept clutching at air. I was about to turn back when a soft, muffled sound coming from the depths of the long narrow passageway drew my attention. I tried to make it out: It sounded like several voices chanting off-key, yet stubbornly sustaining a kind of melody. My ear could even distinguish, so it seemed, certain words: “gallows” and “death.” The rest was inaudible.
This phenomenon struck me as curious; still I judged it wiser to return to my lookout before her eyelid barred the way back with darkness.
But this oddity did not end there. The very next day, without even stirring from my lookout, I again heard voices at my back furiously singing a cacophonous hymn. Though the words were still indistinct, it was clear that this choir consisted solely of male voices. This sad circumstance set me thinking. I needed to explore the passage all the way to the end. I must say, I didn’t much want to do that, given the risk of running into who knew what and losing my way back to the window and the world. For two or three days I heard no more voices. “Perhaps I imagined them,” I thought, trying to calm myself. But then one bright day, when the woman and I had sat down at our respective windows to wait for you, the phenomenon recurred, this time with unexpected force and intensity: The discordant words droning and intoning got inside my ears, and their meaning was such that I resolved to find the singers. I couldn’t contain my curiosity and impatience. But I didn’t want to leave without letting you know: We waved goodbye—remember? You seemed somewhat surprised—then I hurried away into her pupil. It was quiet as quiet. The light, which had streamed after me down the narrow cave-like passageway, gradually faded. Soon my steps were reverberating in absolute darkness. I kept walking, grabbing at the passage’s slippery walls, and stopping now and then to listen. Finally, flickering dimly in the distance, I saw a dead, yellow light: It shone with the miry desolation of a will-o’-the-wisp. I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion and a dull indifference. “What was I looking for? What did I need in these catacombs?” I asked myself. “Why trade the sun for this dank, yellow murk?” I might well have turned back, but just then the singing, which I’d almost forgotten, recommenced. Now I could distinguish separate voices poking out of that bizarre hymn:
Man-man-man, nimble man, my little man,
If you wish your life to keep, ask the pupil before you leap.
Odd.
Jump into the pupil and you will know: in the pupil is a gallows—
Put your neck in the noose—and expire. Fire with fire.
Even.
Little man, you mustn’t fumble: careful not to take a tumble.
Life apart is death to the heart. All days do end in a dead end.
Odd-odd.
Little man—little-lit-li-l:
Here and gone. Without a trace. Hark!
Even.
The nonsensicalness pulled me along, as a hook does a fish. Fast approaching was a round opening, the source of the yellow light. Gripping the edges, I thrust my head inside: From the emptiness below a dozen throats howled; the yellow glare dazzled my eyes. Peering about, I leaned over the precipice, but just then the aperture’s slimy edges gave way and, helplessly flailing, I went crashing down. It wasn’t far to the bottom; I sat up and looked round. Adjusting to the light by degrees, my eyes began to see: I was sitting inside a sort of opaque bottle with pulsating sides, exactly in the center of its convex bottom. Under me a yellow blot was radiating light, around me some ten human shapes half hidden in shadow—soles to the glow, heads to the wall—were finishing their solemn refrain:
Little man, little-lit-li-l:
Here and gone. Without a trace. Hark!
Even.
My question—“Where am I?”—drowned in the howls. Searching for a way out, I half rose from my perch only to lose my footing, topple down the incline, and land—to roars of glad laughter—on my backside between two of the well’s inmates.
“Getting too crowded in here,” the man on my left grumbled, and moved over. But the man on my right turned to me with a look of compassion. He had the face of a university lecturer: a knobby erudite forehead, thoughtful eyes, a Vandyke beard, and hair combed carefully over a bald crown.
“Who are you all? And where am I?”
“We . . .are your predecessors. Don’t you see? A woman’s pupil is like any residence: First they take you in, then they boot you out, and everyone winds up here. I, for example, am Sixth; the man on your left is Second. You’re Twelfth. True, we don’t go strictly by numbers, but in order of association. Do you follow me? Or must
I put it more plainly? Then again . . . You didn’t hit your head, did you?”
“Against the wall?”
“No. Against the meaning.”
For a minute neither of us said anything.
“By the way, don’t forget to register your forgottenness. Oh, these women’s pupils,” he said, fingering his beard, “pupils inviting us under a canopy of lashes. To think: such a marvelous entrance, bathed in rainbow shimmers, and such a dark, vile bottom. Once upon a time I too—”
I interrupted: “Who registers you?”
“Quagga.”
“I’ve never heard of that name.”
“Have you ever heard of telegony?”
“No.”
“Hmm . . .then you probably know nothing about Lord Morton’s mare.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Everything. There was a mare, that is, beg pardon, first there was Lord Morton. His mare produced a striped foal sired by a quagga, then Lord Morton produced his theory of telegony inspired by the quagga and his mare: Regardless of the sire, you see, the mare’s offspring were always striped—in memory, so to speak, of the quagga, who was her first. Thus we conclude that a woman’s bond with her first is never-ending and lives on inside subsequent bonds, indelibly and ineradicably. The first inmate of this pupil, at the bottom of which you and I now sit, has proclaimed himself—chronology is on his side—Quagga. Though I’ve told him many times that Mr. Ewart disproved Lord Morton’s theory long ago, he persists in playing the dictator. He claims that he is the soil, we are the hoses, and that all our attempts to repeat the unrepeatable—”
“Tell me,” I asked, “has this telegony, or whatever it’s called, really been disproved once for all, or—”
“I knew it!” the university lecturer smiled. “I’ve noticed this before; the higher the number, the greater the desire to know: Is love striped or not? But let’s talk about that later. Listen, First is calling you.”
“Forgotten No. 12, come here!”
I got to my feet and, sliding my palms along the wall, went toward the sound. Stepping over the legs strewn in my path, I noticed that the outlines of some pupilites were more clearly defined than others; some so blended with the yellow gloom of those lower depths that I tripped over them without meaning to, without noticing their faded, half-effaced shapes. Suddenly two invisible but tenacious hands gripped my ankles.
“Please answer these questions.”
I bent down to look at the hands shackling me, but they were not to be seen: First had become so completely discolored as to be the color of air. His invisible fingers released me and clicked open the clasps of a book. This book here. Closely written pages rose and fell and rose again, until a blank page appeared with my number on it.
The form ran to dozens of questions, beginning with one’s date of moving in, reason for doing so, expected length of stay (opposite this item were suggested answers—a) for all eternity, b) until death, c) until something better turns up—and instructions to “circle one”); it ended, as I recall, with a list of pet names and diminutives and one’s attitude toward jealousy. I had soon filled out my page. An invisible finger folded it back; fresh pages blinked white.
“So then,” said Quagga, closing the book, “one more late-lamented; the book is slowly filling up. That’s all. You may go.”
I returned to my place between Second and Sixth. Sixth’s whitish beard made to greet me but, meeting silence, shrank back into the shadows.
I sat for a long time lost in thought about the book’s blank pages. A sudden noise brought me back to reality.
“Eleventh! Into the middle,” Quagga’s voice sounded.
“Eleventh, Eleventh,” echoed from all sides.
“What’s this?” I turned to my neighbor.
“Same old story,” he said. “They go in numerical order: so next time it will be your turn . . .”
There was no point asking anything more since Eleventh was already clambering up onto the rise. His cumbrous figure looked immediately familiar. My predecessor sat down on the yellow blot and peered calmly about. He caught the ribbon dangling from his pince-nez in his lips and chewed it musingly, making his cheeks jiggle.
“Yes,” he sighed. “It’s comical to recall, but there was a time when, like all of you, I had only one aim in life. And that was—somehow or other, by hook or by crook—to steal into our mistress’s pupil. So here we all are. What else is there to say?”
He wound the pince-nez ribbon round his finger, plucked the lenses from his eyes, and squinting in disgust went on:
A mantrap. That’s what it is. But that’s not the point. Our first meeting decided everything. That day, I remember, she wore a black dress with all the buttons done up. Her face, too, seemed very buttoned-up, her lips were sternly pursed, her eyes half shut. The reason for her melancholy sits on my left: our respected Tenth. His story, which we heard last time, is fresh in all our memories: The forgotten do not forget. But at the time, I had not yet had the honor of his acquaintance. Still, I guessed that in the pupils hiding under her lashes all was not well. And indeed, when I finally contrived to look into her eyes, I saw such abandonedness that I—who had been hunting for pupils to suit—instantly decided to occupy that empty residence.
But how was I to do this? Every man has his own way of winning a woman. Mine is to perform all manner of minor, preferably inexpensive services: “Have you read such-and-such by so-and-so?” “No, but I’d like to . . .” The next morning a messenger delivers an uncut copy of the book. The eyes, into which you wish to steal, find a touching inscription over your name on the flyleaf. The tip of a hatpin has been mislaid, or the needle for cleaning the Primus. You must remember all this nonsense so that when next you meet you may, grinning devotedly, produce from your vest pocket a Primus needle, a hatpin tip, a ticket to the opera, aspirin in capsules, and who knows what else. For you see, one person can infiltrate another only in minute doses, with tiny, barely visible men who, once massed in sufficient numbers, capture the consciousness. Among them there is always one, as pitifully tiny as the others, but should he go, so will the meaning. All that atomism will disintegrate, instantly and irrevocably. But I need hardly explain this to you, my fellow pupilites.
So then I set my system of minor services in motion. Everywhere—in among the baubles, books, and pictures in our mistress’s room—my tiny surrogates began appearing. Her eyes could not escape them; they had slipped into every corner, from every cranny they whispered my name. Sooner or later, I mused, one of them will squeeze into her pupil. Still, it was slow going; her eyelids, as though they weighed God knows how much, rarely yielded, which made the situation for me, a man from the pupil, very difficult.
I remember that in response to my umpteenth service she smiled to herself and said, “I believe you’re courting me. You’re wasting your time.”
“I don’t care,” I replied meekly. “Once, when my train was stopped halfway to the Crimean coast, I glanced out the window and saw a brick hovel slumped among yellow patches of fields; on the hovel was a sign, and on the sign was the name of the station: Patience.”
Her eyes opened slightly.
“So you think this is the halfway mark, do you? That’s amusing.”
I can’t remember what silly thing I said in reply, but I do remember that the train stopped at Patience was stopped there too long. At that point I decided to ask you, my kind predecessors, for help. I didn’t yet know who you were, or how many, but I instinctively felt that her pupils had been lived in, that many a Mr. X hung over them, their reflections . . . In short, I decided, having plunged a spoon into the past, to the bottom, to stir it up again. If a woman is already out of love with one man, but not yet in love with the next, then “not yet,” if he has any sense at all, must shake “already”—shake him and shake him—until “already” has shown him all the approaches and means of access.
I wielded my spoon roughly thus: “Women don’t fall in love with men like m
e. I know that. The man you loved wasn’t like me. Was he? Man or men? You won’t say? Well, of course. It was probably . . .” With the dull-witted diligence of a worker charged with stirring a mash, I kept turning my questions. At first they met with silence, then monosyllables. I could see on the surface of her consciousness, rising up from the bottom, bubbles beginning to swell and burst, flashing iridescences that had seemed forever buried in the past. Heartened by my success, I went on stirring. I was well aware that you cannot churn up emotional stimuli without churning up the actual emotion. The once-loved images, raised from the depths, sink straight back down into the darkness, but the feelings they arouse cling to the surface. More and more often her eyes leapt up to meet my questions. More than once I bent my knees, preparing to jump . . . But he, my gargantuan likeness, in whose pupil I was then, missed chance after chance owing to clumsiness. Finally, the fateful day arrived: I, or we, found her by the window, shoulders shivering under a warm shawl.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. It’s just a fever. Take no notice.”
But the man wedded to the method of minor services is not allowed to take no notice. I flew out the door, and a quarter of an hour later I was being told to “Turn around.”
Staring fixedly at the minute hand on my watch, I heard silk rustle and a snap unsnap: The thermometer was being tucked in place.
“Well?”
“Ninety-eight point six.”
Autobiography of a Corpse Page 6