To a thought machine it makes little difference whether a problem is expressed in minus or plus terms. When a human being takes to the toboggan it is virtually the same. Or almost. The machine knows no regret, no remorse, no guilt. It shows signs of disturbance only when it has not been properly fed. But a human being endowed with the dread mind machine is given no quarter. Never, no matter how unbearable the situation, may he throw in the sponge, As long as there is a flicker of life left he will offer himself as victim to whatever demon chooses to possess him. And if there be nothing, no one, to harass, betray, degrade or undermine him, he will harass, betray, degrade or undermine himself.
To live in the vacuum of the mind is to live this side of Paradise, but so thoroughly, so completely, that even the rigor of death seems like a St. Vitus’ Dance. However sombre, dreary and stale every day life may be, never does it approach the aching quality of this endless void through which one drifts and slithers in full, waking consciousness. In the sober reality of everyday there is the sun as well as the moon, the blossom as well as the dead leaf, sleep as well as wakefulness, dream as well as nightmare. But in the vacuum of the mind there is only a dead horse running with motionless feet, a ghost clasping an unfathomable nothingness.
And so, like a dead horse whose master never tires of flogging him, I kept galloping to the farthest corners of the universe and nowhere finding peace, comfort or rest. Strange phantoms I encountered in these headlong flights I Monstrous were the resemblances we presented, yet never the slightest rapport. The thin membrane of skin which separated us served as a magnetic coat of armor through which the mightiest current was powerless to operate.
If there is one supreme difference between the living and the dead it is that the dead have ceased to wonder. But, like the cows in the field, the dead have endless time to ruminate. Standing knee-deep in clover, they continue to ruminate even when the moon goes down. For the dead there are universes upon universes to explore. Universes of nothing but matter. Matter devoid of substance. Matter through which the mind machine ploughs as if it were soft snow.
I recall the night I died to wonder. Kronski had come and given me some innocent white pills to swallow. I swallowed them and, when he had gone, I opened wide the windows, threw off the covers, and lay stark naked. Outside the snow was whirling furiously. The icy wind whistled about the four corners of the room as if in a ventilating machine.
Peaceful as a bedbug I slept. Shortly after dawn I opened my eyes, amazed to discover that I was not in the great beyond. Yet I could hardly say that I was still among the living. What had died I know not. I know only this, that everything which serves to make what is called one’s life had faded away. All that was left me was the machine … the mind machine. Like the soldier who finally gets what he’s been praying for, I was dispatched to the rear. Aux autres de l’autre la guerre!
Unfortunately no particular destination had been pinned to my carcass. Back, back, I moved, often with the speed of a cannon ball.
Familiar though everything appeared to be, there was never a point of entry. When I spoke my voice sounded like a tape played backward. My whole being was out of focus.
ET HAEC OLIM MEMINISSE IUVABIT
I was sufficiently clairvoyant at the time to inscribe this unforgettable line from the Aeneid on the toilet box which was suspended above Stasia’s cot.
Perhaps I have already described the place. No matter. A thousand descriptions could never render the reality of this atmosphere in which we lived and moved. For here, like the prisoner of Chillon, like the divine Marquis, like the mad Strindberg, I lived out my madness. A dead moon which had ceased struggling to present its true face.
It was usually dark, that is what I remember most. The chill dark of the grave. Taking possession during a snowfall, I had the impression that the whole world outside our door would remain forever carpeted with a soft white felt. The sounds which penetrated to my addled brain were always muffled, muffled by the everlasting blanket of snow. It was a Siberia of the mind I inhabited, no doubt about it. For companions I had wolves and jackals, their piteous howling interrupted only by the tinkling of sleigh-bells or the rumble of a milk truck destined for the land of motherless babes.
Towards the wee hours of the morning I could usually count on the two of them appearing arm in arm, fresh as daisies, their cheeks glistening with frost and the excitement of an eventful day. Between whiles a bill collector would appear, rap loud and long, then melt into the snow. Or the madman, Osiecki, who always tapped softly at the window-pane. And always the snow kept falling, sometimes in huge wet flakes, like melting stars, or in whirling gusts choked with stinging hypodermic needles.
While waiting I tightened my belt. I had the patience not of a saint nor even of a tortoise, but rather the cold, calculating patience of a criminal.
Kill time! Kill thought I Kill the pangs of hunger! One long, continuous killing … Sublime!
If, peering through the faded curtain, I recognized the silhouette of a friend I might open the door, more to get a breath of fresh air than to admit a kindred soul.
The opening dialogue was always the same. I became so accustomed to it that I used to play it back to myself when they were gone. Always a Ruy Lopez opening.
What are you doing with yourself?
Nothing.
Me? You’re crazy!
But what do you do all day?
Nothing.
Followed the inevitable grubbing of a few cigarettes and a bit of loose change, then a dash for a cheese cake or a bag of doughnuts. Sometimes I’d propose a game of chess.
Soon the cigarettes would give out, then the candles, then the conversation.
Alone again I would be invaded by the most delicious, the most extraordinary recollections—of persons, places, conversations. Voices, grimaces, gestures, pillars, copings, cornices, meadows, brooks, mountains … they would sweep over me in waves, always desynchronized, disjected … like clots of blood dripping from a clear sky. There they were in extenso, my mad bed-fellows: the most forlorn, whimsical, bizarre collection any man could gather. All displaced, all visitors from weird realms. Outlanders, each and all. Yet how tender and lovable! Like angels temporarily ostracized, their wings discreetly concealed beneath their tattered dominoes.
Often it was in the dark, while rounding a bend, the streets utterly deserted, the wind whistling like mad, that I would happen upon one of these nobodies. He may have hailed me to ask for a light or to bum a dime. How come that instantly we locked arms, instantly we fell into that jargon which only derelicts, angels and outcasts employ?
Often it was a simple, straightforward admission on the stranger’s part which set the wheels in motion. (Murder, theft; rape, desertion—they were dropped like calling cards.)
You understand, I hod to…
Of course!
The ax was lying there, the war was on, the old man always drunk, my sister on the bum … Besides, I always wanted to write … You understand?
Of course!
And then the stars … Autumn stars. And strange, new horizons. A world so new and yet so old. Walking, hiding, foraging. Seeking, searching, praying … shedding one skin after another. Every day a new name, a new calling. Always fleeing from myself. Understand?
Of course!
Above the Equator, under the Equator … no rest, no surcease. Never nothing nowhere. Worlds so bright, so full, so rich, but linked with concrete and barbed wire. Always the next place, and the next. Always the hand stretched forth, begging, imploring, beseeching. Deaf, the world. Stone deaf. Rifles cracking, cannons booming, and men, women and children everywhere lying stiff in their own dark blood. Now and then a flower. A violet, perhaps, and a million rotting corpses to fertilize it. You follow me?
Of course!
I went mad, mad, mad.
Naturally!
So he takes the ax, so sharp, so bright, and he takes to chopping … here a head, there an arm or leg, then fingers and toes. Chop, chop, chop. Like chopping spinach. And of course they’re looking for him. And when they find him they’ll run the juice through him. Justice will be served. For every million slaughtered like pigs one lone wretched monster is executed humanly.
Do I understand? Perfectly.
What is a writer but a fellow criminal, a judge, an executioner? Was I not versed in the art of deception since childhood? Am I not riddled with traumas and complexes? Have. I not been stained with all the guilt and sin of the medieval monk?
What more natural, more understandable, more human and forgivable than these monstrous rampages of the isolated poet?
As inexplicably as they entered my sphere they left, these nomads.
Wandering the streets on an empty belly puts one on the qui vive. One knows instinctively which way to turn, what to look for: one never fails to recognize a fellow traveler.
When all is lost the soul steps forth…
I referred to them as angels in disguise. So they were, but I usually awoke to the fact only after they had departed. Seldom does the angel appear trailing clouds of glory,
