Anarchistbanjo's World

Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel

In short, even if the comparison limps and makes absolutely no claim to exactness, the brain is deceived and lied to and learns only later, after it has summed up what happened, that it was deceived. 

But with that the refined cruelty is not yet at an end. 

With the poorly functioning brain is still connected a cute stuff of conscience, trained for millennia to cause torment for the sins that nature commits. 

He, he, a quite unbelievable refinement… But with that the thing is not yet at an end. 

Through a peculiar trick nature has drilled into the fool of a human that it is a tremendous advantage to have brain and conscience. 

For what distinguishes the human from the animal? The human knows what he does… 

Falk listened. Won’t a laughing fit soon overwhelm him? 

The human got the brain so that he might recognize God namely nature, thank him for his benefactions… 

No! I must stop. Otherwise I really run the risk of getting laughing cramps. 

By thunder! What a refined rogue trick. To be thanked for the brain, and on top of that for the conscience, this beautiful dung heap on which nature dumps its villainies. 

No, no! I thank you for the brain, the conscience and such knowledge apparatuses. Oh, I would rather descend to the bacillus. 

He destroys without torment and without pangs of conscience. 

The clever Herr Professor who wanted to teach the human the overman! Well! he would go under on the second day from his excess of brain and conscience! 

Falk actually saw himself on a stage, he found that not at all strange, on the contrary: very pleasant. He loved to be noticed. Then he had the pose of a significant person, no, no pose: only a quite natural appearance of a significant person, just as the audience wishes to see a significant person. 

By the way, esteemed audience, I commit the nonsense of personifying nature, and that is the first step to forming a God. He giggled. The God, ha, ha, ha, that the liberal, free-thinking bourgeoisie had abolished. The free-thinking audience—oh God, I suffocate,—German free-thinking with twenty seats in the Reichstag. 

No! How he could amuse himself royally! 

He suddenly started. Otherwise he used to calm himself with such self-conversations, to forget, but this time it didn’t succeed. On the contrary: the unrest seized him anew, surprisingly, from behind, with new violence. 

But to the devil, what then? What will, what can happen? 

He had to absolutely prevent it. He must not go under. Not yet. No, he had to hold Czerski back, explain the whole thing to him in detail, prove with reasons, set forth with invincible arguments that he was completely in error if he wanted to hold him responsible. That was ridiculous. If he wanted to punish the lie, he had to somehow get at nature and damage her… Yes, he had to convince the stupid Czerski that he had indeed acted as a knowing tool, but absolutely without any responsibility, something like a bacillus or something similar. 

Yes, make clear, convince… perhaps in the following way: 

Falk coughed. He clearly saw Czerski opposite him. Strange this hallucinatory quality of his thoughts. That is naturally the beginning of the end. Diagnostically very valuable these pronounced hallucinations that do not disturb at all. See, dear Czerski, I am now a thousand times calmer than a few hours ago… Yes, naturally. 

Again he drank a full glass. 

Are you impatient, Czerski? Well, we can begin. I am not in a hurry because I must touch on certain intimate things that thinking about is absolutely no pleasure. 

You wrinkle your forehead. But my God, don’t you have any interest in psychological analyses? Regret, regret… I am a quite engaged soul researcher… He, he, he… I believe I committed all my villainies, as you like to call my actions, out of a certain psychological curiosity, a curiosity that for example distinguished the illustrious spirit of the liberal bourgeoisie, Herr Hippolyte Taine. You know, the gentleman who wanted to set up a distillery for virtues. Splendid idea, to produce virtues in the same masses as vitriol. He, he, he… That’s how the liberal spirits are!… Oh, oh, what they don’t all know and can do! But please, sit down, otherwise your knees will dissolve, as Homer says. A cigarette perhaps? Maybe a glass of cognac? You don’t drink? Yes, naturally, you are a philanthropist, and as such you walk on the highest heights of humanity, thus disdain the bodily pleasures. Ha, ha, ha… Now excuse me, don’t take it badly. I just cannot understand how a person who has a brain can get along without alcohol… You violate a natural compensation duty. 

Why? Why? But that is quite clear. The primeval human, the brainless human, thus a Homo who is not yet sapiens, and consequently not capable of regulating his feelings, is subject spontaneously to certain emotional outbursts that one calls enthusiasm, ecstasy, suggestibility etc. It is a process that has certain similarity with so-called pathological processes, thus for example a mania. Something seizes the brain with terrible violence, makes blind to all reasons, incapable of any calculation, one becomes like a bull with a blinker tied on. But this ecstatic blindness gives an unheard-of power that actually created our civilization. See, this fanatical, straight-line blindness drove the masses to Jerusalem, it kindled the religious wars, it stormed Bastilles, won constitutions, it erected barricades and secured impunity for the roguish press pirates… That is the enthusiasm of rage that gave a Samson the power to put a whole army of Philistines to flight with a donkey’s jawbone and on the other hand brought Herr

Ravachol to the idea of transporting pious bourgeois souls to Abraham’s bosom: the bourgeois love the almighty Lord, they should thank Ravachol that they so suddenly get to behold the face of God in joy… Oh, oh—you laugh, Herr Czerski, one didn’t suspect you of anarchistic hobbies for nothing. 

So this enthusiasm is an extremely important factor in nature’s household, but we are no longer capable of it. The sober reason of the free-thinking bourgeoisie has killed it. But we, yes we have the obligation to be guardians of this holy enthusiasm. But how to produce it if it is not there? Naturally through alcohol. See, Suvorov, he understood it. His armies got as much to drink before every battle as they wanted, that’s why they performed miracles of bravery… the Prussian war ministry should consider this circumstance. 

I babble, you say? That is very stupidly said. You are probably also such a liberal brain to whom the small things appear ridiculous? But we came off our main theme. So Herr Taine, isn’t it? He has quite the same psychological curiosity as I… Do you know how he does it? He is in a society. He sees a person who has a character head, character head I read namely twice daily in the Berliner Tageblatt. The organ of the liberal bourgeoisie says it of every minister, provided he resembles a sheep. Otherwise it only says sharply cut profile, as if carved from marble, sometimes also antique etc. Herr Taine sees the sheep face. He immediately becomes distracted. He wanders around like a lunatic until he suddenly steps on the feet of the character head in question. But one knows that it is Herr Taine, and one is very pleased about it. Herr Taine notes in his notebook. First quality: great gentleness. Actual milieu: end of the eighteenth century. 

That bores you, Herr Czerski? Well I only wanted to prove to you that my psychological method differs essentially from Taine’s. 

So I am a married man. Happy? No! Unhappy? No! What then? 

But do you really not want to drink a glass of cognac? It is good when one is nervous. That dampens the depressive states, increases the life energy, makes the whole organism more capable of performance.

“You don’t want to? Well, then your health.” 

Falk drank. 

“Hm, hm… How should I even begin?” He walked up and down.