by Karel Čapek
That was—I was drunk then, and I was only saying something.
Yes, something that was in you. That’s it, man: the worst and most depraved thing has remained in you. It must have been—something damnable which couldn’t even get out. Who knows, who knows, if you hadn’t reformed them. But you got terrified of it yourself, and “headlong you ran away from what was in you.” “You covered it over with a lid”; but these weren’t cocos palms, dear fellow, they were something worse. Perhaps an angel with wings, but hell, too, man. Hell, too.
But that was the end!
Well, yes, in a way that was an end. Then you only looked to see how to save yourself. A good job that blood spitting came on; a tremendous opportunity to start a new life, wasn’t it? To stick to life, to investigate one’s sputum, and to catch trout. To watch with a mild and sedate interest how the young foresters play skittles and at the same time to infect them a tiny bit with that deeply suspicious thing that was in you. The universe especially had a good effect; in face of the universe even all evil evaporates, that is in man. The universe is a good institution.
CHAPTER XXVIII
AND then at the station of the old gentleman, when I fell in love—was it still in me there, I mean that evil ?
Look here, not at all. That’s strange. It was a completely happy and ordinary life.
But making love to the maiden—how near was I to seducing her?
That’s nothing, that may happen.
I know that I behaved towards her … decently on the whole; but my desire was not—was not—well, was not entirely under control—
Go on, that’s part of the thing.
Did I marry her to scramble upward ?
That’s again another story. Now it’s a case of those deeper things, you know ? For instance, why did you hate your wife so much ?
I? Didn’t I marry her for love ?
You did.
And didn’t I love her all my life ?
You did. And at the same time you loathed her. Remember how many times you lay beside her, she slept, and you kept thinking: God, to throttle her like this! To grasp that neck in both my hands, and squeeze, squeeze. Only what to do with the corpse afterwards, that’s the problem.
Nonsense! It wasn’t like that at all—and if it were! How can a man be blamed for such fancies ? Maybe he can’t go off, and is annoyed because she sleeps so quietly. I ask you, why should I have hated her ?
That’s just it. Perhaps because she wasn’t like that little gipsy, or like that waitress, you know. That marshy brute with green eyes. Because she was so quiet and composed. With her everything was so sensible and simple—like a duty. Conjugal love is quite proper and hygienic, like eating or washing one’s mouth. Nay, even like an ordinary and serious sacrament. Such a clean, decent, domestic affair. And you, man, at those moments you loathed her convulsively and madly.
… Yes.
Yes. In you, after all, was the longing to have lice, and to play in a stinking hut a deep and breathless game. That it would be unclean and wild and terrible. A fearful desire for something that would ruin you. If only her teeth had chattered, if she had pulled your hair, if her eyes had burned darkly and madly! But she—nothing, she only set her teeth on her lower lip and sighed, and then went off like a log, like someone, who, thank God, has done her duty. And you yourself—just a yawn; no longing for something evil, something that ought not to be. God, to grasp that neck with both my hands—would she at least shudder like a beast and produce one inhuman shriek ?
Christ, how I loathed her at times!
So you see. And that was not only because of that. That was because on the whole she was so orderly and prudent. As if she had married only what was sensible and respectable in you, capable of bureaucratic progress and responsive to exemplary and domestic care. Perhaps she even had no inkling that there was something else in you—something different, by George! She didn’t even know that she was helping to drive it into a corner. And now this was tearing itself as if on a leash, and silently, hatefully, spitefully it howled. To grasp that neck in both my hands, and things like that. Some day to set out along the lines, and go, go as far as where rock is being torn out; naked to the waist, with a handkerchief on my head, and to break stones with a pickaxe; to sleep in a fdthy shanty which smells like a dog-kennel; a fat canteen woman whose breasts flop on her belly, sluts in petticoats, a lousy little girl biting like a puppy; to fasten oneself in there with a hasp. Don’t cry, little pet, keep your mouth shut, or I shall kill you! And instead, here silently, regularly, a model wife to an honest and slightly hypochondriac station-master is breathing: what about squeezing her neck so—
Stop!
And you weren’t unfaithful to her, you weren’t rude to her, nothing; only in secret, and persistently, you hated her. A nice family life, eh ? Only once did you have your little revenge on her: when you worked against the Emperor. I’ll give you something, you German! But otherwise—an exemplary marriage, and everything; that was already characteristic of you: to be evil and depraved in secret; to be able to conceal it even from oneself—and only relish the idea that perhaps it MIGHT have been. Wait, what was it when you were up there at the Ministry ?
There was nothing.
I know, nothing at all. Only to say with awe, but with quite agreeable awe, God in Heaven, one could make a mess here! It might cost millions, man, millions! It would be enough just to suggest that we were ready to listen—
And did I do that ?
God forbid. A blameless official. Absolutely clean conscience in that respect. It was only such a delightful image of what might have been and how it might have been done. A complete and ingenious plan in full detail: it would have to be done in this way, and so on; if the time comes. And then not to do it, to carry one’s official integrity without censure through temptations left and right. It was similar to the time when you wandered after your clean love through the street of brothels, Come to me, my dear! There wasn’t a single official crime you wouldn’t have invented which you haven’t committed in your mind; you exhausted all the possibilities, and didn’t accomplish one. Well, it’s true, in reality you couldn’t even make so much mischief, you would have to limit yourself to such and such cases; but while you are only thinking about it there are no limits, and you could do everything. Only don’t forget those typists!
That is a lie!
Steady. Steady. Never mind, you were a big enough boss in that Ministry; you only had to frown and those girls’ knees did tremble. To call for one and say, See here, miss, it’s full of mistakes, I’m not satisfied with you; I don’t know, I don’t know, I OUGHT to demand your dismissal. And so on; you could try it on them all. And with that to have those mad millions within the reach of your hand! What wouldn’t a girl do now for her small salary and for a few silk rags! They’re young and they’re dependent—
Did I do that ?
Not at all! But because of that you cowed them down, I’m not satisfied with you, miss, and so on. As if their knees only shook a little before you, as if they didn’t turn their eyes to you for mercy! Just to pat them kindly, and there it would be. It was only just a possibility with which the old rake toyed voluptuously. There was such a lot of those typists, he hadn’t even added them up; it’s best to make a job of it: to take them all in turn, one after the other. To hire somewhere in the suburbs a little room, rather loathsome and not too clean. Or if it had been possible, to have a wooden shanty, heated white hot with the sun and smelling like a dog-kennel; to shut oneself in with a hasp, it’s as dark as hell there; you can only hear a voice moaning, and a voice that is threatening and soothing.
There’s nothing more you know ?
Nothing more. It didn’t happen, altogether nothing happened; such an ordinary life. Only once it was absolutely real; that was when you were eight years old with that little gipsy girl; then something did fall into your life that perhaps really didn’t belong to it. And from that time, well: all the time you kept throwing it out, and al
l the time it was still there. All the time you wanted to have it once more, and it never happened again. Man, this is ALSO a continuous life story, don’t you think so ?
CHAPTER XXIX
A CONTINUOUS life story. My God, what am I to do with it now ? But, after all, it is true that I was an ordinary and on the whole a happy man, one of those who do their work conscientiously; that’s the chief thing. But this life had been forming in me from my infancy; in it father, in his blue smock, has left his trace, bending over the planks and running his hand over the finished work; and all those round about, the stonemason, the potter, the grocer, glazier, and baker, seriously and attentively absorbed in their work as if nothing else had ever been in the world. And when something heavy and painful took place, you slammed the door and went to work more zealously than ever. Life, it isn’t happenings, it’s work, our continuous work. Yes, it’s like this; my life was a kind of a task in which I became absorbed up to my ears. I should have been at a loss without some sort of thing to potter about with; even when I had to retire I bought this little house here and the garden, so as to have something to do; I broke up and planted the soil, I weeded it and watered it—thank God, it was a job in which you get absorbed until you don’t know of yourself, and of nothing but what you’re doing; yes, it was a bit of the tiny enclosure of chips in which I used to crouch when I was a child; but I lived to find great pleasure in it, even to find a finch that peeped at me with one eye as if to say: Well, who are you? I’m just an ordinary man, finch, like the others who live just beyond the fence; now I’m a gardener, but the old gentleman taught me that—almost nothing is in vain, in everything there is such a strange and wise order, it’s such a straight and necessary road. From infancy right to here. Yes, that’s the continuous story of a man. This simple and orderly idyll, yes.
Amen, and yes, it is true. But there is still another story which is also continuous and also true. That’s the story of somebody who wanted somehow to rise above the small circle in which he was born, above those joiners and stonemasons, above his pals, above his school form, always and always. That also comes from infancy, and it reaches to the end. And it’s a life made out of completely different stuff, unsatisfied and puffed up, which always wants more space for itself. This man doesn’t think of work any longer, but of himself, and of being better than the others. He doesn’t learn because he enjoys it, but because he wants to be first. Even when he walks with the station-master’s maiden he is puffing himself up with the thought that he’s got something better than the telegraphist or the cashier. Always self, only self. But even in marriage it eats up almost more and more space until it is only himself, and everything turns round him. Well, now he’s got enough, hasn’t he? It’s just that he hasn’t; when he’s got everything that he wished for he must find a new and bigger space where he may again slowly and surely expand. But once it comes to an end, that’s the sad thing about it, and it’s ended badly; all of a sudden he’s an old man and good for nothing and lonely, and all the time he makes a smaller heap. Yes, that was the whole life, finch, and I don’t know if it was made of happy stuff.
That’s the truth; then there is a third story, also continuous and also beginning in infancy; that’s the one about the hypochondriac. There’s mother in that story, Iknow; it was she who coddled me so and filled me with fear about myself. This man was like a weak and ailing little brother of the one with the elbows; both egoists, upon my word, but the one with the elbows was offensive, and the hypochondriac defensive; this one only feared for himself and wanted to let it be modest, if only it was safe. He didn’t force his way anywhere, he only looked for a harbour, the leeward side—apparently that was why he became an official and got married, and set limits to himself. He got on best with that first man, with the ordinary and good one; work with its regularity gave him a nice feeling of security and almost of shelter. The one with the elbows was good in that he provided for some sort of prosperity, even if his unsatisfied ambition sometimes disturbed the cautious comfort of the hypochondriac. On the whole, these three lives agreed pretty well with each other, even if they didn’t coalesce; the ordinary man did his job without worrying about anything else; the one with the elbows knew how to sell it, but also prompted, do this, and don’t do that, nothing is to be got from that; well, and the hypochondriac, he usually scowled with worry; only not to overdo it, and everything in moderation. Three different natures, and on the whole there were no bickerings among them; they came to terms silently and perhaps they even had a certain amount of consideration for each of them.
These three persons, they were, so to speak, my legitimate and hereditary lives, my wife shared them and entered with them into a faithful and loyal bond. Then there was a further story, that was the romantic. I should say: the hypochondriac’s pal. A very essential personality to compensate somehow for what the hypochondriac denied himself: adventure and magnanimity. With those others it was out of question; the one with the elbows was too sober and matter-of-fact, while that ordinary man was—well, so ordinary, and had no imagination. The hypochondriac, on the other hand, loved it immensely; something to be experienced, something fascinating and dangerous and yet at the same time one is safe at home; it’s good to have such an adventurous and chivalrous person in reserve. It has been with me from my childhood, it was essentially and deeply rooted in my life, but not in my marriage; of that personality my wife must not know. Perhaps she also had her other self which had nothing to do with her domestic life, nor with her conjugal love; but I know nothing of that.
