by Primo Levi
MR. SIMPSON (resentful): That’s what fuses are for, right? The issue is really something else. The voltage stabilizer, which is indispensable, is missing. I didn’t forget it: the fact is I don’t happen to have any in stock at the moment and I didn’t want to deny you the possibility of trying out the device. They’re supposed to arrive any day. As you’ve seen for yourself, it functions just as well without it, but it’s at the mercy of spikes in voltage, which shouldn’t occur but do, especially in this season and at this time, as you know better than I. In my opinion, however, this incident must rid you of all doubt regarding the poetic possibilities of this machine.
POET: I don’t understand. What exactly do you mean?
MR. SIMPSON (milder): Perhaps you missed it: didn’t you hear what it called me? “Mr. Sinsone is aware of the scare.”
POET: And so? An example of poetic license: isn’t it written in the instruction booklet about how the license mechanism functions, the degree of licentiousness, et cetera?
MR. SIMPSON: Ah, no, you see, it’s actually something quite different. It changed my name to “Sinsone” for a precise reason. I would even have to say that it corrected my name because (proudly) “Simpson” is etymologically connected to Samson in its Hebrew form of “Shimshòn.” Naturally, the machine couldn’t possibly know that: but in that agonizing moment, feeling the rapid increase of amperage, it felt the need for some kind of intervention, of rescue, and it established a link between ancient and modern saviours.
POET (with profound admiration): A poetic link!
MR. SIMPSON: Yes, and if that’s not poetry, what is?
POET: Yes . . . yes, it’s convincing, no doubt about it. (Pause). So . . . (with feigned embarrassment) dealing with questions now that are more earthly, more prosaic . . . shall we take a minute to reconsider your estimate?
MR. SIMPSON (radiant): Gladly. But, you see, unfortunately there’s little to reconsider. You know the Americans: there’s no bargaining with them.
POET: Two thousand dollars, isn’t that right, miss?
SECRETARY: Hmm, truthfully . . . I don’t remember, really, I don’t.
MR. SIMPSON (laughing amiably): You’re kidding me. Two thousand seven hundred, CIF Genoa, packing at cost, plus 12 percent for customs duty, full accessories, delivery in four months, except in cases of force majeure. Payment through issue of irrevocable letter of credit, twelve-month warranty.
POET: Any discounts for loyal customers?
MR. SIMPSON: No, truly, I can’t, believe me: it might cost me my job. I could give you a 2 percent discount by giving up half my commission. That’s all I can do for you.
POET: You drive a hard bargain. All right, today I don’t feel like arguing: take the order here and now, I better sign for it right away, before I change my mind.
Musical interval.
POET (to the audience): I have owned the Versifier for two years now. I can’t say it has paid for itself, but it has become indispensable to me. It has proved to be quite versatile: besides considerably lightening my load as poet, it keeps my books and does my billing, it reminds me of deadlines, and it even takes care of my correspondence. In fact, I taught it how to write in prose, and it has become quite accomplished. The text you have just heard, for example, was composed by the Versifier.
Angelic Butterfly1
They sat in the Jeep stiff and silent: for two months they had shared the same quarters but still weren’t on the friendliest terms. That day it was the Frenchman’s turn to drive. Bouncing along the broken pavement, they cruised up the Kurfürstendamm, then turned onto Glockenstrasse and, skirting a mass of rubble, continued on until they got as far as the Magdalene: here a bomb crater, full of mucky water, blocked the road; gas from a submerged pipe erupted on its surface in large slimy bubbles.
“It’s farther on, at No. 26,” said the Englishman. “Let’s continue on foot.”
The house at No. 26 appeared intact, but stood virtually alone. Rubble had been removed from the barren land surrounding it; already grass had begun to grow, and here and there were some sickly vegetable gardens.
The doorbell didn’t work; they knocked, in vain, for a long time before forcing the door, which gave way with the first push. Inside, there was dust, spiderwebs, and a pervasive smell of mold. “Second floor,” said the Englishman. On the second floor they found the nameplate LEEB; there were two locks, and the door was sturdy, resisting their efforts for quite a while.
When they entered, they found themselves in the dark. The Russian turned on a flashlight, then opened a window; they heard the sound of mice scattering, but they didn’t see the animals. The room was empty: not a single piece of furniture. There was some rudimentary scaffolding and two large parallel poles two meters above the floor extending horizontally between the walls. The American took three photographs from different angles and made a quick sketch.
The floor was strewn with filthy rags, paper, bones, feathers, fruit peelings; using the blade of a knife, the American carefully collected samples from large reddish-brown stains and placed them in a glass tube. In one corner, a mound of unidentifiable material, white and gray, dry; it stank of ammonia and rotten eggs and was teeming with worms. “Herrenvolk!” said the Russian contemptuously (the language they spoke together was German). The American took a sample of this substance as well.
The Englishman picked up a bone and brought it to the window, where he examined it carefully. “What animal is it from?” the Frenchman asked. “I don’t know,” said the Englishman. “I’ve never seen one like this. It looks like something from a prehistoric bird, but this crest is only found . . . well, I would have to take a thin slice of it.” A combination of revulsion, hatred, and curiosity permeated his voice.
They collected all the bones and brought them to the Jeep. A small crowd of the curious had gathered around it; a child had climbed in and was searching under the seats. When people saw the four soldiers approaching, they fled. The soldiers were able to detain only three: two old men and a young girl. They were interrogated but knew nothing. Professor Leeb? Never heard of him. Mrs. Spengler, on the ground floor? She died during the bombardments.
The soldiers got into the Jeep and started the engine. The girl, who had already turned to go, came back and asked: “Do you have any cigarettes?” They did. The girl said: “I was there when they slaughtered Professor Leeb’s animals.” They lifted her into the Jeep and brought her to the Four-Party Command.
“So, is the story true?” the Frenchman asked.
“Seems so,” the Englishman responded.
“It’ll be a heck of a lot of work for the experts,” said the Frenchman, tapping the bag of bones, “but for us, too. Now we have to draft a report and there’s no getting out of it. What a dirty business!”
Hilbert was livid. “Guano,” he said. “What else do you want to know? Which bird it dropped from? Go to a fortune-teller, not a chemist. For four days I’ve been racking my brains over your foul findings. I’ll be hanged if the devil himself can discover anything further. Bring me more specimens: albatross guano, penguin guano, seagull guano, and then I’ll make some comparisons and maybe, with a little luck, we might revisit the matter. I’m not a guano specialist. As far as the stains on the floor are concerned, I found hemoglobin. And if anyone asks me to identify the source, I’ll end up in the brig.”
“Why in the brig?” the Commissioner asked.
“In the brig, yes: because if someone asks me, I’ll tell him he’s an idiot, even if he’s my superior. Everything’s in there: blood, cement, cat piss, mouse piss, sauerkraut, beer—in other words, the quintessence of Germany.”
The Colonel stood up heavily. “That’s it for today,” he said. “Tomorrow night you will be my guests. I’ve found a decent little place in the Grünewald, by the lake. We’ll discuss this again then, when our nerves are a little less on edge.”
The bar had been commandeered and was well supplied. On either side of the Colonel sat Hilbert and Smirnov, the biologist
. The four soldiers from the Jeep were sitting on the long sides of the table; Leduc, from the military tribunal, and a journalist sat at the far ends.
“This Leeb,” said the Colonel, “was a strange person. As you well know, he lived at a time when theories were popular, and if a theory coincided with prevailing attitudes, not much proof was necessary for it to find approval and acceptance, even at the highest levels. But Leeb, in his own way, was a serious scientist: he sought facts, not success.
“Now, don’t expect me to explain Leeb’s theories to you in any great detail, in the first place because my understanding of them goes only as far as a Colonel’s capabilities; in the second because, as a member of the Presbyterian Church . . . well, I believe in the immortal soul, and care about my own.”
“Listen, sir,” Hilbert interrupted, his brow set obstinately, “listen. Just tell us what you know, please. You owe us that much. As of yesterday, for three months all of us have been working on this and nothing else. . . . It seems to me, you see, that the moment has come for us to know the score here, so that we might be able to work with a bit more intelligence—you understand.”
“You’re absolutely right and, in fact, tonight we are here precisely for that reason. But don’t be surprised if I explain things in a roundabout way. And you, Smirnov, correct me if I stray too far afield.
“Here goes. In certain lakes in Mexico, a tiny salamander-like animal with an impossible name has lived undisturbed for I don’t know how many millions of years, as if time didn’t exist, yet it has recently caused some sort of crisis in the world of biology because of its ability to reproduce in the larval state. Now, from what has been explained to me, I gather this is a very serious matter, an intolerable heresy, a low blow by nature, inflicting incalculable damage on its scholars and interpreters. In other words, it’s as if a caterpillar—no, to be more precise, a female caterpillar—mated with another caterpillar, became impregnated, then laid its eggs before developing into a butterfly. And from these eggs, naturally, more caterpillars were born. Why bother, then, becoming a butterfly? Why bother becoming ‘the perfect insect’ when it can be avoided?
“In fact, the axolotl (which is, I forgot to mention, what this little monster is called) avoids it—avoids it almost always. Only one in a hundred or a thousand, perhaps a particularly long-lived one, and only a great while after having been reproduced, transforms into a different animal. Don’t make those faces, Smirnov, or you explain it. Everyone expresses himself in the best way he knows how.”
He paused. “‘Neoteny,’ that’s what this mess is called, when an animal breeds while still in the larval stage.”
Dinner was over and the hour for pipe smoking had arrived. The nine men moved onto the terrace, and the Frenchman said: “Okay, it’s all very interesting, but I don’t see the connection with . . .”
“We’re getting there. All that’s left to say about these phenomena is that, for decades now, it seems that they”—and he pointed to Smirnov—“have been able to manipulate them, to direct their behavior to a degree. If you administer a hormonal extract to the axolotl . . .”
“Thyroid extract,” Smirnov corrected reluctantly.
“Thanks, thyroid extract. If you administer a thyroid extract, the transformation will always take place. It will occur, that is, before the death of the animal. Now, this is what Leeb had got into his head: that this condition may not be as exceptional as it seems, that other animals, perhaps many, maybe all, maybe even mankind, have something in reserve, a potentiality, an ulterior capacity for development. Beyond all expectations, this capability is found in the early drafts, the bad drafts, and they can become ‘others,’ but they don’t, only because death intervenes first. So, in conclusion, we, too, are neotenic.”
“On what experimental basis?” someone asked from out of the darkness.
“None, or very little. It’s all described in the details of Leeb’s long manuscript, a very curious mixture of acute observations, rash generalizations, extravagant and obscure theories, literary and mythological digressions, polemical asides full of spite, and rampant adulation for Very Important People of the moment. It’s no surprise that it was never published. There is a chapter on the third dentition of centenarians, which also contains a curious set of case histories of bald men who grew a new crop of hair at a very advanced age. Another is concerned with the iconography of angels and devils, from Sumeri to Melozzo of Forlí, and from Cimabue to Rouault; it contains a passage that seemed important to me, in which Leeb, in his both apodictic and confused style, yet with maniacal insistence, formulated the hypothesis that . . . well, that angels are not fantastical inventions, or supernatural beings, or a poetic fantasy, but represent our future, who we will become, who we could become if we lived long enough or submitted ourselves to his manipulations.
