Making Faces

MAKING FACES

(Extract)

I now have a stick to lean on and I am walking along a dusty path. I have reconciled myself to the chaos of the physical world, although I have not yet managed to become completely indiffer­ent to it, and that is why I am walking. I don't even know where I am going and I am dying not to let it interest me. I am not try­ing to reach any particular goal, although I often used to say that any goal was better than none. Now I am just walking... Yes, I have tried to learn and I have read the Bible, Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, Indian   epics   and   the   Upanishads.   Kant,   Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Lenin, Engels, Bakunin, Mao Tse-tung, Lukács, Lev Tolstoy, de Sade, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Janko Kráľ. Makovicky, Schopenhauer, Husserl, Freud, Kafka, Heidegger, Jaspers, Camus, Sartre, Thomas Aquinas, Spenser, Mickiewicz, Soloviev, Herder, Pushkin, Griboyedov, Belinsky, Škarvan, Masaryk, Teige, Cioce, Bucharin, Bergson, Kosmas, Radhakrishnan, Joyce, Khlebnikov... But I'm probably a fool, because I have stopped asking: who am I? why am I? and where am I going?... I have stopped thinking these questions are impor­tant, because I haven't found a satisfactory answer to them either in books or in myself. It's enough for me to know that I am and that I am walking along with a gnarled stick in my hand. The road is long enough for me not to reach its end. I don't know whether it is sensible or silly, but the quality of my actions doesn't inter­est me. Nor do I ask: what do I know? Although, as some people claim, a question like that is more thoroughly sceptical than the statement: I know that I know nothing....

As I go along, I make faces and amuse myself imagining what I must look like. I let the corners of my mouth drop and I have the impression I look like a miller's-thumb, but when I also narrow my eyes, I immediately become a fox. I open my mouth wide, I stick out my tongue and I am a panting dog. I open my eyes, lower my neck and I moo like a cow.... No, this is not an attempt at metempsychosis, I am just trying to make myself look the way I sometimes see myself.... However, I don't stop walking, I tread quietly on the soft dust, stirring it up with the soles of my shoes.... And although I don't ask: what do I know? and although I don't claim: I know that I know nothing! nevertheless, there are times when I cannot rid myself of the suspicion: I am a fool! and that one thing sometimes spoils the pleasure I get from my own grimaces....

Even though natural religion, the religion of the law and the religion of the spirit, have tried to get the better of me ever since I was little, I forget fairly quickly, and that is a good thing... Of course, even things I have forgotten often come back to me, but not for long.... I am always saved by these grimaces, which I can't even see, because I have no mirror, I just imagine them....

I have no idea what went before the legendary history of humankind, what went before archeology, alchemy, chemistry, astrology and astronomy, or where mythology, poetry, philoso­phy or science are leading, but I have discovered that grimaces can be made with your whole body or a part of it... I simply have to crouch and hop on both feet to be a sparrow. It's a rather exag­gerated grimace, perhaps, but it's good enough. Playing at being charitable looks less forced. It's enough to take a piece of bread to the square and feed the pigeons, who could manage without it anyway.          

At times it has been possible to use the rights of the state to abolish the rights of the individual, or to benefit a dictator by oppression, but it was probably not of much service to the order of the world, which is said to derive from Cain. Not even of such service as my latest face, "the Philanthropist," which was my only companion on at least one quiet evening when the mist was so low it almost touched my head. I lie under a tree on a tuft of sweet-smelling straw and I tell myself: I'll take off my shoes, let my feet rest; then I will get up barefoot and before I fall asleep, I'll taste those strawberries nearby... But I don't do anything; my unreliability no longer grieves me. Laziness is the only aspect of my character on which I can always rely.

I am thinking, I only think when I make faces, and at that moment I am not myself and I'm not too happy about it. What I feel even more sorry about is that my thinking lags so far behind my intuition, which does me the favor of visiting me only on exceptional occasions... I'm probably fated to remain a fool, although fate is not exactly what I believe in....

But in the morning, when I wake up and have a drink of water, I take my stick, breathe in the damp air and move on once more. I walk, supporting myself with my stick and making faces until I meet someone. At such times I have to restrain myself and take an equal part in the meeting....

I see a hay wagon standing in a sloping meadow of cut grass. On either side of it there are about fifteen cocks of dry hay. The cows have been unyoked and are tied to the shaft. They are wav­ing their tails, shaking their heads, driving off the bluebottles and gad flies. The farmer, a robust-looking man, thrusts his long fork into a pile of hay and swings it into the wagon over the hay rack. The handle creaks and cracks in his hands, but it doesn't break. The pole to weigh down the hay is lying a little way off. I sum up the situation at a glance: the farmer can't cart away the hay all at once by himself, and so I go towards him. He stops loading when he catches sight of me, sticks the fork in the ground in front of him and stands there, legs apart.

