Gregor von Rezzori: An Ermine in Czernopol

The last comparison is probably more apt, because Czernopol was animated by a similar spirit — not exactly soldierly, mind you, but more reminiscent of those earlier mercenaries, with all their train and baggage. Herr Tarangolian, who as Prefect of Tescovina was the province’s highest official, as well as one of the keenest analysts of its capital city — presumably because he was its most fervent admirer — enjoyed discoursing extensively on the subject.

“The world we inhabit,” as he used to say, “is a world of such contradictions that it makes America look like a nation of materialistic bumbleheads. We, for our part, have been forced to become true cosmopolitans — and in the most extreme and dangerous manner, namely through our inexhaustible tolerance. But please don’t call us nihilists. There is nothing we reject, absolutely nothing, and that’s exactly the point. So if it’s also true that there’s nothing we accept — and I mean nothing —it’s simply because we accept everything. We live amidst so many contradictions that we scarcely can find anything to hold against anybody. So what about order, you ask. I beg you, what city could possibly have more faith in order than our own? Czernopol is governed by a rigid bureaucracy, which, having inherited the most ossified system in the history of the world — in other words, the Austrian one that we supplanted — now sports its own brand of narrow nationalism, although under no circumstances is it willing to admit this. That it continues to be inefficient as well as ineffective is due only in small part to the long-established and well-honed system of bribery people are always fussing about. A far greater cause is the utter lack of resistance, the general compliance of the governed, which verges on the miraculous. This not only takes the sting out of every rule and regulation, but also dampens any impulse or momentum. In this matter Gandhi’s followers could learn something from us — namely, irony. After all, even the most passive resistance is still resistance. But what can you do with a city that laughs at everything? What can you make of a world in which a rabbi capable of working wonders yields the sidewalk to some double-breasted dandy of a cavalry lieutenant, closing his eyes so as not to be tempted by the beauty of the man’s clothes. Or where the citizens resort almost to violence in protesting the dismissal of a crooked public official, because his deceit was too blatantly obvious to deserve punishment ! You probably consider this an Oriental practice, but let me assure you: it is completely European, Baroque to be exact, and not merely because it is so vividly explicit, but rather because of the unconditional belief in the necessity of form —and, consequently, in order of all kinds — along with the equally unconditional need to poke fun at same. Naturally this is bound to lead to catastrophe. But let’s be fair: What else is left for us? In a world that has too many claims to validity, too many equivalences, too many relativities, a world that fashions life out of the grotesque and converts life into the grotesque — isn’t such an appreciation of the comic, the droll, a physiological necessity, something analogous to the internal pressure in our bodies that allows us to withstand the weight of the atmosphere? Hah!

“Hah!” said Herr Tarangolian, giving his delicate, heavily ringed, hand, with the nails filed into yellow, almond-shaped claws, a casually elegant flip — like a magician who, having performed his amazing trick, would now like to demonstrate that such speed and dexterity, while not exactly witchcraft, clearly approach limits where rational laws do not apply. “Hah! I tell you, we are modern — modern to the point of having no history. Because the sequence of pogroms, in which we will ultimately let our various tensions play out — or perhaps I should say when we will kill them off — is unlikely to produce any history. Or, rather, it will not produce any more history. We have too much history already — inside us, behind us. This city is officially less than three hundred years old and yet you can find anything and everything under its roofs, whatever each new mass migration deposited on our shores, from the Aeolian invasions in Pella to the Brusilov Offensive. My guess is that about one-third of our population is illiterate, and the other two-thirds are clearly unlettered and ignorant: in fact only one in ten thousand could qualify as educated. That said, we do have coursing through our veins a spiritual inheritance that runs from Euclid to Einstein, from Thales to Sigmund Freud. I know of no other city that is more alert, more aware. Here you can find a dozen of the most disparate nationalities and at least half a dozen bitterly feuding faiths — all living in the cynical harmony that is built on mutual aversion and common business dealings. Nowhere are the fanatics more tolerant, and nowhere are tolerant people more dangerous, than here in Czernopol. Nowhere is there less sense of shame and nowhere are people less naïve. I tell you, we are modern to the point of living in the future. Because if you live in a world so full of disdain and contempt, armed with nothing but your own scorned existence, then you are bound to develop a certain insouciance where your only loyalty is to yourself. A present moment that denies both past and future, but is completely committed to the here and now. This is far more than what you might call amor fati . Just look around and you’ll see that our city, this permanent settlement of nomads — to coin an oxymoron — has less in common with the pioneer spirit than with what might be called ‘the recklessness of saints.’”

AS I TELL you the following story, you’ll have to permit me to mention myself now and then, because its hero and central character is inextricably bound to our — that is to say, my and my siblings’—childhood. By the same token, it would be impossible to sift out the people who told me about these contexts and connections, and my storytelling would suffer if you were to insist I keep myself entirely out of the tale like a good narrator. Besides, please bear in mind that no one with anything to say ever said anything about anybody but himself.

As I have mentioned, we spent a portion of our childhood in Czernopol. Actually we spent the greater part of every year in the country, though not in the wholesome way in which people tend to imagine this way of life. We wound up there entirely by chance: at one point someone from our family came into a bit of land — the measurements weren’t very exact; it was simply part of the landscape whose expanse was generally accepted as beyond estimation — and we didn’t consider the property particularly worthy of mention. Nor was agriculture a family passion, whereby character and essence might take root and in turn find reinforcement, a pursuit that lends staunchness of character and an enviable steadiness of spirit. We were happy to leave farming to the people we considered had been called to that way of life, namely the farmers, and if some of our family did tarry in the country nevertheless, it was for reasons, or should I say excuses: because the fathers were so keen on hunting, for example, or because the fresh air and good milk were healthy for the children, or else, as was unfortunately the case with us, because shoddy household management and constant debts didn’t permit anything better. As it was, we tried not to extend these stays too long, and eagerly returned to the city at the first opportunity.

Nevertheless, this was the same countryside that looked to Czernopol as its capital, and a few things in my story might be clearer if I offer you a brief description.