He took another wary look around. Then, with a modesty verging on the sublime, he opened the front of his kimono to show us his naked body. I can still hardly believe what I saw: Samuel Tesler’s frame exhibited the double nature of a hermaphrodite. His right, masculine, half comprised a hirsute semi-thorax, half a paunch, one coarse thigh, and a single bandy leg on which a man’s garter secured a cheap red-and-blue-striped sock. His left, feminine, half boasted one Venusian breast of rosy nipple, one ivory flank, half a silken-fleeced pelvis, and one sleek thigh covered all the way up with a transparent stocking held in place by a sea-green garter with little rococo roses. If the philosopher was intending to astonish us, he succeeded with flying colours. Before our crazed gaze, he closed his kimono back up; savouring his triumph, he looked at us with severity:
– Now that the proper hierarchy has been restored, he scolded through clenched teeth, tell me what it is you want here.
– Entry to this inferno, answered Schultz, indicating the backdrop.
Samuel laughed heartily:
– Entry! he chortled. What nerve! A guy busts his ass studying metaphysics, and along comes a pair of mulattos wanting in, just like that!
– I demand it, rejoined Schultz with energy.
Grumbling, Samuel Tesler reluctantly began to come down off his high horse:
– You would qualify to enter, he admitted to the astrologer, even though your metaphysical education is strictly nil. Ha! Only a mulatto like you could have made such a hash of distributing the four elements thoughout this Helicoid. Someone else might have ordered them hierarchically and according to the nature of the passions described herein: earth first, followed by water, air, and finally fire. As for ether, source and matrix of the other elements, it should have been reserved for the sinister character who reigns in the Great Pit. But what’re ya gonna do? We live in a country full of mulattos.
With a mixture of severity and irony, Samuel Tesler turned to me:
– As for you, he grumbled, no merit qualifies you to visit the eighth circle.
– Effendi! I cried, stung to the quick.
– The only card you can play in your favour is your poetry, with its laughable stabs-in-the-dark at philosophy. True, lately you’ve been flirting with the two Eves and have even perpetrated the metaphysical murder of a certain Solveig, woman of the earth. But there’s no indication any of it goes beyond a paltry exercise in literature.
– In any case, Schultz told him, you will allow him to pass under my guarantee.
– He’ll have to pass a test, cackled the philosopher, immovable.
– What test? I said, tired of all the haggling.
– Decipher the figures on my back!
Samuel turned on his heels. On the back of his kimono, a figure halfman and half-flower leaned over a pool of water fed by a spring gushing from the roots of an emblematic tree.
– What do you see? the philosopher asked me.
– Bah! I answered. It’s an ordinary, garden-variety image of Narcissus.
– What is Narcissus doing?
– His boring old routine of leaning over the waters.
– What waters?
– The waters that spring from the fons vitae or fons juventutis, at the foot of the Tree of Life, in the centre of Paradise.
Samuel Tesler could not hide his pique:
– Fine, he said. Though, of course these are very common notions that everybody knows about. But tell me: according to the mythologists, didn’t Narcissus drown when he tried to see his image in the spring?
– There are two Narcissuses, I answered. The one who drowns and the one who is saved. The one depicted on your back is the one who is saved.
– How is he saved?
– The first Narcissus, the one who drowns, manages only to see his own image, his closed ego, his individual form. When he looks at himself, he falls in love with himself and doesn’t get beyond his ego: he’s a non-transcendental Narcissus. The second Narcissus, when he leans over the fons juventutis, sees the first Being, cause and motor of all that is manifest. Then he forgets his limiting ego and loses sight of himself; and losing sight of himself, he becomes enamoured not of his ego but of the Being whose immutable unity, beauty, and infinity he sees now in the mirror of the waters. This Narcissus leaves his form to take on the form of what he loves: he’s a transcendental Narcissus.
I can admit it now: the tone of my speech, whether or not it was the product of a direct inspiration, apparently rubbed Samuel Tesler the wrong way. Turning around to face me again, the philosopher glared at me like a basilisk:
– You’ve been peeking at my notes! he shouted. More than once I’ve caught you poking your nose into my papers.
– Eye of Baal! I protested. That’s defamatory!
The philosopher grunted mistrustfully a moment longer.
– Hmm! he muttered as if to himself. These mulattos’ll plagiarize a guy right down to his style of walking!
All obstacles having apparently been overcome, Samuel Tesler, still growling, ordered us to follow him. And so we did, first through the grey curtain I’ve already mentioned, then through a confusion of draperies of increasingly subtle material. When we finally got clear of the last one, we found ourselves in a city whose cold pulchritude confused me: grave architectures, arithmetical gardens, severe sports facilities were arranged there – I noticed this immediately – in a malignantly rigorous order. Later, at journey’s end, musing over everything and everybody I’d seen in the Hell of Pride, it was this unrelenting order that struck me as perhaps the most perverse of all Schultz’s inventions, for it suggested a rigid regime of automatons leaving no room at all for the exaltation of truth or the play of life. Samuel, meanwhile, whose job had been to guide us into this part of hell, showed no signs of going back to his curtain. On the contrary, tightly enfolded in his kimono, horned brow held high, he made a gesture inviting us to follow him. I looked at Schultz, as though asking whether the philosopher had any business here; and at Schultz’s nod, I understood that Samuel Tesler was to be our mentor in the City of Pride.
So we set out walking along a gleaming cobblestone street, bereft of the slightest human murmur. I was wondering if the city was deserted, when Samuel, rounding a bend in the road, showed us the first contingent of prideful souls. I recognized a stadium like the ones they use for track meets: an oval-shaped cement track girded by railings and amphitheatrestyle seating. A team of men in track shorts and shoes were running laps, mechanically jogging along and making no effort to overtake one another. When we got closer to the track, I noticed the runners weren’t even sweating: abstract, machine-like, they trotted endlessly round and round before the empty seats in a nightmarish silence. Samuel Tesler pointed an implacable index finger in their direction:
– And they call themselves philosophers! he burbled with laughter. A bunch of black beasts! But take a look now!
He searched feverishly until he found he what he seemed to be looking for – a lengthy pole.
– Now watch! I plan to knock two or three of these mulattos on their arses. Upon my word, I’ll rub their noses in the dirt of the track!
Without another word, the philosopher stuck his pole out at the runners. One of them tripped, tumbled off the track, and quickly got up again.
– Despite all obscurantist manoeuvres, panted the runner, the truth remains intact!
– What is the truth? Samuel asked him.
The athlete raised a professorial index finger:
– In the beginning there was matter (in Greek, hile), he said, no matter what the inventors of worlds-beyond may preach, as Comrade Friedrich155 would say. I look around me with these eyes that cannot lie. What do I find? Living matter, nothing more than matter!156
Samuel Tesler turned to us:
– A mulatto of the finest kind! he exclaimed gleefully.
And confronting the athlete again, he asked him:
– So you still believe in that blasted nebula? And that the nebula star
ted spinning out of diddly-squat? And that out of diddly-squat sprouted all the excellent things of this world, the vermiform beginnings, the animalia reptilia, the corporal immensity of the whale, the flying creatures of strong wing, the quadrupeds of ponderous gait, and at last man, the microcosm?
– It’s the scientific truth, said the runner.
Without hiding his boredom, the astrologer Schultz intervened affably:
– Let him go, and find me another one, he told Samuel. We’re not here to listen to those old wives’ tales.
After stamping a tender kiss on the athlete’s forehead, the philosopher turned him round with infinite care, and with a cordial boot in the behind sent him back to the circle of trotters. Then he extended his pole again until he’d tripped up another jogger. This one, getting back to his feet, rebuked Samuel mildly:
– You have no right to sabotage this Olympiad of sufficient reason! Who are you? I don’t recognize you.
– Take a good look at me, it’s well worth it! answered Samuel, showing off the figures on his kimono.
The runner looked at him a moment, went closer and sniffed, and then wrinkled his face in skepticism:
– It’s no use, he muttered at last. I detect in you a series of visual references: two horns, a clown’s outfit, volumes, colours, and lines. I smell you, and receive some olfactory data (which aren’t particularly pleasant, by the way). But I cannot reach “the thing in itself”: my sufficient reason will never attain it.157
Proffering no comment at all, Samuel Tesler lifted his trusty pole and brought it down on the runner’s head.
– Why do you hit me? said he, not especially indignant.
– I’m not hitting you, answered Samuel. It’s a message sent from my thing-in-itself to your sufficient reason. Was the message received?
– Only a tactile reference, the runner sadly rejoined. The “thing in itself” remains isolated: I am an island, you are an island, he is an island, we are . . .
And he began to trot again, conjugating that rather cheerless verb. Samuel then stretched out his infallible pole for the third time. Two more runners kissed the cement track. One of them, fat and serene, got up without difficulty. The other was wearing horse blinkers, and seemed to be trying to decide whether to get up or not. This was the one Samuel spoke to:
– Nice fall, he said amiably.
– Fall? retorted the man in blinkers. I don’t know yet whether it was a fall or not. That’s why I hesitate between getting up and staying prone on the ground (supposing, of course, that I am indeed lying down). Imagine how absurd it would be if I tried to stand up after a non-existent fall!
– An agnostic! exclaimed Schultz in wonder.
– Nothing is knowable, said the man in blinkers. The prudent course, in my judgment, is to adopt no opinion about anything and to cloak oneself in a shell of fundamental doubt, which, if you give it some thought, has a certain comfort about it.
– And so why were you running? Samuel asked him.
The blinkered fellow, still lying on the track, gave him a cold look:
– It has yet to be demonstrated whether I was running or not, he rejoined. The fact that I may not have fallen could allow us to surmise that I may still be on my feet. A dangerous temptation! And even if that were true, it would be impossible to affirm whether I’m standing still or running.
– Zeno’s arrow nicked this mulatto bang on the noggin, laughed Samuel Tesler.
– Let him be on his way, suggested Schultz. That is, if you can get him to admit that he hasn’t left already.
Our kimono’d philosopher lifted up the blinkered runner, showed him the track, and told him:
– You may leave now. Good night.
But the blinkered one, before rejoining the circle of runners, prudently objected:
– Is it night or day? Or neither? That’s the question. And even if it were night, I see no reason to describe it as good or bad, or to assign it any other dubious qualifier.
And he went trotting off. Then the fat runner, who had kept his distance, came up to us and said indulgently:
– Just look at what sectarianism can lead to! Good Lord! Reading world history, what do we find? Sectarian wars between religions that believed they were different, between philosophies that imagined themselves at odds. Absurd! Zoroaster, Lao Tsu, the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed: all were initiates and found a piece of the truth. So, why should brothers knock each other’s brains out? I gather all those pioneers of the truth and put them into the cocktail shaker of the Absolute; I add a zest of tolerance, give it all a good shake, and serve it chilled with fruit to the brothers whose thirst needs quenching. “Don’t get too deep”: that’s our motto. It’s enough to get pleasantly drunk on the odour of metaphysical truth, though not to the point that we lose our business sense. No need among brothers to tear each other’s beards over an ideological contradiction already resolved in my cocktail shaker! And above all, let the soul’s jaws open up wide and gluttonously devour everything with a vague whiff of mystery to it. Nothing wrong, for example, with practising black magic in the drawing room, as long as the ladies don’t get spooked and faint all over their satin divans. Nor does it bother me if those excellent disembodied spirits are put to work shaking chairs, three-legged tables, and other domestic furniture. Moreover, conversing through a medium with Alexander the Great, Caligula, Borgia, or Napoleon is sure to be edifying and bring all kinds of historical materials to light. In a word: eclecticism. And let the time come and manna fall from heaven! When all’s said and done, God is an excellent person.
Samuel Tesler had been listening to this speech with much gravity. As soon as it was over, he inquired:
– May I ask, sir, with all due respect, and harbouring absolutely no intention to pry into your private life, which I solemnly swear by the profound laws of discretion: might you by any chance be what they call – if you’ll excuse my presumption – a theosophist?158
– You said it, answered the athlete.
– Just as I feared! moaned Samuel sadly.
And in a sudden fit of indignation:
– Get outta here! And take your bloody cocktail shaker with you!
The theosophist went off without a word. Seeing this, Samuel Tesler used his rod yet again to knock another runner down and off the track. He was an Adonis of almost feminine features, whose beauty was marred by blinks and nervous tics as various as they were frequent. He got to his feet, looked reproachfully at the philosopher, and told him:
– It’s cruel to put obstacles before a man who suffers from the Step Complex.
– What complex is that? Samuel asked him.
– It consists, answered the Adonis, in a phobia manifested by my subconscious every time it encounters an obstacle, whether it be a step, fence, door, or curtain. I underwent psychoanalysis, and after much diligent rooting around in my subconscious, I discovered the phobia had originated at the very instant of my birth, because of the narrowness of the maternal portal.
– That’s delving really deep, commented Samuel.
– But the search was not in vain, rejoined the Adonis. Because in the process I discovered within me the Scissors Phobia, the Mattress Phobia, the Poodle Phobia, the Houndstooth Overcoat Phobia, the Security Guard Phobia, and the Olive Pit Phobia. I suffer as well from the following complexes: the Oedipus Complex, the Queen of Sheba Complex, the Nebuchadnezzar Complex, the Michelangelo Complex, and the Catherine de Medici Complex. Furthermore, thanks to the vagaries of my internal secretion, I have several exquisitely wrought sexual problems, not to mention a repressed inclination to homicide and a culpable penchant for literature.
– Good for internal secretion! said Samuel. And what can be inferred from all that?
– A revolution in morality! exclaimed the enraptured Adonis. Imagine that everyone’s predestination is written in their glands. It means that I can commit murder, paint the Mona Lisa, or write the Critique of Pure Reason, all with same unconscious irresponsibility.
Samuel Tesler raised his arms heavenward:
– We are on the eve the Superman! he announced religiously. The wheat is ripe, and old Zarathustra takes up his sickle.
But the Adonis made a face showing his displeasure:
– My satisfaction would have been complete, he grumbled, if you hadn’t put that untimely stick in front of me. In fact, before I fell, I was trying to work out the symbolism of a dream I had last night. I was lost in a forest, searching in anguish for a way through hostile trees and creeping vines. All of sudden, an Australian kangaroo appeared before me; sitting on its lower legs, he stared at me long and hard out of its profound melancholy. I briefly closed my eyes. When I looked again, the kangaroo was gone, and in its stead was a triple armoire. I went to search for an intimate garment inside it, but as I drew near it vanished into thin air, and the Australian kangaroo came back in its place. Then I took off running. The kangaroo followed hard on my heels. Finally, no longer hearing its leaps and bounds behind me, I turned around and again found myself before the armoire.
– Curious, admitted Samuel. Have you found any hidden meaning in that dream of yours?
– Not yet, answered the Adonis, but the kangaroo’s got me worried.
Samuel Tesler showed a glimmer of human sympathy.
– Don’t be alarmed, he said in a confidential tone. Last night I had a worse dream, and yet here I am.
– What did you dream? the Adonis asked him.
– I dreamed my arse was a rose and you were sniffing it.
The Adonis became pensive, as if speculating or reviewing texts.
– Hmm! he said at last. The rose is worrisome, and that arse smells a bit fishy to me. If I were you, I’d have myself psychoanalyzed.
These words, in Samuel Tesler’s opinion, conveyed an insult to his investiture. He lifted his pole with the obvious intention of bringing it down on the Adonis’s head. But the Adonis, tipped off perhaps by one of his many complexes, escaped to the track and rejoined the circle of joggers.159
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