Ferdydurke (10 page)

"Slopowski."

But it soon became apparent that Slopowski couldn't translate Caesar, which was the assignment for today, and, worse still, he did not know that
animis oblatis
was in the
ablativus absolutus.

"Oh, Master Slopowski," the gentle old man said with genuine reproach, "you don't know what
animis oblatis
means, nor do you know its grammatical construction? Why don't you know it?" And, truly upset, he gave him an F, but then he beamed again, and with a renewed surge of trust he called on "K"—Koperdillski, in the belief that by singling him out he was bestowing happiness, and, with looks and gestures full of the deepest trust, he egged him on to noble rivalry. But neither Koperdillski nor Kotecki nor Kabbaginski nor Kodowel had any idea what
animis oblatis
meant, they would go up to the blackboard and stand there, sulking, glum and silent, whereupon the little old man would express his fleeting disappointment with a brisk gesture, then, as if he had only yesterday arrived from the moon, from some other world, and, with a renewed upsurge of trust, he would again call upon someone else, each time expecting that the student, thus blessed and favored, would duly respond to his call. But no one did. He had already marked close to ten F's on the record sheet, and he still had not realized that everyone was trying to stave off his trust with a cold and deathly fear, that no one wanted all that trust—oh, he was such an extremely trusting little old man! And there was no remedy for all that trust! They tried in vain all means of persuasion, they presented sick-notes, excuses, ailments—to no avail, the teacher went on talking with compassion and understanding.

"What do you mean, Master Bobkowski! For reasons beyond your control you couldn't prepare your lesson? Well, don't worry, I'll ask you something from a previous text. What? You have a little bit of a headache? Great, I have just the thing for you, the interesting maxim
de malis capitis.
Now what—you have an urgent need to go to the bathroom? Oh, Master Bobkowski! What's your point? The ancients have done it already! Let me show you the famous
passus
from book five, where Caesar's whole army, having eaten spoiled carrots, succumbed to the same fate as you. The whole army, Bobkowski! Why bother with such a feeble attempt when you already have at hand a brilliant and classic description! These books, gentlemen, are life, life itself!"

Syphon and Kneadus were forgotten, the quarreling had stopped— everyone tried to cease to exist, to be no more, the students shrank, faded, and sank into the background, they pulled in their stomachs, hands, and legs, but not one student was bored, boredom was out of the question, because now each and every one of them was scared, and, in pained fear, grimly awaited his turn to be caught by the call of the childlike trust that had grazed on texts. And their faces—as faces are wont to do under stress and panic—turned into shadows, into illusions, until it was impossible to tell what was more insane, unreal, chimeric—their faces, the unfathomable
accusativs cum infinitivo,
or the hellish trust of a deluded old man and what had been real slowly turned into a world of ideals, oh, let me dream now, let me!

The teacher, however, having given Bobkowski an F and having finally exhausted
animis oblatis,
dreamt up a new problem, namely, what will
passivum futurum conditionalis
be in the third person plural of the reflexive verb
colleo, colleavi, colleatum,
and now this new idea caught his fancy.

"An amazing thing!" he exclaimed rubbing his hands, "amazing and instructive too! Well, gentlemen! This is an issue replete with subtlety! Here is a fertile field for showing off your intellectual prowess! Because if
ollandus sim
derives from
olleare
then . . . yes, then, then . . . gentlemen . . ." but the gendemen had seemingly disappeared, terrified out of existence. "Right! Well? Well?
Collan . . . collan
..."

No one said a word. The little old man, still brimming with hope, went on repeating his: "yes, yes" and
"collan, collan,"
he beamed, he wooed them with his riddles, he encouraged and incited them, and— as best he knew how—he called for answers, for knowledge, for happiness and fulfillment. But suddenly he realized that no one wanted any of it, that he had been dancing while facing a blank wall. His lights dimmed, and in a hollow voice he said:

"Collandus sim! Collandus sim!"
he repeated sadly, and, humiliated by the silence, he added: "How is it, gentlemen? Don't you appreciate any of it?! Can't you see that
collandus sim
develops intelligence, improves the mind, builds character, perfects us in everyway and bonds us with ancient thought? Because, mark you, if
ollandus
is from
olleare,
then clearly
collandus
is from
colleare,
because
passivum futurum
of the third conjugation ends in
dus, dus, us,
with the exception of the exceptions.
Us, us, us—
gentlemen! There is nothing more logical than a language in which everything that's illogical is an exception!
Us, us, us,
gentlemen," he ended despondently, "what a great factor in evolution!" At that moment Galkiewicz jumped to his feet and groaned: "Evolution, shmolution! How can it develop anything when it develops nothing? How can it perfect anything when it perfects nothing? How can it build something when it doesn't build anything? O God, O God-O God, O God!"

Teacher "What's this, Master Galkiewicz? The suffix
us
does not perfect you? You're telling me that this suffix does not perfect you? That the suffix
passivi futuri
of the third conjugation does not enrich you? Come, come, Galkiewicz!"

Galkiewicz "That little tail ending does not enrich me! That little tail does not perfect me! Not in the least! O God! O God!"

Teacher "What do you mean—doesn't enrich you? Master Galkiewicz, when I say it enriches you, it most certainly does! And I'm telling you it does enrich you! Trust me, Galkiewicz! Of course an ordinary mind cannot grasp these great benefits! In order to grasp them one has to, after years of extensive studies, first become an extraordinary mind oneself! For Christ's sake, in the course of the past year we've covered seventy-three poems from Caesar, and in these poems Caesar describes how he positioned his cohorts on a hillock. Those seventy-three poems, just the words themselves, haven't they mysteriously revealed to you, Galkiewicz, all the riches of antiquity? Haven't they taught you its style, its clarity of thought, its precision of expression, and its art of war?"

Galkiewicz "Nothing! Nothing! No art. I'm just scared of an F. That's all I'm scared of! Oh, I can't, I can't!"

Generalized inability was now threatening everyone. The teacher realized that it was threatening him too, and, worse still, if he did not redouble his trust to counter his own sudden lack of trust and will, he too would perish. Abandoned by all—"Pylaszczkiewicz!"— exclaimed the hermit in despair, "You, Syphon Pylaszczkiewicz, recapitulate at once the gains we've made in the last three months by revealing to us the full depth of thought and the delights of style, and—yes, I do trust, I do, Jesus, Mary, I do trust!"

Syphon, always ready—as mentioned before—and able on demand, stood up, and with great ease and fluency began:

The following day, having gathered his troops, Caesar chastised them for their hot-headedness and greed, and, surmising that they had used their own judgment, their own preconception as to where they should go and what they should do, and that they had decided, after the orders to retreat were given, that they would not he held hack by any military tribunes or envoys, he explained to them the significance of an unfavorable site, such as Avaricum, where an otherwise assured victory eluded him even though he had seized the enemy without their leader and without their cavalry, and that they had, nonetheless, sustained major losses because the site was unfavorable. The spirit of those who will not be deterred by the fortifications of a camp, the height of mountains, or the walls of a city is to be much admired, but by the same token one has to condemn the undue willfulness and audacity of those who think they know more about victory and the outcome of things than their leader does, and in a soldier one wishes for modesty and restraint no less than for bravery and nobility of mind. Then, as he kept advancing, he made the decision and ordered the bugles to sound retreat so that ten legions would at once desist from battle, and this was carried out, but the soldiers in the remaining legions did not hear the sound of the bugles because they were separated from the rest by a wide valley. Therefore military tribunes and envoys tried to call them back, as had been ordered by Caesar, but the soldiers were so excited by the prospect of victory, of overpowering their enemy in his flight in the course of a propitious battle, all of which they could achieve through bravery and without resorting to flight, that they did not stop till they were at the walls and the gates of the city, then shouts were heard in all parts of the city, whereupon those terrified by the sudden uproar thought that the enemy was within the gates, and started running out of the city.

"Collandus sim,
gentlemen!
Collandus sim!
What clarity, what language! What depth, what thought!
Collandus sim,
what a repository of wisdom! Oh, I can breathe again, I can breathe!
Collandus sim
forever and ever, to the very end
collandus sim, collandus sim, collandus sim, collandus sim, collandus sim—
suddenly the bell rang, and the students screamed wildly, the little old man gave a look of surprise and walked out.

At the same moment, abandoning these officially sanctioned musings, they all bashed full-face into their own private musings about the lad, the guy, discussions flared up again, and, what had been real slowly turned into a world of ideals, oh, let me dream now, let me! Kneadus had deliberately summoned me to be the umpire! He did it deliberately! So that I would have to watch, so that I would have to see it. His mind was set—by befouling himself he wanted to befoul me too, he could not bear the fact that I had been instrumental in revealing his momentary weakness for the farmhand. But how could I risk exposing my own face? I knew that if I became part of this aping, my own face would never return to normal, my chance of escape would be lost forever, no, no, let them carry on however they want, but without me, without me! Nervously wiggling my toe in my shoe I caught his sleeve, I looked at him imploringly and whispered:

"Kneadus..."

He pushed me away.

"Oh no, kiddo! That won't do! You are the umpire, and that's that!"

He called me "kiddo"! What a disgusting word! It was sheer cruelty on his part, I realized that everything was lost, and that we were heading full-steam toward that which I dreaded most, toward utter freakishness and grotesqueness. Meanwhile, even those who had until now been listlessly repeating "Could Syphonus perchance . . ." were seized with a wild and sick curiosity. Nostrils flaring, cheeks burning red, it was clear that the face-pulling duel would indeed be a duel with no holds barred, unto death, and not merely a duel of empty words! They surrounded the two contestants and shouted into the heavily laden air:

"Go ahead! Stick it to him! Get on with it! Go for it!"

Only Kopyrda calmly stretched himself, picked up his notes, and walked away on those legs of his...

And Syphon sat on that lad of his—all gloom and doom, as puffed up as a hen sitting on eggs—one could see that he was actually a little scared and would have preferred to back out! Pyzo, however, swiftly recognized what terrific chances Syphon's lofty beliefs and principles gave him. "We've got him!" he whispered into Syphon's ear to spur him on. "Don't be yellow! Think of your principles! You have your principles, and for the sake of these principles as such, you'll easily be able to pull faces, any number of them, while he has no principles, and he'll have to pull faces for his own sake, and not for the sake of principles, as such." As a result of these whisperings Syphon's face began to relax and soon to glow peacefully, because his principles were indeed empowering him to pull any number of faces, at any time. Mizdral and Hopek saw what was happening and, taking Kneadus aside, begged him not to risk certain defeat.

"Don't bring ruin on yourself and on all of us, better surrender right now—he's much better at pulling faces than you are—pretend, Kneadie, that you're sick, pass out, it'll blow over, we'll find excuses for you!"

But Kneadus merely answered:

"I can't, the die is cast! Off with you! Off! Do you want me to chicken out? Get those gawkers out of here! They're getting on my nerves! No one is to watch me from the side except the seconds and the umpire." But his face fell, and his initial doggedness gave way to obvious stage fright, which contrasted with Syphon's calm self-confidence so starkly that Mizdral whispered: "He's done for," and the others shuddered and slipped out of the classroom in silence, closing the door carefully behind them. Suddenly we found ourselves in the deserted classroom, behind closed doors, the seven of us, Syphon Pylaszczkewicz and Kneadus, Mizdral, Hopek, Pyzo, someone called Guzek (Syphon's other second), and of course myself in the middle as the superarbiter, as the dumbfounded superarbiter of all arbiters. And now Pyzo's voice resounded, sarcastic and awe-inspiring, and, looking slightly pale, he read the conditions of the engagement from a piece of paper:

The contestants shall stand facing each other and shall fire a salvo of faces, and to each and every one of Pylaszczkiewicz's inspiring and beatific faces, Kneadalski shall respond with an ugly and demolishing counterface. The faces—as personal as possible, totally individual, and intrinsically his own, as wounding and shattering as possible
—
shall be administered without a silencer, to the very end.

He fell silent—while Syphon and Kneadus took up their assigned positions, Syphon rubbed his cheeks, Kneadus slid his jaw from side to side—then Mizdral said through his chattering teeth: