White nights, and other stories
means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive sufferings
of all sorts, only to gain his point! He will launch a curse upon the
world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary
distinction between him and other animals), may be by his curse alone he
will attain his object--that is, convince himself that he is a man and
not a piano-key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and
tabulated--chaos and darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility
of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all, and reason would
reassert itself, then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of
reason and gain his point! I believe in it, I answer for it, for the
whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to
himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! It may be at
the cost of his skin, it may be by cannibalism! And this being so, can
one help being tempted to rejoice that it has not yet come off, and that
desire still depends on something we don't know?
You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one
is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my
will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own normal
interests, with the laws of nature and arithmetic.
Good Heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to
tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two make
four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that!
IX
Gentlemen, I am joking, and I know myself that my jokes are not
brilliant, but you know one can't take everything as a joke. I am,
perhaps, jesting against the grain. Gentlemen, I am tormented by
questions; answer them for me. You, for instance, want to cure men of
their old habits and reform their will in accordance with science and
good sense. But how do you know, not only that it is possible, but also
that it is _desirable_, to reform man in that way? And what leads you to
the conclusion that man's inclinations _need_ reforming? In short, how
do you know that such a reformation will be a benefit to man? And to go
to the root of the matter, why are you so positively convinced that not
to act against his real normal interests guaranteed by the conclusions
of reason and arithmetic is certainly always advantageous for man and
must always be a law for mankind? So far, you know, this is only your
supposition. It may be the law of logic, but not the law of humanity.
You think, gentlemen, perhaps that I am mad? Allow me to defend myself.
I agree that man is pre-eminently a creative animal, predestined to
strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering--that is,
incessantly and eternally to make new roads, _wherever they may lead_.
But the reason why he wants sometimes to go off at a tangent may just be
that he is _predestined_ to make the road, and perhaps, too, that
however stupid the "direct" practical man may be, the thought sometimes
will occur to him that the road almost always does lead _somewhere_, and
that the destination it leads to is less important than the process of
making it, and that the chief thing is to save the well-conducted child
from despising engineering, and so giving way to the fatal idleness,
which, as we all know, is the mother of all the vices. Man likes to make
roads and to create, that is a fact beyond dispute. But why has he such
a passionate love for destruction and chaos also? Tell me that! But on
that point I want to say a couple of words myself. May it not be that he
loves chaos and destruction (there can be no disputing that he does
sometimes love it) because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his
object and completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps
he only loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love
with it at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does
not want to live in it, but will leave it, when completed, for the use
of _les animaux domestiques_--such as the ants, the sheep, and so on.
Now the ants have quite a different taste. They have a marvellous
edifice of that pattern which endures for ever--the ant-heap.
With the ant-heap the respectable race of ants began and with the
ant-heap they will probably end, which does the greatest credit to their
perseverance and good sense. But man is a frivolous and incongruous
creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the
game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no saying with
certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving
lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life
itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be
expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such
positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death.
Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I
am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that
mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the
quest, but to succeed, really to find it, he dreads, I assure you. He
feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look
for. When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive
their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the
police-station--and there is occupation for a week. But where can man
go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has
attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not
quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In
fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it
all. But yet mathematical certainty is, after all, something
insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of
insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms
akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four
is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice
two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.
And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the
normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to
welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards
advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being?
Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as
great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily,
passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact. There is no
need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if
you are a man and have lived at all. As far as my personal opinion is
concerned, to care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred.
Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash
things. I hold no brief for suffering nor for well-being either. I am
standing for ... my caprice, and for its being guaranteed to me when
necessary. Suffering would be out of place in vaudevilles, for instance;
I know that. In the "Palace of Crystal" it is unthinkable; suffering
means doubt, negation, and what would be the good of a "palace of
crystal" if there could be any doubt about it? And yet I think man will
never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why,
suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I did lay it down
at the beginning that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man,
yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction.
Consciousness, for instance, is infinitely superior to twice two makes
four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do
or to understand. There will be nothing left but to bottle up your five
senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to
consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least
flog yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up.
Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing.
X
You believe in a palace of crystal that can never be destroyed--a palace
at which one will not be able to put out one's tongue or make a long
nose on the sly. And perhaps that is just why I am afraid of this
edifice, that it is of crystal and can never be destroyed and that one
cannot put one's tongue out at it even on the sly.
You see, if it were not a palace, but a hen-house, I might creep into it
to avoid getting wet, and yet I would not call the hen-house a palace
out of gratitude to it for keeping me dry. You laugh and say that in
such circumstances a hen-house is as good as a mansion. Yes, I answer,
if one had to live simply to keep out of the rain.
But what is to be done if I have taken it into my head that that is not
the only object in life, and that if one must live one had better live
in a mansion. That is my choice, my desire. You will only eradicate it
when you have changed my preference. Well, do change it, allure me with
something else, give me another ideal. But meanwhile I will not take a
hen-house for a mansion. The palace of crystal may be an idle dream, it
may be that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and that I have
invented it only through my own stupidity, through the old-fashioned
irrational habits of my generation. But what does it matter to me that
it is inconsistent? That makes no difference since it exists in my
desires, or rather exists as long as my desires exist. Perhaps you are
laughing again? Laugh away; I will put up with any mockery rather than
pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry. I know, anyway, that I
will not be put off with a compromise, with a recurring zero, simply
because it is consistent with the laws of nature and actually exists. I
will not accept as the crown of my desires a block of buildings with
tenements for the poor on a lease of a thousand years, and perhaps with
a sign-board of a dentist hanging out. Destroy my desires, eradicate my
ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you. You will say,
perhaps, that it is not worth your trouble; but in that case I can give
you the same answer. We are discussing things seriously; but if you
won't deign to give me your attention, I will drop your acquaintance. I
can retreat into my underground hole.
But while I am alive and have desires I would rather my hand were
withered off than bring one brick to such a building! Don't remind me
that I have just rejected the palace of crystal for the sole reason that
one cannot put out one's tongue at it. I did not say because I am so
fond of putting my tongue out. Perhaps the thing I resented was, that of
all your edifices there has not been one at which one could not put out
one's tongue. On the contrary, I would let my tongue be cut off out of
gratitude if things could be so arranged that I should lose all desire
to put it out. It is not my fault that things cannot be so arranged, and
that one must be satisfied with model flats. Then why am I made with
such desires? Can I have been constructed simply in order to come to the
conclusion that all my construction is a cheat? Can this be my whole
purpose? I do not believe it.
But do you know what: I am convinced that we underground folk ought to
be kept on a curb. Though we may sit forty years underground without
speaking, when we do come out into the light of day and break out we
talk and talk and talk....
XI
The long and the short of it is, gentlemen, that it is better to do
nothing! Better conscious inertia! And so hurrah for underground! Though
I have said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of my bile, yet
I should not care to be in his place such as he is now (though I shall
not cease envying him). No, no; anyway the underground life is more