The Dwarf Page 2

  Sometimes it really seems as though a sensible idea were passing through her head when she notices how bored and bitter I am, for she looks surprisedly up at my furrowed old man’s face. “Why don’t you enjoy playing?”

  And when she receives no answer from my compressed lips or from my cold dwarf’s eyes with the centuries of experience in their depths, a shyness shadows her newborn baby eyes, and she is actually silent for a while.

  What is play? A meaningless dabbling with nothing at all. A strange “let’s pretend” way of dealing with things. They must not be treated as they really are, not seriously; one is only pretending. Astrologers play with the stars, the Prince plays with his building, his churches, the crucifixion scenes, and the campaniles, Angelica with her dolls-they all play, all pretend something. Only I despise this pretending. Only I am.

  Once I crept into her room as she lay sleeping with her detestable kitten beside her in bed and cut off its head with my dagger. Then I threw it out onto the dungheap beneath the castle window. I was so furious that I hardly knew what I was doing. That is to say, I knew only too well. I was carrying out a plan which had long been germinating during those revolting playtimes in the rose garden. She was inconsolable when she saw that it was gone, and when everybody said that of course it must be dead, she sickened with an unknown fever and was ill for a long time, so that I, thank goodness, did not have to see her. When at last she got up again, I was obliged to listen all the more to her woeful narrative of her darling’s fate, of the incredible thing which had happened. Nobody cared how the cat had disappeared, but the whole court had been upset because of some inexplicable drops of blood on the girl’s neck, which could be interpreted as an evil omen. Anything which can possibly be taken as an omen is of tremendous interest to them.

  In fact, throughout her childhood she never left me in peace although the games gradually changed. She was always hanging on to me and would have liked to confide in me, though I did not want her confidences. Sometimes I wonder if her importunate affection for me might not have had the same source as her weakness for kittens, puppies, ducklings, and so on; if, maybe, she were not happy in the grownup world, perhaps feared it, after some scare or other. It had nothing to do with me! It was no doing of mine if she wandered about in loneliness. But she always wanted to cling to me and this did not lessen after she had left her infancy behind her. Her mother ceased caring about her as soon as she stopped being doll-like. She was pretending too, everybody pretends. And her father, of course, had his own business to attend to. He may have had other reasons for not being interested in her, but that is a matter on which I will not give my opinion.

  Not until she was ten or twelve did she begin to be silent and self-contained, and I was rid of her at last. Since then she has left me in peace, thank goodness, and keeps to herself. But I still fume when I think how much I have had to endure for her sake.

  Now she is beginning to grow up, she is fifteen and will soon be reckoned a woman. But she is still very childish and does not conduct herself at all like a lady of quality. It is impossible to guess who is her father. It might be the Prince, but she may just as well be a bastard, and this treatment of her as though she were a princess may be quite superfluous. Some call her beautiful. I can see nothing beautiful in the childish face with its half-open mouth and big blue eyes which look as if they understand nothing at all.

  Love is something which dies and when dead it rots and becomes soil for a new love. Then the dead love continues its secret life in the living one, and thus in reality there is no death in love.

  As far as I can understand this is the experience of the Princess, and on it she bases her happiness. For undoubtedly she is happy; she spreads happiness around her in her own way. For the moment Don Riccardo is happy.

  The Prince also, perhaps for the feeling which he once kindled in her, is still alive. He pretends that her love still lives. They both pretend that their love still lives.

  Once the Princess had one of her lovers tortured, because he had betrayed her. The Prince suspected nothing, and she induced him to condemn the other for a crime which he had never committed. I was the only one who knew the true circumstances, and I was present during the torture in order to let her know how he bore it. He was not in the least heroic-about average.

  Maybe he is the girl’s father. How should I know?

  It might just as well be the Prince, for the Princess cajoled him most endearingly, and at that time their love had a second blooming. She embraced him every night, offering him her betrayed bosom which hungered for its lost lover. She caressed her Prince as though he were a man who should be tortured, and he returned her caresses as in their first passionate nights of love. The dead love con-tinued its secret life in the living one.

  THE PRINCESS’ confessor comes every Saturday morning at the same time. By then she is up and fully dressed and has knelt in prayer for two hours before the crucifix. She is well prepared for her confession.

  She has nothing to confess, but not because she lies or dissimulates. On the contrary, she always speaks freely from the fullness of her heart. She has no conception of sin. She does not know that she has done anything wrong, except perhaps been a little violent with her handmaid when her coiffure was fumbled. She is like an unwritten page and the confessor bends smiling over her as though she were an unspotted virgin.

  Her eyes are brilliant and candid after her prayers and her submersion in the world of the crucifix. The tortured little man on his toy cross has suffered for her sake, and all guilt, even the memory of it, has been erased from her soul. She feels strong and rejuvenated and at the same time in a mood of dreamy piety and self-communion which suits her serious unpainted face and simple black gown. She seats herself and writes to her lover, telling him how she feels, a gentle sisterly letter without mention of love or rendezvous. When she feels like this she cannot endure the slightest approach to frivolity. I have to take the letter to the lover.

  There can be no doubt that she is profoundly religious. To her, religion is something essential, something absolutely real. She needs it and she uses it. It is part of her heart and soul.

  Is the Prince religious too? That is more difficult to say. Of course he is, in his own way, for he is everything, everything is within his range-but can that be called religious? He likes to think that such a thing exists, he likes listening to talk about it, to eloquent and learned discussions about its world of ideas-but how could anything in humanity be alien to him? He likes triptychs and madonnas painted by famous artists, and fine handsome temples, particularly those he has built himself. I do not know if that is religion. It is quite possible. And as a prince he is of course as genuinely religious as she. He understands that the religious hunger of the people must be satisfied, and his door is always open for those who do so. Priests and all kinds of spiritual persons are familiars here. But is he, like her, religious in himself? That is something quite different, and I do not intend to give any opinion on it.

  But again, there can be no doubt that she is deeply religious.

  Perhaps, in their own way, they are both religious.

  WHAT is religion? I have given much thought to it, but in vain.

  I pondered it especially that time a few years ago when I was compelled to officiate as a bishop in full canonicals at the carnival and give holy communion to the dwarfs of the Mantua court whom their Prince had brought here for the festival. We met at a miniature sanctuary which had been set up in one of the castle halls, and around us sat all the sniggering guests: knights and nobles and young coxcombs in their absurd apparel. I raised the crucifix and all the dwarfs fell on their knees. “Here is your savior,” I declared in a sonorous voice, my eyes flaming with passion. “Here is the savior of all the dwarfs, himself a dwarf, who suffered under the great prince Pontius Pilate, and was nailed to his little toy cross for the joy and ease of all men.” I took the chalice and held it up to them. “This is his dwarf’s blood, in which all iniquities are cleansed
and all dirty souls become as white as snow.” Then I took the host and showed it to them and ate and drank of both in their sight, as is the custom, while I expounded the holy mysteries. “I eat his body which was deformed like yours. It tastes as bitter as gall, for it is full of hatred. May you all eat of it. I drink his blood, and it burns like a fire which cannot be quenched. It is as though I drink my own.

  “Savior of all the dwarfs, may thy fire consume the whole world!”

  And I threw the wine out over those who sat there, staring in gloom and amazement at our somber communion feast.

  I am no blasphemer. It was they who blasphemed, not I, but the Prince had me clapped in irons for several days. The little jest had been intended to amuse, but I had spoiled it all and the guests had been very upset, almost scared. There were no chains small enough so they had to be specially made, and the smith thought that it was a great deal of trouble for such a short sentence. But the Prince said that it might be as well to have them for another time. He let me go sooner than had been planned, and I rather think he punished me merely for the sake of the guests, for as soon as they had left I was released. During the time that followed, however, he looked at me rather askance and did not seem to want to be alone with me; it was almost as though he were somewhat afraid of me.

  Of course the dwarfs understood nothing. They scuttled around like frightened hens and squeaked with their miserable castrato voices. I don’t know where they get those ridiculous voices; my own is rich and deep. But they are cowed and castrated to the depths of their souls, and most of them are buffoons who shame their race by their gross jests about their own bodies.

  They are a contemptible clan. So that I need not see them, I have made the Prince sell all the dwarfs here, one after the other, until I am the only one at the court. I am glad they are gone and the dwarfs’ apartment is empty and deserted when I sit there at night with my meditations. I am glad that Jehoshaphat is gone too, so that I am quit of his crumpled old woman’s face and his piping voice. I am glad to be alone.

  It is my fate that I hate my own people. My race is detestable to me.

  But I hate myself too. I eat my own splenetic flesh. I drink my own poisoned blood. Every day I perform my solitary communion as the grim high priest of my people.

  AFTER THIS incident which caused so much offense, the Princess began to behave in a rather peculiar way. On the morning of my liberation she called me in to her, and when I entered the bedchamber she looked at me in silence with a thoughtful searching gaze. I had expected reproaches, perhaps more punishment, but when at last she spoke she admitted that my communion service had made a deep impression on her, that there had been something dark and terrible about it which had appealed to something within her. How had I been able to penetrate to her secret depths like that and speak to them?

  I did not understand. I seized the opportunity to sneer as she lay there in the bed gazing vaguely past me.

  She asked what I thought it felt like to hang on a cross. To be scourged, tortured, to die? And she said that she realized Christ must hate her, that He must be full of hatred while suffering for her sake.

  I did not bother to reply, nor did she continue the conversation, but lay staring into space with dreaming eyes.

  Then she dismissed me with a gesture of her beautiful hand and called to her tirewoman to fetch her crimson gown because she was going to get up.

  I still don’t understand what possessed her just then.

  I HAVE noticed that sometimes I frighten people; what they really fear is themselves. They think it is I who scare them, but it is the dwarf within them, the ape-faced manlike being who sticks up its head from the depths of their souls. They are afraid because they do not know that they have another being inside them. They are scared when anything rises to the surface, from their inside, out of some of the cesspools in their souls, something which they do not recognize and which is not a part of their real life. When nothing is visible above the surface, they are utterly fearless. They go about, tall and unconcerned, with their smooth faces which express nothing at all. But inside them is always something else which they ignore and, without knowing it, they are constantly living many kinds of lives. They are so strangely secretive and incoherent.

  And they are deformed though it does not show on the outside. I live only my dwarf life. I never go around tall and smooth-featured. I am ever myself, always the same, I live one life alone. I have no other being inside me. And I recognize everything within me, nothing ever comes up from my inner depths, nothing there is shrouded in mystery. Therefore I do not fear the things which frighten them, the incoherent, the unknown, the mysterious. Such things do not exist for me. There is nothing “different” about me.

  Fear? What is it? Is it what I feel when I lie alone in the dwarfs’ apartment at night and see the ghost of Jehoshaphat nearing my bed, when he comes to me, deathly pale with blue marks around his neck and gaping mouth?

  I feel no anguish and no regret, I am not unduly disturbed. When I see him I merely think that he is dead and that since his death I have been completely alone.

  I want to be alone. I don’t want there to be anybody else except me. And I can see that he is dead. It is only his ghost, and I am absolutely alone in the dark as I have been ever since I strangled him.

  There is nothing frightening in that.

  A TALL man has come to the court and the Prince treats him with peculiar courtesy, almost with reverence. He has been invited here, and the Prince says that he has long awaited him, and now is very happy that the visit has been vouchsafed to him at last. He consorts with him as though he were an equal.

  Everybody does not find this ridiculous, some say that he really is a great man and the equal of a prince. But he does not dress like a prince, his clothes are very simple. I have not yet discovered what he is and why he should be so remarkable, but in due course I shall do so. They say he is going to stay here for a long time.

  I will not deny that there is something imposing about him. His bearing is more naturally dignified than most, his brow is lofty and what men generally call thoughtful, and his face with its grizzled beard is noble and quite handsome. There is something distinguished and harmonious about him and his aspect is full of calm and dignity.

  In what way is he misshapen, I wonder?

  THE NOTABLE guest eats at the Prince’s table. All the time they discourse on the most varied topics, and while serving my lord as is his wish, I can hear that he is a man of education. His knowledge seems to embrace everything and everything seems to interest him. He tries to explain it all but, in contrast to the others, he is not always convinced that his explanations are correct. After a long and exhaustive exposition of some problem or other, he can sit silent and pensive, and then make the reflection: “But perhaps it is’not thus.” I don’t know what to make of that. It can be termed a kind of wisdom, but it may also mean that he does not really know anything for certain, and that the laboriously constructed train of reasoning is therefore devoid of meaning. And my experience with human thought leads me to believe that this may be the case. There are not many who understand that this can give cause for modesty. It is possible that he does.

  However, the Prince pays no attention to such things, but listens as though he were sitting by a clear spring bubbling with knowledge and wisdom. He hangs on his words like a humble student listening to his master, although at the same time he naturally retains his princely dignity. Sometimes he calls him “Great Master.” Then I wonder what can be the reason for all this ingratiating humility. With my master there is always a reason. Generally the scholar pretends not to hear this obsequious address. It is possible that he really is unpretentious, but on the other hand he sometimes expresses himself with great decisiveness, giving his opinion with clarity and conviction and exposing his reasons with an intelligence which seems both sharp and penetrating. He does not always vacillate.

  His voice is always calm, rich and unusually clear. He is friendly to me and
appears to take an interest in me. Why, I do not know. Sometimes he almost reminds me of the Prince, though I cannot explain quite how.

  He is not treacherous.

  THE REMARKABLE stranger has begun his preparations for a painting on the wall of the refectory of the Franciscan monastery of Santa Croce. So he is nothing more than a manufacturer of holy pictures and the like, the same as all the others here. That was all his “remarkableness.”