There was something ridiculous and grotesque about this double image which obtruded at the most unexpected moments. I saw the two of them garbed in outlandish fashion—’Stasia in her overalls and hobnailed boots and Lady Precious Stream in her fluttering cape, her hair streaming loose like a mane. They were always talking simultaneously, and about utterly different things; they made strange grimaces and wild gesticulations; they walked with o two utterly different rhythms, one like an auk, the other like a panther.
Whenever I went deep enough into my childhood I was no longer outside, on the fringe, but snugly inside, like a pit in the fleshy heart of a ripe piece of fruit. I might be standing in front of Annie Meinken’s candy shop, in the old 14th Ward, my nose pressed against the window-pane, by eyes a-glitter at the sight of some chocolate-covered soldiers. That abstract noun, the world, hadn’t yet penetrated my consciousness. Everything was real, concrete, individuated, but neither fully named nor wholly delineated. I was and things were-. Space was limitless, time was not yet. Annie Meinken was a person who always leaned far over the counter to put things in my hand, who patted me on the head, who smiled at me, who said I was such a good little fellow, and sometimes ran out into the street to kiss me good-bye, though we lived only a few doors away.
I honestly think that at times, out there on the fringe, when I got very quiet and still, I half expected someone to behave towards me exactly as Annie Meinken used to. Maybe I was running off to those far-away places of my childhood just to receive again that piece of candy, that smile, that embarrassing parting kiss. I was indeed an idealist. An incurable one. (An idealist is one who wants to turn the wheels back. He remembers too well what was given him; he doesn’t think of what he himself might give. The world sours imperceptibly, but the process begins virtually from the moment one thinks in terms of the world.)
Strange thoughts, strange meanderings—for a book salesman. In my portfolio was locked the key to all human knowledge. Presumably. And wisdom, like Winchester, only forty miles away. Nothing in all the world so dead as this compendium of knowledge. To spiel it off about the foramenifera, about the infrared rays, about the bacteria that lie bedded in every cell—what a baboon I must have been! Naturally a Picodiribibi would have done far better! So might a dead jackass with a phonograph in its guts. To read in the subway, or on an open trolley, about Prust the founder of Prussia—what a profitless pastime! Far better, if one had to read, to listen to that madman who said: How sweet it is to hate one’s native land and eargerly await its annihilation.
Yes, in addition to the dummies, the bindings, and all the other paraphernalia which crammed my brief-case, I usually carried a book with me, a book so removed from the tenor of my daily life that it was more like a tattoo mark on the sole of a convict’s left foot. WE HAVE NOT YET DECIDED THE QUESTION OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND YOU WANT TO EAT! A sentence like this jumping out of a book in the dreary waste-land could decide the whole course of my day. I can see myself all over again slamming the book shut, jumping up like a startled buck, and exclaiming aloud: Where in hell are we? And then bolting. It might have been the edge of a swamp where they had let me off, it might have been the beginning of one of those interminable rows of all-look-alike suburban homes or the very portals of an insane asylum. No matter—on, on, head down, jaws;’ working feverishly, grunts, squeals of delight, ruminations, discoveries, illuminations. Because of that blitz phrase. Especially the and you want to eat! part of it. It was ages before I discovered who had originated this marvelous exclamation. All I knew then, all that mattered; was that I was back in Russia, that I was with kindred spirits, that I was completely possessed by such an esoteric proposition as the debatable existence of God.
Years later, did I say?
Why yes—only yesterday, so to speak, I found out who the author was. At the same time I learned that another man, a contemporary, had written thus of his nation, the great Russian nation:
We belong to the number of those nations which, so to speak, do not enter into the structure of mankind but exist only in order to teach the world an important lesson of some sort.
But I am not going to speak of yesterday or the day before yesterday. I am going to speak of a time which has no beginning nor end, a time moreover which with all the other kinds of time that filled the empty spaces of my days…
The way of ships, and of men in general, is the zigzag path. The drunkard moves in curves, like the planets. But the man who has no destination moves in a time and space continuum which is uniquely his own and in which God is ever present. For the time being—inscrutable phrase!—he is always there. There with the grand Cosmocrator, so to speak. Clear? Very well, it is Monday, let us say. And you want to eat? Instanter the stars begin to chime, the reindeer paw the turf; their blue icicles sparkle in the noonday sun. Whooshing it through the Nevsky Prospekt, I make my way to the inner circle, the brief-case under my arm. In my hand is a little bag of candy, a gift from Annie Meinken. A solemn question has just been propounded:
We have not yet decided the question of the existence of God…
It is at this point I always enter. I’m on my own time now. God’s time, in other words. Which is always for the time being. To hear me you would think I were a member of the Holy Synod—the Holy Philharmonic Synod. It isn’t necessary for me to tune in: I’ve been in tune since the dawn of time. Utter clarity is what marks my performance. I am of the order whose purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is over.
The comrades are relaxed and at ease. No bomb will go off until I give the order. On my right is Dostoievsky; on my left the Emperor Anathema.
Every member of the group has distinguished himself in some spectacular manner. I am the only one without portfolio. I am the Uitlander; I hail from the fringe, that is to say, from the trouble-bubble cauldron.
Comrades, it is said that a problem confronts us … (I always begin with this stock phrase.) I look about me. calm, self-possessed, before launching into my plaidoyer. Comrades, let us rivet our most concentrated attention for a moment on that wholly ecumenical question—
Which is? barks the Emperor Anathema.
Which is nothing less than this: If there were no God, would we be here?
Above the cries of Rot! and Rubbish! I follow with ease the sound of my own voice intoning the sacred texts buried in my heart. I am at ease because I have nothing to prove. I have only to recite what I learned by rote in off moments. That we are together and privileged to discuss the existence of God, this in itself is conclusive evidence for me that we are basking in the sunshine of His presence. I do not speak as if He were present, I speak because He is present. I am back in that eternal sanctuary where the word food always comes up. I am back because of that.
And you want to eat?
I address the comrades passionately now. Why not? I begin. Do we insult our Maker by eating what He has provided for us? Do you think He will vanish because we fill our bellies? Eat, I beg you. Eat heartily! The Lord our God has all time in which to reveal Himself. You pretend that you wish to decide the matter of His existence. Useless, dear comrades, it was decided long ago, before there even was a world. Reason alone informs us that if there be a problem there must be something real which brings it to birth. It is not for us to decide whether or not God exists, it is for God to say whether or not we exist (Dog! Have you anything to say? I shouted in the Emperor Anathema’s ear.) Whether to eat or not before deciding the issue, is that, I ask you, a metaphysical question? Does a hungry man debate whether he is to eat or not? We are all famished: we hunger and thirst for that which gave us life, else we would not be assembled here. To imagine that by giving a mere Yes or No the grand problem will be settled for eternity is sheer madness. We have not … (I paused and turned to the
