Pornografia: A Novel by Witold Gombrowicz & Danuta Borchardt

Author:Witold Gombrowicz & Danuta Borchardt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Fiction
ISBN: 9780802119254
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2009-07-15T03:00:00+00:00

Part II

VIII

Fryderyk rose from his knees and stepped into the center of the room: “Pay her your respects!” he exclaimed. “Pay homage!” He took the roses from a vase and threw them toward the couch, then he reached out his hand to Vaclav. “A soul worthy of the heavenly choir! While for us there is nothing left but to bow our heads!” These words would have been theatrical on any of our lips, not to mention his gestures, but he pierced us with them imperiously, like a king to whom pathos is permitted—who lays down a different kind of naturalness, above the ordinary. A ruling king, master of ceremonies! Vaclav, swept away by the sovereignty of this pathos, rose from his knees and ardently clasped his hand. It seemed that Fryderyk aimed his intervention at erasing all the strange improprieties that had cast a shadow over the demise, to return it to its full splendor. He moved a few steps to the left, then to the right—this was a kind of agitation in our midst—and he approached the lying (boy). “Rise to your knees!” he commanded. “To your knees!” This command was, on the one hand, the natural extension of the previous command, but, on the other hand, it created an awkwardness, because it was directed at the wounded man who was unable to rise, and the awkwardness increased when Vaclav, Hipolit, and Karol, terrorized by Fryderyk’s authority, rushed to raise (the boy) to the commanded position. Yes, this was going too far! As Karol’s hands took him under the arms, Fryderyk, thrown off track, fell silent, and his lights went out.

I was bewildered, exhausted … so much was happening … but I had already taken his measure … and so I knew that he had once more taken up his game with us and with himself. … From the tension, created by the corpse, some action of his was evolving, leading to a goal rooted in his imagination. It had all been intentional, though the intention was perhaps not yet tangible even to himself, perhaps one should say that he knew only the preamble to the intention—but I would have been surprised if what he had in mind was homage to Amelia, no, this had to do with bringing to us the man who was lying, in all his drastic and humiliating sense, with “pulling him out,” enhancing him and “binding him” with Henia and Karol. What connection, however, could there be between them? This golden wildness surely fit in with our couple, if only because it was also a sixteen-year-old wildness, but beyond that I didn’t see any connection, and I think that Fryderyk did not see one either—he acted in the dark, prompted by a sense, as unclear as my own, that he, the lying man, is enhancing their power—turning them into demons. … And thus Fryderyk was paving the lying man’s way to them.

Not until the following day (filled with preparations for the funeral) did I

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