Ferdydurke (20 page)

And so his world was shaping itself—the housemaid taking second place, the farmhand first place. But my world had moved—lock, stock, and barrel—from school to the Youngbloods' home.

With a mother's perspicacity the Youngblood woman soon noticed that I was infatuated with her daughter. I need not add that the engineer's wife—duly excited by Pimko to begin with—became even more excited by this discovery. An old-fashioned and affected boy, unable to hide his admiration for the schoolgirl's modern attributes, was like a tongue with which she could sense and relish all her daughter's charms, and, indirectly—her own. And so I became a tongue to the fat woman, and the more old-fashioned, insincere, and affected I became the more they developed a sense of modernity, sincerity, and simplicity. And thus the two infantile realities—modern, old-fashioned—stimulating each other, chafing and exciting each other with a thousand of the strangest electric shocks, cumulated and rose into a world that became more and more fragmentary and green. And the upshot of it was that the old Youngblood woman began to strut before me like a peacock, flaunting and showing off her modernity, which was purely and simply a surrogate for youth. At mealtimes, whenever we found time, there were conversations about Moral Freedom, the Era, Revolutionary Upheavals, about Postwar Times, etc., that went on endlessly, and the old woman was thrilled that the Era was making her younger than the boy who was younger by age. She turned herself into a young woman, and she turned me into a little old man.

"So how goes it, our young little old man?" she would ask, "our rotten egg?"

And with the sophistication of the intelligent, modern engineer's wife that she was, she tormented me with her vitality, and with her experience of life, and with the fact that she knew what life was all about, and with having been kicked during the first World War while a nurse in the trenches, and with her enthusiasm, and with her wide horizons, and with the liberalism of the Avant-garde, Active, and Bold woman, and also with her modern ways, daily baths, and with what had thus far been a covert activity—her now overt visits to the toilet. Strange, strange things! Pimko came to visit me from time to time. The old teacher delighted in my pupa. "What a pupa," he purred, "unsurpassed!" and he seized every opportunity to flatter the Youngblood woman by exaggerating his old-fashioned pedagogical genre, and he continued to be utterly shocked by the modern schoolgirl. I noticed that elsewhere, as at school with Mr. Piorkowski, for example, Pimko didn't present himself as particularly old, nor did he adhere to those old-fashioned principles, and I couldn't quite grasp whether it was the Youngbloods who elicited his old-fashioned ways, or—on the contrary—it was he who elicited the Youngbloods' modernity, or whether—in the final analysis—they played off each other for some higher rhyme or reason. I don't know to this day whether Pimko, otherwise the absolute prof, was forced by Miss Young-blood's postwar unruliness into becoming one of those prewar species of prof, or whether he provoked her unruliness by purposefully adopting the mien of an unhappy, inept, and kindly granddaddy. Who created whom—did the modern schoolgirl create the grand-daddy, or did the granddaddy create the modern schoolgirl? A rather useless and sterile question. But how strangely whole worlds can crystallize between two people's calves.

One way or another, they both thrived—he as the pedagogue of bygone views and principles, Zuta as the unbridled youth—and gradually his visits became longer, he devoted less attention to me and concentrated more on the modern one. Need I tell you?—I was jealous of Pimko. I suffered terribly as I watched the two of them fulfilling each other, concurring in everything, rhyming little lyrics and together creating spicy little old-new poetry, and it was horrible to watch how this antique of a man—his calves a thousandfold inferior to mine—was more in synchrony with this modern girl than I was. Norwid in particular became the pretext for a thousand frolics, the kindly Pimko couldn't acquiesce to her ignorance of the subject, it offended his most sacred sentiments, while she preferred pole-vaulting—he constantly expressed indignation, she laughed, he'd recommend something, she'd have none of it, he entreated her, she'd just hop and skip—and on and on and on! I admired the wisdom and maturity with which the prof, while not for a moment ceasing to be a prof and always acting on the principle of a prof, was nevertheless able to derive pleasure from the modern schoolgirl by means of contrast and antithesis, how he excited her schoolgirlishness with his "prof" while she incited him with her schoolgirlishness to be the prof. I was terribly jealous—after all, I too incited her antithetically and was in turn excited by her—but, O my God, I didn't want to be old-fashioned with her, I wanted to be modern!

