Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

‘Let us say, Vasily Ivanovich, not the condescension of something to something else, but the act of condescension in itself. I would even call it ontological condescension.’

‘And where exactly does this an-ta-logical condescension happen, then?’ asked Chapaev, obviously relishing his mimicry. He took another glass from under the table.

‘I am not prepared to converse in that tone.’

‘Let’s have another drink, then.’ said Chapaev.

We drank. I stared dubiously at an onion for several seconds.

‘But really.’ said Chapaev, wiping his moustache, ‘you tell me where it all happens.’

‘If you are in a fit state to talk seriously, Vasily Ivanovich, then I will tell you.’

‘Go on then, tell me.’

‘It would be more correct to say that there is no condescension involved. It is simply that such love is felt as condescension.’

‘And which parts is it felt in?’

‘In the m i n d, Vasily Ivanovich, in the perception of the conscious mind.’ I said sarcastically.

‘Ah, in simple terms you mean here in the head, right?’

‘Roughly speaking, yes.’

‘And where does the love happen?’

‘In the same place, Vasily Ivanovich. Roughly speaking.’

‘Right.’ said Chapaev in a satisfied voice. ‘So you were asking about, what was it now… Whether love is always condescension, right?’

‘Correct.’

‘And it seems that love takes place inside your head, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is that condescension too?’

‘So it appears, Vasily Ivanovich. What of it?’

‘Tell me, Petka, how on earth you have managed to get yourself into a state where you ask me, your commanding officer, whether what happens in your head is always what happens in your head, or not always?’

‘Sophistry,’ I said and drank. ‘Unadulterated sophistry. And anyway, I cannot understand why I continue to torment myself. I have endured all this before in St Petersburg, and the beautiful young woman in the maroon velvet dress set her empty goblet on the tablecloth in exactly the same fashion and I took my handkerchief out of my pocket in exactly the same way-’

Chapaev cleared his throat loudly, drowning out what I was saying. I finished in a quiet voice, not quite sure to whom I was actually speaking:

‘What do I want from this girl? Am I not aware that one can never return to the past? One might skilfully reproduce all of his external circumstances, but one can never recover one’s former self, never…’

‘Oi-oi, you spin a very fine line in garbage, Petka.’ Chapaev said with a laugh. ‘Goblet, tablecloth.’

‘What is wrong with you, Vasily Ivanovich,’ I asked, restraining myself with some difficulty. ‘Have you been rereading Tolstoy? Have you decided to become more simple?’

‘We’ve no need to reread any of your Tolstoys.’ said Chapaev, chuckling again. ‘But if you’re pining because of our Лпка, then I can tell you that every woman has to be approached in the right way. Pining away for our Anka, are you? Have I guessed right?’

His eyes had become two narrow slits of cunning. Then he suddenly struck the table with his fist.

‘You answer when your divisional commander asks you a question!’

There was definitely no way I was going to be able to break through his strange mood today.

‘It is of no importance.’ I said. ‘Vasily Ivanovich, let us have another drink.’

Chapaev laughed quietly and filled both glasses.

My memories of the hours which followed are rather vague. I got very drunk. I think we talked about soldiering -Chapaev was reminiscing about the Great War. He made it sound quite convincing: he spoke about the German cavalry, about some positions above some river, about gas attacks and mills with machine-gunners sitting in them. At one point he even became very excited and began shouting, glaring at me with gleaming eyes:

‘Ah, Petka! D’you know the way I fight? You can’t know any thing about that! Chapaev uses only three blows, you understand me?’

I nodded mechanically, but I was listening carefully.

The first blow is where!’

He struck the table so hard with his fist that the bottle almost toppled over.

‘The second is when!’

Again he smote the boards of the table.

‘And the third is who!’

In a different situation I would have appreciated this performance, but despite all his shouting and striking the table, I soon fell asleep right there on the bench; when I awoke it was already dark outside and somewhere in the distance I could hear sheep bleating.

I lifted my head from the table and surveyed the room - I felt as though I were in a cab drivers’ tavern somewhere in St Petersburg. A paraffin lamp had appeared on the table. Chapaev was still sitting opposite me holding his glass, humming something to himself and staring at the wall. His eyes were almost as clouded as the moonshine in the bottle, which was already half-empty. Perhaps I should talk with him in his own manner, I thought, and thumped the table with my fist in a gesture of exaggerated familiarity.

‘Tell me now, Vasily Ivanovich, straight from the heart. Are you a Red or a White?’

‘Me?’ asked Chapaev, shifting his gaze to me. ‘You want to know?’

He picked up two onions from the table and began cleaning them. One of them he cleaned until its flesh was white, but from the other he removed only the dry outer skin, exposing the reddish-purple layer underneath.

‘Look here, Petka,’ he said, placing them on the table in front of him. «There are two onions in front of you, one white, the other red.’

‘Well,’ I said.

‘Look at the white one.’

‘I am looking at it’

‘And now at the red one,’

‘Yes, what of it?’

‘Now look at both of them.’

‘I am looking,’ I said.

‘So which are you, red or white?’

‘Me? How do you mean?’

‘When you look at the red onion, do you turn red?’

‘No.’

‘And when you look at the white onion, do you turn white?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I do not.’

‘Let’s proceed then,’ said Chapaev. ‘There are such things as topographical maps. And this table is a simplified map of consciousness. There are the Reds. And there are the Whites. But just because we’re aware of Reds and Whites, do we take on any colours? And what is there in you that can take them on?’

‘You are deliberately confusing things, Vasily Ivanovich. If we are not Reds and not Whites, then just who are we?’

‘Petka, before you try talking about complicated questions, you should settle the simple ones. «We» is more complicated lhan «I», isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ I said.

‘What do you call «I»?’

‘Clearly, myself

‘Can you tell me who you are?’

‘Pyotr Voyd.’

‘That’s your name. But who is it bears that name?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘one could say that I am a psychological individual. A totality of habits, experience… And knowledge and preferences.’

‘And just whose are these habits, Petka?’ Chapaev asked forcefully.

‘Mine,’ I shrugged.

‘But you just said yourself, Petka, that you are a totality of habits. If they are your habits, does that mean that these habits belong to a totality of habits?’

‘It sounds funny,’ I said, ‘but in essence, that is the case.’

‘And what kind of habits do habits have?’

I began to feel irritated.

‘This entire conversation is rather primitive. We began, after all, from the question of who I am, of what my nature is. If you have no objection, then I regard myself as… Well, let us say, a monad. In Leibniz’s sense of the word.’

‘Then just who is it who goes around regarding himself as this gonad?’