Svetislav Basara: The Cyclist Conspiracy

where the handlebars are the crossbeam of the cross. A man who rides a bicycle, in fact, is crucifying himself. To the Holy Ghost who observes from above, it is clear that this man is gaining speed to fly into him (into the Holy Ghost), to fools who observe him horizontally, he is nothing more than a poor guy who does not have the money to buy an automobile; a fool who drives himself by the sweat of his own brow.

29.

My father bragged that he had solved one of the old scholastic problems: Habet mulier animam .

“The woman also has a soul,” he writes in his Confessions , “but her soul is different in several ways from the soul of a man, which can clearly be seen in the construction of the men’s and women’s bicycles:

The women’s bicycle, namely, has no crossbar. That insufficiency in the metaphysical construction of the soul is caused by the fact that woman was made from Adam’s rib: while they were one, that construction was stable and looked like this:

However, after the fall, souls became weaker, especially women’s.

“ Ergo , today it is good to set off on the road to salvation by bicycle. However, a problem appears here. Because of the specificity of the construction of the female body and the shape of the bicycle seat, riding a velocipede can bring persons of the female gender into a state of autoerotism, and that is incongruous with mysticism.

“That is why women should head down that path with their husband or fiancée in order to fulfill the Evangelical teaching: the two shall be as one.”

30.

(part of the record of the investigation against my father)

INTERROGATOR: “Oh, Kowalsky, Kowalsky, books have muddled your reason. There is no exit from this world. There is no other world.”

31.

“That’s what the interrogator said,” my father wrote in his memoirs, “but I was laughing on the inside, I laughed out loud and nothing was clear to him. I knew that I would be leaving his office in a few minutes, and then I remembered a Jewish story; a description of the death of a righteous man. When Rabbi Meier died, said one Jew, it seemed like he went from one room to another. No, said the other, it seemed like he went from one corner of the room to another.”

Anno Domini 1937, I proclaimed myself to be a count. During one single night (in which the decision was made), I designed a coat of arms, composed the genealogical tree of my spiritual ancestors and a short proclamation with which I informed urbi et orbi that I was joining the noble class. In order to prevent rumors, here I will present in depth my motives for scorning the vulgus . First and most important — because I am a supporter of legitimacy — it is not illegal; the constitution allows for the possibility that someone feels aristocratic. Reason two: it is absurd; to be a count in a democratic country means to be in a subordinate position. But I like the absurd. The third reason is of a literary-philosophical nature. In a moment of inspiration, I realized that as a count I will be able to expose a lot more filth than I could as a plebeian. The aristocracy and filth go hand in hand; later, I will explain why. The best example for that is one of my spiritual forbears — perhaps not the most noble, but certainly the most famous — the Marquis de Sade. Would some derelict, who is in despair because his roof is leaking, be able to write The 120 Days of Sodom ? Would someone like Lenin ever author Philosophy in the Bedroom ? But those are the most honest places in world literature; the most serious studies of the filth in the human soul. That is not depravity, that is brilliant scholarship. Angels told me that one night during a pleasant chat, in my dreams of course, because of the rationalists. You see, they told me, de Sade admitted everything, he exposed all his lewdness to the light of day, he purified himself and now he is at ease; meanwhile, respectable writers will have to pay the price for all the volumes of their lies. Herr Doctor Freud, with whom I corresponded till recently, for example. He feels an enormous need to do the same thing as de Sade, but since he is mediocre, he does not have the daring, and so he places his repulsive stuff in the mouths of his supposed patients, which is doubly useful: he gets the money that his patients pay him for his work, and then he gets his title, fame and reputation besides. So, now, for his title, money, fame and reputation to have value, in his works Dr. Freud must edify this world as the only, the real and the best world; certain contractual clauses require him to. This can be justified by the freedom of opinion or one of the other democratic prevarications, but in more scrupulous times it was called by its real name: a contract with the Devil.

About contracts with the Devil

Those contracts, as the angels told me, take on a wide variety of forms. The stipulations can seem innocent; most often they have to do with buying and selling. Your assent and signature is important; the content is later edited in the administrative offices of hell. Truth be told, the Devil is usually honest in carrying out his obligations: within the allotted time he heaps money, fame, beautiful women, and luxurious villas on the other party, but the annexes to those contracts, delayed for some future time, contain very unpleasant duties. I would not like to say anything more about that. But one other advantage of the aristocracy is concealed here. None of them ever sign anything. Aristocrats are taken at their word.

About one of the chambers of hell

It would be a good idea to describe, in human language, the part of hell intended for Fadeyev. Fadeyev, the angels say, after death will reside at an enormous and magnificent construction site, equated with a literary character from his novels, some sort of engineer, the site manager for the construction of the Insane Asylum for 20,000,000 patients. At the moment when he appears in hell, construction will be near the halfway point; the gigantic construction will block out the horizon and, full of enthusiasm, he will get down to the task of finishing the construction. And that is where the hellish torment begins: the workers are obedient and hard-working (they are those whose goal had been to build a house!); everything is going according to plan, but suddenly there is no more cement and everything stops. The second day, right after the cement comes and they make up for lost time, part of the structure inexplicably sinks into the ground. The day after, a river floods and causes enormous damage. Meanwhile, the telephone rings… Stalin’s icy voice asks how far the job has come and is suspicious of sabotage… And so on into eternity.

The justification of hell

The few devotees of my rather small and insignificant literary works will certainly notice that I am coming into conflict with my earlier claims that there is no hell and that everyone will be saved. However, earlier I was a plebe, the son of a cobbler with an affinity for alcohol, the Caballah and poetry, but now I am the Count de Kowalsky and that gives me the right to be contradictory more than ever. Only when a man becomes a noble does he realize the extent to which hell is a necessary and useful institution. Hell puts things where they belong. The mediocre who choose this-worldly heaven and happiness should not complain: this-worldly heaven is hell in Heaven, this will be proven when everything becomes heaven. Nothing changes here in the slightest. On the contrary, everything is perfected and gains completeness. The only thing that becomes clear to everybody is that they all made the wrong choice. That will be the time for wailing and the gnashing of teeth, but the Devil shows up and shows the contract, black on white, with a signature.