Oh, what torment, torment, torment! I could not, I just could not set myself free. All my efforts came to naught. My derision—I spared her none in my thoughts—brought no results, in fact, what does cheap derision behind someone's back accomplish? Anyway, all the derision was nothing but homage. Because deep within the derision lurked a poisonous desire to please her—and deriding her probably served no other purpose than to adorn myself with the peacock feathers of derision—and was simply the result of her negation of me. But the derision turned against me and made my mug look even uglier and more horrible. And I dared not deride her openly—she would just have shrugged her shoulders. Because a girl, similar in this to everyone else, will never be intimidated by someone who derides her just because he's been refused admission ... And the only effect that my clownish attack on her had, that time in her room, was that from then on she was on guard against me, she ignored me—she ignored me as befits a modern schoolgirl, realizing perfectly well how much in love I was with her modern charms. She therefore intensified those charms with the refined cruelty of a magpie, though carefully avoiding any hint of coquetry that might make her dependent on me. She became, just to please herself, more wild and impudent, more bold, harsh, lithe, sporty, leggy, and she promptly let herself be carried away by her own modern charms. She would sit down to dinner, oh, so mature in her immaturity, so self-assured, indifferent, and self-contained, while I sat there for her, for her, I sat there for her alone, and I couldn't miss a single second of sitting for her, I was within her, she enclosed me within herself, my derision and all, her likes and dislikes meant the world to me, and I could like myself only as much as she liked me. What torture—to be totally stuck within a modern schoolgirl. And never, not even once, did I catch her letting go of that modern style in the slightest, never providing me with a chink through which I could escape to freedom, to bolt!

This was precisely what captivated me—the maturity and autonomy of her youth, the self-assurance of her style. While we in school had our blackheads, constantly broke out in pimples and ideals, while our movements were gawky and each step was a gaffe—her
exterieur
was entrancingly polished. Youth, for her, was not a transitional age—for this modern one, youth was the only time befitting a human being—she disdained maturity, immaturity was her maturity—she had no time for beards, mustaches, wet nurses, mothers with children—and this was the source of her magical power. Her youth had no need of ideals, it was in and of itself an ideal. No wonder that, tormented by idealistic youth, I too thirsted for that ideal youth, like a mushroom for rain. But she didn't want me! She put the screws to my mug! And with every passing day she tightened the screws so that my mug looked more and more horrible.

By God—how she tortured that "beauty" of mine! Oh, I know no greater cruelty than that of one human being putting the screws to the mug of another. No holds barred, just shove it into the ridiculous, the grotesque, make a sham of it, because the ugliness of one man sustains the beauty of another, and oh, believe me, dealing someone the pupa is nothing compared to putting the screws to someone's mug! I was finally at my wits' end, and I began to dream up wild schemes in which I physically destroyed the schoolgirl. To disfigure that little face of hers. To put out of shape that nose of hers, to cut it off. But if the example of Kneadus and Syphon served any purpose it was to show that brute force isn't much good, no, the soul has little use for the nose, the soul is set free by spiritual mastery alone. But what could I do when my soul was stuck inside her, when I was within her and she was hemming me in. Is it possible to extricate oneself from someone, under one's own power, when that person is one's only support, the only contact you have, when that person's style dominates you completely? No, not under your own power, that's impossible, totally out of the question. Unless a third person helps you from the sidelines, offers you at least the tip of his finger. But who could help me? Kneadus, who never visited the Young-bloods (except in their kitchen, on the sly) and was never a party to my association with the schoolgirl? Mr. Youngblood, Mrs. Young-blood, or Pimko?—they were the schoolgirl's sworn allies. Or finally, a housemaid for hire, a creature without a voice? All the while my mug became more and more horrible, and the more horrible it became the more the two Youngblood women hardened in their modern style and tightened the screws on my mug. Oh, style—the tool of tyranny! Oh, damnation! But the two hags miscalculated! Because the time came when, quite by chance and thanks to Mr. Youngblood (yes, Mr. Youngblood), the trammels of their style loosened, and little by little I regained my power. And then I went on the offensive, full steam ahead. Forward and away, giddy-up, giddy-up, ride roughshod over style, over the modern schoolgirl's beauty!