"Where now, where to?" he asks me before I have a chance to greet him. He is still smiling when he pushes his hat higher up his forehead with his index finger.

"To the river, fishing, good morning," I say. In fact we are not unlike: we both have pants, unbuttoned shirts, tanned chests and hats on our heads. Only I have a coat slung over my shoulder and a gnarled stick in my hand.

"It's going to be hot and sticky," says the farmer, "and there may be a shower before evening," he looks up and his face immediately seems to reflect the blue of the sky.

"I see you're getting the hay in," I keep up the conversation.

"Aaa, it's already dry," he points to the hay. "it's started to snap."

I look at the hay, too. Most of the haycocks are all heath grass, but two above the wagon are bristly fescue: they come from the very top of the meadow, where it is driest. In such places the sun burns the sparse grass yellow. However, I can also discern two haycocks of bur-reed that must have grown at the lower end of the meadow, near the ditch. It is long and sharp, it has turned brown in the sun and it'll be for the sheep.

"I'll help you," I offer. He hesitates a moment, rests his arms on the handle of the fork and looks at the cows, which have begun to ruminate. Saliva is dripping from their mouths and they are tak­ing no notice of us.

"As you like," he says finally. I quickly throw aside my stick and put my coat down beside it. I roll up the sleeves of my shirt and wait. He is staring at me, but kindly, he's weighing me up.

"You could get up into the wagon," he says, "it needs pressing down..."

I nod and scramble up into the cart from the shaft end. I wade into the hay, pushing it down. The farmer begins to throw whole forkfuls in my direction. He sticks the fork into a haycock and lifts half of it at one time, without so much as a groan. He just breathes out, blowing away the dust that has settled under his nose. The hay is dry and flies all over the place. I have my work cut out to keep up with him as I spread out the hay and press it down well. I shove it under the front and rear poles, push it out into the chains at the sides, but it is soon on a level with the hay rack. Now I begin to arrange the first layer from the front. One forkful to the right, the second to the left, the third in the middle, I cross them over so they hold together.... When I glance down, I see there are three more haycocks in the meadow. There'll be enough for another layer....

Now the wagon is full, the meadow empty. The farmer uses his rake to tidy up the wagon from all sides and he hands me the pole to keep the hay in place. We pull it really tight. He then throws the hay fork and rake up to me and I stick them firmly in the hay, so they won't get lost on the way, and I can jump down. I take a critical look at the cart. It seems a bit fat, I've put a bit too much on the sides. Otherwise…

"As if you'd been doing it all your life," the farmer remarks with a smile.

"You learn all kinds of things in your life...."

"Let's have a smoke."

We sit down side by side on the grassy stubble, at a distance from the wagon. The farmer pulls out his cigarettes, offers me one and immediately lights it for me. I have been sweating, and the dust and specks of hay are beginning to prick my skin. But I feel fine. I blow the black snot out of my nose, squeezing it between two fingers and I feel even better.

"On holiday?" the farmer asks me.

"Yes, sort of," I say.

"Not too many come here yet," he says, meaning tourists. "There are more fish here, too...."

"I don't know, I haven't tried catching them here."

"Where's your fishing line?" he inquires, turning towards me.

"I haven't got one, I can manage with my hands." He nods his head approvingly. I watch him as he unhurriedly presses his cigarette stub into the soil with his sinewy hand. He looks around at the cows and gets up.

"I must hitch them up," he says. I follow him over to the wagon and hold the yoke for him. The cows are quiet, they don't twist and turn, even though the insects keep worrying them. The farmer takes another look around the cart and then retrieves his knapsack from the shaft.

"Here you are, you helped me." he says and hands me a large bit of fat and a slice of bread wrapped in a greasy piece of paper.

"Thank you!"

"'Enjoy it!" he says and cracks his whip. The cows strain at the creaking yoke and the wagon moves forward.

"Don't you need me to hold on to it?" I ask.

"No, the path goes uphill here," he replies. "Goodbye!" he calls out and then he doesn't look around again until much later.

I remain standing where I am for a while, watching the wagon move away. Then I bend down, pick up my stick and sling my coat over my shoulder. I feel sadder than I did in the morning, but I then think of the water and the fish. I step out...

I am alone once more. Once more I occupy myself by making faces. I pull out my lips, slick out my teeth and maybe I look as if I am smiling. When I sniff, I must move my mouth and so I smack my lips at the same time. I walk on and it is like groping my way. Do you know the four Vedas? Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda. The most important of all is Rigveda. The Indo-Europeans brought these songs to India from their previous home as their most prescious treasure. Someone called on people or ordered them to collect them, in order to preserve them. They did it when in their new homeland they came into contact with a large number of worshippers of other gods. That's what they say. This suddenly struck a chord with my recollection of the farmer. The farmer, his cows, his wagon, his hay. Did it happen long ago? Did it happen at all? Am I not repeating to myself an old fairytale? When I walk along, I make faces, I imagine and then all kinds of things occur to me. Have I invented a fairytale farmer, or did I really meet him? I've got nothing to point to, nothing to prove it, even my own conscience has often betrayed me…!