But then there is that fifth aspect, and that story is also continuous and true; it began right in my boyhood. It was that shameful life with which none of the others wanted to have anything in common. You mustn’t even know about it, but sometimes … in strictest solitude, and almost in the dark, secredy and surreptitiously, you could recall it just a little bit; but it was present all the time, evil and lousy and infinitely cursed, and it lived on by itself. That was no longer myself or some being (like that romantic was), but some sort of THING, something so degraded and suppressed that it no longer could have any personality. Everything that contained a bit of self avoided that thing with disgust; perhaps was even horrified of it—as if of something that was antagonistic to my own self, something destructive or making for self-annihilation, I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know anything more, I don’t know anything more; even I don’t know about it, I never saw it whole, always only like something groping blindly and in the dark. Well, yes, as if in a hut fastened with a hasp, and dirty, smelling of a beast.
And then there was—not a complete story, but only a fragment. The poet’s case, I can’t help it: I feel that that poet had more to do with that depraved and suppressed thing than with anything else what was in me. In him, of course, there was something higher—he stood on THAT side and not on mine. God, if I could only say it! As if he wanted to release something, as if he were trying to make a man out of it, or something more than a man. But for that perhaps there must be some divine grace, or miracle—why do I think all the time of an angel with beating wings? Perhaps because that unredeemed thing was fighting with some angel of mercy; sometimes it rolled the angel in the mire, and sometimes it looked as if perhaps that evil and cursed thing might be cleansed. As if through the chinks into that darkness some kind of intense and dazzling light were penetrating, so beautiful that even that uncleanliness appeared to shine intensely and amazingly with something. Perhaps it was that that unredeemed thing was to become a soul in me, I don’t know, I only know that it didn’t; the accursed remained accursed, and the deuce took the poet who had nothing to do with that which was my acknowledged and legitimate self; there was no place for it in the other stories.
This then is the inventory of my life.
CHAPTER XXX
AND not yet by any means. There’s still one story left—or rather, a bit of a story. An episode which doesn’t fit in to any other continuous story and which stands by itself, let its origin
be what it may. Good Lord, what fuss, I won’t hide my light under a bushel all the time. That work that I did during the War needed some damned courage—perhaps even heroism. Wasn’t there a court martial for it, and a rope, that was as plain as a pikestaff, and I knew it quite well. I didn’t even take very great precautions, except for not putting anything in writing; I talked about those things with lots of conductors, engine-drivers, and postmen—if one of them had blabbed or let the cat out, it would have been bad for me and for the others. At the same time I didn’t feel in any way heroic or elated, I had no sense of duty, no feeling of sacrificing my life, or other such sublime thoughts; I only said to myself that something like that OUGHT to be done; well, and so it was done, as if it were obvious. I even felt rather ashamed for not having started on it earlier; I saw that the others, those fathers, those conductors, and stokers had only been waiting to do something themselves. For instance, that guard, he had five children, and he only said: “O.K., sir, don’t you worry, I’ll look after it.” He might have been hanged, and he knew it. I hadn’t any longer even to tell our people, they came themselves, I hardly knew them. “Munitions going to Italy, sir, something will happen there.” And that was it. Now I see how risky it was—for them and for me, but at the time it somehow did not occur to us at all. I call it heroism because these people WERE heroes; I was no better than they were, I only gave it a bit of organization.
We blocked every station where it was possible, including the old gentleman’s station. There was an accident there, and the old gentleman went mad and died. I knew that I was the cause of it; I loved him sincerely, but at that moment it was all the same to me. What is called heroism is no great feeling, enthusiasm, or anything like that; it’s kind of a self-evident and almost blind necessity, such a terribly objective state; motives here, motives there, you go forwards, and that’s that. It’s not even a matter of the will, it’s as if you are led on by it and prefer not to think much about it. And my wife mustn’t know about it; it’s not for women. Well, then, all that’s quite simple and I needn’t refer to it; but now the problem is how it fits together with those other lives that I led.