A strange thing—I owe my liberation to the engineer because, were it not for the engineer, I would have been imprisoned forever, but he unwittingly brought about a small shift, and the schoolgirl suddenly found herself inside me and not I inside her, yes, the engineer pulled his daughter inside me, and I'll be grateful to him until the day I die. I remember how it started. I remember that day—I come home from school for dinner. The Youngbloods are already at the table, the housemaid brings potato soup, the schoolgirl also sits there—she sits perfectly, with her slightly Bolshevik
physique-kultur,
in sneakers. She didn't eat much soup that day—instead she gulped a glass of water and followed it with a slice of bread, she stayed away from the soup—a watered-down mush, warm and too effortless, definitely bad for her type—and she probably wanted to go hungry as long as possible, at least until the meat dish, because a hungry modern girl is more classy than a satiated modern girl. Mrs. Young-blood also ate very little soup, and she didn't ask how my day went at school. Why didn't she ask? Because she didn't go for those motherly questions, she was generally a bit disgusted with "mother," she disliked "mother." She preferred "sister."

"Here you are, Victor, have some salt," she said in the
tone of
a true and faithful comrade and a reader of H. G. Wells, as she passed the salt to her husband, and, with her gaze turned partly into the future, partly into space, a gaze emphasizing the humanitarian revolt of a human being who combats the infamy of social ills, injustice, and injury, she added:

"Capital punishment is obsolete."

Whereupon Mr. Youngblood, that man of Europe, an engineer and enlightened urban planner who studied in Paris, whence he brought that dark, European flair—that man then, casual in his attire, sporting new yellow buckskin shoes that looked very striking on him, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and his collar
à la
poet Slowacki—a robust pacifist devoid of prejudices, an admirer of scientifically organized work, and given to telling scientific jokes and anecdotes, and cabaret jokes, took the salt and said:

"Thank you, Joanna."

And, in the tone of an enlightened pacifist, but with a hint of the engineering student's voice, he added:

"In Brazil they dump whole barrels of salt in water, while we pay six groszes per gramme. Oh, those politicians! We are the experts. The world needs reorganizing. League of Nations."

Whereupon the Youngblood woman took a deep breath and, envisioning a better tomorrow and Zeromski's glass houses of the future—referring to the tradition of struggle of yesterday's Poland and striving for the Poland of tomorrow—she said sensibly:

"Zuta, who was that boy who walked you home from school today? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. You know I'm not one to pressure or embarrass you in any way."

The Youngblood girl nonchalantly ate a piece of bread.

"I don't know," she replied.

"You don't know?" the mother asked pleasandy.

"He accosted me," said the schoolgirl.

"Accosted you?" Mr. Youngblood asked.

It was just an offhand question. But the very fact that he asked it loaded the issue and may have created the impression of outdated fatherly disapproval. That's why the Youngblood woman intervened.

"And what's so strange about that?" she exclaimed with what seemed excessive cheekiness. "He accosted her—big deal! Let him! Zuta, did you make a date with him? Great! Perhaps you'd like to go kayaking with him—for the whole day? Or maybe you'd like to go away for the weekend and not come back at night? Don't come back then," she said obligingly, "go ahead and stay overnight! And maybe you'd like to go without any money, maybe you'd like him to pay for you, or maybe you'd rather pay for him, so he'd be on your keep—in that case I'll give you some money. But on the other hand, I'm sure you'll both manage without money, eh?" she exclaimed harshly, insisting with her whole body, it seemed. Indeed, the engineer's wife overshot the mark a bit, but the daughter deftly staved off her mother, who was trying, all too obviously, to live vicariously through her daughter.

"Yes, yes, Mother," the girl dismissed her, and declined a second helping of meat patties because ground meat did not agree with her—it was too mushy and somehow too easy on her. The modern girl was wary of her parents, she never let them get too close to her.

But the engineer had already caught his wife's drift. And since she had insinuated that he disapproved of the fact that his daughter had been accosted, he was eager, in his turn, to show his mettle. They thus went on catching each other's drift. And he exclaimed: