The Dwarf Page 3

  But it does not follow that he is merely comparable with his simple fellow craftsmen, that he may not also be something more than that. One must admit that he is more impressive than they, and it is understandable that the Prince should listen most to him; but that he should hearken to him night and day as though he were an oracle, and let him eat at his table-for that I can find no explanation. After all, he is nothing more than a professional craftsman; what he does is achieved by his own hands, even if his culture and imagination include so much-too much for him to understand! I do not know how skilled his hands are. I hope they know their trade, since the Prince has engaged him, but he himself confesses that his imagination involves him in tasks beyond its compass. He must be a visionary standing on shifting sands despite all his brilliance and ingenuity, and the world which he pretends to create must be a mirage.

  But oddly enough I have not yet formed any definite opinion about him; why, I do not know. As a rule I have a very clear opinion of those with whom I am faced. Apparently his personality, like his figure, towers above the common run of men, but I do not know the secret of his superiority, or if he really is so superior. He must resemble the other people whom I have met.

  Anyhow I am convinced that the Prince has an exaggerated notion of his value.

  He is called Bernardo, a very ordinary name.

  HE DOES not interest the Princess; after all he is an old man, and the conversation of men with each other seems unfamiliar to her. When she is present during their lengthy discussions she sits silent and remote. I don’t believe she even hears what the remarkable man is saying.

  But he appears to be very much interested in her. He observes her in secret, unnoticed by the others. I have seen him. He seems to study her face with a pensive gaze which becomes more and more contemplative, as though seeking something there. What can there be about her which fascinates him so?

  Her face is not at all interesting. It is easy to see that she is a harlot, though she hides it beneath a smooth deceitful surface. It does not need much observation to realize that. And then what is there left to study and seek after in her lascivious face? What fascination does it hold?

  But he is obviously fascinated by everything. I have seen him pick up a stone from the ground and examine it with the deepest interest, turn and twist it, and finally pocket it, as though it were a rarity. Anything and everything seems to fascinate him. Is he a lunatic?

  An enviable lunatic! One for whom a pebble has value must be surrounded by treasures wherever he goes.

  He is incredibly curious. He ferrets about everywhere, wanting to know the why and wherefore of everything. He asks the workmen about their tools and their way of working, and criticizes and corrects them. He comes back from his wanderings outside the town with bunches of flowers and sits down and pulls them to bits to see what they look like inside. And he can stand for hours watching the flight of the birds, as though that too were something extraordinary. He can even stare at the impaled heads of murderers and thieves outside the castle gate (they are so old that nobody else bothers to spare them a glance) as though they were strange riddles, and he sketches them in silverpoint. And a few days ago when Francesco was hanged on the square outside, he stood in the crowd right at the front among the children, the better to see everything. At night he stands and stares at the stars. His curiosity knows no bounds.

  Can it really be that anything and everything is of interest?

  I DON’T give a fig for his pokings and ferretings, but if he touches me again I shall give him a taste of my dagger! My mind is made up, whatever the cost!

  Tonight when I was pouring his wine he took my hand and wanted to look at it, but I drew it back in anger. But the Prince smiled and said that I must show it to him. He studied it closely, with shameless impertinence, scrutinized the knuckles and the wrinkles around the wrist, and even tried to push up my sleeve so as to see my arm. I pulled it back again in my anger, for I was seething with fury. They both smiled as I stood there with flaming eyes.

  If he touches me once more, I shall have his blood!

  I cannot bear being touched by anyone, I cannot tolerate any kind of offense against my body.

  There is a queer rumor going around that he has persuaded the Prince to give him Francesco’s body in order to cut it up and see what a human inside looks like. It cannot be true. It is too incredible. And they cannot possibly have taken down the body, for it is supposed to hang there as a warning to the people, and to shame the criminal. Thus ran the sentence and why should not this scoundrel be pecked to pieces by the crows as much as the others? I had the misfortune to be acquainted with him and know only too well that he deserved the extremest punishment. Many a time has he taunted me in the streets. If they take him down it will not be quite the same punishment as the other gallows-birds’.

  I heard it first this evening. It is night now, so I cannot see if the corpse is still hanging out there.

  I cannot believe that it is true, that the Prince could give his consent to such a thing!

  IT IS true! The rascal is no longer on the gallows! And I have also discovered where he is; I surprised the sage in the middle of his nefarious handiwork!

  I had noticed that there was something going on in the cellar, for a door which is generally closed was open there. I noticed that yesterday, though I did not give it a second thought. Today I went there to investigate and found the door still ajar. I entered a long dark passage and came to another door, which was not shut either, and I slipped noiselessly in. There in a large room stood the old man in the light of a narrow slit in the southern wall, bending over Francesco’s cloven body! At first I could not believe my eyes, but there it lay opened up, with the entrails visible, and the heart and the lungs, looking like an animal. I have never seen anything so disgusting, I could never even conceive of anything so revolting as the inside of a human being. But he stood bent over it, studying it with tense interest, while he carefully cut around the region of the heart with a slender knife. He was so fascinated by what he was doing that he did not even notice I was in the room. Nothing else seemed to exist for him except his nauseating occupation. But at last he raised his head and looked up with a contented gleam in his eyes. His face was as delighted as though he were at a festival. I could look at him as much as I wanted, for he was standing in the light whereas I was in the deep shadow. Besides, he was completely entranced as though he were a prophet communing with God. It really was repellent.

  The peer of princes! A prince who busies himself interpreting conundrums in the bowels of a criminal, who burrows into corpses!

  TONIGHT they sat up until after midnight and talked and talked as never before. They worked themselves up into an ecstasy with their talk. They spoke of nature, of its inexhaustible greatness and riches. One great continuity, a single miracle! The veins which lead the blood around in the body as the spring water is led around in the earth; lungs which breathe as the oceans breathe with their ebb and flow; the skeleton which supports the body as the stones support the earth and the soil which is its flesh; the fire within the earth which is like the warmth of the soul and which also has come from the sun, the sacred sun which was worshiped of yore and from which all souls originate, which is the source of all life and which illumines the heavenly bodies of the universe with its light. For our world is only one among the innumerable stars of the universe.

  They were as though possessed, and 1 had to listen to them, regardless of what they said, without being able to protest. I am more and more convinced that he is a lunatic and on the way to making my Prince one too. It is incredible that my lord should be so weak and malleable in his hands.

  How can anyone seriously believe in such fantasies? How can anybody believe in the continuity, the divine harmony in everything, as he also called it? How can anybody use such fine-sounding, meaningless words? Miracles of nature! I thought of Francesco’s guts and nearly vomited.

  What bliss to behold the wonderful riches of nature, they excl
aimed. There is so much to be explored. And man shall become rich and powerful by learning to know all that, all these secret forces, and how to make use of them. The elements shall bow before his will; fire shall serve him in humility, its turbulence held in curb; the earth shall bear fruit a hundredfold, because he has discovered the laws of fertility, the rivers shall be his obedient chained slaves, and the oceans shall carry his ships around the wide world which floats in space like a wonderful star. Even the air shall be subdued, for some day he will learn to imitate the flight of the birds and, buoyant as they, glide with them and the stars toward goals which no human thought can encompass.

  Ah, life is wonderful and human existence unfathomable in its greatness!

  There was no end to their jubilation. They were like children dreaming of toys, so many toys that they did not know what to do with them all. I looked at them with my dwarf’s eyes without moving a muscle of my ancient furrowed face. Dwarfs are not like children; they never play. I reached up to fill their beakers as they emptied them in the course of their garrulous speech.

  What do they know of the greatness of life? How do they know it is great? It is only a phrase, something they enjoy saying. One might just as well affirm that it was small, insignificant, completely unimportant, an insect that one can crush on a fingernail. And one might add that it has no objection to being crushed on a fingernail, being just as contented with its end as with anything else. And why should it not be so? Why should it be so anxious to exist? Why should it strive for existence or for anything else either? Why should it not be completely indifferent to everything?

  Look into the heart of nature? What pleasure can there be in that? And if they really could do such a thing it would fill them with terror. They think that like everything else it is made for them, for their well-being and their happiness, so that their life shall be great and wonderful. What do they know about it? How do they know that any heed is paid to them and their strange childish desires?

  They think that they can read in the book of nature, that it is lying open before them. They even believe that they can look on ahead in the book and read the blank pages where nothing is written. Heedless, conceited lunatics! There is no limit to their shameless self-sufficiency!

  Who knows what nature carries in her womb? Who can even guess at it? Does a mother know what she has conceived? How could she? She bides her time, and eventually we see the thing to which she has given birth. A dwarf could tell them about that.

  He diffident! There I was wrong. On the contrary, he is the most arrogant person I have ever met. His whole spirit and being breathe arrogance. And his mind is so presumptuous that it would fain lord it like a prince over a world which it does not own.

  He may appear diffident when he sets himself to investigating all manner of things, saying he does not know this or that, but is trying to resolve them to the best of his ability. But he thinks that he knows the end and aim of everything, and the reason why! His humility applies to the small things only, not to the great. It is a strange kind of diffidence.

  Everything has a meaning of its own, all that happens and preoccupies mankind. But life itself can have no meaning. Otherwise it would not be.

  Such is my belief.

  O SHAME! O dishonor! Never have I endured such degradation as that which was inflicted on me that terrible day. I shall try to write down what happened, though I would rather not remind myself of it.

  The Prince had commanded me to seek out Maestro Bernardo who was working in the refectory at Santa Croce, saying he had need of me. I went there, though I was annoyed at being treated as though I were the servant of this haughty man who is no concern of mine. He received me in the friendliest fashion and said that he had always been greatly interested in dwarfs. I wondered: “What has not interested this man who wants to know all about Francesco’s intestines and the stars of heaven? But,” I continued to myself, “he knows nothing of me, the dwarf.” After further amiable empty words he said that he wished to make a picture of me. At first I thought he meant my portrait, which the Prince perchance had bespoken, and I could not help feeling flattered. Nevertheless I replied that I did not wish to have my likeness reproduced. “Why not?” he asked. I answered, as was only natural: “I wish to possess my own face.” He thought this strange, smiled somewhat, but then admitted that there was something in what I said. But, even when unrepro-duced, one’s face is the property of many, in fact of all who look upon it. And here it was a question of a drawing of me which should show my shape, and therefore I must take off my clothes so that he could make a sketch of my body. I felt myself grow livid with wrath or fear (I know not which prevailed), and they both shook me so that I trembled all over.

