Anarchistbanjo's World

Homo Sapiens: Under Way by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel

“No, she wouldn’t want that either. In the end, he was right too; but the mother…” 

“Yes, yes… the mother; it’s beautiful to have a mother.” Falk kissed both her hands. 

“By the way, Mama, do you have some cognac?” 

“Yes, she has it. But why does he want to drink so much? It’s terrible to get used to it. Doesn’t he remember the shepherd’s wife who got delirium?” 

Falk laughed. 

“No, he doesn’t want to get used to it; he just has a bit of a fever and wants to lower the temperature a little.” 

The mother fetched cognac. Falk thought meanwhile. Suddenly, he stood up; a decision flashed through his mind. 

“Yes, Mama; I want to tell you something. I’ve kept it from you so long, but it’s started to torment me. You must promise to listen calmly and not cry.” 

Falk drank a glass of cognac. His mother looked at him, anxious and surprised. 

“Yes, she promises him that.” 

“Well, Mama; I’m married.” 

The old woman sat perfectly still for a moment; a flash of fear sparked in her large, wise eyes. 

“You, Erik, you mustn’t play such nonsense with me.” 

“It’s as certain as I’m sitting here. I got married because I loved the girl, no, she’s a lady from a noble family—and so we went to the registry office and made a marriage contract.” 

“Without a church?!” 

“Yes, of course; why did we need a church? You know my views, Mama, I’ve never hidden them; besides, my wife is a Lutheran.” 

“Lutheran!” The old woman clapped her hands together, and large tears welled in her eyes. 

But Falk took the old woman’s hands, kissed them, and spoke of his happiness and his wife’s beauty and kindness. He spoke quickly, haltingly; in the end, he didn’t know himself what he was saying, but the old woman gradually calmed down. 

“Why didn’t he tell her earlier?” 

“Why bother? Marriage has no religious meaning for him; it’s only the meaning of a business contract to secure the woman’s economic position, and, well, to satisfy the police.” 

“Does he live with his—” the word wouldn’t pass her lips—“his so-called wife?” 

“So-called?!” 

Falk grew very irritated… 

Of course. His mother must get used to respecting state institutions just as much as church ones. Besides, he earnestly begged her to tell no one, absolutely no one, about it; he absolutely didn’t want that. He didn’t want any interference in his private affairs; he’d take it very badly from Mama. 

“Yes, she promises him that for sure; for her own sake, she wouldn’t. What would people say! She wouldn’t dare show her face on the street… a Lutheran!” 

“Yes, yes, people! Now Mama must go to bed; I’ll be as careful with the lamp as a hypochondriac. Good night, Mama.” 

“Good night, my child.” 

Now Falk began to think again. He sat down. His mind worked with unusual vivacity. 

What drove him with such terrible force to Marit? Was it just sexual desire? 

But then there were a thousand more beautiful women. He himself had seen far more beautiful women; many who should’ve stirred his sexual sphere far more than this pure, sexless child. 

Yes, sexless; that was the right term. 

Was it really love? A love like he felt for his wife, like he first learned through his wife? 

That was impossible. 

Falk stood up and paced the room. He had to finally make this clear. 

He tried to think very, very cleanly. 

My God; he had gone through this train of thought so often. Always anew, always with new arguments, new psychological subtleties. 

Yes, well! First… 

He laughed heartily. He had to think of a schoolmate who, no matter what you asked him, always started with “First,” but could never get beyond it. 

No, nonsense! 

Yes, yes, that first time he saw Marit. How strange was that hallucination of rose scent and something immensely mystical. 

With frantic speed, a memory unrolled in his mind back then, one he’d never thought of before. He saw a room, a coffin in the center, candles, large yellow candles around the coffin, and the whole room full of white roses, emitting a stupefying scent. 

Then he saw a funeral procession moving to the church on a beautiful summer evening. Everyone carried candles, flickering restlessly… Yes, he saw it: his neighbor’s candle was blown out by the wind. Then the coffin was laid out on a large black catafalque, eight priests in white robes, black vestments, and black dalmatics stood around, and everywhere the strong, mystical rose scent followed him. 

He heard Marit speak back then, she came and went, but he couldn’t shake the hallucination. 

Finally, he realized: Marit had white roses in her hair. Falk mused. His thoughts circled around this one experience. 

Was it the white roses? Was it the memory they triggered? Why had Marit made such a strong impression on him from the start? 

How was sexual feeling intertwined with this memory? 

What did one have to do with the other? 

The second he understood much better. There was a sexual impression from the start, somewhere in the depths of his slumbering subconscious, and it was stirred by Marit’s appearance. 

Yes, yes, quite by chance; or perhaps not… Not by chance? 

So were there a thousand connecting impressions between the first conscious impression and the second that he wasn’t aware of? 

Hmm, hmm; but that’s irrelevant, it’s only about the conscious. 

Their hands had met: he had the impression of something naked, the feeling of a completely naked girl’s body pressing against his chest: a feeling that flowed over his whole body with a faint, tingling pleasure. 

He could pinpoint exactly where it came from: he was barely twelve and swam with a girl. 

That’s what all the children did here in his homeland. 

The esteemed public, to whom he might one day tell this, mustn’t think there was anything indecent in it. 

No, absolutely not; you don’t have to sniff out indecency everywhere. 

Falk grew quite angry. 

What does Hamlet say? The leper itches… Who’s the leper now? Me or the public? Obviously them—quos ego: 

Now he laughed heartily: Why had he gotten so angry? Well… The girl fell into the hole. 

Unconsciously, he thought of the many holes and whirlpools in the local lake. 

His thoughts grew more and more fleeting. He noticed it suddenly and tried to focus them on one point. 

He grabbed the girl and carried her, tightly pressed, out of the water. 

Again, he felt that hot trembling in him: that’s when his sexuality was born. 

Falk thought with strange tenderness of the girl who had awakened the man in him. 

Strange! Yes, yes. But how was it that with Marit—yes, really, with Marit—for the first time in many, many years, he felt this sensation? Why not with other women? Why not with his own wife? 

He couldn’t understand it; there was probably nothing to understand. 

Yes, right, that was very interesting: They talked a lot together, she had just come from the convent and spoke a lot about religion and asceticism. Yes, about asceticism and the instruments for flagellation that could be bought at the market. 

With what devotion he had listened to her voice, constantly thinking of a wonderfully soft, inexplicable organ tone in the local church. The tone was produced when the organist pulled two stops; he had often pulled them, he loved them. What were they called? 

Falk couldn’t recall, no matter how much he thought. 

His heart grew very soft. He clearly heard that one combined tone, which eventually became something flowing. Yes: a silky, flowing mass. 

He distinctly felt the sensation of silky-soft hair in which he buried both hands. He saw Marit before him. 

No, no! He had to finish thinking. This was the case, the important, interesting case. 

So, from three foolish impressions that he could have received from a thousand other women, his love was born?! 

He couldn’t understand that. Impossible. The reason must lie deeper. 

Marit must have something about her that reached into his innermost being, into something where the whole riddle and mystery of his nature lay. 

Suddenly, he knew it. Absolutely. It was his homeland… Yes, for sure. 

Marit had something of his homeland; something expansive in the shape of her forehead. Yes, there was something in those forms of the austere flatland he loved so infinitely. 

This ridiculous homeland that an idiot could sketch with a few strokes! 

Why did his finest, purest feelings pour into these forms? Why did he love her so, this forehead with the blonde, rich hair, parted so simply, so un-Europeanly simply? 

What was happening in him? Was it really love? 

No, nonsense! He loved only one woman: his wife, his splendid, wonderful wife, who had become a part of him: soul of his soul, spirit of his spirit. 

So was it just sexuality? 

Yes, my God, then that idiotic sexuality could have turned to a thousand other women; there were hundreds of thousands of that commodity in Paris alone.