Like Epicurus, I tell myself: don't worry about your funeral, and so I walk on to the waterside. I don't worry about things that are finite. But even so, the water is cold, especially at altitudes like these, and in that water I will throttle a fish. I will catch it by its fins, pull it out on to the bank and hit its head on a rock. Or I'll break its spine. I can't say to the fish: "Don't be afraid, nothing terrible awaits you when you are no longer alive," or: "Death does not concern us, because when we are, death is not, and when death is, we are not," because the "fish doesn't understand. The fish is dumb, it suffers, if it suffers…

Something bumps against the small of my back. I fumble around for my coat pocket and discover a lump. I pull it out and, goodness me, it’s the fat and slice of bread. I feel pleased in spite of myself; I bless the farmer for his gift, because it is now the only proof not only of his kindness, but also of his existence. I hunt around among the odds and ends in my pants pocket and I pull out a knife. A cheap pocket knife, but sharp. I am not, or at least I think I am not, an egoist, a pleasure-seeker or a cynic, but the moment has come when I can think only of myself. I sit down on my coat in the grass and begin to eat. I nibble at the fat, the bread, I chew, masticate, smack my lips. My free moment, my moment for taking in food. I wallow in the intense enjoyment it gives me, as if it were the goal of a blissful life. I relish the pleasure so much, that in the end I feel ashamed. If Epicurus were here, he would tell me: "Ugh, you wretch! Happiness in life cannot be found in constant drinking and nightly reveling, nor in intercourse with boys and women, nor in eating fish and other things offered by a rich table, but sober judgement, which seeks reason; for every choice and for every refusal and repudiates deceptive suppositions, which fill the soul with the utmost chaos." I am even more ashamed when I realize that just a moment before I had longed for fresh fish far more than anything else. In fact I'm horrified, shivers run down my back, at moments when I.... I am he who wants nothing, neither a meaning, nor an aim, who does not want to be either good or bad, who doesn't want to stay any­where or get anywhere, and a moment ago I had wanted nothing more than to get to the water and to the fish.... This confirms once again that, although I desire nothing in my mind, in fact I long for everything I want to give up, even a good rest beside the cool waters. But what can be done, I have already betrayed myself so often, that all that remains is for me to quickly forget. It really is impossible to live with contradictions like these, especially if one is afraid to like one's own life, and so I don't throw away the fat, but I finish eating it and I don't even relinquish the idea of resting at the waterside.

The valley above me runs into a ravine. The valley below me descends to a river. There are the marshy places, there are the soft damp spots overgrown with dock leaves. There the willows have grown strong and their supple canes criss-cross each other in all directions. Only there does the ground squelch under your soles and only there can drunken consciousness, a part of mystical consciousness, find a cool place to rest. And maybe just there it is possible to achieve with James that divine physical rapture. I focus my gaze on that place, I shout out loud (and insanely), I just can't wait...

But first, what torment it is to enter this oasis... And perhaps it only seems an oasis. Happiness demands suffering as its condi­tion. I am setting out on a journey, I am delirious. I would like to get from the unreal to the real, from the darkness to the light, from death to immortality... As if in my imagination I were already reaching for the absolute...

And here is a little beetle! He is traveling in the opposite direc­tion from me. I bend over him, I tell him: come with me, because I want to have a companion. He trots on stubbornly. I turn him around, poke him with my thumb, but he traces a half circle and returns the same way. He doesn't want to! I have to lift him up with a handful of earth and shove him in my pocket. He may bite his way through the material to my thigh, but by then we will already be beside the water, among the dock leaves.

The absolute? I am taken aback. Not long ago I didn't want anything, and now I want everything. Is it really only possible to long for extremes? I am forgetting, however, because I want to, I am forgetting the beetle in my pocket. Is it really so easy, only thirty steps and I will be beside the water? Look at my grimaces… I make the journey more difficult by crawling, I tear my trousers, dirty my shirt, graze my palms and knees until they bleed. What does it matter, after all, I am going to the water and there I will wash. Who knows, maybe the water has the power to heal!

The dock leaf hides the sun, but cannot stop it shining. When it waves in the breeze, it fans my face. When it dips, bent by the wind, it strokes me. The ground is soft, the water rises. A person longs for nothing more than for himself...

Here is the bank already! The reflection in the water can be seen, its coolness felt, its fragrance smelled. On the bank is a dead fish with a dead eye. I crawl over to it as to a mirror. I want to see myself in it, my grimace... I bend over it, searching for an image, and I see nothing more, only death.... My head drops, the fish eye penetrates mine. What will it be like to breathe one's last?

       Translated by Heather Trebatická