If, as you were just saying, the poet is obliged to work with natural forms – rose, bird, woman – his posture is not that of a creator but rather of an imitator.
ADAM
(Fidgeting with a willow branch.)
There are several distinctions to be made here. It is necessary to consider the poet in relation to: (1) the material he works with; (2) his mode of operation; and (3) the result of his operation; that it to say, the work of poetry. If it’s all right with you, we’ll follow that order.
(Schultz and Pereda agree. The great Ciro adopts a solemn air.)
PEREDA
I was referring to the first relationship.
ADAM
As for the first relationship, I’ve already said that because he works with given forms the poet is not an absolute creator.
SCHULTZ
(Rearing up.)
Absolute creation means creating out of nothingness. Only the Divine Artificer can create absolutely.
ADAM
That’s what I meant.
PEREDA
So the poet is an “imitator of natura,” as the old boy taught.
CIRO
What old boy?
PEREDA
Aristotle.
ADAM
(Sarcastically.)
That’s right. But the word natura didn’t mean the same thing for the old boy as it does for Luis Pereda and other ingenuous naturalists.
PEREDA
(Testily.)
Cut the philosophical swaggering!
ADAM
For old Aristotle, the natura of the bird is not the same as the flesh-and-blood bird, as is believed nowadays, but rather the “essence” of the bird, its creative number, the abstract universal cipher perceivable only through intellection, which acts on matter and constructs an individual, concrete, sensible bird.
SCHULTZ
Something like the Platonic “idea”?
ADAM
That’s right. But it descends into this world to join with matter and to fecundate it. That creative number is what the ancients call the “substantial form,” and that’s the form that art imitates.
PEREDA
(Feisty.)
That’s just speculating with phantasmic entities. I don’t understand a thing.
CIRO
(Perplexed.)
Corno!
ADAM
(To Pereda.)
So is it my fault that your professors in Geneva turned you into a pint-sized agnostic?12
PEREDA
Cut the philosophical bullying! Imitating a bird, or the form of a bird, amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?
ADAM
No, it’s not the same thing. The bird is a compound of matter and form. Inasmuch as it is material, it is subject to all the limitations of individual things, their contingencies, corruption, and death. Form, on the other hand, is free of material by virtue of the abstractive work of the intellect; in the mind, form enjoys an eternal and lasting existence. That’s why, when the artist imitates the bird in its form, he creates not a bird, but the bird, with a tiny grain of the marvellous plenitude the bird has in the Divine Intelligence.
(Schultz approves with the insolent smile of the initiated. An unredeemed agnostic, Luis Pereda growls softly. Ciro Rossini, deep in thought, scratches his head. There is a pause. Adam takes advantage of it to refresh his gullet with Sicilian wine. Deep-rooted laughter is heard in the other sector – unruly voices, snippets of guitar.)
SCHULTZ
And so?
ADAM
(He rubs the sides of the bottle, as though seeking inspiration.)
So, the title of “imitator” is appropriate for the poet, in respect of the material he works with; that is, in respect of the forms or ontological numbers that God, not the poet, has invented. But the title is even more appropriate as regards his modus operandi and creative expression. Every artist is an imitator of the Divine Word which created the universe, and the poet is the most faithful of its imitators since, like the Word, he creates by “naming.”
(He lowers he voice, hesitant and seemingly pregnant with mystery.)
Now, the consequences of such an affirmation are incalculable and awesome. Because if the poet’s creative mode is analogous to the creative mode of the Word, then the poet, by studying himself at the moment of creation, can achieve the most accurate of cosmogonies.
PEREDA
(Embarrassed, he addresses Schultz in a low voice.)
Should we take the bottle away from him?
SCHULTZ
(Imposing silence.)
Shhh! It’s just getting interesting.
ADAM
(Hesitating now, wondering whether or not he should divulge something confidential.)
Well then, I have looked deep into myself! I’m going to reveal the secret of poetic inspiration and expiration. (Enigmatic.) Nothing more than that! Those capable of making the analogical leap, let them make it. I wash my hands of it! (Stammering.) And . . . if it weren’t for the wine . . . not even this much! (He snaps his thumbnail against his teeth.)
PEREDA
Good for the Sicilian wine! (He fills the glass and passes it to Adam, who accepts with great dignity.)
SCHULTZ
Wine symbolizes all that is initiatic. That’s why . . .
ADAM
(Interrupts with majesty.)
I’ll speak, but on one condition: you must keep it secret.
PEREDA
(Raises his arm toward the zenith.)
I swear!
(Schultz gives his word of honour, and Ciro Rossini declares himself silent as a tomb.)
ADAM
(Solemn.)
Let’s examine the first phase: poetic inspiration. (Great expectancy.) At a given moment, either because he receives a puff of divine breath or because, faced with created beauty, he feels stirring within himself a fond reminiscence of infinite beauty, the poet finds himself inundated by a musical wave, totally, to the point of plenitude, similar to the way air fills the lungs in the movement of breathing.
SCHULTZ
Is it really a musical wave?
ADAM
I say “musical” by analogy. It is a harmonious plenitude, truly ineffable, superior to all music.
PEREDA
(Victim of confused Genevan memories.)
I seem to remember that Schiller – was it Schiller? – defined the poetic state as something like “a vaguely musical disposition.”
ADAM
(Infinitely modest.)
Schiller was not a metaphysician. I go further than Schiller. I would say that all possible forms of music resonate in the harmonious plenitude acquired by the poet during his inspiration. They all resonate, though no particular one of them yet, in a kind of strange unity that makes all possible songs one and makes each song into all possible music. They are all there in a certain musical “present” of music in which one song does not exclude the other in the dimension of time, because all of them make a single ineffable song . . .
PEREDA
(Complaining.)
That’s chaos!
ADAM
(Looks at him in surprise and distrust.)
Who told you? Yes, that just what it is: chaos. Just as in primordial Chaos, before creation, all things were present, without differentiation or strife, so are all songs together in the musical chaos of poetic inspiration.
PEREDA
(Visibly confused.)
Now it turns out that I’m a metaphysician by fluke!
SCHULTZ
(Mysterious.)
Bet you don’t know the etymological meaning of the word “Chaos.”
ADAM
What does it mean?
SCHULTZ
The void of the yawn.
ADAM
What’s that to me?
SCHULTZ
(Authoritarian.)
Come now, yawn, all of you!
(Adam, Pereda, and Ciro, intimidated, try out an
imitation yawn.)
ADAM
(Happily astonished.)
Remarkable! The yawn is a profound inspiration!
SCHULTZ
(Triumphant, but not triumphalist.)
That’s what I wanted to demonstrate.
ADAM
Amazing, Schultz! And now I remember that when poetic inspiration comes to me, a very deep physical inspiration comes with it.
SCHULTZ
And what else?
ADAM
Let’s see. (Imitates another yawn.) The eyelids close partially, as when one is falling asleep.
SCHULTZ
Just so. Chaos is the concentration and the sleep of all things that do not yet want to become manifest. And after that?
ADAM
(Somber.)
Next comes the second phase, the poetic exhalation – the great fall!
PEREDA
Why a fall?
CIRO
(Polemical.)
Diavolo, yes! How come?
ADAM
Listen. The poet, as I’ve said, is enjoying an inspiration in which he savours all the plenitude of music. Suddenly, an intimate movement – necessity or duty – induces him irresistibly to manifest or express that ineffable musical chaos in a particular way. And then, among the infinite possibilities inherent in that chaos, he chooses one and gives it form, thereby excluding the other possibilities and descending from inspiration to creation, from the infinite to the finite, from immobility to happening. Thus will be born a poem, then another one, twenty, a hundred. And thus the poet’s fall into multiplicity: through his multiple songs, he will strive in vain to manifest that musical unity; and through finite means, the infinite – that infinity he carries within during inspiration. This is the first fall!
PEREDA
What? Are there more?
ADAM
There are two falls. The poet, as you’ve seen, falls first of all when he chooses for his song one among the infinity of possible forms. But this is still a creation ad intra, an internal creation, endowed with all the amplitude of the spiritual and immaterial. Then comes the creation ad extra, and the form chosen by the artist in the intimacy of his soul exteriorizes to become incarnate in a material, in language, which in turn imposes new limits. This other moment of poetic creation I call the “second fall.”
PEREDA
(Grumbling.)
Yes, the last bit is clear.
CIRO
(Who still hasn’t got it.)
Clear as acqua!
SCHULTZ
(Cunning.)
Hmm! Are you talking about a fall in the sense of “sin”?
ADAM
No. I mean a descent imposed on the artist by creative necessity. A descent without which he would not exactly be a creator, but rather a contemplative.
SCHULTZ
(Going for broke.)
But you just spoke of a kind of correspondence between the creation of an artificer and divine creation. Watch out! Must one then suppose that in God there is a similar necessity and a similar descent?
ADAM
(Suddenly confused and hesitant.)
God . . . is the motionless beginning, the principle of immobility. He neither descends nor ascends. He is the Omniperfect, free of necessity. (Anxious, he goes back to fidgeting with the branch.)
SCHULTZ
And so?
PEREDA
(Imperious.)
Exactly! And so?
CIRO
(Exalted.)
Cristo! That’s what I say!
ADAM
He is an infinite, eternal, and simple perfection. He knows himself for all eternity and manifests himself in his inner Word, which, as an intimate expression of divinity, participates in the divine essence and is one with God. This being so, what possible need could he have to manifest himself later through exterior creatures?
SCHULTZ
Nevertheless, he has manifested himself.
ADAM
There’s nothing for it but to admit a free act of his will. He created because he wanted to, when and how he chose. An act of love, the theologians call it.
SCHULTZ
The poet, on the other hand, creates out of necessity. Isn’t that it?
ADAM
His, too, is an act of love, but not free.
SCHULTZ
A forced act of love?
PEREDA
Bah!
CIRO
Diavolo!
ADAM
Here’s how I see it. Every creature has received some perfection and must communicate it in some way to lesser creatures. It’s the economic law of charity. If I were to explain the mechanism of the angel . . .
PEREDA
(Scandalized.)
Hey! Only Schultz can talk about angels.
CIRO
Angels. Cripes!
SCHULTZ
(Severe.)
This is no joking matter!
ADAM
. . . you would see in the angel two distinct movements. One is circular; the angel revolves around the eternal light to become fully illuminated. The other movement is downward; the angel communicates a part of that light to the next angel below in the hierarchy. Since there are three hierarchies of angels, the first and highest communicates to the second, the second to the third, and the third to humankind. And since there are hierarchies among humans, each receives and gives (or ought to give) in proportion to what is received. Now, the poet receives something at the moment of inspiration and must communicate this to those who have received nothing. His is a loving act. But, as in the case of the rest of the creatures who offer something, the poet is only an instrument of the First Love.
PEREDA
(Skeptical.)
Hmm! And if the poet were to work only out of ambition?
ADAM
Ambition for what? Generally he reaps more thorns than flowers in this world!
PEREDA
Let’s say the ambition for glory.
ADAM
Maybe. Dante speaks of the glory his work will earn him. And he talks about it so seriously, one can guess it isn’t a human prize but a divine reward he hopes for.
PEREDA
Reward for what?
ADAM
(He hesitates, then suddenly blurts out.)
Let’s say for his “fidelity” as an imitator of the Word and as an agent of First Love.
SCHULTZ
Are you sure the poet’s fidelity is so great?
ADAM
The true poet will sacrifice all for his vocation. (Dramatic.) Listen well: even his soul!
SCHULTZ
(Point blank.)
Would you write if there was no one left on earth to read you?
PEREDA
Bravo, Schultz!
CIRO
Ecco! Ecco!
ADAM
(At the height of exultation.)
Look, Schultz. Imagine a rosebush on the verge of producing a rose, and just then the angel’s trumpet announces the end of the world. Would the rosebush stop?
SCHULTZ
(Surprised.)
I don’t think so.
ADAM
(Sublime.)
Thus is the poet!
(There is an eloquent silence. Ciro Rossini, who has been savouring those grand words without understanding them, shows symptoms of suffering a fit of lyricism, for he is feverishly assailing his hair dyed with La Carmela. Very worried, Luis Pereda turns his attention to the other group, where the three Bohemians are now singing and gesticulating amid a hurricane of Homeric laughter. The astrologer Schultz is a statue.)
PEREDA
Baudelaire had the same excessive idea. Didn’t he say that God reserves a place among his angels for the poet ?
ADAM
(Somber.)
I wouldn’t count on it.
PEREDA
And yet, you were just saying . . .
ADAM
(Now locked in an inte
rnal struggle that later will cause him to break down. The drums of the night are beating in his soul, but they are still far away.)
I’m referring to something else. The poet is an imitator of the Word in the order of Creation, but not in the order of Redemption.
SCHULTZ
(Fixing him with cold eyes.)
What do you mean?
ADAM
(The nocturnal drums are beating louder and louder in his soul.)
I mean, if it’s easy for me to imitate the Word in the order of Creation, it’s difficult to do it in the order of Redemption. (Stammering, increasingly distressed.) On that level, only the saint perfectly imitates the Word. Do you know what a saint is? Read the life of Saint Rose of Lima, for example. Something terrible, monstrous, repugnant . . .13
PEREDA
(Getting worried.)
Che! Che!
CIRO
Cripes!
SCHULTZ
I’ve suspected something was up. For some time now.
ADAM
(Doesn’t hear them. Continues talking as if to himself.)
It’s absurd! One is swimming along in murky waters, and suddenly one realizes one has swallowed an invisible hook. Do you understand? (The drums beat in a deafening crescendo.) One resists, thrashes around, tries to cling to the bottom. It’s no use! The invisible Fisherman is tugging from up above! (The drums have beaten themselves out. Adam Buenosayres lets his head fall forward on the table, noisily toppling the only glass.)
CIRO
(Frightened, addresses Pereda.)
Santa Madonna! What’s wrong with him?
PEREDA
(Picking up the fallen glass.)
He’s pissed as a newt!
(With extraordinary gentleness, Ciro Rossini pats Adam on the shoulders. The bard of Villa Crespo, responding to this wordless solicitude, lifts his head and executes the following motions: he puts his right hand into his pocket and pulls out the Blue-Bound Notebook, then quickly puts it back as though in alarm; he reaches into the other pocket, pulls out a faded handkerchief, and dabs his eyes with it; he puts the handkerchief back in his pocket and accepts a glass of wine that Luis Pereda holds out to him in the attitude of the Good Samaritan; finally he smiles, shy and embarrassed.)
ADAM
Absurd night! (Sighing.) It’s nothing.
CIRO
Ecco! That’s the spirit.
PEREDA
Brother, I thought you were having an attack.
ADAM
It’s over now. (Recovering.) Let’s go on to the third point.
SCHULTZ
The work of art?
ADAM
That’s right, the work of art. (Still sighing.) Do you know what a “homologue” is?
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 33