  He noted the violent agitation which his outra-geousness aroused in me and began to say that there was no shame in being a dwarf and showing it. He always felt the same deep reverence for nature, even when its caprice created something out of the ordinary. There is never any disgrace in showing oneself as one is to another person, and nobody really possesses himself.

  “But I do,” I cried, beside myself with passion. “You don’t possess yourselves, but I do!”

  He listened to my outburst with perfect calm, he even observed it with a curious interest which agitated me still more. Then he said that he must begin-and drew nearer to me. “I can’t bear any offense against my bodyl” I shrieked wildly, but he took not the slightest notice, and when he realized that I would never strip of my own free will, he prepared to undress me himself. I managed to jerk my dagger from its sheath and he seemed very surprised to see it gleaming in my hand. He took it away from me and laid it carefully down a little distance away. “I believe you are dangerous,” he said, looking thoughtfully at me. I felt myself sneer at this remark. Then, placid as ever, he began to take off my clothes and exposed my body most shamelessly. I resisted desperately, fought with him as for my life, but all in vain, for he was stronger than I. When he had completed his vile task he lifted me onto a scaffold in the middle of the room.

  I stood there defenseless, naked, incapable of action, though I was foaming with rage. And he stood some distance away from me, quite unmoved, and examined me, scrutinizing my shame with a cold and merciless gaze. I was utterly exposed to that outrageous gaze which explored and assimilated me as though I were his property. Having to stand like that and submit to somebody else’s scrutiny was such a degradation that I still burn with shame to think that I ever was forced to endure it. I still recall the sound of his silverpoint as it glided over the paper, perhaps the same silverpoint with which he had limned the dried heads outside the castle gates, and all the other abominations. His glance remained unchanged, sharp as a dagger tip, and it seemed to pierce through me.

  I have never hated the human race so much as during that ghastly hour. My hatred was so alive that I almost thought I should lose consciousness, everything went black before my eyes. Is there anything more vile than these beings, anything more detestable?

  On the opposite wall I could see his great painting, which is supposed to be such a masterpiece. At that time it was still in its initial stages, but it seemed to represent the Last Supper, with Christ and His disciples at their love feast. I glared at them, sitting there with their pure solemn faces, believing that they were exalted above all others, grouped around their heavenly Lord, the one with the celestial light around His head. I rejoiced to think that soon He would be taken, that Judas, sitting huddled in his far corner, would soon betray Him. I thought: “Now He is still loved and honored, now He still sits at His feast-while I stand here in my shame! But His shame is on its way! Soon He will no longer be sitting there with His followers, but hanging alone on a cross, betrayed by them. He will hang there as naked as I am now, as humiliated as I, exposed to the stares of all, mocked and defiled. And why not? Why should He not suffer the same ignominy as I? He has always been encompassed with love, nourished Himself on love-while I have been nourished on hate. From my birth I have sucked the bitter j
uice of hate, I have lain at a breast filled with gall, while He was suckled by the mild and gracious Madonna and drank the sweetest mother’s milk that ever was. He sits there all innocent and kind and cannot believe that anyone should hate Him or want to harm Him. Why not? Why not He? He believes that everybody on earth must love Him because He was begotten by his heavenly Father. What simplicity! What childish ignorance! That is just why they cherish their secret rancor toward Him, just because of that miracle. Mankind does not like to be violated by God.”

  I looked at Him again when at last I had been liberated from my unspeakable humiliation and stood at the door of that diabolical room where I had undergone my deepest degradation. I thought: “Soon You are going to be sold for a few scudi to the noble, high-minded people, You as well as I!”

  And in my wrath I slammed the door on Him and His great master Bernardo, who was standing sunk in contemplation before his exalted work, already oblivious of me, who, through him, had suffered such agony.

  I WOULD rather not recall what happened in Santa Croce, I should like to forget it, but I cannot help thinking about it. While I was dressing I could not avoid seeing some sketches which were strewn about, representing the oddest creatures, monsters such as never have been seen and which do not exist. They were something between men and beasts, women with bats’ wings between their long hairy fingers, men with lizards’ faces and legs and bodies like toads; others flying about like devils with cruel vulture faces and spread claws instead of hands, and beings which were neither men nor women, resembling sea monsters with twining tentacles and cold wicked human eyes. I was astounded by all these frightful monstrosities and I cannot rid myself of them yet; I still see them before me. How can his imagination dwell upon such things? Why does he evoke these repulsive spectral figures? Why does he conceive them? There must be something which makes him do so, though they have no real existence. He must feel the need of them, though they do not exist. Or perhaps is it just because of that? I do not understand it.