“In fact, the next chapter, the longest of the entire work, and of which I understood very little, is entitled ‘The Physiological Basis of Metempsychosis.’ Another contains a research trial regarding human nutrition: a trial so vast that a hundred lives wouldn’t be enough to carry it out. He proposes to subject entire villages for generations to absurd alimentary regimes, with a base of fermented milk, or fish eggs, or barley sprouts, or algae mush; exogamy is to be rigorously excluded, and at the age of sixty all inhabitants would be ‘sacrificed’ (the precise word is Opferung), then autopsied—God forgive him if He can. As an epigraph, there is also a citation from the Divine Comedy, in Italian, which alludes to worms, insects that are far from perfection, and ‘angelic butterflies.’ I forgot: the text of the manuscript is preceded by a dedicatory letter addressed to, do you know whom? To Alfred Rosenberg, who wrote The Myth of the XXth Century, and it’s followed by an appendix in which Leeb mentions an experimental work ‘of a more modest character’ carried out by him in March 1943: a cycle of pioneering and preliminary experiments for which (with the necessary warnings about secrecy) he was provided with a communal public space. The public space he was given was situated at No. 26 Glockenstrasse.”
“My name is Gertrud Enk,” the girl said. “I am nineteen years old, and was sixteen when Professor Leeb installed his laboratory in Glockenstrasse. We lived across the street, and from our window we could see things. In September 1943, a military truck arrived: four men in uniform and four in street clothes got out. The civilians were all very thin and kept their heads lowered; there were two men and two women.
“Then several crates arrived with WAR MATÉRIEL written on them. We were very cautious and only looked when we were sure that no one would notice, because we understood that something strange was going on. For many months I didn’t learn much more. The professor only came once or twice a month; alone, or sometimes with soldiers or members of the Party. I was very curious, but my father kept saying, ‘Let it go, don’t concern yourself with what’s going on in there. We Germans, the less we know, the better.’ Then the bombings came; the house at No. 26 remained standing, but twice the blast caused the windows to shatter.
“The first time, I was able to see that the four people in the first-floor room were lying on straw mats on the floor. They were covered up, as if it were the middle of winter, though at the time it was exceptionally hot. They looked as if they were dead or sleeping, but dead was impossible since the attendant next to them was peacefully reading the newspaper and smoking a pipe; and if they had been sleeping, wouldn’t they have been awakened by the sirens sounding the all-clear?
“Instead, the second time, both the straw mats and the people were gone. There were four horizontal poles at midheight on which four beasts were perched.”
“What do you mean, four beasts?” asked the Colonel.
“Four birds: they looked like vultures, though I’ve only seen vultures in the movies. They were frightened and making a terrifying noise. They seemed to be trying to jump off the poles but they must have been chained because they never lifted their feet from where they stood. It also seemed as if they were trying to fly, but with thos
e wings . . .”
“What were their wings like?”
“Wings, if you can call them that, since they had very few feathers. They seemed . . . they seemed more like the wings of a roast chicken, yes. I couldn’t see their heads very well because our windows were too high; but they were not very nice to look at and they made quite an impression. They looked like the heads of mummies you see in museums. But then the attendant came in and hung up blankets so we couldn’t see inside. By the next day, the windows had been repaired.”
“And then?”
“And then nothing more. The bombings became increasingly frequent, two, three, a day; our house collapsed and everyone died except me and my father, but, as I said, the house at No. 26 remained standing. Only the widow Spengler died, but in the street, caught by machine-gun fire from low-flying planes.
“Then the Russians came, and the end of the war, and everyone was hungry. We built a shack for ourselves nearby, and I got on as best I could. One night we saw a lot of people talking in the street in front of No. 26. Then someone opened the door and everyone went inside, pushing and shoving. I said to my father, ‘I’m going to see what’s happening.’ He gave me the same little speech as before, but I was hungry and I went. When I got there it was already almost over.”
“What was over?”
“They had killed them, with clubs and knives, and they had already chopped them to pieces. I thought I recognized the leader as the attendant; after all, he was the one who had the keys. In fact, I remember that when it was all over he took the trouble to close the doors, who knows why, since nothing was left inside.”
“What happened to the professor?” Hilbert asked.
“No one knows exactly,” the Colonel answered. “According to the official version, he’s dead, hanged himself when the Russians arrived. But I’m sure that’s not true because men like him give up only when they fail, and, however you judge this dirty business, he had succeeded. I believe that if you searched for him, you would find him, and perhaps not too far away. I believe we haven’t heard the last of Professor Leeb.”